Movies based on video games rarely, if ever, work. That’s just a fact of life that is hard to argue against. But why is this the case? There’s no reason why it should be, no reason why the two mediums shouldn’t flirt with each other and maybe produce offspring together.
With that in mind, the news that a movie based on Broken Sword, the long-running point and click adventure series of games, isn’t exactly awe-inspiring. In fact, it produces a shrug from me of such insignificance to be almost impossible to see with the naked eye.
However, in an interview with IncGamers, Charles Cecil, the man behind Broken Sword, not only revealed he was in “the planning” stages of the film and currently “re-writing the game to work as a film,” but he also went to great lengths to explain the differences between the mediums and why crossovers don’t always work.
He said:
“It’s vital to respect that the mediums are very different in terms of exciting the audience: in a game, it is primarily the player than needs to be motivated so a hero with little backstory works well – as the game progresses, the player learns about the character at the same rate that the character learns about himself.”
“A movie, however, is driven by the goals and conflict of the protagonist, creating an empathetic engagement between the audience and the protagonist – so requiring a complex character with an interesting past. A significantly different approach.”
Cecil is spot-on and the fact he understands the difference between the mediums and the need to basically start from scratch when turning a video game into a movie makes me more confident Broken Sword won’t be yet another lazy translation that gets bad reviews and makes no money at the box-office.
Fingers crossed.
You’re both morans. The reason video game movies don’t work is cause hollywood gives the license to the crappiest screenwriters and the corniest directors. Guys that don’t even play the game, only try it out just before they make them. Oh, this is cool, it has a fan base, let’s turn it into a movie. That’s why movies suck, because for one, america is lazy and just doesn’t care, and for two they give things to the wrong people. You know how you write a video game movie, you play the game to it’s fullest, beat the game, and then look back at all that you went through. If there isn’t much dialogue, then you change it to best fit the scenario, but you don’t just make something entirely new based off of what you think would be cool. You cater to the die hard fans, that are expecting to see pretty much the same story only with live actors. Name one video game movie made by a decent director or written by a decent writer. Name one. Wait til I become a Director, im in the process of screenwriting now. Remember the name.
S. N. P. R. Suckahhhhs!!!!!
i agree with seven … i hope the movie stays true to the fans that grew up playing point’n click adventure games such as broken sword.