More often than not when you hear about the films House of the Dead, Bloodrayne, Alone in the Dark or In the Name of the King, there is a background of insulting murmurs of complete and utter contempt. They, and other absolutely horrid game-based movies, are either produced, written or directed by Uwe Boll.
Even though the majority of people can – and most likely will – argue that he is the worst thing to happen to game-based films, it’s a wonder why people still go to see his movies.
I’m going to come out and say it: People go to his films because they are fans of the game, but also because there is a lot of potential for the films to be good. While that potential is not met, people still go see the movies. He has a lot of potential, but having been nominated for the “Worst Director” Razzie Award for two consecutive years, it’s obvious he’s not meeting that potential.
Another aspect of the anti-Boll phenomena is that he, amateur boxer, challenges his harshest critics to boxing matches. I guess his philosophy is, “if you can’t beat them into liking you, hit harder.” That is, of course, based on his IMDB where he is quoted as saying, “You see what happens when people get hit in the head? They like my movies!” in reference to his challenging and winning boxing matches against his critics. It sure sounds like a backhanded compliment toward himself.
The trouble with Uwe Boll is that he wants respect but he’s going about it the wrong way.
If he wants respect as a director he should actually start making good movies. He also needs a thicker skin. Rather than challenge people who hate his work to boxing matches, he should go with the flow and learn from the mistakes brought up by critics so that his films are worth watching. A sense of humor is also great idea, which is why the film Postal had quite a bit of potential.
Read [New York Times] Also Read [IMDB]
(Image borrowed from Kotaku)
Yes, Boll sucks at the moment. But then, most if not all video games can't stick it out in the movies simply because they are fun to do and control, but absolutely boring to sit and watch. Yeah, onscreen you get a creative beheading here and there or a funny in-joke that can be entertaining, but it's an absolute headache to take actual gameplay that drives a plot and transpose it onto a screen, if anything because actual gameplay can be very redundant, or the same objectives that don't vary too much in a different packaging in each scene. Really, the only useful firsthand sources you have are the creators of the game(who'll probably be too busy too babysit the film's production due to another project) and cutscenes from the game about to be made. In my opinion, games should stay out of the movies period.The only reason I bother seeing a game based film is because I sincerely hope that someone will prove my thinking wrong. That being said, look for games with both the outrageous, engrossing plots, and the most popularity with the highest ratings. In short, look for the best. I predict that if anyone is going to prove me wrong, it'll be off a game like that. But then, that'd make too much sense, wouldn't it?
Here's the thing with games and game-based movies/fiction. The reason games are often adapted into books or film is because there are a lot of aspects to the story that really aren't addressed. Like the fall of the S.T.A.R.S. Bravo team in Resident Evil wasn't addressed until Resident Evil 0. Even then they didn't fully flesh out the story, even though the novels did a wonderful job at showing the mindsets of everyone in the story. Halo only follows Master Chief and the Arbiter (in Halo 2 and 3) but not so much with the other Covenant or the other humans. Game-based fiction and films are just extensions of the story that try to make sense of everything.