Video Game Adaptations: An Unfaithful Relationship

In recent years, video game adaptations have been surprisingly successful at the box office, which is unusual considering their historically bad track record. The reason for this is that video games and movies are very different forms of media, with games being interactive and movies being passive. When video games are adapted into movies, audiences often get bored because they lose the immersive experience of being in control of the game. To make a successful adaptation, sometimes filmmakers have to be unfaithful to the source material and make changes to the story. For example, the Super Mario Bros. movie added depth and backstory to the characters, while still maintaining the essence of the game. This raises the question of why adapt video games into movies at all if they have to stray so much from the original material. Ultimately, whether it's worth seeing your favorite video game character on the big screen is a subjective decision. If you're into movies and TV shows at all, you may have noticed that some of 2023's biggest hits all had one thing in common. They were video game adaptations. The Last of Us, the Super Mario Bros. movie, Five Nights at Freddy's, these were all adapted from video games. But they also had something else in common too. They were all shockingly well-received, at least at the box office. That is very uncommon for video game adaptations. Video game adaptations are not new, but they have had a horrible track record. The Angry Birds movie, Uncharted, Resident Evil, Sonic, Detective Pikachu, and that isn't even scratching the surface on how bad they can get. They can never be good. They've never been good. That was the rhetoric until about last year or so. So what makes a video game adaptation any good? To really get into this, we have to look at why video game adaptations have been so bad in the past. Video games and movies are very different kinds of digital media, both communicated to other audiences very differently. Video games are inherently interactive, while movies are mostly passive. When you play a video game, you get immersed, because essentially, you are the character. You are the one who gets to make the choices, you are the one who fights, and you get to explore the world in your own way. This makes people attached to video games, even if they don't have a well-thought-out story or accomplished characters. So in an interactive world that you spent hours playing, it suddenly turned into a two-hour movie where you don't have any control of what the character is doing. Audiences get bored. This leads me to the title of the podcast episode, because in order to make an adaptation that people will actually be immersed by, sometimes you have to be unfaithful to the source material. In a literal sense, no one wants to watch two hours of combat on a movie screen. However, good adaptations have also strayed from the original story at times. Take the Super Mario Bros. movie for example. The plot of the Mario video games has almost always been, Princess Peach has been taken by Bowser, and now Mario must save her. In a video game, it's perfectly fine to have such a simple story, as long as the gameplay is communicated well. And Mario has some of the most iconic gameplay of all time, but that story would not translate well into a movie just on its own. It would be boring and lack any real depth. So, the Super Mario Bros. movie strayed from the original material. Characters were given backstories and personalities different from the game. However, the magic of the game still remains through communication devices such as soundtrack and easter eggs. Being unfaithful to the original game is a fine line. Many fans feel betrayed, while others don't really mind. However, it can get into the age-old questions. Why even adapt video games into movies or TV shows? If you have to stray so much, why not just play the game? And well, that's not really a question that has a right or wrong answer. Is there any merit to seeing your favorite video game character on the silver screen? That's for you to decide.