Altering The Storyline
Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time
Just as good things can come from hiring authors to adapt their own literary work for the big screen, it is understandable to experience a rush of cautious optimism when the creator of a video game is tasked with developing the story for its film adaptation. Such positivity waned with the release of Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time, however, when it became clear that the story had been hacked around and altered.
Although the film adaptation has a title that specifically correlates to a Prince Of Persia game, creator Jordan Mechner did, by his own admission, simply take elements of the story, and combine them with elements of other stories from the game series, creating this all-new cinematic tale led by Jake Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arterton. The result, it seems, was to alienate large swathes of game fans, as well as the critics – because, although it earned a respectable $336 million at the box office, the film has not reached the heights of popularity enjoyed by its source material.
– Sarah Myles
Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros. is notable for being the first big-budget theatrical video game adaptation to come from Hollywood, and it’s still seen as one of the most infamously misguided. Ignoring the bright and cartoony atmosphere of the games in favor of a dingy, Blade Runner-inspired city is a mistake made early on, but it doesn’t stop there. The plot, involving dinosaurs evolved to the point of appearing humanoid, parallel dimensions, and a magic meteor, is all over the place, and bizarre casting decisions like Dennis Hopper as the antagonist don’t work either.
The film doesn’t even try to feel influenced by Nintendo’s iconic platform series so much as make forced references to it, like seeing signs in the background with a familiar character’s name on it. Iconic enemies like the tiny brown Goombas are now six-foot-tall, trenchcoat-clad minions with tiny animatronic heads, and Yoshi – a trusty mount in the games – is demoted to being a miniature raptor with little to genuinely add to the plot.
To give the film credit, some of the bizarre departures from the game are still visually creative, and Bob Hoskins is a good fit if you want a live-action Mario. The film can be enjoyable if you’re a B-movie fan, but anyone willing to defend it as a genuinely good movie or adaptation faces an uphill battle. Nintendo took the film’s failure so seriously that, outside of Pokémon movies based on the already-successful TV series, they’ve refused to license any more of their games for films ever since. Seeing how Super Mario Bros. turned out, it’s not that hard to blame them.
– John Fleury
Published: Sep 16, 2015 02:43 pm