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

Adapting Games to Games

So far, I’ve looked at adapting games as movies and television. There is still one more way for a game to be adapted – as another game. Already, a questions appears; “Why? What’s the point?” A popular game, though, is ripe to be exploited.

Starting with boardgames, what usually happens is the game gets adapted as a video game. The main advantage is that the player can get a computer opponent when there is no one else available to play with. Another advantage is having an impartial judge, the computer or console, make sure that the game is played fair. With the integration of the Internet into day to day lives, updates to the game, in the form of new content, is easy to get. Trivia games, such as Trivial Pursuit, can add new questions and fix wrong answers with a patch instead of waiting for the next expansion pack to be published. A successful adaptation of a boardgame has to keep the gameplay the same in the video game; otherwise, why play the video game when the boardgame is within reach. Most boardgames have simple mechanics, relatively speaking. The rules have to be easily interpreted by the players to keep the game flowing and keep the number of arguments to a minimum. The computer opponent needs to be challenging but not impossible to beat. The experience has to be similar to the original game, though added details like animation are a plus.

Video games, usually ones that have become household names, do get adapted as board games. Sometimes, it’s a brand applied to another existing game, typically Monopoly**. Other times, there’s an effort to bring the feel of the video game to the board; the Frogger adaptation involves trying to cross a highway and the Pac-Man board game was a multi-player version of the video game. World of Warcraft has spawned boardgames, a trading card game, and a miniatures game. HeroClix, a miniatures game, has sets for Assassin’s Creed, BioShock, Gears of War, Halo, and Street Fighter. Again, the experience the players have must be similar to the original video game. Pac-Man‘s board is set out like the video game’s, with the players’ tokens looking like Pac-Man himself. There will be cases where it will be difficult to bring the video game experience to the table; first-person shooters will lose that perspective. The HeroClix examples, however, add a new dimension; all HeroClix sets are compatible. It is possible to find out if a team up of Master Chief from Halo and Chun Li from Street Fighter can win against Batman and Robin.

Video games have also been adapted as tabletop rpgs. Not many, the market for a tabletop RPG is already a niche, and the cost of licensing a title may be more than the game can bring in. That said, the three adaptations that come to mind are Dragon Age: Origins (adapted by Green Ronin), Street Fighter II (adapted by White Wolf; currently out of print], and Everquest (adapted by Sword & Sorcery Studio, an imprint of White Wolf; print status unknown). Adapting a video game to a tabletop RPG means that the coding used to play the game, especially determining success with tasks, needs to be made available to the players in a way that is understandable by a human, not a machine. As with the case of the Street Fighter II and Everquest games, a tabletop game company may use its house rules and try to fit the video game’s setting around those. White Wolf used its Storytelling system with Street Fighter; the fit wasn’t ideal; the Everquest tabletop RPG used the third edition Dungeons & Dragons Open Gaming License as a base, recreating the classes from the video game to fit. Green Ronin, however, created a new system for the Dragon Age RPG, one that reflects what happens during gameplay. The key for a successful adaptation is to have the tabletop RPG feel like the video game while still being approachable by both people new to the tabletop hobby and people new to the video game’s setting. Characters should be capable of doing what their counterparts in the video game do; Street Fighter didn’t manage to do this while Everquest presented the same type of character that a new player just starting the video game would get.

As for tabletop RPGs, the adaptation of those spans the history of video games and will be dealt with in Part V

* And theatre, though I’d be surprised if someone made that leap.
** When the Monopoly movie comes out, will there be a Monopoly Monopoly?

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

Tabletop Role-Playing Games

A relatively new form of gaming, tabletop role-playing games (RPGs) evolved from fantasy wargaming. The grandpappy of RPGs, Dungeons & Dragons came from adding elements to the Chainmail rule set allowing for individual characters to gain experience. From those humble beginnings, RPGs have spread to cover almost every conceivable genre, from swords & sorcery to space opera, historical romance to post-apocalyptic horror, Wild West to hard science fiction. Players take on the role of their character, unravelling the Game Master’s (GMs) plots.** The simplest and oldest of plots is the dungeon exploration, where a group of specialists go into a structure to kill the inhabitants and take their belongings.

For the purposes of this week’s entry, I’ll be including tabletop wargaming. RPGs were originally an offshoot of wargaming. Several franchises, such as Warhammer and Battletech have related role-playing lines. Other franchises, such as Traveller had tactical and strategic wargames based off the RPG’s setting.

I’ll return again to the four elements noted in Part I – plot, setting, characters, and gameplay. Each of these need to be acknowledged and included for an adaptation to succeed. With RPGs, though, the plot and characters are created by the players. Some games, notably Steve Jackson’s GURPS and Hero Games’ Champions, come without a setting in the core rules. Gameplay may be critical; players will want to be able to duplicate what the characters do on-screen.

If plot is player created, then what can the writers do? Ideally, they can figure out the sort of adventures player characters (PCs) are meant to go on. A fantasy game tends to imply an epic. Dungeons & Dragons should also include a dungeon*** and a dragon; some items are just expected. Meanwhile, the cyberpunk/Tolkien-esque fantasy fusion Shadowrun should involve a group of specialists hired to be expendable assets who break into a mega-corporate facility to retrieve the plot coupon, as in the shadowruns the title implies. Not all RPGs provide such inspiration, though. The various editions of Traveller allow GMs to create a huge sandbox for the players to wander in, to find adventure both in space and on the ground. The writers will have to pick a potential plotline out of supplemental material. Other games, such as TSR’s Boot Hill and R. Talsorian’s Mekton, bring their genres to the table to play in; in the examples given, Westerns and giant mecha anime, respectively. At this point, why license (other than to get the name)?

For games that come packaged with a setting, most of the work is done. Typically, there’s still room left for GMs to add their own twists, but basic facts are provided to help out. Catalyst Game Labs’ Shadowrun and Battletech and Alderac Entertainment Group’s 7th Sea are good examples, coming with a well-formed setting in each game mentioned plus numerous supplements that expand options. In Shadowrun‘s case, the history of the world from 2012 until 2070 is given, including the return of magic, the fragmentation of nations, and the rise of the mega-corporations. Battletech provides the background of factions, the different types of gear, including the game’s king of the battlefield, the BattleMech, and the various fronts of the wars between 2375 and 3072. 7th Sea shows a fictional Earth, called Théah, its history, and the political alliances that form the backdrop to a campaign. An adaptation needs to remember these details; players will be looking for them. Some items, such as history, can be glossed over, be referenced in throwaway line, or even forgotten about if the characters don’t care about the matter. However, ignoring the fracturing of Canada and the US in Shadowrun/ or dropping an alliance from 7th Sea because it’s inconvenient to the plot will have players complaining, killing word-of-mouth.

Characters for an RPG adaptation gives the writers room to maneuver. In some settings, there are a number of key non-player characters, such as Elminster for the Forgotten Realms and Seattle Governor Kenneth Brackhaven in Shadowrun. They don’t need to appear necessarily, but their existance may provide some inspiration for writers. Ideally, the characters created for the adaptation should be possible under the game’s character generation system. That said, most games try to make it possible for believable characters. Even when the power level is stratospheric, there needs to be room for character improvement. The other question is how experienced the characters of the adaptation are. Level based games such as Wizard of the Coast’s Dungeons & Dragons and Palladium Games’ Rifts start new PCs as youngsters heading out to adventure at the beginning of their career. Even games that aren’t based around levels can start PCs as rookies; White Wolf’s Vampire: The Masquerade had PCs start as recently turned vampires. Other games, the various Travellers in particular, had PCs begin play with a years of experience under their belt. Still other games allowed for a variety of prior life experience, from the hot-shot rookie to the world-weary veteran, before play started. The key here for writers is to make sure that the main characters reflect what’s possible. A D&D-based movie can have a mid-level**** character as the hero as long as his or her abilities match what they should be for a PC in a game of that level.

The last, gameplay, is going to be a sticky point. Game mechanics do try to represent the genre, but abstraction does happen. A PC in D&D can keep going without a drawback as long as his or her hit point total remains above zero. Loss of hit points represents minor scrapes, twisted ankles, fatigue, and luck, but there is no mechanical disadvantage for being wounded. On screen, people may have trouble setting aside suspension of disbelief and believing that the fighter who just took an arrow to the knee can still run. Some mechanics may have to be set aside. However, if the game system uses Vancian magic+ and a wizard in the adaptation keeps casting Fireball multiple times without stopping to pull out his or her spellbook, there’s a problem. Writers need to keep the mechanics in the back of their mind to prevent glaring mistakes.

There hasn’t been many movie and TV adaptations of RPGs. The main factor is that tabletop RPGs are a niche market. Many exist to let players play in a specific genre, so adapting one of those games can seem silly. The best known RPG has had two adaptations; Dungeons & Dragons was first adapted as a Saturday morning cartoon, then later as a movie.  Vampire: The Masquerade was turned into an Aaron Spelling nighttime soap called Kindred: The Embraced, lasting eight episodes. Over in Japan, the fantasy RPG Sword World became the basis for the novel series and anime Record of Lodoss War, based on the creator’s home campaign. The mecha wargames and RPGs Battletech and Heavy Gear have been turned into animated series. At one point, Rifts was optioned by Jerry Bruckheimer, though that seems to be at least stuck in development.

Record of Lodoss War may be the route to use, at least for a TV series – base the series off an actual campaign that has been played. The characters will have been developed, the setting is already fleshed out, and plot lines will have flowed from events naturally. For movies, the best way may be to give the game a test play and see if the results were both fun and lead to exciting visuals.

Next week, part IV, adapting games as games.

* And theatre, though I’d be surprised if someone made that leap.
** Like a cat unravels a wool sweater.
*** Or other underground structure.
**** Levels 5 through 8 or so. Enough to start dealing with serious threats without becoming responsible for a town’s security.
+ Magic where spellcasters memorize a spell, then release it later, “forgetting” the spell afterwards. Named after Jack Vance, who used the method in his works.

 

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.

Space opera has long been a staple in science fiction. Sprawling epics, from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars through Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers to Star Trek and Star Wars and the original Battlestar Galactica, where good and evil are easily determined and the stakes are high. Even if the heroes run into obstacles too much to overcome, they triumph in the end.

The past two decades have seen deconstruction of many forms of entertainment, taking the original works and applying a grim, gritty, realistic or semi-realistic filter and showing the results. The remade Battlestar Galactica is an excellent example of deconstruction. The original Galactica, despite the last survivors of the Colonies being on a ragtag fleet being hunted to extinction, left the viewer with optimism that humanity would survive. The remade Galactica, there was the question of who would finish off the fleet first, the Cylons or the humans.

With desconstruction comes reconstruction, the rebuilding of the tropes associated with the genre. In this case, Bioware’s Mass Effect series of video games. In 2007, Mass Effect introduced video gamers to a galaxy where humanity joins a large number of species already capable of faster than light travel. Planets and locations range from the high tech and political centre Citadel Station to frontier colonies like Eden Prime and hell holes like Omega.  Into this, eldritch abominations return from beyond the galaxy, intent on destroying all life as part of a cycle of destruction.

Players took on the role of Commander Shepard, a special forces member of the human Systems Alliance Navy, as he or she* investigated an attack on the human colony of Eden Prime. As the investigation progressed, Shepard picks up an eclectic band of supporting characters, including a rogue Citadel Security officer, a homeless pilgrim, and a naive archaeologist, and learned about the threat to the galaxy being spearheaded by a rogue Citadel Council special operative.

The follow up games, Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 continue the investigation and fight against the abominations, even while Council doesn’t believe that there is a danger. Throughout the series, despite the threat, despite the inevitability of the abominations returning and succeeding, the hope exists that Shepard will prevail and unite the galaxy against the threat.

In 2012, Funimation**, in conjuction with T.O. Entertainment*** and Production I.G.**** released the animated feature Mass Effect: Paragon Lost. Part of the goal of the feature was to introduce a new playable character for Mass Effect 3 in case Shepard died during the gameplay of Mass Effect 2 while still succeeding with the mission. Another goal was to introduce the game to new players.

Paragon Lost follows Lieutenant James Vega, a marine in the Systems Alliance Navy, as he and his squad race in to protect Felh Prime from an attack by krogan mercenaries. Vega and his teammates show off the different classes available in the game without calling them out by name. Instead, the movie shows what each class does, and the abilities shown are possible in-game, even by Shepard with the right choice of class. The movie starts shortly after the beginning of Mass Effect 2 after the apparently loss of Commander Shepard, and takes place before the start of the real plot of the game. Through the course of the movie, Vega discovers the abominations and what the race known as the Collectors are doing and works to prevent a tragedy.

As an adaptation of a video game, Paragon Lost needs to be able to tell a good story within the framework of both the plot and the gameplay of the Mass Effect series. As seen with Battleship, getting how a game works into the visuals can be problematic. Working in the Paragon Lost‘s favour is having a common ground with the video game – both are visual. The special moves available to Shepard and his or her team are already shown on screen. Paragon Lost shows the viewer each class and what it can do easily enough, from the flashy to the subtle. The movie also shows the setting, giving a taste of the Mass Effect galaxy despite staying primarily on Fehl Prime.

The other major factor in the Mass Effect games is the effect of player choice. A decision made in the first game will return to haunt the player in the second and third. Movies, with the exception of Clue, tend to have just one ending. Interactive DVDs do exist, but are marketed more as games than movies. Paragon Lost, though, still manages to introduce the idea, giving Vega a critical decision and showing the viewer the ramifications of his choice, in a way that drives home the seriousness not only of the immediate results but the long term war to survive.

Next week, the legacy of early computer animation.

[Note: This is not the column I hinted at last week. That review is still coming.]

Nineteen forty-four was not a kind year to British citizens. World War II was still going on, and people living within airstrike distance of Germany had to deal with lengthy air raid drills. To help pass the time spent underground and take minds off the worry about what was happening on the surface, Anthony Pratt created a board game based on a murder mystery. After the war, he presented the game to Waddington’s, a British game publisher. Once the wartime shortages were dealt with, the game Cluedo*, known as Clue in North America on its release by Parker Brothers, was released.

The game millions have played since then involves trying to determine who killed Mr. Boddy with what and where by examining evidence at his mansion by going room to room. The murderer, location, and weapon are determined by dealing one of each type of card and setting them aside unseen. Players then move through the mansion, making suggestions in each room. Once a player is sure of who the murderer is, an accusation can be made. Murder weapons include a revolver, a candlestick, a lead pipe, a length of rope, a knife, or a wrench.

In 1985, Paramount released the movie Clue, based on the board game. The movie took the game play, then expanded it to provide motives for each of the characters. Each character was given the name of a token from the board game as well, explicitly called out as pseudonyms. With the movie set in 1954, Communism was a possible motive for several of the characters. Once the murder occurs, both the characters and the audience set off to figure out who killed Mr. Boddy. The clues are there, but the audience needs to pay attention and not get distracted by the double entendres, single entendres and puns. The cast worked well together, with comedic actors Martin Mull (Col. Mustard), Eileen Brennan (Mrs. Peacock), Madeleine Kahn (Mrs. White), Christopher Lloyd (Prof. Plum), and Michael McKean (Mr. Green), and other greats Lesley Ann Warren (Miss Scarlet) and Tim Curry (Wadsworth, the butler**). The movie was released with a gimmick – three endings were filmed, each to be sent to different theatres in the same city. The release didn’t help in the box office, with the movie underperforming and not making up the initial budget.

The movie did go to lengths to adapt the Clue‘s board as the setting. The rooms were laid out just like the board game, with the secret passages still available. The murder weapons, for the most part, resembled their counterparts in the game. The exception was the revolver, which was played by a modern era weapon instead of the pepperbox design in the game. As mentioned, all the suspects took on the names of the token in the game. One of the endings included the traditional line used when suggesting and accusing in game***.

As an adaptation, it works. The mansion has the right layout. The tokens are all there and now given personalities and motives for killing Mr. Boddy. Wadsworth keeps the “game play” moving, suggesting the characters split into pairs to investigate the mansion. Each of the murder weapons are used. Unfortunately, the gimmick may have led people to avoid the movie. Audiences tend to prefer a definite ending instead of a random one.

The movie is worth watching, especially since it did portray the game well. The writing is tight, with a cinematic nod to Edward Bulwer-Lytton****. Tim Curry is on top of his game, and the rest of the cast keeps up with him. Pay attention to the scenes and the lines. Just remember, like in two of the endings, that Communism is just a Red herring.

Next week, adaptation as a way to expand a setting.

* A play on words of the Latin “ludo”, meaning “I play”.
** He buttles.
*** To avoid spoilers, the form is “[Mr.|Miss|Mrs.] X, in the [room], with the [weapon].”
**** It was, indeed, a dark and stormy night.

The Avangers Adaptation continues!  Previous entries are:
Iron Man
Thor
Captain America

This week, everyone’s favourite hero with anger management issues, the Incredible Hulk.

The Hulk first appeared in The Incredible Hulk #1 back in 1962. As with many of Marvel’s early original heroes*, the Hulk was created by Stan Lee, with Jack Kirby. The origin had Dr. Bruce Banner, physicist, being at ground zero of a gamma bomb. Instead of dying, Banner absorbed the gamma rays, turning him into the Hulk. From that point on, whenever Banner was upset or angry, the Hulk would be released. Stan Lee has said that he invoked Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde along with Frankenstein with the character, noting that the Hulk, despite being the monster, was the hero. Although not an immediate hit**, the character guest starred in other Marvel titles and became a founding member of the Avengers, staying in The Avengers for the first two issues before leaving.

In 1978, CBS aired a television series, also called The Incredible Hulk based on the comic. Changes were made; Bill Bixby played Dr. David Bruce Banner, a name change required by executives. The gamma bomb accident because a lab accident that infused Banner with gamma radiation. The Hulk, played by Lou Ferrigno, had reporter Jack McGee chasing him, trying to find out the truth about the accident. The series ran five seasons, with three made-for-TV movies following.

Wait, you may be thinking, why mention the TV series when I haven’t done anything like this before? Isn’t this about the 2008 movie, The Incredible Hulk? Indeed it is, I say as I somehow read your mind. However, I continue, the TV series is important to keep in mind for the rest of the review.

The 2008 movie The Incredible Hulk was filmed by Marvel Studios as part of its Avengers Initiative, a series of movies leading up to the release of The Avengers. The Hulk, as mentioned above, was a founding member of the team, despite leaving after the second issue. Might be easy enough to gloss over; Avengers #1 is older than the target audience. Except, as seen with the other entries, the filmmakers are well aware of the history of the comics. The Hulk is, now, one of Marvel’s iconic characters, inspiring phrases such as “hulking out” and the source of, “Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”***

The movie quickly shows the Hulk’s origin during the opening credtis, combining the one comic and the one from the TV series to have a super solider serum test go wrong. Banner was led to believe the serum was to help resist gamma radiation. General Ross, an old foe of the Hulk from the comic, had other ideas. The movie opens in Brazil, with Banner working at a factory while trying to research a cure. An industrial accident that leads to a Stan Lee cameo lets Ross know where Banner is hiding. Ross sends a special forces team, led Emil Blonski, to retrieve the hiding scientist. Suffice to say, they got Banner upset, and that never ends well for anyone.

While Banner returns to the US to get the original data from the project that turned him into the Hulk, Blonsky and Ross work together to create a weapon capable of going toe-to-toe with the green monster. Blonski volunteers to under go the super soldier treatment, foreshadowing the events of Captain America. The first fight between Blonski and the Hulk, at a college campus, leads to Blonski recuperating in the hospital with every bone broken, but healing fast. The fight was also recorded by a jounalism student with the last name McGee.

The movie continues, using Blonski as a mirror to Banner. As Banner works to get rid of the Hulk, Blonski works to embrace the monster within, eventually becoming the Abomination. The difference between the two gamma radiated monsters is that Blonski kept his intelligence. Where the Hulk is raw, brute strength and fury, Blonski keeps his skills, losing a little in raw power.

The movie itself draws from the Hulk’s forty year comic history and the television series, blending the two. Edward Norton, who played Banner, looked a lot like the late Bill Bixby, even down to mannerisms as Bruce. Lou Ferrigno not only has a cameo as a security guard, but is also the voice of the Hulk. The journalism student mentioned is a shout out to Jack McGee of the TV series. Audience members who know the hulk solely through the TV series would not be lost. The influence of the TV series brought me to a question that I hadn’t considered before; that is, “Is there such a thing as an adaptation that is more influential than the original work?”

The Incredible Hulk also had to deal with history progressing since 1962. Originally, Blonski was a KGB agent. With the end of the Cold War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the de-Sovietization of Russia, having a KGB agent would stick out. Turning Blonski into the English-born son of Russian immigrants on loan from the UK to the US brings the character into the 21st century. Likewise, the gamma bomb became a lab accident; the push to out-arm the Soviets also disappeared with the end of the Cold War. While the US does maintain a stockpile, the need to increase the number of warheads has dropped greatly. The movie updates the Hulk mythos nicely, telling an archetypical Hulk story with a current setting.

Next week, expanding a setting through an adaptation.

* As in, not the ones originally created my Marvel’s predecessor, Timely
** The Incredible Hulk, volume 1 lasted six issues.
*** Originally from the TV series, in the opening credits.

Apologies for the disappearance.  Lost in Translation will return next week with a look at The Incredible Hulk.  I’m also taking the time to watch a few more movies to prime the pump after The Avengers Adaptation.

While getting prepped for the The Avengers review*, a small detail kept drawing my attention. It came up in Iron Man, and continued through each entry of the Avengers Initiative. It’s the setting. Not just Tony Stark’s lab or SHIELD’s headquarters, but the entire universe.

Let me backtrack a bit to explain. Most major comic publisher has its own universe where their heroes live, work, and fight crime. DC’s universe includes fictional cities like Metropolis and Gotham City and fictional countries like Qurac. Marvel doesn’t go for the fictional city, but does have its own fictional countries, like Doom’s Latveria and Silver Sable’s Symkaria. This allows the various characters and titles to crossover and guest star as needed, and leads to team books like Justice League of America (bringing together DC’s iconic characters into one book), Teen Titans (for DC’s sidekicks), and The Avengers (Marvel’s Justice League equivalent.) Image, even though each book is its own universe, does allow its published characters to appear in other characters’ titles, in a form of metaverse**. Over time, as storylines grow and wrap up, as characters are introduced and interact, as villains come and go, each title’s history starts getting complex. Add in the various guest appearances by characters from other titles, and the complexity starts looking like the family tree of European Royalty***. It makes for difficulties to jump in on a title. It also makes for difficulties when adapting.

The first problem with a large universe is licensing. Marvel has had this problem more than DC over the past fifteen years. DC has the advantage of being owned by Warner Brothers, with their main universe titles being released by Warner. Since 1998, Marvel has seen their characters and titles licensed out to New Line Cinema (the Blade series), 20th Century Fox (X-Men and related characters, Daredevil, Elektra, the Fantastic Four movies), Columbia (the Spider-Man series including the reboot The Amazing Spider-Man, the Ghost Rider movies), Universal (the 2003 Hulk), Lionsgate (the Punisher series, Man-Thing), and Marvel Studios (all movies leading to The Avengers). Several things stand out. First up, the Punisher. The Punisher first appeared in a Spider-Man book, then guest starred with other Marvel notables such as Captain America (an Avenger) and Nightcrawler (an X-Man), before making regular appearances in Daredevil and then getting his own title. With the licensing, the Punisher isn’t easily available in any movie with the heroes mentioned. Likewise, Daredevil and Spider-Man share a few opponents, notably the Kingpin, and are based in the same city, New York. Fortunately, New York is big enough that it’s feasible to believe they won’t cross paths often. The excuse will work for movies due to the time between releases.

The next problem is the sheer weight of history. Superman has been published continuously since 1938. That’s seventy-five years worth of stories, continuity, characters, situations, and other dross. Batman dates from 1939. Wonder Woman from 1941. Marvel has characters that predate Marvel, coming in from Timely. Even Spider-Man dates from 1962, over forty years. Some characters even have multiple books. While origin stories may get repetitive, they have the benefit of having the audience come in as a blank slate with no prior knowledge of the character. A movie about a team of diverse heroes, like the Justice League or the Avengers, though, doesn’t have the time to show each team member’s origin and still deal with the central plot. Even in a movie where all the characters gained powers through the same source, like X-Men, there’s a good chance of an outlier (in X-Men‘s case, Wolverine) who has something more happening in his backstory. The X-Men franchise also has the anti-mutant hysteria to add in its setup.

What can the adapting studio do? One way is to just focus on the character and ignore everything else in the universe. This approach works best when the character being adapted doesn’t appear in the same circles as the rest of the universe. The approach also works when the character is best known for the type of story being told. Spider-Man is perfect for a story that’s personal, close to home, or deals with problems that are local to New York. Same thing with Daredevil and Batman. At the other end of the scale, dealing with would-be world conquerors is in line with Superman, the Justice League****, and the Avengers.

Another way is to take in everything from the character’s books, then pick and choose what to keep. This is essentially what happened with X-Men and the Avengers Initiative. It doesn’t hurt that Marvel once split the editorial tasks by group, two of which were the X-Titles and the Avenger titles. The areas are, for the most part, self-contained except for the annual all-title crossover events. Need a villain from Thor to menace the Avengers? No problem! Need a classic Wolverine opponent to act as muscle for Magneto? Easy as pie! The adapting studio has access to a broad range of characters and situations and doesn’t have to worry about having to fill in that man-sized spider hole in the cast.

Then there’s branching off from the main universe to create a new one for the medium. The adapting studio gets the details it needs, the characters it needs, and then branches away at some point, creating its own continuity parallel to the main body. There may be events that are shared, events that are similar, but the two continuities are separate entities. The best example is the Dini-verse, also known as the Timm-verse+, which spun off from the main DC comic continuity as cartoons. The Dini-verse is responsible for the creation of a tragic background for the Bat-villain, Mr. Freeze, and the introduction of Renee Montoya and Harley Quinn into the regular continuity. The Avengers Initiative is doing something similar. In the main Marvel continuity, Iron Man is seen as Tony Stark’s employee and bodyguard. In the movie, Stark just came out and said it; his ego wouldn’t let a lie steal the spotlight.

And there’s the reason for this long aside. The Avengers Initiative are wonderfully done movies, getting the feel of the characters right, but getting some minor but critical details (like Iron Man having a secret identity) wrong. I don’t want to deal with the, “Wait, no, that’s not accurate!” moments while watching an amazing scene. There’s enough small details to show that Marvel’s movie continuity is separate from the main comic line’s. I am acknowledging it here so I can properly watch the movies without having to note discrepancies that don’t make a difference to the scene but do when it comes to continuity.

Next time, the penultimate Avengers Adaptation entry.
Correction: Last week’s Lost in Translation was listed as number 52 when it should have been number 53 instead.

* That is, watching the movies and reading the comics.
** The authors maintain control of their books, and discrepancies are written off as how the character perceived the crossover.
*** Not so much a family tree as a family tumbleweed.
**** Especially if people forget that Batman is a member.
***** My argument really breaks down when people remember that Spider-Man is an Avenger, too. But teamwork can let even the weakest heroes combine to defeat the worst villain around.
+ Named after Paul Dini and Bruce Timm, the showrunners for the DC animated universe starting from Batman: The Aninated Series through to Justice League Unlimited.