Video Game Movies For Non-Gamers
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on September 30th, 2011 4:36 am by HL
Video Game Movies For Non-Gamers
Via io9, Forbes has an interesting piece about David Maisel, the former Marvel executive who helped engineer the DNA that animates the current crop of superhero movies, and his turn to video game movies, asking if he can mainstream them in the same way. I hope this is the case. I’m continuing to play my […]
Via io9, Forbes has an interesting piece about David Maisel, the former Marvel executive who helped engineer the DNA that animates the current crop of superhero movies, and his turn to video game movies, asking if he can mainstream them in the same way.
I hope this is the case. I’m continuing to play my very pokey way through Portal, but given how low my skill level is and how long it’s taking me, it’s going to be ages before I’m remotely ready to play something like World of Warcraft or Halo in a way that would actually allow me to enjoy it and get something out of it. But I’m incredibly interested in the mythologies of those worlds, Halo in particular, to the extent that I’ve actually considered buying some of the novels set in that universe (if anyone’s read them, give a holler and let me know if they’re good). And I’d love an alternate path into them. Because I mean, seriously: theocratic aliens? A souped-up United Nations? A futuristic Africa? This stuff is so right up my alley it hurts.
I understand there are a lot of challenges to making these good movies. There are big complex continuities that have to be dealt with, high special effects costs that will have to be made back by bigger sales at lower prices. But it would be nice for folks to figure out video game movies, and for some day, for the funding for a Neill Blomkamp Halo movie to hold together. Big mythologies that start in books, like Harry Potter, generally end up in game space sooner or later, even if it’s only to give players the option to explore the world rather than to extend the core narrative. I’d love to see that dynamic work in the opposite direction, too. These are big, powerful stories if they’re leaching into the collective imagination of even those of us who are terrible at video games.
