On Botched Cinematic Transformations of Video Games

Abstract

It has been twenty years since Lev Manovich described the growing prominence of the cinematic in digital environments, claiming that cinema has managed to pour into computers and overtake the old printed word in the role of the dominant cultural interface shaping the design of operating systems, websites, apps, video games and other artifacts of digital culture. Mostly, the cinematic-digital convergence has been smooth, but there is at least one area where despite the natural proximity of both media, almost all attempts at transmedia metamorphosis have failed, that is, movies based on video game storyworlds. Whether it is 1993 Super Mario bros or 2016 Assassin’s creed, video-game-based films are almost universally panned by critics and lukewarmly received by fans, typically either being box office bombs or grossing below expectations. It appears clear that there are numerous factors contributing to this, ranging from economic ones, through broadly technical and aesthetic ones, to general decisions concerning the purpose of the adaptations. This chapter will attempt to trace recurring patterns leading to the films’ failure focusing on the aesthetic differences between the experience of a video game and that of a movie, by looking at particular examples across video game genres, and then rethink and expand some of the typical arguments voiced against them by movie critics and journalists.