Video games are obsessed with🐬 achieving the prestige of television and movies. For decades now we’ve seen countless properties adapting to differ🙈ent mediums in order to appeal to a wider audience, or to reach a level of artistic merit that games are apparently incapable of achieving. The thing is - they totally are.
God of War, The Last of Us, Life is Strange, Celeste, Elden Ring, Fallout, The Witcher 3, and so many others boast poignant narrative ideasܫ and character arcs that more than stand on their own. Yet several of the names listed above have or are set to receive adaptations on the small or silver screen, either bringing over existing storylines we already have or seeking to tell a new story that distances itself entirely, like they’re almost embarrassed to be inspired by them.
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168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Last of Us is one of the latest examples - which I’ll be sure to write about in further detail soon - that will seemingly translate the game’s existing narrative with few changes. Even certain actors from Naughty Dog’s masterpiece will reprise their roles, which when combined with leaked set pictures and interviews culminates in a HBO limited series that꧋ will tread familiar ground for newcomers and veterans alike. It feels unnecessary, and will be lacking the agency that made the game’s stronger moments that much more effective.
We know where Joel and Ellie’s journey will take them, regardless of how fantastic a performance Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey give in their respective roles. Part of me hopes that it will take the story in unexpected new directions, or even briefly divert onto a different path to introduce characters and locations not found in the game. I don’t mind reaching the same conclusion, the problem lies in knowing the sequence of events and rhythm in which they will play out. There’s no fun in that execution, and with Neil Druckmann playing a major role in the project I can’tಞ help but think that what awaits us is going to be a pedestrian example of prestige that seeks to ape the game while also leaving it behind.
Games have followed this path for decades, with movies based on properties failing to capture the right elements or butchering the source material in ways nobody could have imagined. But at least films and shows like this are trying to be different, either out of 🥀sheer ignorance or an actual desire to try something new. Take the Super Mario Bros. film for example. It&💙rsquo;s terrible, so much so that I can’t believe Nintendo ever allowed it to happen in the first place. Despite its awfulness, it’s so fucking weird and creatively diverse that it has cemented itself as a cult classic in the pantheon of video game adaptations. There is nothing else like it, but the odds of anything like it happening again are almost zero.
The medium has matured, with the majority of triple-A blockbus🍰ters now being nuanced narrative experiences that put emotional investment at the forefront. God of War, The Last of Us, Days Gone, and Horizon are all built upon this third-person blueprint. They want to make us care, they want to make us cry, and they want us to take them very seriously. Sony isn’t about space marines or plumbers, it’s about serious storytelling even if this drive to be different eventually leads to it being derivative. A path it is already walking down, and will never divert from if adaptations like The Last of Us and God of War seek to recreate their progenitors with so little imagination. Amazon is eyeing up a production of the latter, and it will more than likely take inspiration from the 2018 reboot than the juvenile PS2 trilogy. So we can expect similar character arcs, locations, and themes that seek to imitate ratღher than iterate, and that’s a big problem for Sony right now.
We saw this with the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Uncharted film. The majority of its set pieces are ripped directly from the film, with the cargo plane sequence and auction house scene proving to be achingly predictable. It is far more enjoyable when it does its own thing, creating distinct versions of these characters that embark on adventures we’ve not seen before. Their person൩alities and motivations remain the same, but with the right filmmaker at the helm these interpretations can be expanded upon instead of morphing into dry copycats. Ace the fundamentals and curate your own vision once those aspects are nailed, otherwise you’ll end up boring.
Maybe I’m just being too negative about God of War being turned into a television show, or paranoid that there isn’t much ground for it together without falling victim to tiresome fantasy tropes or tripping over itself to repeat storylines we’ve seen time and time again. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Make Kratos Black, and turn this adaptation into something we&rs🐻quo;ve never seen before.
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