Article - "Why have so many movies lost the plot? I blame videogames"

[Dante]

At a key moment in Silent Hill, the latest good-looking, badly written schlockbuster to be based on a video game, our heroine is told to memorise a map showing directions to a room which she must reach for reasons that are frankly unmemorable. As actress Radha Mitchell quietly recites her instructions ('right, left, left, right') one can briefly imagine an enthusiastic gamer, console in hand, navigating their way through the labyrinthine matrix of the film's highly acclaimed, computer-generated source. The crucial difference, of course, is that the gamer is in control of the story, deciding which way the wanderer should turn, writing each new chapter as it progresses. 'The video game is extraordinarily popular,' enthuses Silent Hill movie producer Samuel Hadida, 'because each gamer experiences something unique when they play it.' Not so the poor old movie-goer who is left experiencing the same dreary tosh as every other disgruntled audience member. Without the luxury of a joystick in our hands, the viewer has no chance to make the incoherent on-screen antics any better - or worse. We just sit ... and stare.

 

A cursory glance at the list of cinematic stinkers which have taken their lead from PCs, Xboxes and PlayStations reveals that there has never been a half-decent movie based on a computer game. Look at the evidence: Super Mario Brothers, in which Bob Hoskins runs around in ugly dungarees to no discernible end; Street Fighter, tacky and terrible even by Jean-Claude Van Damme's low-kicking standards; Tomb Raider, a film aimed solely at adolescent boys with an interest in Angelina's Jolie's pneumatic breasts; and most recently Doom, which abandoned any pretence of actually being a movie and simply fell back on hoary old computer-friendly 'FPS' (First Person Shooter) montages. Silent Hill may have been scripted by Oscar-winning Pulp Fiction co-writer Roger Avary, but it stands proudly within the tradition of duff video-game movie spin-offs distinguished only by their total lack of story.

 

Why? Because, unlike cinema, computer gaming is a medium which requires the player to make things up for themselves. An individual game may be laden with 'plot points' but its narrative is always up for grabs. It is a format of scenarios rather than stories, elements which can be bolted together in differing orders with varying outcomes. Cinema, on the other hand, is designed for people who like to watch and listen, and who expect the film-maker to get their story straight before the movie reaches the theatres. Viewing a film based on a computer game is like hanging around in an amusement arcade, peering over the shoulders of other people playing video games. It has less to do with story-telling than conceptual shelf-stacking. And it is symptomatic of the painful death of the art of narrative cinema.

 

While popular movies were once dominated by ripe melodramas (All that Heaven Allows, Written on the Wind) and so-called 'women's pictures' (Now, Voyager, Stella Dallas, Mildred Pierce) which offered masterclasses in the art of storytelling, today's boy-friendly blockbusters often boast nothing more than a collection of spectacular interludes assembled in the manner of a catalogue rather than a chronicle. Even kids' movies have fallen foul of this decline. The biggest movie of the season is Ice Age: The Meltdown, a collection of slapstick animated episodes which not even the kindest critic could accuse of having anything vaguely resembling a story.

 

The decline of narrative has, of course, gone hand in hand with the rise of consumer test screenings, the grisly process through which Hollywood execs show a movie to a cross section of its imagined 'target audience' and then ask them what they would do to make it better. This is the one area in which audiences do actually get to 'play' movies like computer games, and the results are always terrible. It was dunderheaded audiences screaming 'kill the bitch!' at test screenings of Fatal Attraction who persuaded the film-makers to shoot a new ending in which Glenn Close's character became the victim of a shooting rather than a suicide, thus destroying whatever internal logic the film may have had. If it was left to the viewers, you can rest assured that Humphrey Bogart would have gotten on the plane with Ingrid Bergman at the end of Casablanca, or that Ali McGraw would have experienced a miraculous recovery in the closing moments of Love Story. Audiences cannot make movies - that's why they are audiences. Sadly, in the current marketplace, it seems that many film-makers can't make them either.

 

The smart answer to all this, of course, is to cite Dickens, whose novels, published chapter by chapter in Victorian journals, responded to the input of readers' letters; or Shakespeare, whose plays were oft revised in light of audience reaction. Yet episodically published tales and constantly evolving stage performances are hardly an adequate paradigm for movies which, like paintings and sculptures, must be first unveiled fully formed. OK, so film-makers can tinker with their work endlessly on DVD. But in the cinema, you (usually) only get one shot. And time and again movie-makers aiming for the imagined desires of the modern 'interactive' audience end up shooting themselves in the foot.

 

Today it's virtually impossible to turn on the television without being told to 'press the red button for more options', or to phone an 0870 number and vote for your favourite contestant. On the small screen, interactivity may be the much-hyped order of the day but in the cinema it has no place whatsoever. Computer games thrive on player input - movies are stifled by it. Films should not be defined by audience focus groups, nor should they look to video games for their narrative inspiration. Both are anomalous to the very concept of classical narrative cinema. We should vote them out of the picture palaces forthwith.

 

Guardian.co.uk

 

I dont agree with him saying it is cause by videogames. What do you think?

[gaggle64]

EDIT: Re-reading the article, I think the writer is simply using video games as a similie for producers letting stupid audiences ruin films by puttting them in control, like gamers.

 

Although I do think that Mortal Kombat was at least half-decent.

[Ramar]

Although I do think that Mortal Kombat was at least half-decent.

 

Mortal Kombat is not only a fantastic film, it also has possibly the best movie theme tune ever!

 

[i say possibly because Baywatch theme is godly, and it must have been used in its crappy movie]

[Kav]

Silent Hill may have been scripted by Oscar-winning Pulp Fiction co-writer Roger Avary, but it stands proudly within the tradition of duff video-game movie spin-offs distinguished only by their total lack of story.

 

Why? Because, unlike cinema, computer gaming is a medium which requires the player to make things up for themselves. An individual game may be laden with 'plot points' but its narrative is always up for grabs. It is a format of scenarios rather than stories, elements which can be bolted together in differing orders with varying outcomes. Cinema, on the other hand, is designed for people who like to watch and listen, and who expect the film-maker to get their story straight before the movie reaches the theatres. Viewing a film based on a computer game is like hanging around in an amusement arcade, peering over the shoulders of other people playing video games. It has less to do with story-telling than conceptual shelf-stacking. And it is symptomatic of the painful death of the art of narrative cinema.

 

I completely agree with this bit, I thought this was the problem with the film, it was like it was trying to be a game-film rather than a straightforward film, problem with this is that you had no control over it! The thing that makes up for any lack of story telling in a game is the fact that we can control and manipulate the characters! This cannot be done in a film and so story should be emphasised!

 

Although to imply the blame of videogames on movies that aren't videogame related is totally unfounded!

[harribo]

Am I the only person who likes the Doom film?

[gaggle64]

A Couple of things -

 

a) Mortal Komabat was OK, but not great.

b) Doom (the film) was rubbish.

c) The writer isn't saying that video games are making bad films. He/she is just using video games as a similie/metaphor to explain his/her point.

[Aimless]

I agree with pretty much all off that. Just as I expect movie-games to be games first and foremost, game-movies should be movies.

 

People don't know what they want to see until they've seen it, so focus groups and other such pandering to the public are a waste of time, in my opinion. The most interesting works are always the most selfish.

[rokhed00]

I was expecting this when I heard it was the most faithful game movie to date.

From what I've heard they've aimed it purely at the fans and forgotten about everybody else.

[gaggle64]

Hopefully Peter Jackson can show em' all how it's done. If he fails, we can all look forward to more of this sort of "entertainment" for years to come. Does John Woo still hold the Metroid rights?