Naughty Dog’s Uncharted series are some of my favorite games of this generation, or ever. They are well-made, exciting, and have the sort of gripping storytelling and character development that so often eludes game developers entirely. Their cinematic nature makes the series seem like a shoe-in for film adaptation, but the director attached to the film, David O. Russell, seemed dead set on not drawing from the games. Like, at all.
But with his recent departure from the project, a new director, Neil Burger, has stepped in to fill the void, and what he has to say about where the production is going now makes me happier than a Marvel fan at an Iron Man premiere. Specifically of the games’ content: “…there’s a lot of cool, really intense things that, if they work for the film’s story, I want to use them.”
After months of hearing Russell’s occasional remarks that were, at best, vaguely disparaging of the very concept of drawing from the games themselves, it’s refreshing to hear that someone that respects what the games have done is at the wheel. The Uncharted movie may just be one to watch again.
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There’s hope for this yet. We’ve come a long way from how the film was originally shaping up.
Videogame movie adaptations have an obvious chequered history though, so I’ll approach this one with caution. I hope it pulls through, because as a fellow fan of the first two games I don’t particularly want to see the franchise soiled in any way.
Just as an aside, I think the best game-to-movie conversion I’ve ever seen was Silent Hill. The movie was decent in itself (not particularly ground breaking, but certainly watchable) but they nailed the theme, atmosphere and point of the whole thing down really well. Stark contrast to the Resident Evil films, which I had no idea what the fuck was going on with from the first one onwards.
Silent Hill, indeed. A completely unappreciated film that really did its job well.
Uncharted is the type of game that could translate wonderfully into a movie. Russell’s version was rather offensive, in the sense that to him the game didn’t exist. He wanted the title, that’s all. I hope this new director does better with it.
I thought when I first played Drake’s Fortune that if any game could make a solid movie with little change in the material, that would be it. I’ve been really dismayed by the way the thing was heading in Russell’s hands.
As to previous game films…I haven’t actually seen Silent Hill, horror not really being my genre in either film or gaming. I think the game movie I enjoyed most is actually [prepares to be pelted with rocks] Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, though as an adaptation of the franchise it completely fails.
I never played Silent Hill, but I thought the movie was very interesting, and well done. I also didn’t mind the Hitman movie, if that counts.
I blame the EPs and the marketing departments more than the directors, although they are sometimes at fault too – for lacklustre adaptions. For many in positions of power, movies are seen merely as a means to make money. All else is secondary. And the best way to make lots of money is to ensure that a movie is accessable to all. Greater appeal = more viewers, and more viewers = more money.
This inevitably leads to movies dumbing down their inspirational source, and we kind of end up with a bland (although oft special effects heavy) narrative junket. Just look at Transformers.
Don’t even get me started on Transformers.
I’m actually ashamed that I know, and am friends with some people who have actually asked me “have you seen the new Transformers?” Obviously I give them a stare of death.
And then I put their cat in a fridge.
Transformers 2 is the worst film I’ve ever seen.