When considering adaptations . . . (Gaming)

by cheapLEY , Monday, March 19, 2018, 17:32 (2237 days ago) @ Harmanimus

Not making a personal judgement here, I just think that it is more than fair to suggest that even a game that takes that long to complete can be brought into the scope of a standard movie.

I think it's totally possible, but not easy. The Last of Us, more than many games that I can think of, can't just be boiled down to its cutscenes. That's a bare bones presentation of its story, and a lot of the more important (or at least impactful) things happen through gameplay. Cruel's example of seeing Ellie go from hiding to outright attacking enemies. The first encounter with a Clicker. The boiler room. Even the giraffe scene, which is partly cutscene, I guess, but unfolds through gameplay of Ellie dropping the ladder and freaking out, while the player scrambles to find another way up to her, assuming that something bad is happening.

There's a lot of small, almost incidental moments that would necessarily have to be lost to avoid making a four hour movie. It could still work, but, and it could still be good, but it would definitely lose something in the translation. I'd be bummed to not see that giraffe scene in a movie, for example, but it's something that I could easily see being left out of a movie adaption in the name of time.