Rey Schaffner – Staff Writer

rls6117@psu.edu

Was the 1993 movie adaptation of the “Super Mario Bros.” game a flop or something to look back at to avoid recreating? Should Constantin Films have rebooted the “Resident Evil” series with their 2021 movie “Resident Evil: Welcome to Racoon City”? Was Paramount’s decision to fix the design in the “Sonic The Hedgehog” movie the right call? 

To some fans, those answers will vary. For some people who watched recent video game adaptations to film or a TV series, they raise a stance of there being a curse when taking the original content and transferring it to film or TV series. They suggest that video game to film or series adaptation is not as good as their original content and that they are not the same when adapting a book to film. 

However, IGN tackles this important question and in their answer, in short, is the video game to movie adaptation is a myth. How so? Let’s take a look.

While looking at older adaptations, such as the 1993 “Super Mario Bros.” movie, people might brush them off since they’re not up to par with the technology we have today to make better video game adaptations. If we look at the “Super Mario Bros.” movie that Illumination is producing with Nintendo, they are not going for a live action stance, but rather one where it compliments Mario and his band of friends: animation. 

With a live action adaptation to a video game like “Super Mario Bros.”, there is so much limitation with human actors that when filming, there is a lack of cartoonish expressions that Mario has, such as the Goombas for example. In the 1993 live action adaptation, the Goombas are actual people and not their mushroom counterpart. With animation, Illumination can now recreate the cartoonish designs of the video game as well as keep the story of the game without moving away from it. 

Does that make the 1993 “Super Mario Bros.” movie a cursed adaptation? At that time, some fans would say no. Some would say yes. Looking at it in 2023, it was a step forward to bring video game adaptations to life.

Taking the route of TV series, popular online multiplayer game “League of Legends” was able to get into the action of getting their game adapted into a TV series. There is one problem with “League of Legends” or simply known as “League” getting an adaptation: which characters are going to be seen? With “League” having a full roster of different characters that cater to different player’s playstyles, it would be difficult to explore the entire lore of “League” to those who don’t know the game as well as “League” players. However, Fortiche, a French animation studio, and Netflix made it happen. 

In 2021, “Arcane” became a big hit among “League” and non “League” players alike. This is where the curse of video game adaptation first made an appearance. While it is hard to make a TV or even film adaptation with a game like “League”, the writers behind “Arcane” were able to bring this online multiplayer game where there are many characters to choose from to life. Not only bring it to life, but introduce a whole new world to people who have never played “League of Legends.” With the massive success behind “Arcane,” this series would go on to prove that the video game adaptation curse is nothing but a myth.

Looking at a more recent adaptation, HBO Max has certainly gained plenty of praise for their adaptation of the beloved PlayStation game “The Last of Us.” Director of the series, Craig Mazin, has joined with Naughty Dog and writer behind “The Last of Us”, Neil Druckmann, to recreate the fan favorite game into something new and meaningful.

Taking the original story of “The Last of Us” and the DLC “Left Behind”, they combined both of those games together as well as adding in some more background and key details that were left unanswered by fans.

As a big fan of “The Last of Us” myself, I would find myself picking out scenes that were left out, as well as those recreated perfectly. Call me one of those fans that is nitpicking the series, but that is not what I am doing. I am comparing the direction they took to keep this from being a shot-for-shot adaptation that could become boring to fans of the series. 

With giving more character development to background characters, such as fan favorite, Bill, fans got to connect to that character on a deeper level with the TV series rather than in the game. In the game, Bill was a character who helped Joel and Ellie progress further in their journey towards Wyoming. In the TV series, Bill was a survivor of the cordyceps infection and met his significant other, Frank. It recreated a whole different character for Bill as we see him and Frank live out the rest of their lives as a happy couple within the apocalypse. 

Frank, in the TV series, was explicitly shown that he had a relationship with Bill. When compared to the game, it was implied that Bill and Frank were lovers. While that episode heavily deviated from the game, it was a creative liberty that needed to be taken to avoid the shot-for-shot adaptation.

With “The Last of Us” being a heavily praised video game to TV series adaptation, there are other video game adaptations that prove that this curse is a myth. When Paramount first released the teaser trailer for the live action “Sonic the Hedgehog” movie, it received a massive amount of criticism with the design of the lovable blue blur known as Sonic. Taking a more realistic approach to the character, Paramount walked down a different route than what fans were expecting with the new trailer. Seeing that they turned Sonic into something that tried to act realistic, they made the character a bit of a nightmare for fans who love the series. 

I am not a fan of the  “Sonic the Hedgehog,” Paramount created before the movie was released, along with all the fans who gave the studio criticism. However, taking the criticism of the fans into account, their voices were heard and the toothy almost ultra realistic Sonic design from the original concept was scrapped. Paramount redesigned Sonic to give fans a more true to the game look. 

Unfortunately, there are the cases where bad adaptations have been made. Such as 2016’s “Assassin’s Creed” movie, 2012’s “Silent Hill: Revelation,” 2005’s “Doom,” and plenty more. While there are many bad adaptations of video games, there are also still sure to be great ones that are made and are going to be made in the future.

It just all depends on who is making them, how they do it, and the direction the movie goes in. It can be hard to adapt certain video games into TV or movie adaptations.

Using “The Last of Us” as an example, with iconic characters such as Joel and Ellie, HBO could not recast their voice actors, Troy Baker as Joel and Ashley Johnson as Ellie, for their roles once more. Rather they would have to find actors who are similar to Joel and Ellie in not only appearance, but able to capture the two different personalities that are forced to come together. 

In regards to whether the video game adaptation is a curse for those looking to create film media, I am going to agree with IGN’s stance on this matter. However, I want to give another idea to this madness. Book to film adaptations can be categorized in this argument as well. 

There are plenty of good book to movie adaptations, but there are also plenty of bad ones. Does that make the book to movie adaptation a curse as well? Simply put, no. 

It just all depends on different variables and the direction the production studio makes in order to stay true to the original material. Video games can be seen as a visual book or even a movie itself. With them being adapted into a movie or TV series, it can take the same direction as some book to movie adaptations that were made. What matters is the choices the production studio has to make in order to transfer original material over into film or TV series. 

I for one look forward to seeing more video game to movie or TV series adaptations going forward. One I am very excited about is Netflix’s adaptation of “Horizon Zero Dawn,” one of my personal favorite video games. 

There are plenty more on the horizon that I am looking forward to seeing and how they can continue to break the myth behind the curse of video game adaptations.