Rantings: Why Movie Games Suck, A Counter-Example

This might be a shorter post than usual, for reasons I intend to get into about Tuesday. However, this topic is also fresh on my mind, again for reasons to be detailed later. Tonight, we'll continue the topic I believe I first mentioned in the very first week of this blog; movies based on video games, and why they usually suck. This time, I'll offer some suggestions for a movie that could break this trend. My example will be God of War, for various reasons I mostly covered last time, but let's review. First, the game is comparatively short (about 5-8 hours on a first play through seems to be the norm,) and it's divided into only a few major locations. Thus, it's not television-length, as many video games are. Second, the game already uses many techniques more common in cinema, from the narrator to the flashbacks, encouraging a backstory while at the same time keeping the emphasis on action, as an action movie should. Finally, the main character, Kratos, is much better defined in terms of story, motivation, iconic appearance, and personality than, say, Mario.

The game will start just like the game. Kratos will announce that the gods have abandoned him, and he will try to commit suicide by walking off of a cliff. The game will cut back to explain who this man is and how he got to that level of despair. Just like in the game, he will be ordered to save a ship under attack by the hydra. The movie's version will be shorter, featuring him arriving, saving the crew from the monsters. Well, some of them. Just like the game, most non-Kratos characters will not have a very happy fate. Another thing that must happen in the movie is feature characters for Kratos to interact with. In the game, most people tend up being killed by Kratos or a monster within minutes. In this case, the ship's captain will meet Kratos early on, ineffectually help, and almost get eaten by the Hydra.

This begs the first question: will Kratos actually let the captain die in the movie, heartlessly abandoning him after getting a key he needs and then, if I remember right, kicking the guy down the hydra's gullet, or at least letting him slip the rest of the way. In this version, I would probably do the same, but make it more ambiguous. He takes the key and leaves, having otherwise ignored him. The reason for the key in the game was to rescue the women and children of the boat, who were kept in safety in the locked room. This...didn't work. By the time Kratos returned, they were being massacred. This is a tough scene to add. On one hand, his response to women in general, and their deaths in particular, is a major plot point related to Kratos' history. However, the general use of women as victims in the original God of War might not work in a movie. Though if 300 could get away with worse, who knows? I might make it a specific woman and/or child, perhaps one that Athena requested that he rescue, to make it more personal.

Either way, Kratos failed, and instead of cutting to the next level, the movie will feature some of the introductory material only found in the instruction booklet. In this case, Areas mocks Athena and makes his plans to attack her city of Athens, setting up the conflict of the gods that starts the main plot. Enter Kratos. Athena tells Kratos to stop Ares, and this, plus the woman he tried to rescue, explains that Kratos works under Athena's command, despite not seemingly being compatible with her message of wisdom, as part of a life of penance. He arrives and has to meet the Oracle of Athens in the city, who can give him a way for a mortal to slay a god.

So, Kratos arrives and kicks butt, but again this is much shorter than the game. There's a new monster, but it's a major boss encounter against an originally normal enemy, like a gorgon or cyclops instead of a few hundred mooks. He then learns from her that he must go to retrieve the Pandora's Box. And so, they head off. Yes, they. Once again, Kratos needs someone to interact with besides his own memories, so the oracle, abandoned after her rescue until the very end of the game, will become the default foil. The desert level will go away completely, except for a few moments of exposition, as Oracle asks about why he allied with Athena, and while he rejects her questions, the narrator will not, covering about half of the back story the game presented. This could even be prompted, not by the desert journey itself, but by another scene from the game while in Athens. In the game, Kratos meets a citizen, who flees at the sight of him, more scared of him than she is of the monsters. In the end, she even plummets out of a window, choosing death by falling to encounter with Kratos.

But eventually they reach the Temple of Pandora, which takes up a good half of the game, but here it barely covers a few scene. Another awkward moment of morality comes up, where Kratos has to sacrifice a captured soldier, an absolute innocent, to solve a puzzle. This time, the scene from the game will appear, contrasting the Oracle's morality with the indication of Kratos' absolute obsession with his quest. This brings up the second half of the back story, finally revealing that Kratos, who previously pledged absolute loyalty to Ares, only for him to trick him into killing his own wife and daughter. He rejected his former master and allied with Athena as a result, less out of actual guilt and more to escape the constant nightmares of what he did. The brief temple bit ends with a fight against a giant, armored minotaur, just as it did in the game, but when Kratos got the Box, Ares was prepared for this and ambushed him, killing him and taking the Box and the Oracle. In the game, Kratos fought his way out of Hades himself, with the help of a mysterious grave-digger. We'll get back to that point later. The game/movie ends with Kratos returning to get the power of Pandora's Box and fight Ares, only to lose his weapons and have to confront his past, but the fates themselves seem to assist him, giving him a weapon capable of killing Ares.

It's here that the plot diverges one last time. In the game, Kratos, having learned that even the gods can't remove his nightmares, tries to kill himself, but the gods instead turn him into the new God of War, a role he seemingly fills for all eternity. The game offered a few bonus hints about possible sequels, but nothing concrete. The movie's ending is similar, but without the finality, since the sequel had since come out and there was no need to end the first plotline with such a resolved ending. Kratos becomes God of War, but there are no hints that it lasts for long, and in fact Kratos seems to be in despair at the thought of eternal life.

This is not a movie with a happy ending. Kratos is after all barely a hero, so his story is not good defeating evil, it's about the futility of obsession and the willingness to do anything for your own supposed redemption. The movie also explicitly reveals that Zeus himself was the gravedigger who saved Kratos, which the game barely hinted at, suggesting that Zeus has further plans for Kratos and even engineered this entire plan for his own advantage, suggesting that Zeus is the true villain of the series, or at least the chief conspirator. I doubt this would win any Emmies, but this at least offers most of the game's strengths, including the violence, the tragic yet inspiring hero, and the massive battles against seemingly impossible foes. And it shows that video games offer more than the most simplistic of plots. Kratos is ultimately a failure, even if his plans do save a city, and his hubris and that of those who use him will lead to tragedies beyond this single plot. There are other games that offer this possibility, including ICO and/or Shadow of the Colossus and Metal Gear Solid. Let's see which one gets the treatment next, whether that means my treatment or that of people with a hundred million dollars to spare.