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Ebert on videogames etc.
Æthelred
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Has anyone else been following the whole "videogames will never be art" thing from Roger Ebert? He's just reviewed the Hitman film and it really annoyed me the assumptions he made without a single attempt to fact-check, so I thought I'd share.
The "obligatory video game requirements" are of course the exact opposite - they're film requirements! You don't run down corridors shooting people in the games, unless you're rubbish at them. And then Ebert goes on to finish with:
So if the producer didn't even look at the game much.. how can the film's shortcomings be blamed on the game? Bleh.
Roger Ebert wrote:The movie, directed by Xavier Gens, was inspired by a best-selling video game and serves as an excellent illustration of my conviction that video games will never become an art form -- never, at least, until they morph into something else or more.
[...]
To the degree the movie explores their [47 and a Russian girl's] relationship, it is absorbing. There is also intrigue at the highest levels of Russian politics, as the moderate Belikoff is apparently targeted for death. All of that is well done. Other scenes, which involve Agent 47 striding down corridors, an automatic weapon in each hand, shooting down opponents who come dressed as Jedi troopers in black. These scenes are no doubt from the video game. The troopers spring into sight, pop up and start shooting, and he has target practice. He also jumps out of windows without knowing where he's going to land, and that feels like he's cashing in a chip he won earlier in the game. If you want to see what Agent 47 might have seemed like without the obligatory video game requirements, I urge you to rent Jean-Pierre Melville's "Le Samourai" (1967), which is about a lone-wolf assassin in Paris (Alain Delon). He too works alone, is a professional, cuts off his emotions, seems lonely and cold. But the movie is about him, not his killing score.
The "obligatory video game requirements" are of course the exact opposite - they're film requirements! You don't run down corridors shooting people in the games, unless you're rubbish at them. And then Ebert goes on to finish with:
Roger Ebert wrote:The key producer on "Hitman" was Adrian Askarieh, who told Variety he doesn't consult or collaborate with the makers of a video game he has purchased for filming, but focuses on the characters and situation. Wise. To the degree he doesn't try to reproduce the aim-and-shoot material, he has a movie here. To the degree Olyphant and Kurylenko can flesh out their characters, they do.
So if the producer didn't even look at the game much.. how can the film's shortcomings be blamed on the game? Bleh.
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Nothing to see here.
And I decided that well before I heard him say anything about video games, so it's not just me lashing out.
it is a movie based on a video game
most or all of the moview ebert reviews that are video game based are crappy
ebert concludes that video game movies are bad because they come from video games.
honestly the only way to change his opinion is for there to be a good video game movie. I dont really blame him. It just never happens.
Ebert makes me so angry. He's just a troll, except someone pays him for his opinions.
edit: Deus, agreed it never happens. But I would posit that most of the time, it's either because the wrong game is chosen to be adapted, or because some assclown decided that the story needed to be screwed with to fit Hollywood standards.
This is the same as a games reviewer concluding that all films except Goldeneye and Chronicles or Riddick are bad because of bad film license games.
I do blame him.
I don't think he's as wrong as much as he is missing the point entirely. Games are about crafting your own story. They are the sets, the costumes and the scripts for what can be an excellent work of high performance art. Or they can be shallow technical marvels. Or they can be braindead diversions. Sounds like another medium I know!
Anyway, he's not going to change, we're not going to change, and the argument has been done to death. Not to try to assassinate this thread, but I don't see any good here, other than maybe discussing the Hitman movie or making fun of Doom.
Edit: Elaboration and clarity.
excatly. start the petition for the half-life movies! Pronto!
which still isnt necessarily true (goldeneye, riddick), but it sure as hell is true pretty often.
edit: his reasoning reaches a little far and I don't agree with some of his end conclusions, but I still say the cause of everything are so many fucking poor video game movies.
I just looked over the list on wiki. None of those are GREAT movies. None, in video games' 20+ year history.
Whats the highest rated one on rotten tomatoes? I got a 28% so far on Silent Hill... will keep looking. Succeeded by 43% Final Fantasy TSW. Fuck and thats by a wide margin. Everything else is sub 30%. What a bunch of schlock. What a waste of potential
The best ones are based not on real video games, like eXitenZ, or Avalon.
Didnt we stop caring what that man said long time ago, both in relation to games and movies.
Sounds like it's time to get on that, posthaste.
I'M A TWITTER SHITTER
I'm pretty sure we stopped caring as soon as siskel went all room temperature.
The best thing about the Doom movie is the Soundtrack.
It's by Clint Mansell, who composed Lux Aeterna which is used on so many trailers, does the OST for all Darren Aronofsky films (Pi, Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain) also Elevenfounteen, and The Hole, and he used to lead singer/guitarist in Pop Will Eat Itself.
The Doom soundtrack has a remix that Mansell did of "You Know What You Are?" by Nine Inch Nails. Trent Reznor did the music for the first Quake, another one of iD's games.
Whenever I have trouble sleeping, I stick on "The Fountain OST" and I always fall asleep just aftetr the last track.
Exactly.
Except he doesn't know films either. Well, in a way. His opinions on them have been increasingly dissonant over the past few years so much so that many other mainstream competing critics and publications disregard him as much as we do.
Even more painful is when he spouts nonsense about games as fact.
You sir are correct.
This I do not disagree with. The worst thing? Everything else.
Slow news day?
We should start a rumour to liven things up a bit around here.
But then he'd have to say he was wrong about video games.
And compared to other movies based on licensed products (Bratz comes to mind) video game movies aren't all that bad. I'm more likely to blame the poor quality of VG films on Hollywood's design-by-committee process than the source material.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
His argument is pretty retarded. As others have said, most of the scenes he complains about are not from the Hitman games; running and gunning is the exact opposite of those games.
He wasn't nearly as big a moron as the tubby guy.
He insisted that the X-Men were ripping off the Justice League.
Who apparently have the Human torch as a member. (Who Pyro is a ripoff of...and also not even in the same company as the Justice League) and Storm is a rip-off of the Flash.
Yes, the weather-wielding black woman who is revered as a Goddess is the smart-alecky super-fast red-headed white guy.
Hmm.
You know it would involve at least one Gordon-Alyx sex scene.
...Actually, I'm cool with that.
My personal example is when he was complaining that the space ships from the remake of War of the Worlds only had three legs, because this is the 21st century and we've moved past that, as if the definition of a plane changed when the ball dropped or something.
I've heard good things about it
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
When he's off, though? He's wayyy off. The 'War of the Worlds' remake review was one of those times.
He didn't like the remake, because the aliens were tripods, and that's 'not economical'.
What?!
EDIT: Hahah Cerevetus, we spoke of the same review, but different portions.
Durrr. There's even a scene where they fiddle with a bike and appear to go "what the hell, wheels?"
I'm just saying that maybe Roger Ebert and his ilk might give games a chance if intellectually vapid titles like Halo were not considered to be the state of the art.
I am so, so glad that the 'next generation' of movie critics that'll come when he either retires or drops dead will be those brought up on games and so with a bit more respect for them, because right now talk like this is in the way of games being viewed as a more mainstream thing, even if the tides currently are changing.
XBL/PSN/Steam: APZonerunner
This is also true of 90% of the movies he reviews.
So, while I wouldn't compare titles like Halo or Gears of War to Heinlein or Phillip K. Dick, they engage you and make you feel like you are doing something meaningful in a place that could actually exist. Films that can accomplish that have no problem selling tickets.
Actually, I'm wondering if we're talking about the same thing and I just got it wrong. >.>