By Jason Phillips
I would be willing to bet that every kid playing a video game when they were young has had fantasies about becoming their favorite video game character. They have probably also thought of what it might be like to see their toys come to life and move around and fight bad guys (Toy Story, anyone?). Who hasn’t played a video game and thought that it would make an awesome movie: “Why haven’t they made it yet?” you ask. Not all video games will equal movie magic. With that in mind we’ve rounded up 5 video games that should NOT be made into a movie and why.
1. World of Warcraft Movie
I’m sure a World of Warcraft movie is at the top of everyone’s list, and you, the reader, will probably be mad/angry/disappointed in my choice here, but there are several reasons why making a movie out of this video game is a bad idea.
- Lore – With two factions, 11 character classes, 13 races, 4 expansions, and countless factions within the game, it would be impossible to focus on just a few characters for the purposes of a movie.
- Visual – Would the movie be live action or cartoon? Most say live action, and I think we can all agree that the special effects are possible, but most of the costumes and physical items wouldn’t translate well from the game to the big screen.
2. God of War Movie
This game has had the tag of “please green light this” for a while now, but let’s talk about what a God of War movie would need to be to be a box office hit. Three sequels of this game say it’s a popular title, but how possible would it be to make a movie out of this video game? Let’s look at Kratos, the main character. He is a brutal warrior who is a “God of War” so to speak, and cannot be defeated. He is an extremely one-sided character. For a movie to be filled with two hours of button mashing and slaughtering, the main character has to have some depth. The only way this could possibly make a good movie is to make it a comedy starring Dwayne Johnson as Kratos, and Rob Schneider as his kooky sidekick (Hollywood, please don’t).
3. Legend of Zelda Movie
The reason this video game shouldn’t be made into a movie is simple – it will never – NEVER live up to the expectations that the target audience would have. The reason? The target audience is way too wide. People who played Legend of Zelda on the original Nintendo now have children of their own, who have played countless other versions of Zelda, including Wind Walker and Phantom Hourglass. The inevitable problem is – what plot do you do here, and which demographics do you target? The possibilities for what a Legend of Zelda movie could be are endless.
4. Metal Gear Solid Movie
This video game seems like an awesome movie idea on its face, and the storyline is there across all the titles. So what is stopping someone from making a great spy-inspired Metal Gear Solid movie? If you have ever played Metal Gear Solid, you know that there are more subplots than an episode of Twin Peaks. No one knows what is going on in the game until the game tells you what’s going on. Furthermore, the weirdness of the plot would make for an uncomfortable mix of sci-fi, fantasy, and psychological thriller. The movie would likely lack focus and be all over the place.
5. The Sims Movie
I feel as though the reasons around not creating a Sims movie are obvious, but I will state them anyway. The Sims is about the player controlling a family (or families) to simply get them through life, but at an accelerated rate. This concept is great on a video game because it allows for a player to escape their lives for a while, but no one wants to see normal people doing normal things. That’s called a chick flick.
The bottom line is that people need to think long and hard about what they really want to see on the big screen, because if it’s an awful movie, it’s just an awful movie, and nothing else.
Author Bio: Jason Phillips wrote this article. A great fan of video games he loves to write and blog about them and is a member of the Zombie Games 365. When he’s not writing about or playing video games, Jason enjoys watching movies.