As Hollywood continues to look for existing media to adapt, writers and directors are frequently turning to look at video games over books, as their stories are becoming more and more popular. While it seems like a good idea, of all the adaptations out there, the ones made around video games tend to fail more often than they succeed, at least when it comes to reviews. The reason for this is they are often disappointing the fans, and considering longtime fans make up the bulk of the audience, if you disappoint the fans, you’re not going to find success.
Of course, not all adaptations fit into that category. Sonic the Hedgehog got things right and was very popular upon its release, combining live action and animation in a way that pleased the fans. The Netflix series original Arcane, based on the game League of Legends, also did well, becoming one of the top Netflix originals for the entire streaming service. Its animated style and unique take on the characters fans knew and loved helped propel its popularity. This seems to show that video game adaptations are more popular when they’re (at least partially) animated, no matter what the original game is compared to the adaptation.
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Similar Styles Better Relate the Game and Adaptation
Warner Bros. Pictures
When you look at an adaptation like Uncharted and compare it to the original games, you may see a similar treasure hunting concept driving the story along, but not much else. Or, for a more drastic example, you could look at the live action Super Mario Bros. where none of the inhuman characters look right, and some of them are downright terrifying. When taking a game and turning it into live action, one of the hardest things is to find a way to recreate the same beloved characters into something recognizable — otherwise, it might only harm the production in the long run.
If the directors stick to an animated style, they can make any necessary changes while still keeping the characters recognizable. Even a movie like Detective Pikachu, combining real life and animation, had kept this in mind. They animated every last Pokémon seen in the movie and gave them more realistic features like detailed fur and skin, but it was still very clear what Pokémon it was without needing to explain it to those in the audience who would already know. Being able to keep the designs similar and recognizable will go a long way into making fans happy and letting them enjoy the film.
Many Video Games Aren’t Realistic
Netflix
Not only does making an animated character live-action mean it will be harder for them to look recognizable, but some video games just make it impossible for a live-action iteration to ever look right. In video games, anything goes with character design, and exaggerated features are something regularly seen in them. Those exaggerated features would be impossible to recreate and still look normal in live-action, unless some drastic makeup was used, like for the who’s in the live-action How The Grinch Stole Christmas. Even then, there’s still a chance that the characters will look strange and out of place, something that simply animating them to look like how they are expected to be would fix.
While it seems like the Hollywood industry doesn’t like animation anymore (unless it’s from Pixar), considering how many Disney remakes are live-action, there’s always a certain charm that you lose when deciding not to animate. Instead of being something fun and inviting, even for the horror games, it becomes gritty and uncanny as harsh details are brought to the forefront, and sometimes, it can feel less personal. Because video games aren’t realistic, they can focus less on making every detail believable and more on the emotions the scenes cause the main character to have and how they fuel the story.
Live-Action Has Limits, Animation Doesn’t
Sony Pictures Releasing
Live-action can’t always do everything. Obviously, special effects are a big part of movies — changing the lighting of the scene, making the proper backgrounds, making explosions grander or even completely creating them digitally — but there are still limits, as it still needs to look realistic for the audiences to believe it. Many video games, especially in the fantasy or sci-fi genre, would need a lot of special effects in live action that might not even work like the games do, but they could be replicated easily in animation.
Take Mass Effect as an example, a game that might see an adaptation soon. This sci-fi world has dozens of different alien species, and for most of them, no two aliens of the same species look the same. Having to figure out the makeup for all of those, or trying to use realistic CGI on each one, could result in something that, at best, doesn’t exactly work like the games do, or at worst, is something of nightmares. Considering that these creatures are already animated, it would be very easy to replicate their looks and movements in an animated style.
In a fantasy setting, a game like Skyrim sounds a lot more complicated and expensive when thinking about bringing it to life. With dragons roaming the skies, enemies who can attack with many types of magic, some enemies completely made of magic, or even a protagonist that can use magic if they so choose, filmmakers would have to animate all of that anyway with special effects. Cutting the middle ground and making the entire thing animated would save on costs, and make the adaptation look a lot better when the creators aren’t held back by trying to make it look realistic in a live-action world. As Arcane proved, animated adaptations can be extremely effective, bringing the best out of the video games but in a cinematic world. Hopefully the future of video game movie adaptations bends in that direction.
