Video Games to movies (why is it so hard)

[Kenryoku_Maxis]

Words Of Wisdom said:

Kenryoku_Maxis said:

This.  Trying to condense a 30-60 hour video game into 1 1/2 hours of 'action packed amazing acting and graphics'....is nearly impossible.

And why do you assume that 30-60 hour video game has to be condensed? 

Too many people are hung up on the mentality that the whole game has to go into one movie instead of "let's put as much as we can in the movie, wrap up the plot arc neatly, and prepare for the next one if it sells well."

First of all, it doesn't.  But second of all, nearly all the games which have become movies are actually gaming series, not just based on one game.  And to try to summarize, or even just remake hundreds of hours of gameplay and experiences into such a short time period (1-2 hours) is a daunting task that will hardly live up to anyones expectations. 

Pretty much you either have to go totally away from the source material and make a totally unique movie (like Resident Evil or Tomb Raider) or just make something that has a similar style and characters, but with such a condensed story that people feel it doesn't do the game series justice.  And this path usually also leads to tons of changes of the games key characters/storyline to make it work for the movies condensed script.

And then there's the little matter of trying to emulate the feeling of the original game in a live-action movie....