Now that Borderlands has arrived, all the faith we had in Hollywood to adapt it has disappeared. video games. After a very good streak with series like Fallout and The Last of Us, They come to give us this film that neither critics nor fans of these shooters like.
This reminded us of the darkest era of adaptations. Those were the times when they just took the names of famous people and did whatever they wanted. Here we share with you some of the worst examples of this. Of course, without including Borderlands Because we already know that they also ignored their story.
Video game adaptations that didn’t do their homework
Mario Bros. The Movie from 1993 started the curse of video game adaptations
Let’s start with the first video game adaptation and one that completely ignored Nintendo’s iconic mascot. Well, they only saved the fact that the two brothers are plumbers and the names of some enemies. But in terms of story and setting it seems they had a bad trip on the strongest drugs of the moment.
We know that Mario games are very simple. Go through all the platform worlds until you defeat Bowser and rescue Princess Peach. All in the magical and colorful Mushroom Kingdom which is full of curious characters with very childish designs.
What did the 1993 film give us? A live-action where the brothers travel to an alternate, post-apocalyptic dimension whose inhabitants evolved from dinosaurs and not primates. Plus they are ruled by the evil King Koopa who isn’t even a giant turtle, he’s actually Donald Trump’s long lost brother.
We know that it was one of the first video game adaptations to film, but we still can’t forgive them for going so crazy. They could have given us a story in the style of Wizard of Oz or combine live-action and animation like Roger Rabbit. But instead we had a very crazy experiment that is only Mario’s in name.
The Resident Evil movies of the 2000s
In defense of these early video game adaptations resident Evilthe first two movies did follow the games a bit. From the third one onwards they stopped trying to be faithful to the original material and just made some of the most generic and silly zombie movies out there.
We also don’t forgive them for their total detachment from the game’s protagonists and their characterizations. Chris, Claire, Leon, Barry, Ada, among others, are very different from their versions in the video games and have completely new stories. It seems like the director only received a rough outline of who they were and just put them in as fan service. The only one who saves herself a little is Jill Valentine.
Instead of giving us some of the most beloved characters from their video games in the main role, they gave us a totally new one: Alice. The worst thing about her was that she was a total Marie Sue with the power to rival even Wesker himself. In addition to this, they began to give him psychic powers and a whole army of clones at his disposal. In which resident Evil did all this come out?
We’re only including the 2000s adaptations because they were allowed to go too far with their exaggerations and deviations from the games. Welcome to Raccoon City At least she was more respectful even though she made a bad combination of the first two gamesAs for the Netflix adaptation, at least it died after just one lousy season.
Hitman: Agent 47 ignored video game stealth for a mediocre action movie
In case you didn’t know, this is the second time that Hitman video games have received a big screen adaptation. The first one titled only Hitman At least it gave us an Agent 47 more like the one in the games. Although he did participate in firefights, he was also more methodical in his missions and was a master of disguise.
For Hitman: Agent 47 Its producers decided to make a reboot with a film focused entirely on action. They said goodbye to stealth and restraint to give us a super assassin capable of getting out of absolutely any situation. Of course, with an excess of shootings and slow motion scenes.
As if that were not enough, her story gives Agent 47 an accomplice with superhuman abilities so that together they can face a powerful syndicate. Anyone who has played IO Interactive’s games knows that there are no superpowers in these titles.
It seems they saw what worked with the Resident Evil movies (which, although they were terrible adaptations, were very successful) and decided to replicate it. They simply took the name to make an action movie with evil mega corporations and a convoluted plot. The good news is that it didn’t work out for them and any plans for future adaptations for the bald killer were put on ice.
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li
Once again we find ourselves with a case that has two adaptations. The first leap of the video games of Street Fighter It came to the big screen in 1994 with a film of the same name starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and the incredible Raúl Julia as Bison. Many describe it as a movie so bad it’s good.
The truth is that Street Fighterespecially in those years, didn’t have that much of a story. Still, they gave us the foundation, with different fighters facing Bison and Shadaloo’s plans. Plus they did a great job of giving the actors costumes identical to their video game counterparts.
The same cannot be said of The Legend of Chun-Li which went completely off on a tangent in several aspects. To start with, its protagonist is not even an Interpol agent, Rather, she is a pianist who learns martial arts in order to search for the people who kidnapped her father when she was a child.
Who took his father from him? Shadaloo, but in a modern-day gangster version. Bison doesn’t wear his red suit and instead is a businessman who doesn’t even have any powers. Balrog, instead of a boxer, is a bazooka lover. Perhaps the only one who is saved is Vega and that is only because his suit looks like the one in the games. If it weren’t for the name of Street Fighter we wouldn’t even know it was an adaptation.
Double Dragon is another example of how the nineties were terrible for adapting video games
The plot of the first Double Dragon It’s really not complicated at all. It’s simply a matter of guiding brothers Billy and Jimmy through gang-filled streets to rescue his girlfriend Marian. In the first ones there were no mystical elements and even the final boss attacked you with a machine gun.
We don’t know what video games the people who made the film played because they decided to take a lot of creative liberties. We don’t know what obsession they had with dystopian worlds in the 90s, but this adaptation takes place in the city of New Angeles. A city that emerged after Los Angeles was destroyed by earthquakes and where crime reigns because the police cannot enter.
Here the villain is a businessman who is looking for the legendary Double Dragon Medallion which is split in two. One half is held by him and the other half by brothers Billy and Jimmy. When combined, it gives its users mystical powers that make them practically invulnerable. Let’s skip the ones that smoked to be equal.
Just like Mario Bros. it seems they had no idea how to adapt the Double Dragon video games and decided to go with a run-of-the-mill action movie. Although the story of the games is not very deep either, there was no need to go so high and so far with the adaptation. Did we mention that at the end there are mutants and ninja assassins made of shadows?
Now Hollywood respects video games a little more when it comes to adapting them, but that doesn’t save them from having disastrous results as already shown. Borderlands. Hopefully in the future they’ll learn that these games are loved for a reason and that the stories of many deserve to be brought to the screen. What other adaptation do you think took a lot of liberties with its source material?
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