Uncharted

[Wolvieboy17]

I think fans would expect to see at least one familiar scene from the games. You're acting like the whole movie is a rehash and there is no indication of that.

Exactly why adapting modern games is pointless. They are already movies.

I mean, you went on to make the exact point I was trying to make in my posts haha. That's basically all I meant, that adapting an sequence that was already basically a cinematic scene is essentially redundant (And less exciting since the player has no control over it this time)

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

If it's already edited as a movie, and the game itself is already a playable movie, then wouldn't making an adaption be kinda pointless anyway? Because it's very rare to make something that lives up to, or een surpass the original, so they're basically just remaking it into something inferior.

Well I never wanted Drake's Fortune: The Movie. What I wanted was another original adventure starring Nathan Drake in keeping with the same spirit of the games. Not a straight adaptation of one of the games.

 

[Black Narcissus]

Honestly, I kinda feel like they should've gone the series route, but sony doesn't have a streaming service. The main casting here is just dreadful. I feel like this will fail both boxoffcie/critic wise and will most likely set the Uncharted series back into the vault. Having read the first episode for the last of us hbo series, that thing will be an easy hit.

 

[BobJM]

Ryan Reynolds for Sly Cooper. Okay I'm done.

wowow I’d love a Sly Cooper movie

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

The casting is the biggest issue. Get the main characters right. It is the most important thing. Do that much and the movie should at least be watchable, even if the rest of it is underwhelming.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

The casting is the biggest issue. Get the main characters right. It is the most important thing. Do that much and the movie should at least be watchable, even if the rest of it is underwhelming.

Yeah this, whether a direct adaptation of the game or not the terrible casting set thisovie back from the start.

 

[metaphysician]

But I don’t think video games themselves lend themselves to be adapted. They’re meant to be played, and their storylines reflect that. The reason the movies about our relationship towards video games are better is because they capture the spirit of playing those video games better than adapting the storyline of one directly.

And books don't lend themselves to being adapted, because they are meant to be read, not watched. And plays don't lend themselves to being adapted, because they are meant to be in front of you live. Etc.

Sure, there are some video games that are poor fits for movie or TV adaptation. However, there are plenty of story- and character-heavy games that are no less suited than any other medium. And its not the intrinsic properties of video games that are causing these movie adaptations to flounder and fail. Assassins Creed wasn't bad because it tried and failed to portray the experience of playing the game, for example, and it doesn't look like Uncharted will be, either. Rather, their failures are the garden variety "We wrote a sloppy, indifferent story", which isn't even close to unique to video game adaptations.

 

[DarkKnight88]

And books don't lend themselves to being adapted, because they are meant to be read, not watched. And plays don't lend themselves to being adapted, because they are meant to be in front of you live. Etc.

I don’t think that comparison works. For one, games are designed for our control. They’re meant to change depending on the choices of the player. They are specific to the individual playing them. They are meant to be interpreted by the individual playing. Sure, it follows a storyline. But generally the fun of playing is that you are in control. We are driving the story forward.

Books and plays are written by (generally) a single author that has a beginning, middle and ending. They don’t change. You are not in control. The author is. They are written then interpreted. We are merely observers, not drivers. That’s not the intention of a movie, book, play. But for games, that’s the whole point.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

There has been quite a bit of success adapting games to anime, most notably with Pokemon but also shows like the Fate series. There are plenty of games, including entire genres (such as visual novels), that are story driven and not gameplay driven.

So I go back to not that they can't be adapted, but that in too many cases the people adapting them simply don't care or make so many changes that it starts not to resemble the games. Take the Assassin's Creed example. The whole appeal of that series is having an assassin in various historical settings with the present stuff merely as a framing story. What does the movie do? Have it mostly take place in the present, thus gutting the entire appeal of the series right off that bat. Or like here with Uncharted. The problem has nothing to do with the fact that we aren't in control. The problem is that they made a movie about Baby Nate. If the game series did that all of a sudden, it would be dumped on too.

 

[Snow Queen]

Exactly. You can pull off making a video game movie, you just need to adapt it properly. It's like any other adaptation, you need to capture what people liked about it in the first place while adapting it into something that befits the medium you're adapting it into.

But for some reason everyone they get just decides to get stupid with it. Until they don't, I guess Werewolves Within is the peak of video game movies.

 

[TheVileOne]

My theory on why video game movie adaptations generally don't work, besides many just being bad films, they take away the agency of players.

 

[TheVileOne]

It's not like Uncharted gave the player much control. It is a few steps away from being on a rail.

They are damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they make it too different then everyone will say its not faithful. If they make it the same then its plagiarism.

And the general movie going audience will call it a Indy ripoff either way.

I would say it was different than a rail shooter. Rail shooters aren't as immersive as the Uncharted series was.

 

[Lily Adler]

I would say it was different than a rail shooter. Rail shooters aren't as immersive as the Uncharted series was.

Panzar Dragoon and Star Fox would beg to differ.

 

[TheVileOne]

Panzar Dragoon and Star Fox would beg to differ.

Exceptions that prove the rule.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

It's not like Uncharted gave the player much control. It is a few steps away from being on a rail.

They are damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they make it too different then everyone will say its not faithful. If they make it the same then its plagiarism.

And the general movie going audience will call it a Indy ripoff either way.

There is a space between doing exactly the same thing right down to copying scenes and dialogue and completely altering the characters and concept.

Uncharted is largely an episodic series to begin with, which should make it easy.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Anyone else notice the strange phenomenon where movies based on video games almost always suck but movies ABOUT video games tend to be well received? Free Guy, Wreck-It Ralph, Ready Player One, Jumanji (the new ones) all fared pretty well. It blows my mind that basing a movie on a game and making it good is apparently impossible.

 

[Neno_Kos]

Anyone else notice the strange phenomenon where movies based on video games almost always suck but movies ABOUT video games tend to be well received? Free Guy, Wreck-It Ralph, Ready Player One, Jumanji (the new ones) all fared pretty well. It blows my mind that basing a movie on a game and making it good is apparently impossible.

When someone like Steven Spielberg decides to direct Uncharted and hiring who he wants for main lead instead Tom Holland offering himself and studio accepting it. Because regardless who directs it, we got Tom Holland the Spiderman. That fixes everything. Or when Krasinski decides to write, direct and act as monster making his original content because no Hollywood studio for some reason thought he would be perfect for adaptation of Dead Space franchise.

For example someone gave Justin Kurzel directing Assassin's creed franchise for god sake. That guy didnt direct anything worth it since then. Tomb Raider was directed by Roar Uthaug....When Hollywood stops giving bad directors chance to direct video game adaptations or when they start hiring right person for roles we might get decent video game movie. It's not impossible.

 

[TheVileOne]

When someone like Steven Spielberg decides to direct Uncharted and hiring who he wants for main lead instead Tom Holland offering himself and studio accepting it. Because regardless who directs it, we got Tom Holland the Spiderman. That fixes everything. Or when Krasinski decides to write, direct and act as monster making his original content because no Hollywood studio for some reason thought he would be perfect for adaptation of Dead Space franchise.

For example someone gave Justin Kurzel directing Assassin's creed franchise for god sake. That guy didnt direct anything worth it since then. Tomb Raider was directed by Roar Uthaug....When Hollywood stops giving bad directors chance to direct video game adaptations or when they start hiring right person for roles we might get decent video game movie. It's not impossible.

Thing is, I think most "good" directors don't want to direct movies based on video games.

 

[AndrewGilkison]

I think there are "good" directors today who would be fine with directing a video game movie, and there will be more "good" directors who will be willing to do it in the future (because gaming is a bigger part of life for kids who have grown up in the 2000s onwards). The problem is that there are still a lot of old ass studio executives who still see video game movies as quick cash grabs and will hire cheap directors to save money and don't care about making something decent.

Case in point, this movie. They've been trying to get an Uncharted movie off the ground for years with various different scripts, only for it to finally get it fast tracked when Sony studio head Tom Rothman saw it as a star vehicle for Tom Holland to do stuff that reminds the audience of all the stuff he's done in the MCU movies as Spider-Man (all the climbing and running and leaping Drake does in the games, his relationship with Sully which could be similar to the MCU Peter/Tony Stark surrogate father/son relationship if you cast Holland as Drake).

 

[Neno_Kos]

Thing is, I think most "good" directors don't want to direct movies based on video games.

That's the issue. People in Hollywood need to stop treating this adaptations as video game adaptations and just make movie from source material and be faithful to it to know what works and doesn't.

Issue is unlike with books many people in Hollywood arent familiar with games themselves. For some it's money grab and IP opportunity. They neither played it, grew up with it. This includes not only directors, but screen writers, actors and those in studio.

So to overcome most of issues you need to hire good directors. But good directors are already at certain age and most of them want freedom to do whatever they want. And they are certainly not demographic to be even minimum familiar with games so like you said they dont wanna direct those movies.

You will notice that most of books adaptation in Hollywood are from 19th and 20th century. Video games are still relatively new medium. Specially IP's which they trying to adapt. Most of them are from last 10-15 years.

Eventually there will come new wave of good directors in Hollywood who grew up playing video games, actors who played video games and wanna play those role and writers who grew up playing video games wanting to write good story for movie. I suspect that time didnt come yet.

Just like movies based on comics. If directors in Hollywood have issue adaptating video game adaptations, maybe someone should make graphic novel or comic based on that video game. And then give those directors graphic novel or comic to read if they really wanna read to make a movie. Because I guess video games are for "kids" or what not.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Comic books used to be the same way. In the first 50 years of modern superhero comics, there was one talented director that actually took it seriously. That's it. And the second guy to do it is notorious for being something of an oddball. Now superhero films are the hot thing with some of the best directors in the world doing them.

Video games need to reach the point where the next generation of Christopher Nolans grew up playing them and we aren't there yet.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

Comic books used to be the same way. In the first 50 years of modern superhero comics, there was one talented director that actually took it seriously. That's it. And the second guy to do it is notorious for being something of an oddball. Now superhero films are the hot thing with some of the best directors in the world doing them.

Video games need to reach the point where the next generation of Christopher Nolans grew up playing them and we aren't there yet.

This, I actually like Fleischer as a director but it’s quite clear he is here for a paycheck. Get someone passionate AND talented behind these movies and we may get some more good ones.

 

[metaphysician]

Pretty much what everyone is saying. Why are video game adaptations nigh-universally bad? Because the people in the studios don't respect video games as an artistic medium, so they don't put in effort or consideration. When will they stop being bad? When the majority of screenwriters, directors, and especially producers all grew up with video games as just another part of the pop culture landscape.

This is also why movies *about* video games avoid this issue: because Hollywood has a long history of making movies about our relationship with popular culture. There isn't the same element of "This couldn't possibly be worth anything so we won't bother trying".

 

[Micromind]

Thing is, I think most "good" directors don't want to direct movies based on video games.

Wasn't Duncan Jones considered as a good choice when he was signed to direct Warcraft ?

 

[JubJub86]

That Warcraft flicks gets way too much hate. Not sure what another director could have really done differently with it.

Some stuff just works better as a game than a script.