The Halo Movie: What Went Wrong

[tmeacham]

Article by David Konow and Rob Wright.

Halo is one of the most successful series in the video game industry, yet the proposed Halo movie has been toiling in development hell despite the support of Peter Jackson and Microsoft. So what's the hold up? Tom's Games investigates.

http://www.tomsgames.com/us/2008/09/08/halomovie_whatwentwrong/

 

[Cloned]

Its probably for the best it didn't work out. If they tried to make any of the first three Halo games into movies it would have bombed.

The hard part of converting video games to movies is that video games have so little dialog. Halo has a great story, but movies require dialog, Halo was weak on dialog.

When they create dialog to make the movie it generally distorts the original feel of the games. Hardcore fans feel like its a poor adaption since the new dialog doesnt match the feel of the original games, viewers that didn't play the game feel like the dialog is poor since its always action based commentary with the usual "Die Hard" type one-liners after some enemy gets killed. There is no depth to the dialog.

I had hoped they were going to make a movie in the Halo universe, not directly related to Halo. That would have been the only real way for the movie to be a success. To give fans of Halo new content that can't be compared to the original games, and viewers without previous experience with Halo a good story with good dialog.

Perhaps something about the forerunner and the flood....

 

[radnor]

i++ to cloned.

Doom 3 was great. Doom the movie was............................ . .. ... ... ...

Lets just hole the don't completely fack up the Warcraft movies. Legendary Pictures is behind it and all but....let us wait and see.

From all the games i played, Only Starcraft and Warcraft have enough lore (and good one as well) to become movies. I can't see them making a movie out of Half Life.

 

[Ananan]

Baldur's gate and Fallout would be great movies if made by the right people.

 

[ovaltineplease]

A professional production of The Witcher would've been great too - unfortunately the only Witcher movie that came out was like a B- title lol.

 

[rtfm]

Movies made from games and games made from movies always suck. It's the law.

 

[robwright]

Movies made from games and games made from movies always suck. It's the law.

Yeah, I wanted Hit Man to be good, because Tim Olyphant is the man on Deadwood, but that movie was atrocious. Ditto for Resident Evil (all three). The only flick that showed some promise was Silent Hill -- the first half of that movie is very good, really captured the spirit of the games. But the second half goes nowhere...

 

[rtfm]

Anybody remember the Mario film, the worst every tie in? Any other worst offender offers?

 

[SamODJ]

Lol funny reference to Resident Evil films. I actually enjoyed the first one, thinking it a half decent action flick. Liked the third one as well, even though I could tell it was poor. Problem was they didn't get the feel of Resi at all.

Tru on the Silent Hill front; got the feel kinda right. V little subtlty in the story though which detracted from it completely.

As for Halo; hmm. I find it hard to think it could be pulled off.

 

[Maxor127]

I actually thought Hitman was better than I expected. It was still bad, but it seemed a notch above other bad video game adaptations. Really, the only things that brought it down were logic flaws that you don't think about when playing the game... like why is it so hard to track down a tall bald, pale guy with a giant barcode on the back of his head? Plus, they tried shoe-horning in lots of ideas into the movie that people who never played the games wouldn't understand. But I think they did the best with what they had.

As for Halo, based on that live action thing they released, it looks like it would've been pretty horrible. I thought that video was some sort of youtube hoax, that's how bad it was. Like something you'd see on Sci-Fi Channel at 4 in the morning. I'm sure a Halo movie has the potential to be good just like the Halo games had potential, but in the end, I think it will just be padded with boring sequences, cheesy moments, and will just make you think about how much better movies like Aliens are. That's really all Halo is and all the movie would be... an Aliens rip-off.

From what I heard, I don't even think it would've focused on Master Chief, and that right there would've upset the fanboys. It's kind of funny, when you go to bungie.org and read about all of the connections and nuances of Bungie's games, you think wow they're either brilliant or incredibly lazy that they reuse these themes, ideas, weapons, characters, symbols, etc. Clever little easter eggs mean nothing without any meaning behind them.

Anyways, I think the biggest reason the Halo movie bombed is definitely because of Microsoft and their crazy demands.

 

[geckoar]

I dont know about all you guys but I really Want the HAlO movie. Because its a great game... all three of them. And the books are great. If they made the movie based of the book then IT WOULD BE THE BEST MOVIE EVER. But the game is a FPS so there is very little dialog but the book was so much better story wise The book about halo 1 called the Flood has a bunch of battles that would action packed. I just really want the movie to be made.

 

[jeverson]

Well... I played the first Halo when it came out for the PC and it was fun, not great, but fun. Missed Halo 2. Then got Halo 3. Again, it was fun but not great. That doesn't mean that I wouldn't like to see a Halo movie, I'm just not sure what story would make it interesting. I wouldn't mind seeing something like "Halo Begins" where they show the beginnings of Master Chief and how he got to be such a Bad A.. Of course without "the Flood" I doubt they would have much more than an action film. As we all know, action films get crappy lines and half a..ed scripts. I am thinking it is probably best they not have a Halo movie as it will just piss off fanboys and confuse the newbies.


I know... they could make "Alien vs Predator vs Master Chief"

 

[robwright]

Well... I played the first Halo when it came out for the PC and it was fun, not great, but fun. Missed Halo 2. Then got Halo 3. Again, it was fun but not great. That doesn't mean that I wouldn't like to see a Halo movie, I'm just not sure what story would make it interesting. I wouldn't mind seeing something like "Halo Begins" where they show the beginnings of Master Chief and how he got to be such a Bad A.. Of course without "the Flood" I doubt they would have much more than an action film. As we all know, action films get crappy lines and half a..ed scripts. I am thinking it is probably best they not have a Halo movie as it will just piss off fanboys and confuse the newbies.


I know... they could make "Alien vs Predator vs Master Chief"

Nice. BTW, Alien Vs. Predator II might just be the worst movie I've ever seen. Ever.

As for Halo, I think you have to have the Flood in the movie. The Covenant is lame, especially the little guys running around giggling like Carnival workers on crack. The Flood are scary.

Another thing I think the movie has to have is the Arbiter. I think that's a fascinating character, and he really elevated Halo 2. If Peter Jackson doesn't get Keith David to do the voice of the Arbiter in the movie, then I'm out. Speaking of Keith David, what I wouldn't pay to see a re-enactment of David and Roddy Piper's fight scene in "They Live" with the Arbiter and Master Chief. That would bring down the house!

Okay, time to switch to decaf....

 

[Godiwa]

instead of making it a Halo movie, they should make it a Ringworld movie... same "universe" sorta (funny enough they both are on huge ring worlds around the sun). Ringworld 1-3 are great books with lots of story, it could become great, the options are limitless, and it would be the sci-fi version of lotr

 

[jeverson]

Nice. BTW, Alien Vs. Predator II might just be the worst movie I've ever seen. Ever.

Now Rob...

Surely AvP2 wasn't the worst film you've seen. Granted it wasn't the movie I had hoped it would be since the graphic novels and paperbacks were very good. Don't worry, I'm not gonna turn this into an AvP fanboy rant. Just saying... it wasn't "that" bad.


Granted... If only AvP2 the movie could have been half as good as AvP2 the video game... then there might have been something.

Back to my initial idea of "AvPvMC"... just think... the colonial marines could be getting their butts handed to them and then MC bursts in squashing bugs and pimp slap'n Predators.

Hmm... I'm kinda start'n to like this idea... :lol:

 

[MxM]

The hard part of converting video games to movies is that video games have so little dialog. Halo has a great story, but movies require dialog, Halo was weak on dialog.

Wall-E is a great cartoon yet it has close to 0 dialog. So, it can be done even in the absence of dialog. (Of course, another option is to wright good dialog that fits the Halo universe)

 

[copasetic]

I think the only video game movie I enjoyed even a little was the first Resident Evil. The intro was awesome and the audio was really good. The dialogue was pretty horrible and everything else was mediocre at best. I don't even want to talk about the sequels.

 

[Ananan]

I think the only video game movie I enjoyed even a little was the first Resident Evil. The intro was awesome and the audio was really good. The dialogue was pretty horrible and everything else was mediocre at best. I don't even want to talk about the sequels.

You mean you didn't like Streetfighter?!?!?!?

I remember watching the first Mortal Combat with a group of friends and having fun even though it wasn't a good movie.

 

[Ixad]

As much as I have extremely fond memories of playing the game (in particular the multiplayer), I just cannot visualize a movie that is anything other than bad on an epic scale... I'm thinking Waterworld bad here. The story just is not all that compelling IMO. I mean, it's not a bad story for a first person shooter, but realistically, I don't think it's strong enough to carry a film audience for 90+ minutes. Fans of the series may disagree, but I don't recall being surprised even once by the storyline while playing through the single player campiagn.

BTW, I am going to disagree with Rob, AVPII is not the worst film ever. I'm going to point the finger of shame in the direction of Double Team in awarding that "honor". AVPII is a shining beacon of cinematic excellence next to that steaming pile of excrement.

 

[jaguarskx]

DOOM: The movie

'Nuff Said.

 

[aziraphale]

What went wrong? One simple answer: Don't ever make movies from games. That's a universal law; when will people learn?