A Nascent Medium

I saw this article a couple of days ago; the criticism of Hollywood’s treatment of race in the universally-panned Avatar: The Last Airbender (and throughout history) is well-done and thought-provoking. One comment the author makes in passing got me thinking in an entirely new direction: storytelling in video games.

In talking about the recent Prince of Persia movie (also panned), the author describes the movie as being “uncannily silly in premise and narrative function” primarily because it’s based off a video game franchise. It seems to be taken as axiomatic that a movie based on a video game will be poor, that while plenty of movies both good and bad have been based on musicals and comics, the story of a video game doesn’t contain the elements that make for quality filmmaking.

I don’t want to believe this is true, but looking at the examples we have to-date, they’re right. Think about how many train wrecks of movies have been based on video games, and how many of them are on Uwe Boll’s filmography. Is there even one good movie that’s been based on a video game?

I think that in recent years, games have really been coming into their own as a means of storytelling, producing the kind of excellent stories that can survive  the transition to film. Even so, when I hear that an incredible game like Mass Effect has a film adaptation in development, I can’t help but wince.

By the way, is this really what an official movie casting call looks like? That poster seems like it should be on a community bulletin board encouraging people to volunteer at the next picnic. You’d think Paramount Pictures could hire a professional designer instead of mocking it up in Microsoft Word.