It’s seems like it is hard to do, and it rarely turns out well. The video games we love to play, for some reason, don’t seem to adapt well to movies. Movies, however, have been turned into some good video games.
There are many examples of sci-fi video games that did not turn out well on the silver screen. My favorite example of the absolute failure to adapt a sci-fi video game to movie is the flop Wing Commander. What a great video game and what a complete waste of my time to watch in the theater.
The other day Wing Commander was on TV and I thought I would try stomaching another try at it. I lasted about 15 minutes and had to change the channel. This is coming from someone who loves to watch cheesy sci-fi movies like Enemy Mine, Soylent Green
There have been some decent sci-fi movies that have been turned into games. There aren’t many sci-fi video game to movie adaptations however. Keep in mind that there are some good video game adaptations, but I am specifically talking about sci-fi video games.
My top two favorite sci-fi video game adaptations have to be Resident Evil, which is a sci-fi/horror and Doom, which is also a sci-fi/horror. Both of these movies were exciting, enjoyable and kept me on the edge of my seat. It also helps that these movies used great actors and actresses such as The Rock, Carl Urban and Milla Jovovich. By the way Milla, congrats on the new baby (born November 3, 2007).
I need to give an honorable mention to Final Fantasy – The Spirits Within. That was a good adaptation and a fun movie to watch as well.
What sci-fi games should be made into a movie? There are a lot out there. A movie based on StarCraft would be very fun. How about Contra? Even a Metroid movie would be fun to watch.
And what about Halo? That movie has great potential. First it was official, then canceled and now it seems it may still yet become a reality. Gears of War is another video game that is slated to become a movie in the near future (2009).
No matter what you think about sci-fi video games, they have a large fan base. Something Halo 3 has proved to Hollywood is that as video games make a lot of money. There is plenty of money to be made in making those games into movies. There is already a guaranteed fan base, and as long as the movie is well made, it will be very profitable.
I think you forgot Alien vs. Predator. I actually thought the movie was pretty good.