Cat Halo Movies on...

[Gaumer]

Well, at least Jennifer is starting to get her due recognition. So that's good.

I know there are some actors of whom I was a fan long before they made their big break, although I can't think of any examples right now.

Christian Bale in Newsies.

But I'm a big fan of musicals 

[Navarre]

uuuh...yeah.

That wasn't it.   

[CatHalo]

Chloe Moretz is a wonderful little actress. She has just this week been cast as Carrie in the remake. She was also brilliant in (500) Days of Summer, albeit in a small role.
Hunger Games is actually pretty damn good. I have a review on my FaceBook. Much better than the teen orientated source material would suggest.

[Gaumer]

She fits the Carrie role.

Don't let the Twilight novels ruin teen novel to movie adapts. The biggest franchise in the history of film is a teen novel adaptation

The HG novels are actually really good; dropping some sci-fi in a genre (teen novels) that really needs it.

[Navarre]

Chloe Moretz and Elle Fanning are the bright future of acting, imo. Maybe Hailee Steinfeld, though I've only seen one of her movies.

The biggest franchise in the history of film is a teen novel adaptation

The "American Pie" films were once books? I didn't know that. 

[CatHalo]

Last week I went to see BattleShip, and my low expectations were barely met. But it got me thinking, have there been any good movies that are based on games? I'm inclined to think not. Keep in mind, I'm a movie guy, and really not much of a gamer.
A personal favorite of mine is Resident Evil. Now, I know this is not a particularly good movie, and that it bared little similarity to the game, but I still like it. It's a real guilty pleasure. It could be because I saw the movie before I ever played the game. I could be because Milla Jovovich is hot. I dunno, but I like it. Same with Mortal Kombat, which is directed by the same guy, Paul WS Anderson. It's a bad flick, but I enjoy it quite a lot. Another favorite is Cluedo (Clue in the US). It's a funny, whacky comedy, with a great cast, but it's not particularly good.
But then there are the colossal failures. Street Fighter, either of the Street Fighters. Wing Commander. Super Mario Brothers. Then there's the BIG budget failures. Lara Croft. Prince Of Persia. And Battleship itself.
And where do these movies go wrong. Some stray from the source material (Mario, Resident Evil). Some try to take the simple game premise, and make it all epic (Battleship, Prince Of Persia). And some are just terribly made movies (Lara Croft 2, Hitman, any thing by Uwe Boll).
What are your thoughts? If you wanna vote for your favorite Game Turned Movie, or if you wanna read my thoughts on BattleShip, click the below link. Or just share your thoughts right here 
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cat-Halo-Movies/252936541426409

[Navarre]

Did some people like Mortal Kombat? I dunno.

I think often the films are simply made by people who have that "Won't this be cool?" fanboy mentality instead of serious writers who also focus on true character development, dialog, and plot.

[CatHalo]

Did some people like Mortal Kombat? I dunno.
I think often the films are simply made by people who have that "Won't this be cool?" fanboy mentality instead of serious writers who also focus on true character development, dialog, and plot.

I liked Mortal Kombat, but I was younger, and less sober, when I saw it in the cinema.
I think you're probably right about the "Wouldn't it be cool" thing. And one of these days someone will actually get it right. However, given the most financially successful Game Movies are Tomb Raider and Prince Of Persia, followed by...Pokemon, I suspect we'll keep getting more of the same.
What we need is for someone to get it very right, knock it out of the park, like happened to ComicBook Movies with Batman Begins and Iron Man.

[Navarre]

If someone like Joss Whedon was brought in on a project he cared about, the end result of a game-based movie would be much better than something done by say, Uwe Boll.

Heck, that Pac-Man fan-film posted on the MS main site the other day was better than some of the game films out there.

[Gaumer]

Silent Hill was pretty freaking cool.

But video games simply just don't do well because its a transparent marketing ploy to try to get over on the audience. Also, the mediums just don't translate well between each other, in most cases. There are a few exceptions but, its almost a rule: video game-based movies, and movie-based video games suck.

Anyone can make a good movie and just stamp a game title on it. But taking something that immerses the viewer in an interactive experience is just not going to translate to the big screen because everyone has a different experience on the level that makes gaming so attractive as a hobby in the first place.

The best sorts of video game to movie adaptation would be an RPG; if the story in the RPG wasn't so damn good to make it popular enough to actually be green-lit by a studio. I could see a good movie of even a franchise coming out of the Metroid series of games as well as The Legend of Zelda series of games, but not much else comes to mind that could be an instant success.

I can't not bring up the Pokemon franchise of relatively successful movies; all based on CCG and video games.

[Navarre]

Silent Hill and Resident Evil were both pretty good movies. Each come from a good back story.

I think games could be made into movies as easily as a novel or a comic can. The original medium has its own context, yes, but a strong film adaptation can be made given a good writer and director.

Finding such people is the hard part.

But something like Battleship or Missile Command doesn't have anything to build on. It's just a movie with the name tacked on it.

[Gaumer]

I guess, but Resident Evil and Silent Hill really had nothing more in common with the video game besides zombies and a scary town, just like Battleship and Missile Command just have battleships and missiles...under...command...or something.

I agree that any movie can be cool and the backdrop of a video game is just as good as a comic book or novel, I just haven't seen it yet, which leads me to believe that they simply won't do it. The Metroid movie has optioned by some big names with nothing coming from it; same with Halo, World of Warcraft, and so many other movies that one would think are just easy picks for this sort of thing, aaaand we get nothing. It just makes me think that there's more to it than making movies out of novels or comic books.

I would love to see a WoW movie or a Halo movie or even a Settlers of Catan movie, but I think we'll see a Farmville movie before we see a truly good movie based on a video-game, and I honestly don't see why.

[Navarre]

I think Resident Evil and Silent Hill films built off the plot elements of the game fairly well. There's a story there.

Battleship is a board with plastic ships and some pegs. Where did they get aliens from that?

[Gaumer]

Oh no. I agree. Battleship is a terrible freaking idea.

But I also agree that the RE and SH games had really good stories, but the movies fell quite flat in actually using the aspects of those stories that made the games so cool, in the movies to an equally cool extent.

Maybe that's where these movies fail: Hollywood just doesn't understand video games and what makes them cool.

[@lantis]

You're exactly right.  Hollywood doesn't understand video games.  The people who are beginning to take over will though.  The people who made Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil, etc. weren't gamers.  Not to mention the early video game movies were based on games that had a plot that could be put in a paragraph at most.

The reason why video games haven't translated well is because it tells a story by having the audience do something.  Movies don't offer that ability to the audience so the elements that create the most suspense in a video game can't be recreated in a movie.