Research plan

Slide 1 : Project title (Why are videogame to movie adaptations often considered unsuccessful?)

Slide 2: Resident Evil Apocalypse film poster (Short talk about why i have chosen this as my focus film and its positive and negative points supported by items.)

Slide 3: Tomb Raider Lara Croft film poster (whos demand these films, Short talk about how this film's success could have been based on several things such as its much larger budget along with its impressive cast, popularity of the game ,why did it become so big?)

Slide 4: BloodRayne film poster (short talk about how there are some famous name's "Michelle Rodriguez", "Meat Loaf" but the film still plummeted despite this because of its complete irrelevance to the game series and poor overall plot.)

Slide 5:the phenoma of gaME TO FILM ADAPTATIONS. SuperMario Bros film poster (Short talk about why this film flopped even with its multi million people fan base and if there was something that could have been done to change it)

Slide 2 through to 5 will include Budget and gross revenue of the particular film at the bottom of each slide.

Slide 6: why people find these` (What are the basic problems with videogame to film adaptations and why is it that so far the adaptations quite often follow very little of the game their of)

Slide 7: SuperMario Bros film poster again (Go into detail about flaws of the film like character relationship along with the lack of characteristics from the game, and the differences that just made no sense as a SuperMario title)

Slide 8: BloodRayne film poster again (Go into detail about the unusual storyline compared to the games which are set roughly 150 years in the future, although the detail in creating the character "Rayne" as close to the videogame protagonist has been well achieved and how fans may or may not have acknowledged this)

Slide 9: Tomb Raider Lara Croft film poster again (Go into detail about how the films cast could have made this film what it is, like using Angelina Jolie as a star basically selling the movie, and how her fans would watch her in anything)

Slide 10: Resident Evil Apocalypse film poster again (Go into detail about how fan's of the game series would make a point of seeing this film because of the appearance of the Resident Evil game franchise most popular protagonist Jill Valentine and how this is similar to how Angelina Jolie is used to sell Tomb Raider but on a smaller scale and how with the Resident Evil series it keeps there target audience to gamers but with Tomb Raider it expands it to Angelina's fan's as well)

Slide 11: Resident Evil 1 game cover + Apocalypse film cover (Keep on specifics of how the game series revolves around survival horror the suspense of whats around the corner by using fixed camera's to create a claustrophobic atmosphere whereas the film has been turned into just an action movie with zombies more of a sci fi movie than a horror film.)

Slide 12: Conclusion All four movie poster's besides a poster for the respective game series (Conclude that whilst the directors of these movies aren't creating a proper adaption of the game they can't really make the film work such as using fairly basic things from the game series such as recognisable locations, accurate representation of characters and a plot that fits with the game's)

BloodRayne film.

Well the film appears to be more of a prequel to the game series the film is more of an introduction to the character and an plot around her back story as well as how she becomes trained and more powerful.

It is easily understandable why the film was so poorly received by fan's apart from the character Rayne, her cloth's and her weapons there appears to be no direct similarities compared to the game.

(Sorry the poster's foreign but it was the best one to compare)

All though to someone relatively unfamiliar with the series it could be something worth watching, there are some ups and downs like with any films.

One of the main downfalls i believe that this film suffers from is mostly its over the top gore and graphic violence which does make it a cringe inducing film.

The overall acting was fairly enjoyable apart from certain key moments were particualr actors seemed to lack motivation of there roles.

SuperMarioBros Film.

After watching the SuperMarioBros film i can understand why fan's would have been disappointed apart from the name's of most characters and the fact that Mario and Luigi are plumber's.

Another strange thing that i thought was fairly important to include which wasnt was the fact that there is no Princess Peach instead we have a Princess Daisy.

There are some use of the items found in the games we see the Bob-omb several times throughout the movie as well as a Bullet Bill.

The overall acting wasnt that bad and the plotline was fairly enjoyable, the only thing that annoyed me was that the film could have had a completly different title and it would still seem acceptable as a practically new idea.

The specific scenes that i would mark as important would be the when the characters use these specific items.

Another significant character i would draw attention to is the Koopa's which are unlike any i've seen in the game series, in the film they are dinosaurs rather than Turtle's.

Yoshi was included in the film and his recreation did seem somewhat suitable as an adaption from the videogame series.

Resident Evil Apocalypse Film And VideoGame Similarities

This is a couple of the similarities between the movie and game, starting with scenes that have certain aspects taken direct from the game series.
Starting with the first confrontation by the R.P.D towards the zombies this scene is remarkably uncanny to the opening of Resident Evil 3 (The game) in which the R.P.D are shown confronting the zombies and loss spectacularly.

Another similarity is near the end with the window and ambushed scene which has a striking resemblance to the opening of Resident Evil Code Veronica, in which Claire Redfield is the protagonist running from Umbrella, the ambush in Code Veronica is slightly more exaggerated.

There are some references/ Errors in the movie adaptation, firstly Carlos friend Nikolai in the game is actually a bad guy who is slightly crazy and attempts to kill both Carlos and Jill.

Secondly, the Ashford's are the main antagonist in the Code Veronica game, the Twins Alexia and Alfred Ashford both attempt to kill the character on numerous occasions, however later in the game you find out that the father (Nosferatu) took measures to kill his children in the event that they did try to release the virus.

Code Veronica is set in the year 1998, 3 months after the Raccoon city disaster, in the Recording Alexander Says the year is 1983 and if you look carefully you can see the date at the bottom of the Recording (DEC 25 1983).

There isn't much information on the game character except that he was turned into the Nosferatu by the twins.

There appears to be next to no similarities between the characters videogame and movie counterpart.

Video Game Movie's Misc.

Everything that i can't really think of a general topic for or is a bit to small will go into this post.

Whilst searching for Mark Kermode's reviews about Resident Evil Apocalypse i can across a site called "Close-UpFilm".

The article itself is written by "Tim Regan" who does have some interesting points about success or failure of the video game movie's.
"Tim Regan" goes on to quote a couple of other critics including "Mark Kermode" along with "Dave Kehr, Nicholas Barber"

http://www.close-upfilm.com/features/Featuresarchive/horror_films_based_on_video_games.html

I found a "Mark Kermode" discussion and although he's mostly talking about silent hill, "Mark Kermode" does briefly talk about some of the downfalls of the "SuperMario" movie and "Tomb Raider".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2006/apr/23/features.review

When I watched Resident Evil Afterlife (10,09,2010) there are many references to the newest Resident Evil game, Resident Evil 5 (13,03,2009).

Here are some of the similarities.

Firstly along with the original Virus Carrier B.O.W's (Zombie's), we now see the Las Plagas have made there first movie appearence (Picture of movie Plagas left) compared to video game plagas (right)

Not only are the Plagas zombies now in the movie but so are the Adjule (Plagas dog's), movie Adjule shown left, Video game version shown right.

Finally on the monster side of things we have the Axe Man Majini more commonly know as the Executioner, Movie Executioner on the left, video game version on right.

Apart from the many monsters of the resident evil universe we also have the long awaited return of Jill Valentine (in her resident evil 5 attire and position) Movie image on left, (Sorry about quality this was the best picture i could find), video game version right.

But in my opinion one of the best, and most well played out moments in the movie is the fight with Wesker which has been taken practically shot for shot from the game, the sequence lasts about two minutes and the only difference is the location and instead of Sheva we have Claire taking her place.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to get the clip from the movie onto my blog but i will keep an eye out, so at the moment i'll only have the video game version.

Lara Croft Tomb Raider.

I was just flicking through some interviews and various other related topics when i came across this short chat show thing, the first couple of question are quite informative and fit in to my chosen topic well but the presenter wonders from the point.
Only the first couple of minutes are any good.

I'm not sure what the show is so i'm going to have to put it down as internet search.

Again I put the link in case of any problems as well as when we come back to college I can just copy and paste to my catalogue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LwovyKh3_Y

Resident Evil Apocalypse Cast Interviews.

When I come back to college I'm going to ask Andy paul if he can rip these from the disc so that's its not a Internet reference.






The Sienna Guillory interview is slightly more informative towards my question than Milla Jovovich's but both had some interesting points.

I chose Sienna Guillory because in the film she portrays one of the actual video game characters (Jill Valentine) which made her more of a symbol for the video game to movie adaptation.

I chose Milla Jovovich because she portrays the main protagonist (Alice) for the Resident Evil Movie franchise and being a character not actually from the game series i thought her opinion would show a alternate view from someone like Sienna Guillory's.

I'm putting the Links in incase the video doesnt work or some error occurs etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qznyGO76gRU Sienna Guillory Interview.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMfhXXhiSUw&feature=related Milla Jovovich Interview.

Why are video game to film adaptations so unsuccesful?

Initial Ideas

How has technology improved animation?

For this question I would say about how computer imaging and digital manipulation have improved animation or how it could be argued that it has made the films less personal than hand drawn image's.

The Three films that i would use as examples would be Snow White (December 21st 1937), Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind (March 4th 1984)
and Resident Evil Degeneration ( October 18th 2008)

I would use these example because of how they are each from a different age of video creation and how they each have been created in a specific way.

Snow White being completely hand drawn with over 750 artists working on it production.

Nausicaa of the valley of the wind was also hand drawn by the Japanese company Studio Ghibli.

And finally Resident evil Degeneration because of how its made using motion capture suits to create a more realistic movement performed by the characters.

Whats the problem with video game to movie progression?
Why are Video game movies have a weak stand against other movies?

For this question I would talk about how because of the specific audience the directors are tied down to a limited set of guidelines for the game film.

For starters i would include two video game film adaptations that weren't successful :

1. Super Mario Bros, the production budget of this movie was 48 million dollars and since its release on May 28th 1993 it has made just under 21 million dollars.

2. BloodRayne, the production cost was 25 million dollars and since its release January 6th 2006 it has made just under 2.5 million dollars.

I would also include two successful video game to movie adaptions which were successful :

1. Resident Evil Apocalypse, the production cost was 45 million dollars and since its release in september 10th 2004 has made 130 million dollars.

2. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider the production cost was 115 million dollars and since its release June 15th 2001 it has made 275 million dollars.