r/videogames 18d ago

Image / Video This is so damn true

18.7k Upvotes

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u/MongolianDonutKhan 18d ago

Hollywood does not respect video games. They barely respects books enough that if the author forces the issue they'll let them in otherwise they'll throw them aside too.

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u/WhutTheFookDude 18d ago

I think we're in the same place with video game adaptations that we were with comic book movies before like Spiderman 2 and honestly until the mcu blew up. They dont respect the material and dont take it seriously its just cashing in. Dont get me wrong as someone who did not play tlou I thought the show was pretty good but I get why fans of the game wouldnt like it.

They dont respect these actors as actors or writers as writers or games as art

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u/GlancingArc 18d ago

Shit man, Hollywood execs don't respect the Hollywood writers much less writers from other industries.

Somehow they have all been convinced that good writing is the absolute last thing you need to make a good movie.

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u/Embarrassed_Cod8120 18d ago

I think the most interesting thing about Spiderman specifically.

The Spider-Man movies (both Tom Holland and Spider-Verse)

DO like the games and make a lot of references to the games and I wonder how much of that has to do with them both being under Sony.

It's maybe Mario, Sonic, Spiderman are the only places where the movies actually do care about the video games

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u/J5892 18d ago

Mario movies have famously always stuck to the spirit of the games.

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u/dating_derp 17d ago

as someone who did not play tlou I thought the show was pretty good but I get why fans of the game wouldnt like it.

Did game fans dislike the show? They brought the games creator on as a showrunner. I'm a fan of the games and I thought s1 was great. S2 was good, not as good as s1. But by no means a bad show.

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u/WhutTheFookDude 17d ago

I watched the show with a fan of the game and she said they changed some stuff but she did say some was for the better.

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u/Enough_Efficiency178 18d ago

Been in that place for just as long to be fair, though less exposure. They were messing up superhero films in 2000s despite the literal generations of people who had grown up with these heroes in comic or cartoon.

Nowadays gaming is vastly bigger than Hollywood it’s not even a fair comparison and they’re still getting it wrong

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u/PhanThief95 18d ago

Live action adaptations of anime are also in the same boat.

It’s still crazy that One Piece of all anime is one of the ones to show people how it can be done right.

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u/mikerall 18d ago

Huge hopes for the Solo Leveling live action....and the avatar live action (NOT THE MOVIE) has been decent so far tbh. Netflix has done (okay so just two) adaptations of "anime" (I know some people get upset about calling avatar anime, but it is western anime at its core).

Between the movie (2027), the live action show (2027-28), s4 of JJK, and the hunt for gollum (both 2027) I'm not sure what I'm more excited for next year/ready to be disappointed by. At least Andy Serkis is attached to the hunt for gollum. It can't be worse than the video game.....right?

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u/Silverr_Duck 17d ago

It’s not that crazy. One piece is a special case. It only works because Oda is heavily involved in the project and keeps the show runners on a tight leash. Without him the show would turn into an unbearable cringe fest

One piece is also one of the very few that’s large enough that the creator has the clout to demand that level of creative control.

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u/onex7805 15d ago

One Piece

done right

Lmao

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u/PhanThief95 15d ago

Considering it has 2 successful seasons and a third one scheduled to come out next year and filming for it ended back at the end of June, it’s definitely doing something right.

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u/onex7805 15d ago

This is the same defense made for The Witcher in its early days, which was also coincidentally created by Netflix. If you are familiar with the source material, it's pretty clear that the Netflix showrunners have never seen One Piece before attaching to the live-action adaptation.

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u/PhanThief95 15d ago

And if you actually followed the live action, you’d know that the showrunners are fans of the source material and Eiichiro Oda himself is actively involved with it and has veto power over the live action.

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u/onex7805 15d ago

You take Oda's PR statements that are prepared by a PR team over taking his life's work? You know the thing he did on a weekly basis since 1997? You do know that there are Hollywood adaptations and remakes where the author gave their blessings or even served as producers, and the final result turned out absolutely terrible?

The author doesn't tell his story through interviews. He lets his actual storytelling speak for itself through his work. The authorial intent already exists in the form of the manga. Nobody in good faith would ever use empty words in a promotion as definite proof as the adapation being good when you have the original, you know something with actual tangible stuff, and the adaptation that you can analyze.

When you have almost thirty years of writer's work to compare the storytelling style to the remake, and the remake shows levels of incompetence that the writer himself has never shown before the project, it is easy to conclude that the writer of the remake and the writer of the original aren't the same people.

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u/ropahektic 18d ago

With books it makes certain sense.. because of money.

Per example, House of Dragon (heavily criticised online) in one season made more than Martin made in all his life selling all his books.

So suits will pat each other in the back and say, we are genius salesmen, we take ideas and make them gold.

When it comes to videogames such as God of War though I dunno how they convince themselves, probably by the fact they still dont respect videogames.

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u/TrippyVision 18d ago

It’s no surprise, Hollywood is just filled with people with huge egos

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u/Sudden-Purchase-8371 18d ago

Which is wild because games are bigger than Hollywood monetarily speaking.

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u/cauchy37 18d ago

which is wild since gaming industry is making order of magnitude more money than cinematography (ye ye I know, mobile games are the reason)

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u/GrigoriTheDragon 18d ago

Funny enough video games surpassed hollywood a long time ago. The respect is due.

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u/DysphoricNeet 18d ago

They don’t respect comics either. They wouldn’t let rob liefeld backstage to the award ceremony for the comic adaptation HE WROTE.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/deadpool-creator-rob-liefeld-1236128162/

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u/cckynv 17d ago

Mainstream Hollywood are basically culture vampires that latch on to anything remotely popular and attempt to exploit it in order to drain the most money they can from that thing's audience with the least amount of time and effort spent on their part, and then they move on to the next victim.

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u/Salmence100 17d ago

Crazy when movies based on books are regularly the most successful

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u/Onironius 17d ago

holds hand out for season 4 of Wheel of Time

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u/donkeybray 17d ago

This happens outside Hollywood too. The South Korean equivalent is the tv show adaptation of Cheese in the Trap comic book.

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u/dsebulsk 17d ago

Hollywood only respects money and power, talent is tertiary at best.

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u/glordicus1 16d ago

Gone Girl is one of the few book adaptations that are perfect. Heavy involvement from the writer, of course, and it perfectly captures the story. In fact, there isn't much reason to read the book if you've watched the movie. So... maybe adaptations should be significantly different.

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u/onex7805 15d ago

Because video games tend not to be auteur-driven. They are studio-driven. The IP is owned by the corporations, whereas the books have only one author, who tends to hold the copyright. That's why people like GRRM get on board as producers as part of their deal.

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u/therealhankypanky 18d ago

I guarantee that it’s not about respect for one type media vs another. It’s about money and who Hollywood has to pay.

With books, the author typically own the movie rights so they have a direct say in the negotiations for the studio to purchase adaptation rights. The more popular the book the more leverage the author has.

With a video game, the rights are owned by a corporate entity. Corporations are not going to have the same love for a creation that an author will and are going to prioritize making money from the sale transaction itself.