Raider. Tomb. Movie. The. These four simple words seem utterly harmless
when separate, but when rearranged and combined properly they form a
phrase so hideous that even the bravest men dare not speak of it. To do
so would mean their very soul would be crushed, chopped up, ground and
then served to a miniature Doberman strengthening the foul cur's already
powerful malice and evil. This can also be said for Kombat, Mortal and
Brothers, Mario as long as you have 'The Movie' as an addendum. Why were
these insults to existence allowed to have birthed? The material on which
they were based wasn't so foul or evil that the mere sight of them would
make you want to enlarge your every orifice with a sword! So how did the
movie translations turn out so horrible? And what can be done to
avoid such travesties coming into existence from my oh so beloved hobby in
the future? Let me shout them in your ear a moment.
All the games that have crossed into the realm of film so far were picked
not because of their quality, but because of their popularity. Now, I've
always thought games could make amazing movies. Even during my gaming youth,
smashing an Atari controller with a balled up fist as a toddler because it
made the TV flash pretty colors (which I still often do in fits of rage).
Some recent examples of potentially great movies I can think of are Gabriel
Knight, Grim Fandango, Thief and Planescape: Torment - as they have amazing
and involving stories. But because these games never reached anything more
than cult success, they never even make it onto a producer's desk as a mere
'possibility'. Games like Tomb Raider, Street Fighter, Double Dragon and Mortal
Kombat however, even though almost completely lacking of any kind of intelligent
or coherent plot, were made into films because even the gaming deprived community
knew of them. But this is really no excuse.
Even the most brainless of games (which most are) can be interpreted into, at
the very minimum, a tolerable film, but only if taken seriously. That is perhaps
the biggest fault in the video game movies thus far. A large portion of the
non-gaming community look upon our hobby in a skewed 'Trix are for kids'
perspective, which means they aren't going to try to inject an already hollow
story with emotional involvement or compelling plot to make into something truly
good. Those aren't exactly selling points for most of the target audience, sadly.
The stories aren't taken seriously, so where there should be emotion, instead we
have a big explosion or the viewer getting his intellect pummeled until its no
more than a gooey butter-like spread (*). So the "plot" (I use that term loosely)
we see in these movie adaptations of video games tend to be nothing more than an
extremely opaque, thinly veiled excuse to keep crap blowing up all over the place.
Or perhaps to at least create some good scenes for the trailer, which seems to be
the only thing that matters in getting people to go see a movie these days.
(*) - Consumers of Subway sandwiches will probably recognize this.
So what does this all hold for our beloved Deus Ex, were it ever planned to get
the movie treatment? Well, a fate worse than death probably, but not if they read
and abide by the following words strewn together into sentences, then paragraphs
that I present to you... *looks at watch* ...now.
The absolute biggest problem with turning Deus Ex into a movie is compressing its
immense story. It's very hard to take a story that ranged 10-25 hours in gameplay
length into a 2-3 hour film. I realize all you die hard fanboys like myself probably
don't want to see the story mutated, but when your compressing something of that
magnitude into something so miniscule, some mutilation is inevitable. My advice is
that the filmmakers take the major plot elements (and a collection of the better minor
plot elements) straight from the original story unaltered. Now you obviously just can't
jump from point to point at random, so you have events occurring between these points
(shocking). Now this where I think the filmmakers are free to do the editing. As long
as the major plot elements remain in tact, you can alter how you get from point to point
and still maintain the spirit and story of the game, while compressing it to a manageable
length (probably around 150 minutes). It's a simple enough solution, and really should be
common sense, but it's an idea that seems to have been tossed out the window one too
many times.
While I've been trying to stress the point of the story's precedence over eye candy this
entire article, we don't want a Deus Ex movie looking like Plan 9 From Outer Space, do
we? Well you might, but I wouldn't trust your judgement to decide what kind of ancient,
fossilized army rations to serve at a reform school, let alone decide the budget for a
movie of this scale. Budget does in fact matter, especially when dealing with a setting
as dynamic as that of Deus Ex. You can't have military bots, nano-swords, secret underwater
research bases and recently decapitated Statue of Liberty without either a lot of money for
special effects, or having them look like they were made in some teenagers basement. Poor
special effects can make a moment that otherwise might be tragic or dramatic seem utterly
hilarious, much like I imagine Ghandaiah's death will be.
The last thing I want to see happen to a Deus Ex movie is that it be dumbed down so a bunch
of intoxicated pre-teen maggots can understand it. It was a mature game with an intelligent
plot, and therefore should be translated into a mature movie with an intelligent plot. It
sickens me to the core when a decent story is deformed to fit a more 'family' or 'teen'
appeal. A film version needs to maintain the game's target of an intelligent audience who
at least know how to pronounce Deus Ex as such instead of 'Do Sex'.
Most importantly, our obsessively cherished Deus Ex must be placed in the right hands in
terms of both cast and crew. If in the right hands, the movie could very well turn out
quality in its own right, even if the story was as twisted and deformed as Despot forcibly
exposed to sunlight. I would like to see someone like David Fincher (Seven, Fight Club) or
Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Blade Runner) take the helm. They have both mastered the kind of
atmosphere that would be key to Deus Ex, while maintaining a coherent plot. Cast on the
other hand, is much harder to determine. We don't one another debacle like John Leguizamo
as Luigi or Jean-Claude Van Damme as Guile. I have, however, managed to compile a list of
whom I think would be more than suited for all the major, and some minor, roles (I have
a lot of time on my hands).
Whether you're talking about Deus Ex becoming a movie, or any kind of member
of the realm of entertainment crossing over into another realm one thing holds
true: It needs to be able to stand on its own two feet. Movies, books, and games
are all part of the same medium - storytelling. A film based on either a game or
a book is simply a different way of presenting that story to the world. Each area
of the medium has its own strengths and weaknesses, and a translation from any one
to the other needs to be able to utilize those to make it a good film, book, or
game in its own right. Keep that in mind, and the things I've stated above, and you
should be just fine.
RSS Feeds
