LA Times: game narratives too 'weak' for movies, Uwe Boll agrees
Los Angeles Times Magazine spent some time breaking down the rules of Hollywood, schooling would-be fortune-seekers and laying down some hard truth: "Hollywood can't win at video games." Filmmakers are advised to avoid video games as source material because games' "weak narratives" haven't transitioned to the big screen as well as comics – a sentiment echoed by Uwe Boll during a recent Fox News interview; the infamous director declares, "A lot of video games have no story." (Yeah, especially light gun games.) But even something as intricately devised as the Halo universe doesn't seem to hold much promise in the eyes of Hollywood. Halo script re-writer Josh Olson (A History of Violence) complains that video games "have aimless cycles. You go to A, shoot some monsters, then go to B, then start over and do it again." Why argue?
Historically, Hollywood has done a miserable job selecting games for film adaptation, while we've enjoyed plenty of strong narratives developed for and executed in games. We say: Why give Hollywood a chance to muck up the true gems? The game industry has nothing to prove to American cinema.
Read - LA Times (subscription required; try: bugmenot)
Watch - Uwe Boll on Fox News (warning: obnoxious)
