Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate - Kotaku Comments

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

The SmacK — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 10:59:00 MST

Awww, Mortal Kombat was great!

It had the guy from highlander and all that other awesome stuff like, well.....

...

It had the guy from highlander!!!

The SmacK

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

Batousi — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 15:23:08 MST

I'll say this.

I think Hollywood is depending too much on video game and comic books for it's movie ideas nowadays. If it wasn't for Spiderman 3, do you know how low the box office records would be right now for the year?

They insult video games, but then they make the movies to make money. They insult are credits as video game players but still ask the companies can they hack up the video game into a movie.

Hollywood is full of it.

Batousi

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

Batousi — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 15:14:48 MST

Correct me if I'm wrong. But when I see a video game movie, isn't the point in me seeing it that I liked the way it looked as a game, I want to see what it's like using real people on the big screen?

Who does this douchebag think he is?

Batousi

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

GOLD5 — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 13:28:44 MST

I always felt that after playing Mortal Komabat extensively back in tha day, that the movie was completely lacking in the feel of the powers and speed that the game had. Liu Kang had one tiny little red lightning bolt at the end of the movie and it seemed like they didn't have the money to do all the effects of the character's powers so they only did some of them. The villains have all the cool powers and the heroes seemed to be just normal people. The scene with Scorpion in the forest was good but the Goro creature looked about as realistic as Gumby. The plot was a straight rip-off of Enter the Dragon, and I really can't see why people hold this movie up as an example of good filmmaking. The guy who played Liu Kang was boring as an actor and Christopher (I am in mostly crappy movies that suck because I am a wooden actor) Lambert as Raiden? Why not have Jean Reno as Jax? The only reason I see that people use this movie as example of a good movie based on a game is because expectations were so high at the time, that the film did really well at the box office. People thought it would be good so they all were tricked into seeing it by the preview commercials. That's why the sequels didn't do as well because people had learned that the movies were going to be bad like the first one. It's just that the Mortal Kombat games were soooo popular at that time. Also, a lot of people were really young when they saw it and hadn't maybe seen the older movies that MK blatently copies from. I think it's entirely possible that the crappy movie hurt the MK franchise a little bit with the average non-hardcore person and overexposed it a lot. I actually like cheesey campy movies myself, but MK is too high budget to be considered grindhouse and too poorly written to make any excuses. There was hardly even any martial arts sequences in the MK movie at all. Compare it with any Jackie Chan flick or Big Trouble in Little China, or American Ninja, or any Chuck Norris movie and there's way more/better kung fu in those films. Usually same or better plot and acting as MK. They should make a Ninja Gaiden movie.. With Jet Li as the main guy. Yen wo Ping doing the kung fu. Written by David Cronenburg. Then it would have a hope of being likeable.

GOLD5

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

4ny0n3 — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 03:24:40 MST

The fact that Anderson screwed up three resident evil movies in a row does not entitle him to say thing like there can't be a hybrid between movies and video games. I kinda agree with him about the whole " movie can't be the exact same thing as the video game " stuff, but I think he overdid it with resident evil. Take the Silent Hill movie as an example, the story was changed but not as much and it stayed more loyal to it's original story than resident evil 1,2 and 3, where the few characters related to the games were killed in the last movie.

4ny0n3

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

NattyIce — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 20:55:49 MST

This man ruined Resident Evil and AvP..... HOW THE HELL IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?

NattyIce

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

SSJPabs — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 16:00:08 MST

Tch, the first Mortal Kombat movie was the best B Movie of its decade.

SSJPabs

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

Sabre_Justice: Okay, no more long name. — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 05:53:01 MST

He's got it pretty much right. Games are games, movies are movies.

Sabre_Justice: Okay, no more long name.

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

paulca82 — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 21:00:59 MST

It'd be nice, if they brought on advisors on these movie projects early on. Maybe a few people from the dev teams. Or have a contest to invite a few fanatic gamers of the genre. Fly em out for a weekend, and let us tweak the ideas and through in a comment or two.

When ford wants a new truck design, you know they get the people who drive them into the drawing room for some ideas.

Not saying they have to use them, but it'd show them early on in the story board process that they are atleast on the right track.

paulca82

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

MrBartokomous — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 19:40:17 MST

Actually, I think Anderson makes a really good point... a literal translation of the game isn't going to work as a movie, and director's should be striving to make something that works both on its own and as an addition to the existing game.

Unfortunately, while his head is absolutely 110% in the right place, his direction and writing is middling at best. In a perfect world, he'd be the one overseeing and guiding the creation of video game movies, just not the one writing or directing them.

MrBartokomous

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

Ehardergardens — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 17:45:40 MST

Oh sorry that was long and my original point was the man Jackson tapped to do the Halo movie seemed like he would do a better version than it possibly deserved(sorry just a bit bitterly disappointed.)
I think Paul Verhoevan (sp) would be just fine, with dark humor and plenty of lovely action that would make everyone happy.
Also if the guys that did I love bee's did the script, i'd be even happier, as that story was far more interesting than Halo 3's.

Ehardergardens

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

Ehardergardens — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 17:40:46 MST

@Mohican: I agree with your halo analysis. I think the potential is there for some great storytelling and I was really imprsessd with the architecture, using minimal polygons to dramatic affect, and the mystery of halo.

the problems are:
the aliens aren't very alien, unfortunately they are the only ones with any character depth, even though i really just mean keith david.
the marines are all wafer thin stereotypes including masterchief and frankly my friend had to stop me repeatedly from 'mercy' killing my 'friendly' npc's everytime they said some thing along the lines of "BOOYA! Take that to the bank and cash that in for an alien ass-whoopin!"

the flood is typical mutant alien thingie that is stock cliche, and was a so so adversary. I'm bored of them as headcrab zombies too.

All the pieces are there in halo, for someone to come along and make a truly engaging game WITH an engaging story, but frankly I think it was a very mediocre execution for the things that i care about in game giving the scope and hype. Half life had just as many cliche's but the execution was so much more engaging and exciting.
Still it's fun co-op. And for the most part i have the same criticism of Resistance Fall of Man. Fun, but frankly the story execution could use some more umph. But hopefully RFOM is just warming up, where as halo 3 has shot their proverbial wad, and I didn't feel very enriched from their money shot.

Ehardergardens

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

Ehardergardens — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 15:52:04 MST

RE 1 was perfectly enjoyable for what it was, even for a pain in the ass to please like me. 2 and 3 were watchable.

I'm sorry that people feel that Uwe Boll discredited the fine and subtle points of House of the Dead, an interactive horror franchise that is both highly literate with a grace of verbiage matching the sharpness and restraint of a master of his craft and visceral in it's plotlines that are at once dizzying in their depth and yet inescapably sublime and relevant in their social awareness.

I thought the movie was very funny and intentionally cheesy with plenty of tongue in/though cheek. If it wasn't trying to be funny then this happy accident, I benefit from you! Of course i also thought Battle field Earth was hillarious (unintentionally though)

I thought Billy Zane and Meatloaf were pretty funny in Bloodrayne, but I got a bit bored. Alone in the Dark hmmmmmmmmm it wasn't worse than the plots for the games... boll seems like a funny likable guy...
Lighten up... he's not making art movies...

Ehardergardens

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

Mohican — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 15:39:22 MST

@deathbunny: I totally agree. Halo 3 was the first Halo game I played all the way through and I did plenty of reading to "get up to speed" on all things Halo. Overall, the plot was surprisingly ho-hum, and I found the end of Halo 3 to be SEVERELY short of the final epic battle all the ads promised. I think that 90% of video games have been far too produced by crowds that are not classically influenced or educated - so when Halo introduces a secondary bad guy aka The Flood, it's called "an unexpected and brilliant twist." No, it's just a twist, and because you're used to plots that are SO, SO, bad they could have been written by most educated 5 year olds, a simple plot shift like this one seems "brilliant." It is time that gaming stories begin to head the direction of Shakespeare and the Romantic era... we need suffering heroes, and heroes with truly tough moral decisions to make, and heroes that are standing for what's right even as they commit necessary violence, and not just some excuse to bash heads in in a meaningless moral quagmire (aka Bioshock). I am often surprised to hear about how some game has "a great story and complicated delivery," and most of the cut scenes feel like weak imitations of nighttime TV with all the cliches and then some. Bioshock was definitely more sophisticated in its story telling, but it tried SO hard to take the moral high ground and act like everything was gray, that I ended up hating the plot because I was compromising my own morals by merely playing the game. Ok - I'm burning people alive and electrocuting them... woohoo, I must be a hero. Halo seems really beautiful, because they have good art design and great music, but it's ultimately wafer thin as you say.

Mohican

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

Mohican — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 15:30:56 MST

@CyN1caL: Horde snobbery hasn't changed since November 2004.

Mohican

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

creid — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 15:08:49 MST

I'll make you a deal, Paul W.S. Anderson: I'll keep games out of the movies, if you keep Paul W.S. Anderson out of Milla Jovovich.

creid

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

jcsunshine — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 14:56:34 MST

@ixalth: "Event Horizon and AvP were very bad. Watch them again if you don't believe me, but pay attention this time."

100% true. Event Horizon had me outright guffawing by the end. Virus is pretty bad too.

jcsunshine

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

Sunjammer — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 14:07:05 MST

@JustThisGuy: Yeah, you're absolutely right, and that's the crux of the problem. Games as storytelling devices *are* young as an artform, and that's why we put up with a lot of the garbage, and also why we are always genuinely blown away by games that really pull it off; Torment is a great example, and more recently i think The Darkness really nailed it. People talk about Bioshock like it has the greatest story known to man (i know the twist was awesome), but when put into context of great films and books, it's honestly piss poor bottom of the barrel stuff. In games we're happy to deal with paperback kiosk literature because frankly the artform hasn't truly evolved past that yet.

I think people need to chill the hell out and examine the nuances of what it takes to move from one artform to the other. It's the same problem we have with book to film adaptions, book to audio play adaptions etc. Honestly it only works when you upscale, not downscale. For instance film to game adaptions have the leeway to expand on the film, whereas films inevitably have to cut down on the content.

Sunjammer

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

SamuelRPGstory — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 13:51:58 MST

@clam:

well..umm
mario never really had a good story to begin with?

SamuelRPGstory

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

JustThisGuy — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 13:31:13 MST

@Sunjammer: I agree with you for the most. However, I think it's important to note that Halo has a great story in context; that is, in comparison to all the other miserable dreck that generally passes as "narrative" in most video games.

To pull out more examples: even revered games like Half Life and Metal Gear Solid have horrid, horrid stories when they're pulled out of context and placed into comparison with mature forms of narrative.

That said, Planescape: Torment still rocks, and was literally the best book I read back in 99.

JustThisGuy

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

Kajetan — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 13:16:03 MST

@Sunjammer:
You're right, but ... the common gamer will pay gladly for any movie, which features HIS favourite game. Because he did not care, if it's a good movie!

Kajetan

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

ConnDestn — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 13:10:30 MST

@Ndogg550: I agree with the whole most video games that would make good movies are already like movies in video game form. Metal Gear is great example of this. Though a part of me just wants to see the video game story ripped completely and turned into a live action movie.

ConnDestn

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

Blah8 — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 13:07:53 MST

He better take his own advice. I can only hope that he's learned a substantial life lesson here and will stop making terrible game-based movies.

Blah8

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

JCtheMC — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 13:04:14 MST

The man picks horrible franchises to base his movies on, and then makes movies which are subpar in every department. Admitted, he's no Uwe Boll, but he's close enough.

JCtheMC

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

Sunjammer — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 12:54:29 MST

It's staggeringly naive of some of you guys to go "well the game had a great story so the movie shouldn't touch it". Games often have 20+ hour stories delivered breadcrumb by breadcrumb, and when you compress that down to something resembling a constant narrative that doesn't use stretches of gameplay mechanices as its punctuation, there's basically no way in hell you can avoid making a butchery of the original story.

The Resident Evil movies sucked yes, but not because the games were amazing narratives that blew everyone's mind. As much as i love RE, good luck have fun writing a better script of the games than they did with the shit movies, because the storylines without the gameplay are hilariously bad, uniformly.

You guys are chock full of bile when the sad thing you fail to realize is that this guy is responsible for the only PASSABLE video game flicks out there. I'd say he's the one guy that's even remotely managed to make a video game movie come close to actual entertainment.

I know a lot of people got their panties in a knot over the Halo movie, but i'll go out on a limb and say those people have probably never read a proper book in their lives, and thus lacks the frame of reference to identify the Halo plot as one of the worst of recent times. It's wafer thin stuff filled with clichèed cartoon characters and inconsistencies, and the only, ONLY way Jackson & co couldve made that plot passable at best as a film would be to, you guessed it, butcher the hell out of it.

There is a yawning chasm of difference between the way games tell stories and how movies do it, and it's flat out ignorant to think the transition is going to be made without pains. IMHO the best we can hope for is accurate portrayal of character personalities and visual design; the narrative WILL be cut to bits.

Sunjammer

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

deathbunny — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 12:21:28 MST

too bad he sounds so normal and nice. Because his Key Performance Indicators are in the toilet.

deathbunny

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

krozall — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 12:20:32 MST

This guy can't direct movies, glad he's going to stay away from video games.

krozall

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

clam — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 12:16:59 MST

@SamuelRPGstory: the super mario bros. movie seemed to follow the game's plot well enough.

clam

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

ixalth — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 12:06:10 MST

@moviebob Event Horizon and AvP were very bad. Watch them again if you don't believe me, but pay attention this time.

Bay is very good at action sequences, but that's it. He shouldn't try to direct.

Anyway, my point is that I actually agree that movies based on games should only tell a story in that games setting. Use the characters, but make the story unique. Otherwise, what's the point?

ixalth

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

DonMullins — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:58:45 MST

The first RE movie I thought was tolerable, but was still a piece of garbage. RE 2 was another story....one of the worst movies I have ever seen hand to hand with the nemesis come on people. Every time Alice moved anything you heard a whooshing noise. In my opinion I think Anderson is a notch above Boll.

DonMullins

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

DangerChimp — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:46:23 MST

The guy makes garbage movies, through and through. Asking him his opinion about film or games is like asking the CEO of McDonald's about fine dining.

DangerChimp

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

Bonzo — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:39:00 MST

Sad SOB screwed up AVP royally. That movie would have been better if it had been a straight up movie version of the game.

Bonzo

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

moviebob — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:36:31 MST

Y'know what's wrong with video game movies for the most part? They're adapting the wrong games. Nobody likes to hear it, but it's true: A LOT of games, even good ones, are basically unlicensed ripoffs of stuff that was already a popular movie, TV show, whatever. At the end of the day, "Resident Evil," for example, is just an interactive knockoff of the Romero zombie cycle - so when you make it into a non-interactive movie you end with a 2nd generation Romero xerox. Ditto Hitman, ditto GTA, ditto Tomb Raider, and so on. There's good material out there if someone were to take a serious pass at Mario, Zelda, God of War, Metroid, maybe even Sonic, Kirby... hell, you could do a live-action Pokemon and make it work if you ever felt like being elected Dictator For Life of Akihabara.

Give Anderson credit (and for a change not JUST for marrying Milla Jovovich) though, he's a pretty good genre director when he puts his mind to it (if nothing else, he's a thousand times the talent Michael Bay is) having done both "Event Horizon" and "Alien vs. Predator." And the plot-"pitch" that got out for the "Castlevania" flick he's producing (not directing) is all kinds of win: Simon Belmont, magic vampire-killing whip, Dracula, castle called Castlevania, assorted monsters, even mentions Death as a character. Damn good start right there.

moviebob

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

ixalth — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:27:30 MST

@DEF PD Me neither.
He is a straight up hack. He has been bringing mediocrity to the big screen for far too long. Thankfully he has nothing to do with AVPR. I'm hoping this will get the series back on track.

Just to be clear, I've seen most of his movies. Some are bad, most are entertaining, but none are good.

ixalth

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

Silent Predator — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:25:55 MST

How did this schmuck end up with Milla? Milla and Sienna Guillory are the only reason that the RE movies are bearable and Sienna is only in the second movie.

One could argue that RE: Apocalypse is so horrible that Anderson knew he'd need twice the hotness factor.

Silent Predator

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

zeezee — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:19:27 MST

@mekklesack2:
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!

zeezee

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

AsWater — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:13:48 MST

So he thinks straight up page for page adaptations are boring?

Maybe he hasn't seen Sin City or 300. But who knows?

AsWater

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

SuperMekman — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:12:56 MST

Paul W.S. Anderson says: "Segregation now! Segregation Forever!!!" Little movie children and little video game children cannot play together.

SuperMekman

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

def PD — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:11:39 MST

I still don't forgive him after that atrocity that was AvP.

I still like the MK movie though. I realized how much RE (the first one sucked) after watching it a 3rd time. I should've stopped while it was ahead. lol

def PD

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

Tull — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:11:31 MST

As for Anderson as filmmaker I wouldn't put him in the same Circle of Hell as Uwe Boll. I thought Event Horizon was actually pretty good. Not the greatest haunted house in space kind of movie but it had a very good cast and the story was done well enough that there wasn't much in the movie to really say was truly awful.

Tull

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

Avinash_Tyagi — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:11:07 MST

Convergence is doomed to fail

Avinash_Tyagi

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

zeezee — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:06:19 MST

[video.google.com]

I dunno this was pretty AWESOME!

zeezee

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

KaneTaker — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:02:58 MST

Mortal Kombat wasn't half bad. Resident Evil series was actually enjoyable if taken as seperate from the games. No, the one thing that always angers me about Mr. Anderson is Wing Commander. GOD that was aweful. I mean really REALLY aweful.

KaneTaker

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

Ndogg550 — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:58:59 MST

I really was hoping the Hitman movie would buck the trend. That is a very interesting premise that had no story, so it seemed to lend itself to a movie well. It's easy to be faithful to a game that doesn't rely on story so much, but one where your interest is tied in with the character and his/her actions.

Ndogg550

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

Ndogg550 — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:57:16 MST

First of all, the resident evil movies suck. They have so little to do with the games, it's pathetic.

The reason most video game movies suck so bad usually falls into one of two reasons:

1 - The game has an awesome story, and would lend itself to a movie very well except the film developers want to be too creative and change too much, therefore alienating the game fans to appeal to a wider audience. (resident evil is prime example).

2 - It is a game that wouldn't make a good movie, and by attaching a storyline to it, they just stink up the franchise (street fighter/DOA/Mortal Kombat, Super Mario Brothers, the list goes on forever). - Now, I didn't HATE MK, but it was a mediocre movie at best.

The problem is, that the games that are interesting enough and cinematically robust enough to be worthy to have a movie made about them are already movie-like enough - What would the point of a Metal Gear Solid movie? If you made it different from the game, it would be destroyed by fans, and the game is movie-like enough that a faithful movie would be very similar to the game.

Ndogg550

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

animagnum — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:54:26 MST

The first Mortal Kombat movie -- nay, film -- was the best achievement in game-to-movie translation.

animagnum

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

TheMentalSyzygy — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:53:19 MST

Ok. If you suck as a director like Paul WS Anderson, then you will be able to make statements like "I love movies and I love videogames, but I don't think there is some kind of a hybrid art form between the two."

This is because HE cannot make a hybrid of the two. If anyone looks at the development on a title like the HALO feature with Neil Blonkamp and Peter Jackson.. we would have had a great videogame/movie feature. What if Quentin Tarantino made Half-Life? I'm pretty sure these combinations would make some f'ing bizzare ass movies but it would be great!

Paul should stick to traditional movie storylines like his more entertaining flicks: Event Horizon and Soldier. Hopefully his statement will lead him down that path.

TheMentalSyzygy

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

zeezee — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:51:47 MST

@WolvenOne:
I prefer porn in my movies...and games in my games

zeezee

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

jerimas — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:49:16 MST

@Tull: Couldn't have said it any better.

jerimas

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

jerimas — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:47:36 MST

As an apocryphal aside, supposedly he calls himself Paul "W.S." Anderson because he was sick and tired of getting director Paul Thomas Anderson's mail. But as a result, W.S. now gets Wes Anderson's mail.

Anyhow, W.S.'s movies are terrible... Though I'm embarrassed to admit that, at one point, I did kind of enjoy the first Mortal Kombat movie.

jerimas

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

WolvenOne — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:44:59 MST

Mmm... occasionally you should get some game in your movies and some movies in your games. *in the form of movies based on games and CG-cut scenes.* By in large however, yeah, the two mediums are different enough that converging them would be highly detrimental to both.

Games, are an active interactive experience. You need to pay constant attention, and interact with the game and the gaming-environments. Movies, are passive-non interactive experiences, you sit, relax, watch, and absorb the story.

So in terms of what people are doing, games and movies are almost polar opposites. Thus, true convergence of the two, I feel would be a bad idea.

WolvenOne

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

arexsvn — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:43:55 MST

I thought the first mortal kombat was pretty cheesy, but at least the Goro costume was good for some laughs.

arexsvn

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

SAKY — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:38:39 MST

agreed.

SAKY

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

Tull — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:37:44 MST

@crosswayboy: As much it would be nice to see someone like Nolan, Greengrass, Aronofsky or even second tiers like Liman and Singer try a hand on a video game property adapted to film I don't see these guys doing it. Really, most directors who've already made a name for themselves avoid video game to film adaptations. They'll produce it like Spielberg seems to be planning to do and Peter Jackson has gone that route as well. But to actually direct them usually falls on up-and-coming directors who is still trying to make a name for themselves or at least ones who actually think of themselves as gamers.

I think at times gamers think these video game properties are the greatest stories ever written and thus deserve the best Hollywood can offer. All Hollywood sees in these video game properties are dollar signs and if they can adapt them without having to use a large budget, big name talent to hire then they will do so. As bad as people think Anderson did on the RE film series they did well enough to make its budget and marketing money back and still pull in decent to very good profit for the studios.

This is why any talk of a Metal Gear Solid movie will never get off the ground because people in charge of the property know that it won't get treated correctly. This is why the Halo film project has been in limbo. Jackson knows the only way to really make a Halo movie to please the fans is if the studios finance it like a big blockbuster instead of a hand-me-down property like most game-to-film adaptations.

Tull

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

I_Hate_This_Place — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:34:42 MST

I agree, but with a twist in my opinoin. I not only think they shouldn't converge, but I also think games hsould bury movies so that maybe hollywood can climb it's way out of the piles of shit it's been buried in for years. I get so sick and tired of a plot being furthered in a movie by a character doing something stupid. It gets boring and frustrating to watch as you know that if it were a game, the character you control would have never done anything that stupid, so the plot would have been forced to go to greater length to continue. / rant

I_Hate_This_Place

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

SamuelRPGstory — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:32:54 MST

look at those two with their shit-eating grins
How can even you say "that man is right they should be seperate" when he is making his career directing shitty video game movies?

I cant ever recall a movie that actually has faithfully followed a game's plot.

SamuelRPGstory

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

Stop — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:31:55 MST

I think that any involvement with the DOA movie should negate any positive points he gained with MK and RE.

Stop

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

zeezee — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:30:12 MST

@klogg:
No for $$$$$$$$

zeezee

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

zeezee — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:29:33 MST

Interesting read. Is anyone watching the rise of the videogame series on DC. It's alright. They touched on this in last nights ep. The line is growing blurrier. I think in 20 years videogames will be the dominant storytelling medium. With movies going the way of theatre.

zeezee

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

Superman64 — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:27:41 MST

I don't agree with this. I think you can be faithful to the games WHILE making it work for film. It's all about picking the right source material and understanding where you have to cut things that make sense in the game world, but not in the movie world. Completely throwing out stories and characters like he did in the Resident Evil movies is unnecessary.

Superman64

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

crashlanding — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:22:21 MST

I agree with him: games and movies do not need to converge.

Both movies and games stand on their own, and each excels at things the other can't even touch.

crashlanding

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

Meldy — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:22:00 MST

What a twat. Seriously, if you're adapting a book you keep the same story.

Honestly... this guy is a hack.

Meldy

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

Klogg — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:20:12 MST

That last sentence really threw off everything he said. If you don't why you would want to combine video games and movies, then how come Mortal Kombat, DOA, and the Resident Evil films came out? For shitzngigglez?

Klogg

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

Gouki4u — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:17:50 MST

The man speaks from experience. Convergence is a bad idea that will yield a never ending amount of suck, which is only a good thing if we can use suck as a replacement for gasoline.

Gouki4u

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

StrikerGold — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:16:58 MST

He's right too. Keep 'em separate. At least concerning the big budget movies. There will always be fan-flicks and machinima and that's good enough.

StrikerGold

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

Crosswayboy — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:16:43 MST

This coming from the guy that ruined the Resident Evil movies? His stuff is all about flashy effects and slow-motion over-the-top gore. He's almost as bad as Uwe Boll in my book, and the fact that he's got the licenses to some of gaming's bigger franchises just makes me furious.

Let someone else with some real talent develop and produce these properties instead of just smearing your putrid shit all over the celluloid for us to watch!

How about we get someone on par with Christopher Nolan or Bryan Singer to direct these things? What's Darren Aronofsky up to these days? Or Doug Liman?

Crosswayboy

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

3xch4ng3 — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:16:04 MST

I still think out of every single video game turned movie, Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil were the best.

I screamed foul when i first saw RE for the whole "It has nothing to do with the game" but later realized that it was still really good without duplicating the video game story.

@CyN1caL: Agreed.

3xch4ng3

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

DigitalHero — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:09:54 MST

I enjoyed the first Mortal Kombat movie too.

DigitalHero

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

CyN1caL — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:09:30 MST

So, he plays Alliance..

It all makes sense!

CyN1caL

Convergence, Smergence...Hollywood Director Paul W.S. Anderson Believes Games and Movies Should Remain Separate

Krytha — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:08:33 MST

Wait. He's RESPONSIBLE for mortal kombat?

Krytha