With the news or Alan Wake getting a TV show and The Last of Us is on the way, it has got me thinking, will it work? So many shows or films use such a great concept found in games and yet it just ends up being wasted on screen. Its something that I struggle to understand since you have such a great plot to follow, how can some of these shows miss so bad?
Halo is the most recent mess. Changing Master Chiefs’ character completely. Even simple things like never seeing his face is important to his character. Yet the Halo series clearly didn’t like that. Even if you hadn’t played Halo it’s evident that its poorly written.
There are heaps of examples such as Doom the film, Tomb Raider, Uncharted, Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil and Assassin’s Creed. There’s more beyond that but I would end up with a massive list. All of these beloved franchises are adapted so poorly to film. Resident Evil is probably the most surprising as it has good plot, zombies (which has been done countless times in good films) and their twist is Umbrella Corp to make it unique. Yet, the Resident Evil films aren’t great.
What ones have worked?
Now we have seen the odd few work. The Witcher was a global success, still, that was originally a book. Sonic has worked even though it’s no masterpiece, it is still enjoyable and keeps the essence of Sonic. Sonic has done its best to please the fandom and it’s worked, particularly after the fiasco of the original trailer.
Then we have some like Arcane, which is brilliant, Cuphead and of course Pokémon, although Pokémon is on an entirely different level for how big it is. They work simply because they follow the foundations the game had laid out for them while speeding things up or skipping through some unnecessary parts.
Why don’t they usually work?
What is the main reason for this? It’s hard to know, but it mainly comes down to the lack of loyalty to the original, and lack of passion as sometimes it can come across as a cash grab. Even for the Halo series, the creators said they didn’t look at the game. How do you not look at what you’re basing your series off?
I hope The Last of Us and the many others can prove us wrong. It has good actors and an amazing story to use. If HBO uses the game as its foundation and follows what made it great then there’s no doubt the series will be fantastic.