Ever seen Resident Evil (2002)? All said and done, it is an interesting little fragment of popular culture. Based on a game (which in turn was based on “a host of other horror films, from Alien to Dawn of the Dead,” themselves based on Westernized interpretations of the slowly germinating beliefs, values and insights from people all over the globe), it was a mild box office success, but found a more receptive home on DVD.
[i]
Gamers knew the source series, one of the most well-loved of the Playstation era, to be among the most respected and lauded in recent memory. Filmgoers with little or no knowledge of video games probably found it inferior to other horror films: after all, recent critical and monetary champions like the postmodern Scream slasher series and the endlessly amusing Jason X (at least it knew it was ridiculous) had found a way to bring self-reflexive horror to a whole new generation. Resident Evil has undergone what can now be called a normal video game life-cycle. We’ve seen the action figures, know the sequels, know the franchise spin-offs, and it has its own movie too. Why the hell is the game so good and the movie so bad?
Since their graceful move from the realm of academic institutions to pizza parlors to home theatres, from hardcore geekdom to the mainstream, even from general obscurity to a “Golden Age” which would come tumbling down only to rise from the ashes stronger than ever, video games have been the fuel for a collective popular imagination, landing them constant attention in the 20th centuries’ penultimate art form, the cinema. The first attempts at taming this new and wonderful pastime came in the form of showing what it could do: the first video game movies were not based on the existing games on the market, but were rather about the “game” or “gaming.” The first to capture the public’s imagination was Tron(1982), a film that “provides us with both the most explicit map of this new deflated space of electronic culture and its consequent demand on human being.”
[ii]
Tron was more than a movie and more than a game, almost a premonition of what it would look like if the hypothetical spaces of a video game were to be filtered through the selective gaze of the camera. The first video game movie wasn’t about translating the pixilated world of the game into the “real,” rather it was about making the “real” into the game. Other game/movies that were to follow included a segment from Nightmares (1983), WarGames (1983), and The Last Starfighter (1984). These films seem to be concerned primarily with addressing the anxieties that come along with game playing, including obsession, the thin line between reality and unreality, a video game’s ability to trick, and the militaristic potentials of training kids to become addicted at an early age.
There is then a gradual progression toward the next type of video game film, one that took place over the period in which video games were declared dead and the time at which Nintendo took its place on the throne. Karl Marx’s idea of “Second Nature” comes into play at this point: Marx spoke of the cities as seeming, to modern people, to be like a second nature…instead of being accustomed to seeing trees, streams, animals and fields, “the natural” became lampposts, buildings, paved streets and the like. In film, video games became a “Second Nature.” Hardly anyone is surprised at the fact that Fred Savage’s character plays a baseball video game at the beginning of The Princess Bride (1987), nor that the arcade was a logical destination for John Connor in Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991), nor even that video game systems and game iconography were popping up in the rooms of kids and teens in television shows and popular movies. Finally, though not chronologically the last film of an era, The Wizard (1989) stands out as the quintessential movie about video games. Part advertisement for Nintendo (the then new Super Mario Bros. 3 in particular) and part family drama, The Wizard was drowning in gaming. To kids, the footage of seeing their favorite games on screen could be thought of as akin to the nudity fetish in many mainstream adult films. The film constructs a huge web of associations and finds its emotional center not in the story or the characters, but ultimately in the common ground that it establishes with its viewers. Kids, and later gamers (the term seemed to be a few years in the making), can watch the film and latch onto it with thoughts like “I’ve played that game,” “Is that what I look like while playing,” and “That arcade looks awesome.” Wherever The Wizards fails or succeeds as a film is moot to history, as it is now rightly a cult classic, an artifact from a past age that is the nostalgic crown on many an eighteen-through-twentysomething’s head. Its market value and relative worth have been proven by eBay, where it regularly sells for decent bucks. This loose “Second Age” of video game filmmaking can be seen as the time in which games were no longer the objects of wonder/fear/suspicion that they once were, the true coming of the video game’s visibility.
From there we’ve got the video game films, movies that translate games to the silver screen. By 1993, the world had seen Super Mario Bros. and it was an abomination. An anomaly, it set a weird precedent for other game-based-movies. Directed by Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel (previously of Max Headroom fame) with the imaginative but decidedly un-Nintendo production design of David Snyder, the film tries to make sense of Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo and Dennis Hopper masquerading as beloved video game symbols.
[iii]
Despite critical and popular dissent, Super Mario Bros. set a puzzling watermark for what was to follow. Countless times since, “game-movies” have taken either unthinkable liberty with their source, emphasized only the worst aspects of a game, or re-imagined it entirely toward disliked ends (Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within [2001] has probably seen the most lamentation). Game choice remains a problem. Sure, adapting an easily understood and generic-in-all-senses-of-the-word game like Tomb Raider to film is a financially safe bet, but one must wonder if the studios for such films even have the vaguest pretensions toward making a good movie. Bold films are waiting to be made from games as diverse as Sim City 2000, Contra and The Adventures of Lolo. Additionally, one would imagine that nearly cinematic (and popular) games such as Myst would make logical choices for films, but no one ever accused the film industry of the U.S. for being logical. From Mortal Kombat: Annihilation to House of the Dead, these game-movies have been declared almost universally bad.
The current historical moment could be considered “The 3.5th Age.” Difficult to assign a specific time frame, films of this era represent the pluralism we’ve come to expect from all forms of popular culture. Now is an age that can accommodate films with varying interests in gaming. From the mimetic sequences of The Beach (1999) to the totalized and foregrounded debts of The Matrix, the advanced anxieties of eXistenZ (1999) to the mess of an attempt that was Resident Evil, movies that feel the resonances of video games and video game culture are here to stay. It has been noted that the video game’s prominence in film has heralded the message that “videogaming culture is huge and on par with any other media in popular entertainment,” but the fact remains that there have been no wholly aesthetic and creative successes.
[iv]
There are many points that deserve consideration when it comes to examining the effects of video games on film. First and foremost, what makes a good film and what makes a good game? What makes a good video game based movie? How can the video game, which has different notions of time, space, and above all else, interactive narrative elements, be successfully transferred to the similar but infinitely different medium of film? What have been the best (from cultural and critical perspectives) game-movies? What have been the worst? The game and film industries must both be understood in order to grasp the logic of the game-movie. Are these types of film worth it? Who is best suited to make these films, given the complex fan-artist and producer-consumer workings of both of these industries? Finally, what does the future hold for these sorts of films? What is the ideal way to make the video game movie, taking into account mainstream viewers and hardcore gamers alike?
These are difficult questions and require an uncharacteristically in-depth analysis. When possible, outside texts in fields from film studies to semiotics will be cited in an attempt to illuminate the particularities of the game-movies’ situation, as well as anchor its problems within a larger cultural discourse. The ultimate goal, therefore, is to provide a means of preventing future endeavors that even remotely resemble Street Fighter (1994).
What Makes a Good Movie?
The motion picture has changed by leaps and bounds since its genesis at the beginning of the 20th century, but many of its aspects have remained more or less constant. Originally conceived as that which would “bring the evolution of photography to an end,” the advent of synchronous sound and eventually color film stock would vastly increase the possibilities.
[v]
Since video games are usually based on narrative to one degree or another, experimental film and non-narrative documentary need not be examined. Almost from the beginning, there existed two different traditions in filmmaking. Lumière was a strict realist, preferring to use the camera as a tool to preserve whatever actual integrity existed in its scope: alternately, Georges Méliès was a fantasist, called a more “formative” filmmaker.
[vi]
His films created impossible situations and defy the laws of the real world through tricky editing, the manipulation of frame rates and a general desire to push the imagination. Each tendency has had its fair share of “great” films, though the identification of which is ultimately better rests almost solely on personal preference, in the end.
Roger Ebert can tell you that a film is great but your mother could have hated it. To say that one of them is right is probably impossible, though Ebert almost certainly has more qualifications for making his judgment. A few aspects of film, however, bespeak a general consensus in terms of what’s good and what’s not. For narrative film, an imaginative story is a must. Generally, films of this sort have very well developed characters, tackle very “human” issues (love, sex, death, caring, fright, longing) in a way that credits some insight that one can take outside of the theatre, and tend to forge some sort of emotional attachment or interest. These are the movies that we remember and constantly revisit long after we see them. From a formal standpoint, great films usually display an unquestionable mastery of the tools of the trade. A great director can imagine beautiful on-screen compositions, a brilliant cinematographer can light and make possible any number of unique visions, and a star editor can combine that which is filmed into something more than used film stock. Being one with the camera means perfectly capturing a quick zoom, orchestrating a flawless tracking shot, or filling a given shot using a balanced and clear deep focus.
[vii]
What does this all amount to? Marshall McLuhan notes that “film has the power to store and to convey a great deal of information.”
[viii]
The best films can not only store and convey the most information (actual, theoretical, corporal, suggestive or otherwise), they do it the most memorably. Our notions of greatness come in part from our “literacies,” the fact that we, literate Western society, have developed a film language that makes sense to us and either efficiently or artfully (or both) gives us information.
[ix]
Whether or not one views films as art, the undeniable fact remains that there are bad films and good films. Since movies are widely viewed and depend on relatively new technologies, only time will tell if the great movies today will survive as long as the canonized paintings of the Italian Renaissance.
[x]
Film criticism has many homes, from a conversation between friends on a bus to the pages of an academic film journal. Approaches vary, yet an eclectic and pragmatic approach might be best when evaluating a film, and “the best criticism is that which best conveys the richness and complexity of a given work.”
[xi]
The best movies manage, at once, to be complex, lucid, memorable, timeless, timely, innovative, and “full.” Sometimes it doesn’t take a critic to know what sucks and what doesn’t.
What Makes a Good Game?
Video game criticism has undergone several stages of development, but as the market for games and gaming has widened so to have potential approaches to dissecting the medium. Like film, there are no clear ways to decide what is and is not a good game, but there are rules of thumb. Most would agree that Tetris is an utter masterpiece (it is simple, manages to be both visually powerful and abstract, and does not require the same sort of socialization that the first person shooter does) and that Cosmic Race (PS1, 1995) is an affront to life itself. But why? Which criteria are more important than others?
For starters, video game criticism is a pretty hotly contested field right now. Film criticism has been active and evolving since the beginning of the motion picture, but serious contention and debate started around 1940 with the rise of the art film and the birth of world cinema. Video games have not been around that long, and the earliest games defy all attempts at assessment: their abstract forms, ambiguous goals and alien mechanics are the sort of thing that would have baffled early critical examination of films. Whereas movie reviews began as a literature for adults, the earliest video game write-ups seemed to have kids and teens in mind, the target audience for games since the launch of the home gaming market.
[xii]
The last few years have seen a gradual reassessment in how to rate a game – a slight shift in not only more thoroughly covering the gaming experience, but also in providing the public with points of comparison with recent benchmark games that have all but changed the way that games are played. But the fact remains that writing about video games is still somewhat infantile, and it is only with time and an exploration of possible approaches that it will come of age, potentially revealing more about why we game and why certain games truly are so much better than others.
That said, the dominant approach is practical and straightforward. Gamers play for entertainment, so each criteria is an eventual means to an end. Since video games are a primarily visual medium, good graphics are a must. If someone is to spend over twenty hours of their life on a single game, it should probably be easy, or even awe-inspiring, on the eyes. Sound in general is increasingly becoming important, but music in particular has taken on an all-important role in the eyes of many. Only now are some of the pioneers of game music, people like Yasunori Mitsuda, getting recognition as composers of substantial merit.
[xiii]
Tight play control is essential, since a simulated world must be maneuverable. Sometimes critics or publications gauge “story,” which seems more important to point out for a game that takes 70+ hours to play like Xenogears, as opposed to a puzzler like Snood (to name just one). “Fun Factor” is perhaps the easiest category to rate in an instinctual way, yet the hardest to codify and impart meaningfully. Since ultimately all approaches to games are subjective, trying to tell somebody whether or not they’ll have fun with a game depends largely on what else they like, where they grew up, how much of an attention span they have, etc.
In short, games can be good or bad in any number of ways, and can/should be approached in more ways than one. However, since video game writing is still young, any attempt at attacking a particular game from all angles will inevitably fail. Reading multiple sources and judging which are more respectable is ultimately the best way to go.
What Now?
We’ll, there are many ways at looking at both games and movies, but relatively few ways at looking at video game movies. Mainstream film critics are horrendously biased and usually ignorant when it comes to the game that is being adapted and gamers and game critics usually don’t have a great way of assessing films beyond “it was awesome” or “it sucked.” What is to follow are case-by-case analyses of films that are either about, based-on, tangentially related to, or inspired-by video games. In order to test the theses on which the above rests, each film will be granted due consideration and will be weaved into larger cultural threads. In looking and comparing these films, some sort of means of getting at “what works” and “what doesn’t” should slowly arise.
[i] Leonard Maltin ed. Leonard Maltin’s 2004 Movie and Video Guide (
[ii] Vivian Sobchack, Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film (New York: Ungar, 1987), 257. Note that Sobchack’s observations regrarding Tron and other 1980s sci-fi are all interpreted through Fredric Jameson’s Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. This “deflated space” is “deep and indexical…punctured and punctuated by the superficial and iconic space of electronic simulation” (256). An argument regarding this “postmodern” sci-fi space ensues, and she notes that in the 1950s, “outer” space is what forged wonder and brought anxieties. However, in the digital age, “outer” space is replaced by “inner” space owing to the rampant rise of computers and video games.
[iii] David Sheff. Game Over: Press Start to Continue (Wilton, Ct: CyberActive Publishing, 1999), 193.
[iv] Helen Flatley and Michael French. The Pocket Essentials: Videogaming (
[v] Siegfried Kracauer, “From Theory of Film: Basic Concepts” in Film Theory and Criticism, ed Gerald Mast and Marshall Cohen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 7.
[vi] Ibid 10.
[vii] Despite all of the clichés, a textbook “great” film is Citizen Kane (1942, Orson Welles). In order to understand the theoretical benchmark that measures all movies, at least one viewing of its greatness is necessary.
[viii] Marshall McLuhan. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (
[ix] Ibid 287. See McLuhan’s text for a more in-depth explanation of literacies, which themselves become an important subject when examining the video game and more importantly, the video game movie.
[x] A basic and seminal argument regarding the importance of film to the world of art can be found in Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Mechanical Age of Reproduction. In it, he sees film as being a potentially powerful art form based on its wide viewer-ship and the fact that films can easily and cheaply be copied. This accessible art is also instrumental in destroying the “aura” of some art that keeps it on a heavenly pedestal by virtue of the fact that only one of that work exists. With mechanically reproducible art comes equal opportunity for all.
[xi] Louis D. Giannetti. Understanding Movies (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1972), 201.
[xii] However, had the earliest game criticism been aimed at the likes of the early M.I.T. programmers, we would likely be examining a very different field today. Video gaming could have potentially remained the playground of an elite few who had access to the only means of playing them. Thankfully, the market called for a more populist approach, and gaming became a more or less equal opportunity employer.
[xiii] Film music had a similar struggle. Scoring a film requires all of the usual musical talent but also requires an interactive approach to technology and patient collaboration. For further information on the process, look into Roy M. Prendergast. Film Music: A Neglected Art (New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1992). Little to nothing has been published about scoring a video game.
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