Why not? (Gaming)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Monday, March 19, 2018, 12:53 (2237 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

First, I understand the impulse to leave a masterpiece well enough alone. That idealistic dream died the day they announced The Last of Us, Part II. The latter will certainly change how people experience the first game. It already has: anyone who has seen the trailer for part two cannot play through part one and experience it the way I did (I'm thinking especially of how unsettled I felt at the beginning of the Winter section).

The Last of Us has a great story that could be made into a great script without much trouble. Get the right talent attached, and that script (like any other great script) could be made into a great film. Sure, the experience will be different without the interactivity or length, but so what? Books engage us imaginatively in ways that movies do not, but just because the experience of reading a novel is often richer and deeper than watching its movie adaptation hasn't stopped scores of movies from being made from novels, many of them excellent.

Sure, we can hope to get people involved who know how to take advantage of the unique qualities of film and use those in the service of the story, but really, what is wrong with bringing great stories to a wider audience? Visual fidelity, schmelity. Not everyone who would appreciate the narrative has the time or the tools to experience it in video game form.

I think a crucial part of the balancing act here is the distinction between adaptation (or retelling) vs taking an existing story or franchise and doing new things with it in a different medium (I'm sure there's a German word for that, right?).

Adaptations are particularly problematic in many cases. Lets take The Last of Us. Why does it need to be a movie? Well one answer, as you mentioned, would be to get it out to a broader audience. But as soon as we go down that road, I ask myself questions like:
a) What makes The Last of Us unique?

The characters are unique in the way that any well-drawn characters are.

Totally agree there... I was thinking more in an all-encompassing sense, though. Not just the characters or plot or setting, but the entire experience of playing The Last of Us. Everything from the way world-building is communicated to the length of time you spend with the characters, to the way storytelling is handled through interactive gameplay. This last point is huge, in this case. Take for example the way we see Ellie begin to fight for herself as you get into more and more combat throughout the game; it's not pointed out or made explicit at first. She just slowly starts fighting back on her own more and more, rather than running and hiding as she does at first. We see character development happen in ways that directly effect our actions. (I almost got killed by thug the first time I saw Ellie clock someone with a brick, I almost died because I was so distracted by the sight, I actually stopped fighting).

A film can certainly get those points across, but this is one of those cases where the delivery is crucial. Showing Ellie grow stronger in a movie is not the same kind of experience as witnessing it in a truly stressful gameplay scenario. I'm not saying one is better or worse... they're just 2 different experiences. And what feels like an incredible, stand-out moment in a videogame (due to its combination of effectiveness and rarity) might just feel like the basic character development in a movie. It certainly doesn't have to pan out that way, but that's often the result with adaptations. Since the original version was built with a particular medium in mind, and adaptations rarely account for the differences in medium properly (and when they do, fans of the original get all pissed off that the adaptation changed things, lol).

b) Would the things that make it unique get lost in the translation to film?

The tension of surviving a tough fight using your own hands in an interactive video game would be lost, but the tension inherent in situations could certainly be translated to film. If the film is effective, we have emotional and physical reactions to what we see on the screen regardless of whether we can control anything.

Again, I'd argue that many of the particular things that make TLoU so special wouldn't translate to film specifically because interactive storytelling is capable of doing things that a film cannot (the opposite is also true, of course).

c) If so, is what's left over worth making, or does it basically already exist?

In my mind, if a Last of Us movie gets made, and by some miracle it gets made right... we already have The Road. We already have Logan. There are already great versions of that story done on film. Obviously, they're not the same story, but they're close enough in all the ways that really matter that a movie version of TLoU feels redundant to me in the absolute best case scenario.

There are great versions of every story already made. Shane was made 64 years before Logan. I liked Logan, but I wasn't nearly as invested in the characters as I was in Joel and Ellie. I couldn't make it through the Road.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that a story isn't worth telling if it has already been told before. Quite the opposite. I soak up as much mythology as I can, and that's basically the same 2 or 3 stories told a thousand different ways :)

In this specific case, my thinking is that Logan is so close to a movie adaptation of The Last of Us, that I as a fan feel like that void has already been filled. It's missing a few key elements (plot points, obviously, but specific layers to the characters as well), but that would likely be true of any film adaptation of that story. This is less a knock against the possibility of a great TLoU movie, and more just my pessimistic thinking on the likely results of a TLoU movie. If one gets made and ends up being great, I'll be absolutely thrilled. But I'm skeptical because the decision to make a movie adaptation of a popular videogame is often based on what I would consider to be "the wrong reasons".

Going back to my initial question: why does it need to be made into a movie? I think there is another answer to this question. I think gamers are eager to have this medium that we love accepted by the greater culture, and that requires sharing what we love with others. But we aren't likely to convince our non-gamer friends to buy a playstation or Xbox and then spend 10-15 hours playing a game like The Last of Us just so they can find out why we love it so much. Somewhere in our heads, I think we assume that it would be easier to get them to watch a movie version of our favorite game, and maybe then they'd realize how great it is, and maybe then games wouldn't be stigmatized they way they still are (although not nearly as much as they used to be).

For the record, you're not describing my thinking. I think the story presented in the Last of Us is worthy of a larger audience by its own merit. I don't think there's another story I've experienced in a game that I feel that way about.

No, I'm sure you don't think of it that way, and I didn't mean to imply that I thought you did. Sorry if it came across that way.

If I'm right about that, it's a bit of a self-conscious desire. And it leads to a sort of false sense of demand to see certain movies get made. I think there is plenty of room to make a great movie in the universe of The Last of Us. Possibly even with those same characters. But to take the plot from the game and turn that into a movie just doesn't make sense to me. It's too much of a square peg/round hole situation. A mini series? Sure. That would be a better fit. But I think its important for storytellers to be realistic about the strengths and weaknesses of any given medium before using that medium to tell a story, and I just don't see how anyone could look at the story of The Last of Us and say "yes, a movie would be a great way to tell that story", regardless of how many more people might watch it. I think one of the reasons the game had as much impact as it did was because Naughty Dog told a story that was truly best told the way they told it, and everyone who played it felt that on some level.

You bring up a great point, which is that a longer form like a mini-series could work better for the Last of Us simply because it'd be easier. The variety of experiences Joel and Elly go through is important to the story, and condensing those would be challenging, but far from impossible. The intangible thing missing from these dry arguments is whatever is brought into it through the creativity and talent of the people involved. If the people involved understand and appreciate the characters and themes in the story, I say go for it.

A longer format would help with creating something closer to a 1:1 translation, but as you say, that certainly isn't the only way to go. And your point about whatever new elements are brought to the table by the people involved is huge. The Dark Knight was a good movie, but I know I wouldn't like it half as much as I do if it weren't for Heath Ledger's performance. Nobody could have predicted that by looking at the film "on paper".

I just hope that if/when a TLoU movie gets made, it happens because a team of creative and talented people have a great vision for how and why to do it, and are able to pull it off. I think movie adaptations of games/books are too often simple cash grabs, or on the sympathetic side, misguided pursuits. At least with movie adaptations of books, there are more obvious reasons to do it. The mediums are so fundamentally different, there are more clear cut trade-offs (a movie can't be as long or detailed, but it can use visuals and audio to communicate on multiple layers at the same time).

And I think that's Cody's point--there's not much difference so why do it? My answer: because the story is that good.

Very separate from my conversation with you, Kermit, I just wish people in general were a little more open to stepping outside their usual comfort zones to experience cool things. I don't typically read comics, but if a friend of mine is telling me that he's reading this great comic and I should really check it out, I go buy the comic and read it for myself. I don't say "I'll just wait for them to make a movie out of it". Same actually goes for TV shows. As a rule, I watch zero Television day to day, unless there is a specific show that I'm interested in seeing. I totally get that people all have preferences for certain types of media or entertainment, and I'm no different. But if someone creates something that everyone says is awesome, I want to experience it even if its not in a form that I typically digest. To me that's just part of enjoying art and entertainment. I assume the creator(s) chose that specific medium for a reason, and sometimes that reason ends up being crucial to what they've created.

I'm with you. I already mentioned my friend who unsuccessfully tried to play TLoU at my request. I have a number of friends who are connoisseurs of great stories, and my selfish reason for wanting a good TLoU movie is so that they can experience that story (I don't think its greatness is dependent on how things are revealed in gameplay, although you do a great job in explicating that.) As is, the story is behind an insurmountable barricade (for several of my friends). I know they'd appreciate it if they could experience it, but modern video games (and the vocabulary and skill necessary to get through them) just aren't in their wheelhouse.