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Can "The Last of Us" break the curse of bad video game adaptations? [New Yorker]

begotten

Member
When it comes to live action, it looks like it might have a chance.

There's already been some awesome animated stuff but you can't really compare them to live action.
 

nial

Gold Member
The fact that animation is still seen through a veneer of disrespect is maddening
Thank the Americans for their lack of drawing skills. The few talented people in the modern industry decided to work on children's cartoons, just check out all the YA hack-job crap aimed at manchildren nowadays; they all look ugly as fuck. What made Arcane a success was not primarily its story, but its high-quality art and animation.
 

fart town usa

Gold Member
Thank the Americans for their lack of drawing skills. The few talented people in the modern industry decided to work on children's cartoons, just check out all the YA hack-job crap aimed at manchildren nowadays; they all look ugly as fuck. What made Arcane a success was not primarily its story, but its high-quality art and animation.
Right. Anytime I see something on a streaming service that's animated and looks interesting, 9/10 times it's that flash animation style with barely any actual animation/movement. Reminds me something from Newgrounds back in the day.

I didn't mind it back then for web shorts but I personally cannot stand it for actual shows or movies, gives me a weird uncanny valley sensation and I immediately turn it off, lol.
 

nial

Gold Member
Right. Anytime I see something on a streaming service that's animated and looks interesting, 9/10 times it's that flash animation style with barely any actual animation/movement. Reminds me something from Newgrounds back in the day.

I didn't mind it back then for web shorts but I personally cannot stand it for actual shows or movies, gives me a weird uncanny valley sensation and I immediately turn it off, lol.
I think we should support independent artists more than ever. People like to trash Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss (two shows I don't personally like), but when I see them, at least they look like adult shows made by REAL cartoonists, and not bland garbage that tries to imitate The Simpsons or have the driest, crudest, most boring art style out there (stuff like Family Guy, Rick and Morty, Bojack Horseman, Bob's Burgers, etc.).
 
One of the main reasons I think video game adaptations are usually disappointing or downright terrible is because I just feel like some things just don’t translate well into live action, especially fantasy or unrealistic games. Dragonball for example. Not only that, but the creators probably don’t really respect the source material or aren’t genuine fans.

Look at the Tekken anime compared to the live action movies for example. How do cosplayers create better, more accurate costumes than movie directors with huge budgets? How about the Street Fighter live movies compared to the anime? TLOU is a more grounded, realistic franchise, so it will probably come out decent I’m assuming. We’ll see.
 

oldergamer

Member
Dumb and ignorant headline, there have been plenty of decent, good and great adaptations; something like this can only be written with zero research.
This rings true. Despite warriors around here hating on it, the halo tv series has done well for paramount. Im sure there are others. Its an article done without any research.
 

Nvzman

Member
I can't get behind this show only because I still think having movie-like games getting movies/tv shows is spectacularly dumb.

If Uncharted and The Last of Us's whole appeal was to be games that felt like movies.... then wtf is the point of actually making it a movie/show? Isn't that redundant? If anything its dooming the adaption to just feel like a condensed retelling of the games, so I'd rather just play the games.

With adaptions like Mario or Sonic, I feel like its a lot more reasonable as they don't really go for the cinematic angle, so you can be a lot more creative with it.
 

ChorizoPicozo

Gold Member
I can't get behind this show only because I still think having movie-like games getting movies/tv shows is spectacularly dumb.

If Uncharted and The Last of Us's whole appeal was to be games that felt like movies.... then wtf is the point of actually making it a movie/show? Isn't that redundant? If anything its dooming the adaption to just feel like a condensed retelling of the games, so I'd rather just play the games.

With adaptions like Mario or Sonic, I feel like its a lot more reasonable as they don't really go for the cinematic angle, so you can be a lot more creative with it.
These companies need content. (for the streaming warz) and usually pull out from existing IPs because they already have an established fanbase.
 

Amiga

Member
Can't be bad if it's adapted from something already bad.

Think About It GIF by Identity
 

UnNamed

Banned
I loved the first Mortal Kombat, it was a good film and a good adaptation, and I liked the first Silent Hill. Street Fighter and Mario were IMHO bad adaptations but decent movies.
 
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Zug

Member
Tomb Raider is a gender-flipped “Indiana Jones.” Returning to the medium where such story formulas had originated was like running text through Google Translate and back: each iteration came out more garbled than the last.
Kinda ironic, The last of Us is pretty much an adaptation of the book "The Road" (fantastic, won a Pullizer), which was made into a (good) movie too.
Except that the game has a weaker plot (but that's OK as long as it works better as a video game).
 

KXVXII9X

Member
Thank the Americans for their lack of drawing skills. The few talented people in the modern industry decided to work on children's cartoons, just check out all the YA hack-job crap aimed at manchildren nowadays; they all look ugly as fuck. What made Arcane a success was not primarily its story, but its high-quality art and animation.
There are obviously a LOT of very talented American artists (let's be real). I think it is more due to the industry standards, which are so rigid and safe.

If you are talking about the Tumblr art style, I'm also not a fan, like at all. Arcane was an audiovisual feast! More and more American animation is doing the Arcane/Spider-verse art style with blending 2D elements in 3D works.
 

nial

Gold Member
There are obviously a LOT of very talented American artists (let's be real)
Of course, but they are more in the indie spectrum than anything else. Big modern products suffer due to a lack of artists' skills or, in some cases, corporate meddling.
If you are talking about the Tumblr art style, I'm also not a fan, like at all. Arcane was an audiovisual feast! More and more American animation is doing the Arcane/Spider-verse art style with blending 2D elements in 3D works.
Arcane, Spider-Verse, and the latest SpongeBob movie are amazing on the artistic side, but sadly they're the exceptions, not the norm. Although we will have to see how the industry evolves from now on.
 
Oh dear... lol. I'm black, adopted from a white parent, and consider myself fairly progressive, but this seems forced as heck.
Haha yea it's very forced. Create a new great IP with black characters? Fuck no!

Replace established white characters with those of other races. Absolutely!

I definitely wouldn't consider myself progressive, but if a writer gives me a sick ass black character I will 100% support that. Like Keith David in "They Live" or even the original MW2.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
This rings true. Despite warriors around here hating on it, the halo tv series has done well for paramount. Im sure there are others. Its an article done without any research.
I love Halo to pieces, and thought the show was lackluster melodrama. Much like current year Halo.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Haha yea it's very forced. Create a new great IP with black characters? Fuck no!

Replace established white characters with those of other races. Absolutely!

I definitely wouldn't consider myself progressive, but if a writer gives me a sick ass black character I will 100% support that. Like Keith David in "They Live" or even the original MW2.
Problem is most people wont support it.

For sake of retaining sales and popularity, it's easier to change whities to minorities than making a brand new IP with minority characters as the main cast.
 

Chukhopops

Member
“One of the major contributors to the curse is the fact that a lot of video games are already derivative of movies,” [Maizin] told me. Halo borrowed from “Aliens”; Tomb Raider is a gender-flipped “Indiana Jones.”
This makes me really mad, it’s so dumb and dismissive of half a century of SF literature that inspired Halo in various ways.

And does he really think TLOU invented the concept of post-apocalyptic road movie?
 

Umbral

Member
Listen to yourself. Being black is part of the identity and history of Blade, who is the main character in his own stories. Being white makes zero difference to the character of Sarah Miller, a character who has no story except that she is Joel's kid and she dies in the first 10 minutes of the first game.

You are either a little bit on the spectrum or a little bit racist. Which do you think it is?
Get fucked with your shitty comments.
 

deriks

4-Time GIF/Meme God
First Mortal Kombat is a good movie. Street Fighter, Castlevania and Megaman has great cartoons. Sonic is a great movie, the sequel is even better

Saying that something still "will break the videogame curse" is horseshit
 
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