Quote:
Originally posted by Chuck the plant@Jan 6 2006, 08:28 PM
I'm not talking about making the movie EXACTLY like the game. Yet the very background-story could've made for an interesting movie just because of the twist that those beings are neither aliens nor genetic mutants but spawn from hell itself. Of course the movie could and should never begin and end with the hero bashing and shooting armies of enemies and follow him all the while he does it. It's about the idea behind it. And skipping that was the BIGGEST flaw in an already not-so-clever movie project. If one wants to turn a franchise into a movie, one of the WORST ideas is to drop everything that made the franchise interesting and cool and trying to "invent it new". Never worked, never will.
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The problem here is that it becomes a mixed genre film. People are not necessarily prepared for a science fiction film that includes fantasy elements. The Real Ghostbusters animated series comes closest to doing both simultaneously, and may even have succeeded. Hellboy may also have succeeded. Unfortunately, you cannot easily combine demonic forces and technobabble explanations. As soon as you call demons some monster from another dimension, they are transformed from dark forces of evil to evil aliens/mutants.
While the background story of Hell opening a gate into the physical universe at one of the moons of Mars may have some dramatic possibilities; unless Doom 3 is a lot different from the first two, it is not what inspired a lot of fans to play the game.
Another problem (affecting the entire Science Fiction and Fantasy genres of the art of cinema) is that Hollywood mis-attributes the success of computer games to the flashy graphics and not to the real reason of incorporating engaging storylines into the gameplay. A case in point is Microsoft's Crimson Skies which arranges the campaign on what would make for a very good radio play (nearly a lost art, in itself, saved by the audio book). Action adventure films seem to try to emulate the computer games, instead of provide what the computer game cannot.
While I am on a rant, the worst thing about commercial cinema is that more money is made by merchandising and other tie-ins than the proper cinematic business of getting people to watch the film. The whole point of the pod race in The Phantom Menace was to ensure that there would be an exciting video game associated with the film. The films suffer from the quality of the film going experience being less important than the tie-ins.