007 - Crisis Core Defense Force
GAME ADAPTATIONS
For this week’s big time article. I wanted to talk about video games, I wanted to talk about television and I wanted to talk about movies.
And it just so happens Cyberpunk Edgerunners is out on Netflix this week, and what perfect timing because today's subject is adaptations. I know, immediate red flags every time somebody sees a movie based on a video game or television series based on a video game, but hear me out on this one.
Adaptations are nothing new, most of the time a movie does an adaptation based on a book like Jurassic Park or The Great Gatsby. Or if it's a comic book like the marvel thingies. Or if we're in television, you got success with Walking Dead and the books of George R.R. Martin with the very popular show, A Song of Fire and Dragons and Ice.
Gaming however, is an interactive entertainment, you move and control the things on the screen, no two people play the game the same. Most games are like 20 to 30 hours long, sometimes even more of it’s Elden Ring and you're losing your ass on it.
But I argue, there are actually good gaming adaptations out there. And hopefully I'll try and get through as many as I can out there
Did you know Arcane won an Emmy last week? And it's based on the properties from League of Legends?
For starters, let's look at one such franchise – Sonic the Hedgehog. When Sonic fever started in the 90s, children were excited about it's Saturday Morning Cartoon series, and later it's Saturday Morning Cartoon and then after the Dreamcast era, it's Saturday Morning Cartoon, and with the Wii-U games, it’s Saturday Morning Cartoon, and yes, a live action movie with James Marsden. The fandom of Sonic is more than the video games, as you have debates over SatAM or Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog or Sonic X or Sonic Boom, or The Best One – Sonic Underground featuring the Sonic Family.
And Saturday Morning Cartoons with Video Games? That's common. You have Super Mario Brothers Super Show with Legend of Zelda, Mario 3, SUPER MARIO WORLD with that cool theme song, and that's that even including Donkey Kong Country and that weird CGI and Banana Slamma, or even 4kids getting REALLY into Kirby with Right Back at Ya, or forgotten shows like F-Zero, Viewtiful Joe, and probably the big money maker – Pokemon based on the Game Boy video game at the time.
And if you want to go into ANIME, where titles like Devil May Cry show up and Street Fighter has OVAs, that's another world. Are they good? Probably, I know devil may cry was just Dante taking care of a child, but hey, you watched Mando for the same thing!
Not all of them are great, admittedly, Earthworm Jim was a Saturday Morning Cartoon as a Video Game, back into a Saturday Morning Cartoon. There was also the attempt at Bubsy, which we will quickly move away from.
And yes, I know, we need to talk MOVIES.
Most Movies, are weird, absolutely. But Super Mario Brothers, that's children’s blade runner, probably even used the same set dressing. People now have fondness for the Mortal Kombat movie, probably because at the time, it was the 90s and they owned it on VHS right next to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3.
One Movie I didn't like, but know it's loved is Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. A CGI Marvel that expanded on the fondly remembered Playstation 1 game, with modern day computer animation. The character designs wound up being used for the final fantasy 7 remake, and that game is a very beautiful game, indeed.
What about Detective Pikachu, where Ryan Reynolds plays Detective Pikachu, with all the live action Pokemon that you care to know about, from a Snorlax blocking traffic to a Jigglypuff performing in a Juice Bar. I honestly think this movie has been ignored because the Internet zeitgeist decided “let's pound on that Sonic movie for the bad CGI” and the only controversy was they didn't get Danny Devito as a voice cursing in a children's movie.
We don't have to look at Uwe Boll directed series and think “they are all bad” because, sometimes, you get a flop like a Doom with Dwayne Johnson, other times you get a Silent Hill that becomes a horror franchise and then you have Resident Evil.
Resident Evil, has it's own live action horror movies, it has a few CGI movies with Chris and Leon and Jill, and Netflix has all sorts of kooky shit that I can't figure it out. There's one with Robbie Amell as Chris, but there's another with Lance Reddick as Albert Wesker. And from what I gathered, the first movie was great, the animated movies are great for diehard fans, and the Netflix movie is good or bad depending. But everybody online is doing that “WHY DID THIS FLOP” stink pieces, and the truth of the matter is – it’s when you have any gaming IP, it's looked with a microscope and that audience want to connect something from the games into the series, and gamers are a fickle bunch.
Warcraft, by all means, had the look down of World of Warcraft, but the lack of buzz seemed to take it down.
While Assassin's Creed, looks exactly like Prince of Persia, right down to whitewashing the leads. For more information about this, look up Nazareth on Google and then look up Jesus.
Recently, they made a movie based on Uncharted with Tom Holland, and I hope it's used to remind people to STOP FUCKING FANCASTING HIM IN ALL YOUR IDEAS.
While Marky Whalburger played a decent Boston Sully. But a major problem was Tom wasn’t really Nolan North playing that Indiana Jones smarmy Treasure Hunter. It was more, generic person with a rehash of the scenes from Uncharted 3.
Don't forget the Halo show, I personally thought the show on Paramount Plus was actually not bad, I think the biggest problem is Halo is just a FPS game where you shoot aliens, that maybe having John Halo say “Actually, it's kind of fucked up to do a warcrime” wouldn't sit well with it's audience, despite doing everything from showing an energy sword to having the iconic Halo theme and even having Baby Grunt, again, like star wars Mandalorian.
You might have thought it was hokey or terrible, but if you saw this exact show exactly 15 years ago, when Halo was actually a culture touchstone where you buy Mountain Dew Game Fuel to Finish The Fight, you'll freak the fuck out. The biggest problem with Halo is time isn't good to that franchise.
As we are approaching 2023, there is a CGI Mario Brothers movie with Chris Pratt. I'm guessing it'll be good, but everybody will be judging a movie because starlord loves his mega church. But he seems like a really sweet guy. I'm sure he's listening to this podcast right now, or reading the accompanying article! HELLO CHRIS!
Additionally, there is The Last of Us as a HBO Max show, which given most of the game involved intense emotional cutscenes about life and parenting – could probably be a really great mini series, but my fear, outsiders will compare it to The Walking Dead and diehards might be upset there isn't enough shooting creatures.
So, yeah, I do think there are good adaptations out there. But here is a few free ideas I wanted to throw out there, because “Dead Rising” with Rob Riggle already existed and is forgotten. (It's fun, check it out if you can!)
One, is obviously based on Bioshock. But I would try and make it like a American Horror Story serial episodic, where every season is a lighthouse and a utopia and the disaster that unfolds. With the success of Westworld and the appeal of mini-serials, you could start in rapture, and then another season in the sky, or then a weird dessert or elsewhere.
While I really like the idea of Red Dead Redemption, Yellowstone already exists, but it wouldn't hurt to do another western.
Fallout is also nice, if you can build it around that same anxieties and fears from the quarantine and pandemic mixed with the politics of 1950s households to make it a wild horror series, based on isolationism .
And, while I can see Bayonetta as a one and done Netflix series, I think I know the game franchise that would be best made into a movie or television series.
And that, is animal crossing. Think about it, you can have a villager as the protagonist, and then have all the friends as side characters and build a universe around them, one can be a baker and needs ingredients, another might be a fisherman but doesn't know what to do when they befriend a fish friend. And it just grows from there, the audience is in that villager point of view looking inwards, and all the self contained stories that come with it that is prime for a Saturday Morning Cartoon Series.
Ah, but who are we kidding. Saturday Morning Cartoons don't exist anymore, did you know they did TWO Pac-Man cartoons? I know Pac-Land because of the Christmas Special, but Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures? I guess the pac really is back!
FOR THE EXTENDED EPISODE, CHECK IT OUT ON PATREON
http://www.patreon.com/jordanhass
This Week, Chill Games, Jackbox Party Pack 5, and a VERY LENGTHY NEWS SEGMENT talking about Nintendo Direct, State of Play, The GTA Leak and the G4TV Layoffs (and a pun so bad it makes me angry)
