Welcome to Lost in Translation‘s quick series about the ins and outs of adapting games to television and film.* As seen since the first post, if something is popular, someone else will want to adapt it to a different medium. Today, 2013, the most likely medium to adapt from elsewhere is the Hollywood film.

Part I – Video Games
Part II – Boardgames
Part III – Tabletop Role-Playing Games
Part IV – Adapting Games to Games

Boardgames

Boardgames and card games are the oldest form of gaming, found in all cultures throughout history. From mere diversions to gambling to war preparations, boardgaming has spread far and wide. While there are some games designed for just one person, such as the various solitaire games for cards, the vast majority of games require at least two people. And, yet, there are few projects based on a boardgame. There are many movies that feature a game or are centred on a game, but very few that bring the game to the screen. Part of the reason is that the conflict is between the players. The musical Chess** features the drama between two chess players during the Cold War. Poker is a fixture in many movies, from Maverick to God of Gamblers where, again, the conflict between the poker players is the focus. Battleship became part of the plot in Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey.

As for boardgame movies, there is Clue and there is Battleship. Jumanji, for all its appearances of being based on a boardgame, is based on a short story. The boardgame came out after the movie. Hasbro does have some movies in the works based on their game lines, detailed earlier.

Last week, I listed key elements that needed to be dealt with to adapt well: plot, setting, characters, and gameplay. Unlike video games where the game needs an icon for the player***, boardgames might just have a coloured token that has no backstory at all. Game bits may include money equivalents, miniatures to represent items, tokens for keeping score, and parts to add to the board. In a few games, the players’ pieces are identified by colour, with the shape of the tokens representing in-game elements.

For the vast majority of movies centred around games, the game shows up as itself within the work. The plot comes from the drama and conflict between the players as they play the game. Gambling games tend to be the focus of this type of movie. It isn’t the poker tournament that is the focus, but the players in it. The setting is where the game is played, whether it’s a saloon on the American frontier, a high class casino in Europe, or a back room in a seedy neighbourhood pool hall. The gameplay is on screen, performed by the characters.

Lately, though, as Lost in Translation previewed last year, boardgames are now being adapted as movies. Monopoly, Risk, Candyland, and a remake of Clue have all been announced. Risk and the similar in scope Axis and Allies involve a world at war, the former set in the late 19th and early 20th Century, the latter during World War II. Typically, movies set during wars of those times would focus on a particular historical element or figure and not need the game at all. Boardgames like Monopoly are about trading and getting rich, again, plots that can be handled easily without the baggage that a boardgame would bring. Monopoly, however, does bring with it a setting, Atlantic City.

For traditional boardgames, the plot can be pulled from the game itself, based on what the winning condition is. Some games, such as The Game of Life and Redneck Life, fit the bill poorly, covering the lifespan of the player’s token. Others, like Battleship, handwave away why there is a conflict between the players, assuming that if the players didn’t want to play the game, they wouldn’t. This leads to the writing staff having to create the reason for the conflict.

In terms of characters, again, few boardgames name their tokens, with Clue being the main exception. Some characters may be named, such as Monopoly‘s Rich Uncle Pennybags and Redneck Life‘s Uncle Clem, but they’re not playable. Typically, the players aren’t placed into a role. They just play the game. To adapt a game, characters will have to be created and cast; few people will pay to see a giant dog token hop down the Atlantic City Boardwalk.

Boardgames do give the adapters a break on setting. The board itself can be turned into the setting. The movie Clue adapted the game’s board well, including the secret passageways and the relative locations of all the rooms. Battleship was set on the Pacific Ocean, providing the nice rich blue sea the game’s boards represent. The exceptions are games similar to Life and Redneck Life, where the boards represent a metaphorical journey instead of a physical one.

Gameplay is going to be the hardest part to adapt properly. Unlike games, people don’t walk a number of steps based on a die roll and don’t move one at a time in order. Games that have inter-player negotiation, such as Monopoly and Diplomacy**** fare a little better here, as players interact with each other in a dramatic conflict, as dramatic as the players want to get.+ In a work of fiction, the desires of both sides of the negotiations can be played up and the movement on the board can be downplayed.

Boardgames will take a deft hand to adapt properly, to keep the feel of the game while still producing characters and a plot that works within the constraints of the original work. The difficulties explain why few boardgames have been adapted directly. Clue managed to keep the feel of the game and worked with the existing characters to produce an entertaining movie. Battleship tried, hard, but might have been a better movie without the name attached.

Next week, part III looks at adapting tabletop role-playing games and wargames.

* And theatre, though I’d be surprised if someone made that leap.
** Someone made the leap.
*** Yes, there are exceptions like Duck Hunt, but the player still is represented by the crosshairs.
**** Diplomacy and, to a lesser degree, Risk and Axis & Allies could also be covered next week as wargames.
+ “Hey, want Reading and B&O for Illinois and Oriental?” “Only if you toss in Boardwalk.”

Welcome to Lost in Translation‘s quick series about the ins and outs of adapting games to television and film.* As seen since the first post, if something is popular, someone else will want to adapt it to a different medium. Today, 2013, the most likely medium to adapt from elsewhere is the Hollywood film.

Part I – Video Games
Part II – Boardgames
Part III – Tabletop Role-Playing Games
Part IV – Adapting Games to Games

Video Games

Video games are a visual medium. With console gaming, adapting a video game to television is just changing where the input comes from. Early video games were fairly linear; computing power and no storage for saved games combined to keep the play simple enough to avoid overloading the console but challenging enough to keep players interested. Over in the microcomputer world, graphics were still primitive, but games could be saved, allowing for longer play.

Console games did allow for recognizable characters. Icons such as Pac-Man, Mario, and Donkey Kong became household words, first through the video arcade, then through home console adaptations.** With the focus of early console gaming on kids, naturally the early adaptations were animated. Pac-Man, Q-Bert, Super Mario Bros. Super Show, and Dragon’s Lair led the way in North America. Accuracy to the games more or less meant taking all the named characters and using them in similar roles as they had originally. Thus, Mario fought Bowser, Pac-Man dealt with Inky, Blinky, Pinky (no, not that Pinkie). The nature of the medium, though, meant that you just couldn’t show the game being played; at the minimum, advertising regulations would have to be ignored. In the case of Mario, the Princess needed to be part of the cast; she couldn’t be “in another castle” off-screen. Plots had to go beyond the game but still keep elements. Mario kept a cheesy Italian accent and had a boing sound effect whenever he jumped. Pac-Man became invulnerable when he ate a power pellet.

As the technology evolved, so did games. Graphics improved mainly because gaming demanded better. Eight bits gave way to sixteen, and sixteen to “holy crap, that’s a lot of pixels!” As storage became less of an issue, going from none for the Atari 2600 to external memory cards for the Playstation to gigabyte rated hard drives common today, more information could be saved. More information could also be stored on the game’s physical media, having gone from cartridges to CD-ROM and, later, DVD and higher density formats. This allowed games to go from basic plots such as, “Defend the Earth from invaders,” “Rescue the Princess from the castle,” and “Eat everything while running from ghosts” to more complex plots. Even 2D fighting games received elaborate backstory and each character had a history. Video games started to mature.

Adaptations of video games? Not so much. The early silver screen adaptations were Super Mario Bros., Double Dragon, and Street Fighter/.  Street Fighter is reaching cult classic status, mainly through Raul Julia’s performance. Super Mario Bros. wasted a good cast including Bob Hoskins and Dennis Hopper with a set that oozed brown. Double Dragon reached the worst rating at Rotten Tomatoes. However, Mortal Kombat reversed the trend, becoming the first Hollywood video game adaptation to keep the spirit of the original game and not drive audiences away. Meanwhile, on television, Pokemon became a juggernaut, expanding the world of the game while keeping to the gameplay.

The problem with adapting a video game is that the player has an active role in the plot of the game. By turning from an active audience (the players) to an passive one (the viewers), the onus is now to draw in and keep the audience. Characters have to be, if not pleasant for the audience, interesting. Few works have a dull protagonist.*** In a video game, though, the less personality a character has, the more the player can infuse, adding an extra level of enjoyment. In Mass Effect, the player has full control over Commander Shepard’s reaction to shipmates and events; the gameplay encourages the player to make these decisions. A Mass Effect movie focusing on Shepard would have to decide on which Shepard, male or female, renegade or paragon, even where the character was born, details that get decided by the player in the video game.

The next problem to deal with is the plot. Most video games have a plot of their own, one that the player either completes or abandons. Adapting the plot essentially spoils the ending of the game for the audience. Some games, such as the Tomb Raider and Prince of Persia series, are based around an activity that is repeatable, such as exploration. Franchise games can lend open up options; Mario may be a plumber, but Nintendo has managed to have him rescue princesses, race cars, and prescribe pills. Not all franchises can do this. The appeal of The Sims series is the open sandbox the games provide.****

I’ve touched on a few key elements – plot, setting, characters, and gameplay. A successful adaptation of a video game needs to at least acknowledge these elements. Missing on one might not hurt the adaptation. Missing on all and the movie is an adaptation in name only; a good example is Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li. These days, the audience expects more from adaptations. Mediocre films don’t last in the theatres. Big budget busts such as Battleship, which recovered its budget plus some, are seen as exploitative of the fanbase. The fans already exist; that’s the main reason for doing an adaptation. Studios need to respect the fans.

Next week, part II looks at adapting boardgames.

* And theatre, though I’d be surprised if someone made that leap.
** At some point, there will be an ourobouros of adaptations when a video game is made of a TV show based on a movie inspired by a video game that was ported from an video arcade game.
*** Insert Twilight joke here.
**** And yet, a Hollywood studio has optioned the game.

In 1982, the world of computing was vastly different than today. Desktop computers were still in their infancy, with popular machines being Commodore’s VIC-20 and Radio Shack’s TRS-80. Game consoles existed, but the video arcade was the home for video gaming, as machines ate a steady stream of quarters. Cyberpunk and the concept of cyberspace were still new, with John M. Ford leading the way in 1980; but, neither would be well known until the 1984 publication William Gibson’s Neuromancer. However, the visiuals of cyberspace got a boost from, of all places, Disney.

The early 80s saw Disney experimenting with releases, taking risks that the company normally had passed on. One of the experiments was an, at the time, animated project that would incorporate computer graphics in with the traditional techniques. The project evolved further, becoming a live-action film with computer animation enhancing the look. Tron was released in 1982 and performed well enough, bringing in double its budget of US$17 million, but received mixed reviews and was not nominated for an Academy Award for Special Effects because the use of computers was considered “cheating”*. The late Roger Ebert felt that Tron was not given due credit by audiences and critics alike and showcased it at his first Overlooked Film Festival in 1997.

Tron, though light on plot, is a beautiful movie. The film stock changed depending whether the action is in the real world or in cyberspace. The computer world was filmed in black and white with bright primary colours hand-drawn on to the film, creating a stark contrast. Tron created the base of most depictions of cyberspace and its denizens. Wendy Carlos’ musical score heightened the other-worldly nature of the digital realm. Tron, despite being ignored by audiences in general, proved to be influential, including leading to the works of Daft Punk and the creation of Pixar.

The plot of Tron is simple enough. Software engineer Kevin Flynn, played by Jeff Bridges, has been fired from ENCOM after alleging that his boss, Ed Dillenger, played by David Warner, had stolen several video games designed by Flynn. As a result, Flynn tries to hack into ENCOM’s computer but gets blocked by the Master Control Program set up by Dillenger. One of Flynn’s hack attempts has CLU, also played by Bridges, try sneaking through the system; CLU gets discovered and is de-rezzed by a Recognizer. Meanwhile, Alan Bradley, played by Bruce Boxleitner,, one of Flynn’s friends and former co-workers, has a security program, Tron, that monitors communication between the MCP and the real world. Flynn convinces Bradley to get him back inside to increase Tron’s security clearance. However, the MCP has reached artificial intelligence and is actively protecting itself. The MCP uses a laser to digitize Flynn into the Game Grid. On the Grid, Flynn finds himself a prisoner of the MCP, forced to participate in gladiatorial games based off the video games he and others programmed at ENCOM. With the help of Tron, Flynn escapes and works towards the overthrow of the MCP in order to return to the real world.

Since Tron‘s release, the movie’s influence grew. As mentioned, without Tron, there would be no Pixar. In 2008, Tron was nominated for the American Film Institute’s Top Ten Science Fiction Films, although the movie didn’t make the list. The visuals have infused themselves into pop consciousness; depictions of cyberspace resemble Tron‘s grid.

In 2010 Disney released Tron: Legacy, a sequel and reboot of Tron. The world of gaming changed in the almost thirty years since the release of the original. The video arcade, mainstay of the 80s, has all but disappeared. Console gaming is far more widespread, as is the Internet. Keeping the feel of the original Tron while incorporating modern graphics and sensibilities had to be balanced with the capabilities of CGI. Back for Legacy was both Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner reprising their roles from Tron. Time had passed for their characters, with Kevin Flynn having a son, Sam, played by Garret Hedlund, and then going missing in 1989, Sam has long lost his belief that his father will return by the start of the film, but a page brings him to Flynn’s Arcade. Sam snoops around and finds a computer still on, waiting for input. Sam logs in, and gets digitized to the Grid. He’s picked up by a Recognizer, which now looks even more ominous. Sam is sentenced to the Games, where he’s recognized by a semi-feral program called Rinzler as a user. The film continues with Sam’s fight to escape, the discovery of his father and the last of the isomorphic algorithms, and the race to return to the gateway to get back to the real world. The concept of Zen plays heavily in the film as the chess match between Flynn and CLU turns into first a game of Go then into a game of Roborally**.

As a reboot and sequel, the movie does well. The Grid is bleaker than in Tron, and an explanation is given for why the blossoming of colour at the end of the first movie is gone. The story in both Tron and Tron: Legacy is Kevin Flynn’s; Sam may be the mover and shaker in Legacy, but it is his father’s story that comes to a close. The music, by Tron fans Daft Punk, again adds to the otherworldlyness of the computer realm and adds a sense of menace that Wendy Carlos didn’t have. Legacy is just as beautiful as the original.

Next week, the pitfalls of adapting games.

* Times have changed indeed. Life of Pi won the Oscar for Achievement in Visual Effects in 2013 with heavy use of CGI.
** Not so much because there’s robots, but because even carefully laid plans in Roborally can be completely derailed thanks to an unforeseen random element.