I’ve seen a lot of articles that have talked about how badly video game movies have failed, but I haven’t seen any articles on why they’ve failed. Certainly, it seems to be common knowledge that these films are generally rushed through production with poor choices made when it comes to the screenwriters and directors, but there’s an even more basic reason that games don’t work as films. Simply put, it’s all about the experience… but my, how that experience plays a role in the shaping of the story.

Let’s start with a simple example: Super Mario Bros. When this game debuted in the mid-1980s, it was a game unlike anything anyone had seen before. Here was a game where a couple of Italian plumbers bounced around a world of toadstools, pipes, and clouds, fighting turtles, flying fish and dragons, and gaining super powers from mushrooms and glowing flowers. As a narrative, it was a strange bit of whimsy that would have been out of place even in a children’s cartoon show. And yet within the context of the game, everything seemed to make sense. As the player moved from level to level, he or she constructed a story in his or her mind. Much of the mythology that was built up around Super Mario Bros. — the Princess Toadstool, the King Koopa, the irritating mushroom men who told Mario that the princess was in another castle — was based on some scanty storytelling in the instruction manual and game and a massive amount of imagination on the part of the player.

And yet Super Mario Bros. was successful — so much so that the conventions in the first game showed up in many of the sequels as even weirder elements (tanooki suits, Bower flying around in a clown car, a winged hat that could allow Mario to fly)  were introduced into later installments. In the context of the cartoonish world of the Mushroom Kingdom, it made sense that Mario could jump super high, that he could throw fireballs or that he could turn into an invincible statue. What the story couldn’t explain, the gamer’s imagination could. The heavy amount of interaction between the user and the game made these elements make sense.

But look at what happened when filmmakers tried to take this concept and turn it into a live-action film. Suddenly, everything needed to be explained. Mario couldn’t make mighty leaps beyond that of a normal person; instead, he had to put on a pair of rocket-powered boots. He couldn’t fight strange goombas and giant turtles in a magical world of toadstools and pipes; instead, he had to land in a city with a fungus problem that was patrolled by strange, human-like creatures. Bowser couldn’t be a giant, bipedal, fire-breathing dragon with a castle full of leaping lava; instead, he had to be a guy with a forked tongue and a flamethrower.

Did the filmmakers make poor choices in attempting to translate the film? Probably. But these choices were borne out of the fact that the story needed to be built upon so that the audience could understand it, and the selections they made were intended to fill in the “how” and “why” of the video game.

One would think that Super Mario Bros. would be the exception rather than the rule, since many video game movies have been based off games that have had more fully-realized stories. For example, there seemed to be very little reason that a movie based on the Street Fighter series shouldn’t have an interesting story, since Street Fighter II had a compelling cast of characters with great backstories and an overarching plot involving an evil dictator. And yet, because the film needed to establish a hero for the sake of casting stars, the entire story had to be changed so that Jean Claude van Damme could be shoehorned into the world of Street Fighter. Because the film insisted on trying to explain the origins of the green-skinned feral fighter Blanka and the stretchy yogi Dhalsim, ridiculous plot points were added in to try to bring some sense of reality to the story. In the process, many of the memorable moments from the game were lost, and the battle between Guile and M. Bison took center stage while characters like Ryu and Ken were downplayed. The movie entirely missed the point of the elements that made the game great, and it turned memorable characters into uninteresting dolts.

(Ironically enough, the first Mortal Kombat film is remembered as a much better movie than it actually is because it managed to stay more true to the story of the game.)

Alone in the Dark had a wonderfully creepy story told in an H.P. Lovecraft style, and yet it had to be dumbed down to become a studio film. Silent Hill was a genuinely creepy game that told a frightening tale of a fallen angel named Samael that had taken a grip on an Arkham-style town. The movie’s plot had to be condensed and altered to make the story more conventional horror. The Resident Evil games had stories that were too slow-paced to be a film, so the movies focused on high action instead of shambling frights. Doom was about surviving a horrific assult of demonic creatures while solving puzzles; it was turned into a big, dumb action movie that attempted to make sense of a story that didn’t need much explanation.

And therein lies the problem with trying to take an interactive experience and turn it into an inactive experience. A game can have a slow-paced story or a scant story precisely because the gamer is actively involved in the process. The story of a game is a means to an end; it’s the gameplay that the gamer is truly focused upon. Gamers become involved in the characters not because the story makes them interesting, but because the characters are genuinely interesting to play. What’s more, actions that are repetitive and uninteresting to watch in a passive context can be tremendously fun to execute as an active player.

And so, when I hear that games like Halo, Metal Gear Solid, The Legend of Zelda or God of War are being considered for the big screen, I don’t get excited, because I understand that while these games are exciting and fun on their own, they’re unlikely to be good source material for a film. Halo, for example, is such an action-oriented game that signficant retooling would need to occur to the main character (the Master Chief) to make the story compelling to an audience in a theater. Metal Gear Solid has a tremendously cool story, but it’s a game about stealth and patience, two things that don’t pay off well in an action film. What’s more, the goofier moments in Metal Gear Solid (such as the fight with Psycho Mantis) would seem awkward and jarring onscreen, even though they’re riveting during the game itself.  The Legend of Zelda would be awfully hard to shoot with a main character who doesn’t speak, and God of War would be so brutal that it would be difficult to sit through for the recquisite two hours unless Kratos did something more than solve puzzles and kill everything in sight.

Are there any games that could make good films? Maybe, but three things would be required:

1) The story would have to feature a main character who wasn’t a loner — he or she would need to be a character who could interact with others and who could grow over the course of the film.

2) The story would have to have something more than just a bunch of action scenes. It would need to have an unfolding plot, with a structure to it, and a satisfying resolution at the end.

3) The story would need to have a great villain who posed a real threat to the hero, not a series of increasingly difficult foes.  That villain would also need to be a character who could be developed over the course of the story.

Will we ever see a story like that? It could happen. But until then, I think I speak for many gamers when I say that it’s best for us to keep our games and our movies separate. It’s best to enjoy them in the medium in which they were intended.

Actually, I used Arial to create this, but it's practically the same font. Windows PCs come with Arial; Macs come with Helvetica.

I’ve been sharpening my graphic design skills lately, and as I’ve read books on improving the look of my Powerpoint slides, the visual display of quantitative information, and basic typography, I grew interested in a documentary film my brother mentioned to me last year called Helvetica.

“Helvetica?” you might be asking. “Isn’t that a font?”

Not only is Helvetica a font, but it is the font that you’ll see in most graphic design since the 1960s. See, back before personal computers, typesetting and font design was a very complex process — you had to create very detailed illustrations of every character and then ship them to type foundries, where steel pieces would be created for printing presses. Because of this, there was a great need for a simple, “everyman” sort of font that not only was readable and stylish, but neutral.

“Yeah, but why should I care?” you might ask. “All I have to do now is fire up a computer, and I can use any font I want.”

True, but it never hurts to learn about why Helvetica (and copies like Arial) became a visual standard. And it’s even more interesting to see how Helvetica has been used in the creation of logos we see every day:

Granted, you probably will notice some slight variations between these logos and the simple typeface versions I put in the captions — particularly between the “o” and the “s” in “Microsoft”. You’ll also notice some differences in the spacing between letters and some individual flourishes (like the “R” in “TARGET”). But each of these logos begins with Helvetica, and they’re just a small sampling of the many, many corporate logos that are Helvetica-based.

What is it about this font that people like so much? Well, for one thing, it’s very precisely designed, with perfectly round curves, straight lines, and nice arches. The ascenders and descenders (the parts of lowercase letters that go above and below the row of letters) are of a uniform size, and the letters look as good smashed together as they do spaced apart. The font doesn’t have any serifs (the little hooks on the end of letters), which makes it striking and readable from a great distance — perfect for a title. And, most impotant of all, the font appears neutral and safe, making it a reassuring choice for just about any poster, headline or logo.

One of the interesting things mentioned in the documentary is that Helvetica has something of a mythical status as being the perfection of the sans-serif font. The truth of the matter is that it just happened to be the right font for the right time, and it gave companies struggling their way out of the style of the 1950s a chance to simplify their identities and appear more modern. What is interesting is that over the last 50 yeas, Helvetica has fallen out of style and returned to being the dominant font in design, primarily due to the fad of “grunge typography” that typified the 1990s.

Anyhow, the documentary is very interesting, and it’s available on Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” service. You can also get it on Amazon.com. I’d recommend checking it out if you’d like to learn something about graphic design and typography! Even if the content bores you, the photography in the documentary is very good, and it’s interesting to see how and where Helvetica crops up.

“So, you watch about 2 movies a year?” you might be asking. Pretty much. But fortunately, I’ve got a Netflix account, so I have a chance to check out movies that I wouldn’t normally think to watch.

As it happens, I’m trekking over to a friend’s later today to watch Hamlet 2, a film I’m pretty sure I’ll like, and it’s prompting me to think of some other offbeat movies that I’ve enjoyed. Here are five, in no particular order, that I think are worth watching.

If the cover to the director's cut doesn't clue you in, this is a very unusual movie.

Donnie Darko is probably the most serious movie on this list, and I’ll be the first to admit that if you watch this film knowing what you’re going to get, you’ll walk away disappointed. So, I won’t touch on the storyline too much, since part of the fun of this film is asking yourself what’s actually happening.

But here’s the setup. Donnie is a high school student who has a weird experience one night – he sleepwalks outside and meets a strange man in a bunny suit who tells him that the world is going to end 28 days. While Donnie is out, an engine from an airplane crashes into his bedroom. Had he been there, he would have been killed by it.

What follows is a strange series of events as Donnie is asked by Frank to commit some criminal acts around town. These actions cause some peculiar truths to come to light, and Frank assures Donnie that they won’t get caught. Donnie is even more confused when Frank mentions the idea of time travel — something that seems very out of place in this story, but which plays a major role in the film’s premise and conclusion.

I’d recommend this film to anyone who likes a movie that requires a little bit of thought to fully grasp. It’s also one of those movies that’s fun to discuss after you’ve seen it, since many of the themes are subtle and hard to discern your first time through. While Donnie Darko might look like a horror film, it’s really a sci-fi film at heart. It’s just a style of sci-fi that you don’t see often in cinema, since it doesn’t have space ships, laser guns or menacing aliens.

(Check out Donnie Darko on Amazon.com by clicking here)

The Coen brothers are always good for an unusual film...

Raising Arizona is an early film by the Coen brothers (The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, No Country for Old Men, and many others) that’s more than a little strange. The premise of the film is that a petty criminal named “H.I.” keeps going in and out of jail so often that he falls in love with Ed, the woman who takes his mug shots. H.I. soon marries her, and they move into a trailer in the desert, but their marriage is tainted by the fact that they can’t have children, despite the fact that Ed really wants a baby. At the same time, a furniture salesman gets some media coverage as his wife gives birth to quintuplets. H.I. and Ed decide that the parents wouldn’t miss one child, and concoct a crazy scheme to kidnap one of the children and raise it as their own. The rest of the film centers around the hunt for the kidnapped child, and H.I. and Ed’s midadventures along the way.

As you might expect from a Coen brothers film, Raising Arizona is a peculiar mixture of culture, humor and drama that features some decent performances from an oddball cast. Nicholas Cage actually acts capably in this film, and Holly Hunter plays Ed with a intense fervor. John Goodman shows up as one of H.I.’s old criminal buddies, and he plays a large role in the latter half of the movie. There are certainly some bizarre comedic moments in the film (particularly when H.I. and Ed are trying to pick out which baby they’re going to steal), but overall, the movie works well and is worth watching on a night when you’re ready for something a little different.

(Check out Raising Arizona on Amazon.com by clicking here.)

If I have to explain the appeal of this movie to you, you wouldn't understand...

Bubba Ho-tep is a really peculiar film where Bruce Campbell stars as an elderly Elvis Presley who’s found his way into a nursing home because of a cancerous growth on his male member. Whether he’s really Elvis or not is debatable, but the character explains that at the height of his career, he secretly switched places with an impersonator and that the impersonator was the one who died. Elvis, in the meantime, has been touring the country secretly, keeping a low profile, which explains why so many people believe they’ve seen him.

In the nursing home, Elvis meets a man who claims to be JFK, which is odd, since the gentleman is black. When Elvis mentions this fact, JFK nods and says, “I know! They dyed me.”

But this revelation is nothing compared to the fact that folks around the home are dying, having their souls sucked out through their backsides by an ancient Egyptian mummy named Bubba Ho-tep, who’s feeding on the old folks to keep himself alive, but out of the awareness of the authorities. So, Elvis and JFK prepare themselves for a showdown, and equip themselves to take out Bubba Ho-tep once and for all.

If you can’t understand why the movie is awesome from this synopsis, let me add one more thing: Bruce Campbell is brilliant as Elvis. But I’ll also caution you that this film is not a comedy, nor is it as madcap as Army of Darkness. It’s just a peculiar little film that is unlike anything else you’ll ever watch… and definitely perfect for an offbeat evening.

(Check out Bubba Ho-tep on Amazon.com by clicking here.)

A sword and an axe... what a combination!

Six-String Samurai is a real oddity, because it’s one of those movies that defies any sort of logic. In an alternate apocalyptic history, Las Vegas has been ruled by the King of Rock’n'roll until Elvis suddenly dies, leaving a spot for another warrior/musician to take his place. Buddy, a wandering samurai who looks suspiciously like Buddy Holly with a guitar and a katana strapped to his back, makes his way towards the city, but has to fight Soviet cosmonauts, a family of cannibals, and even Death himself along the way.

Apparently, the theme of this film is not so different from that of Don McLean’s song, “American Pie,” since it’s something of an allegory for the death of rock’n'roll at the hands of heavy metal. I personally didn’t feel this film was very deep, but I guess its subtleties were lost on me. Still, it’s a unique movie that’s definitely worth watching, if for nothing else than the action sequences, which are a nice pre-Matrix homage to Hong Kong action films. (That’s partially because the lead actor, Jeffrey Falcon, was in a bunch of Hong Kong films.)

(Check out Six-String Samurai on Amazon.com by clicking here.)

All right, so, "WTF is this?" actually IS the correct response. Now be quiet, eat your popcorn and watch the movie.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension is a film that is so out there that it’s gained true cult status. The premise of the film is that a rock star / physicist / comic book hero / neurosurgeon / samurai named Buckaroo Banzai drives an experimental car through a rift that crosses through several dimensions. He winds up bringing back a strange alien pod that doesn’t have much bearing on the story until later, but in the meantime, Buckaroo and his band of scientists and rockstars known as the “Hong Kong Cavaliers” deal with some other matters, including a company called “Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems,” which it turns out is run by a race of alien repitiles called “Red Lectroids” who all have the first name, “John.”

It’s about halfway through the movie that you find out you’ve been dumped into the middle of a story, and that events that occurred in 1938 (50 years before the movie takes place) have important repercussions on Banzai’s adventure. And things get even weirder from there. I’d summarize it for you, but I think this is just one of those films you have to see to fully appreciate its peculiar brand of insanity.

I’m not sure what the people who were making this movie were thinking. It’s caught somewhere between being too hip and too camp, set in a universe that has an enormous amount of attention to detail for no real good reason, and starring some well-known actors (Peter Weller, John Lithgow, Christopher Lloyd, Jeff Goldblum) who appear to be in on a joke that the audience is never told. The fact that the movie’s title credits boast a sequel that never actually happened tells you something about how overly ambitious this film was.

And yet… there’s something about the film that makes a gem, even if it’s a largely flawed one. It’s well worth watching in the spirit of having fun (and with some spirits, even more so!), but it’s certainly one of those films you walk away from wondering, “what the heck did I just watch?”

(Check out The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension on Amazon.com by clicking here.)

My litmus test for suck.

For me, that movie is Armageddon. It came out the summer after I graduated from high school, and I somehow missed seeing it in the theater. But when I saw it on home video later that year on my first Thanksgiving break away from college, holy crap was I annoyed by it.

You might like Armageddon. You might think it’s a good movie. You might even own a copy for a purpose other than irony.

Well, to you I say: that’s fine. But I won’t be taking any movie advice from you until you realize the error of your ways.

Why do I hate Armageddon so much? First of all, I object to the fact that someone got paid to write the script. The very idea of the movie is stupid. I don’t mind the part about the killer asteroid so much, since that could possibly happen, but the idea of sending a demolition crew of misfits up onto the asteroid to destroy it is just offensive to my sensibilities, especially when one of those misfits is Ben Affleck.

First of all, the science in the film is bad. Really bad. I’ve heard that there have been 168 specific scientific inaccuracies pointed out in the film, which means that the writers pretty much just made it all up as they went along. What makes this even worse is that the film occasionally has the pretense of science, which makes things all the more confusing. I’m not going to go into all the scientific problems here, but you can check out Bad Astronomy or Jupiter Scientific if you’d like an idea of what they might be.

Second, let’s talk about the title for a moment. The word “Armageddon” comes from the book of Revelation, and it refers to the place where the final apocalyptic showdown between good and evil is supposed to occur. This is traditionally thought to be the plains of Megiddo and interpreted to mean a big war of some sort. Not only did the writers appropriate a completely inappropriate title, but they also had the gall to say, in the film, that an asteroid heading for Earth somehow was equivalent to a battle between good and evil. Considering that an asteroid is a rock with absolutely no motivation whatsoever, this is a pretty strange conflict to bring up.

Third, let’s touch on all the goofy moments of the film, including the stock storyline (boy meets girl, father doesn’t like boy, boy continues to see girl behind his back, father eventually warms up to boy when he gets to know him, father dies sacrificing himself on an asteroid for dramatic purposes) and the idiotic characters. The people at NASA are portrayed as complete idiots who don’t know much about astronomy or physics. NASA scientists somehow missed that an asteroid the size of Texas (bigger than any other asteroid we know of by a good 150%) until it was days away from the Earth.  They blame it on being underfunded.

Fourth, let’s talk about how dopey the film is, with pouty faces and melodrama oozing from every scene. There are callbacks to The Right Stuff and attempts at comedy here and there, but it’s all very inconsistent and very stupid. People die for no good reason, and most of the decisions people make in the film aren’t very good ones. Even the stupid love story could be easily avoided if Liv Tyler and Ben Affleck would just elope already.

Fifth, let’s talk about the music. I don’t mind Aerosmith, but… c’mon. Do we need to crank them up in every other scene? Does this movie exist solely to be simple, noisy and stupid?

Apparently so. And hey, it made $550 million worldwide, so it must have been doing something right. Michael Bay’s previous film, Independence Day, made $816 million worldwide, and it was awful. Spider-Man 3 made $890 million worldwide, and it was almost just as bad. Apparently, there’s something to having a terrible movie positioned to be a summer blockbuster.

But as it pertains to me, if you say you like Armageddon and then start recommending other films, you might as well just stop speaking, because I won’t be listening, even if you say you like The Godfather and Blade Runner and Casablanca, which are all examples of good films that would generally make me think well of you if I knew you liked them. Recommending Armageddon to me is like my own personal litmus test for movie advice; if I detect its presence in your favorites list, I’ll know we can’t watch movies together. But don’t feel too bad, because the films I’ll be watching probably won’t be simple, noisy or stupid, so you probably wouldn’t enjoy them anyhow.