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The Scott Pilgrim Effect
Another important lesson filmmakers can learn from past video game movies is to embrace what makes the Castlevania games special. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World did just that, using familiar music and 8-bit sounds that reminded the audience what they loved about those types of games. Everything from the 8-bit Universal opening screen to the ten seconds of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past opening theme made Scott Pilgrim a cut above the rest– that, and director Edgar Wright is a huge video game nerd.
It’s easy to get cynical. After all, this is the internet, the cynicism capital of the universe. But what’s important to remember is this: just because we’ve seen a lot of very bad video game adaptations doesn’t mean Castlevania is doomed from the start. We’ve come a very long way over the last couple decades, and while we might still be a way away from seeing a video game franchise we can all be proud of on the big screen, there’s no question that the quality is getting there. Remember how Simon Belmont was portrayed in the Captain N cartoon? It can’t get much worse than that, guys. And who knows? If Castlevania misses the mark too, perhaps it will be a lesson for the next video game franchise that gets a Hollywood makeover.
Easy to be skeptical? If you aren’t skeptical you haven’t been paying attention.
Nearly every video game movie made has blown chunks. The closest thing to a fully “good” video game movie was the first Mortal Kombat and the first Silent Hill got it half right until the plot went totally off the rails into the crap pits. The Resident Evil movies are just terrible and have done almost as much damage to the franchise as Capcom has done with its recent efforts. The fact that they make a lot of money doesn’t change this. The rest of your examples are meaningless because they aren’t video game adaptation they are movies that reference video games to various degrees.
While I’d like to optimistically believe that a video game movie could avoid the pitfalls of previous adaptations it isn’t too likely. It’ll most likely be butchered to the point where they might as well not even call it Castlevania.
I don’t get the hate for Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.
It wasn’t an amazing movie and didn’t really evoke a strong Final Fantasy feeling from me… but really wan’t that bad. Compared to other video game movies – most of which end up being absolute trash – I think The Spirits Within was pretty decent.
Anyone care to enlighten me about why the movie is so often put down? Were expectations just too high going in?
I get the hate for FF: TSW, I just simply don’t agree with it. I, too, think it’s a pretty decent film. Should it have carried the Final Fantasy name? No, probably not, but it did nonetheless. I just appreciate the movie for what it is, which is an entertaining, beautifully rendered sci-fi drama.
Uh….dude, there is no Castlevania movie in the works.
It just turned out to be a fanmade web series by IGN. Go check “Castlevania: Hymn of Blood”.