Post-Viewing: Warcraft and how to break the cycle of bad video game movies

Warcraft, a film which I got a fair bit of enjoyment out of, marks a shift in an accepted norm in cinema. Games and movies have a sordid past; licensed games are usually rushed messes and game adaptations haven’t fared much better. They’ve suffered from bad direction, bad business and bad focuses, but Blizzard’s debut on the silver screen stands as an exception to this rule.

The very first video game movie was Super Mario Brothers in 1993, an ill-fated train-wreck which didn’t resemble the game it was based on in any way. It was clearly a product of the times, riding the dinosaur craze caused by Jurassic Park to ill effect. From there, things didn’t get much better as almost every adaptation (with the exception of Tron and Wreck-It Ralph which were based on video games as a medium) has been average or just plain horrible. Pandering to specific trends or audiences has been a big problem for game adaptations because they are almost completely focused on bringing in fans of the games as opposed to making a genuinely good film. The other issue back then was that games had extremely simplistic stories that didn't translate well to the big screen. Nowadays, games have the opportunity to create deep, immersive tales with a strong amount of backstory to build strong universes. Why did video game adaptations fail to improve? It mostly comes down to a filmmaking approach.

Some video game movies are fairly notorious for being some of the worst films ever made and many of them come from the infamous Uwe Boll. He has made films such as House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark and Bloodrayne and it’s quite baffling why Hollywood constantly gave him these opportunities. The overall approach to game adaptations over the years has been incredibly flawed; often they’re treated as quick cash grabs with little efforts Boll himself was one of the first directors to approach Blizzard for the Warcraft film and they refused, telling him “We won’t sell the rights to you, not to you, especially not to you”. Jones took up the directing duties and got together a dedicated team to bring the game series to the big screen.

Critics have been slamming Warcraft; it’s definitely no masterpiece but I feel this is mostly down to the fact that it’s based on a video game; we’ve become fairly attuned to disliking adaptations of games and expecting them to be bad. It has plenty of problems and yet it stands as an incredibly worthwhile accomplishment; after many years of awful adaptations we finally have one with proper effort and reason behind it. Duncan Jones himself is a self-professed Warcraft fan and with this in mind he has made a movie that feels genuine. The most important thing to consider when making a game adaptation is ensuring that it stays faithful to the world and characters but that’s mainly a starting point. You also need strong directors, production crews and actors who are fully invested in the process of making it. Finally the film itself needs to be capable of standing on its own, rather than playing second fiddle to a game which gives far more value for money. The recent Ratchet and Clank movie stood out for this reason; why watch the film when it is literally a whole-sale carbon copy of the game you can buy and enjoy on PS4? 

Warcraft also has the potential to turn into a franchise, a first for video game adaptations; with a story and lore as expansive as the one Blizzard has created, it may be worth pursuing further. With luck Warcraft could kick off a trend of well-produced game adaptations; guess we’ll have to wait until Assassin’s Creed takes a leap onto the big screen at the end of 2016…