Will Wreck-It Ralph Be Video Games Toy Story?

Wreck-It Ralph premieres
November 2nd

In the mid-1990's, Pixar Studios and the Walt Disney Company showed the world what life was life for toys when their owners weren't paying attention. As the film created a franchise with two more sequels, it's premise was fully explored from getting a new owner to the realization that you're just a toy for a child to play with. This years, Disney (who has their own computer animated division) will release Wreck-It Ralph, a story about a video game villain in a local arcade game that simply doesn't want to be the villain anymore. Will this film create a Toy Story-like world for video games?

There a support group for everyone, including
video game villains. Ganondorf couldn't attend.

The story is simple enough; a bad guy in an arcade game that always has to destroy a building before the players can stop him. The game is called Fix-It Felix, which is a cross between Rampage and ummm...the opposite of Rampage. The bad guy -Wreck-it Ralph (John C. Reilly)- tries to wreck the building as the player tries to fix it. Eventually, we see what life is like inside the game. Ralph attends the bad guy support group called Bad-Anon with other famed video game villains like Bowser (Super Mario Brothers), M. Bison and Zangief (Street Fighter), Kano (Mortal Kombat), Dr. Robotnik (Sonic the Hedgehog), ghost from PacMan and random zombies. At the end of the session, they conclude with a bad guy affirmation and take their unhappy days "one game at a time". Ralph ends up leaving the game and jumps to others to find his new role in life. Stepping from Hero's Duty to Sugar Rush, where he meets a plucky little glitch named Vanellope (Sarah Silverman). In that time, the threat grows as the outside world pulling the plug on a game that doesn't have it's villain. The basis of the role is finding your role in the world and finding out your importance to it.

John C. Reilly lends his charm
to the title character.

Flanked by charismatic actors (Jane Lynch, Denis Haysbert and Jack McBrayer) lending their voices to the project, Wreck-It Ralph is likely to have plenty of life in it. However, video games never attempted a Toy Story-like approach. Sure this isn't quite the same as the world of toys when they're owners turn their heads, but Disney's blueprint (along with Pixar's help) has proven to be successful overall. Sometimes they pour on a little too much heart and get sappy, but Disney hasn't had the Toy Story success without Pixar's help. Since branching off with their own computer animated division unit, Disney's biggest success has come from their Pixar collaborations. With a little luck, Wreck-It Ralph has plenty to build on.

Note: Fix-It Felix is available on your cellphone app store.

Console to Screen: Metroid

Metroid was released in
1986. Could it make it
to the big screen?

In 1986, Nintendo released Metroid for the NES. The game was an instant hit as Nintendo continued an impressive run of games that couldn't stay on the shelves. It was about a bounty hunter named Samus Aran that fought against the Space Pirates and a cybernetic life form called Mother Brain on the planet Zebes. In the early part of the decade, Nintendo was the first video game company to use story to drive the game. Metroid was another example of it, but there was a twist that shocked gamers in the mid-80's: the hero was a woman. Suddenly most gamers felt like they had to shower and impress their female heroine, but alas that would be the closest some of the gamers got to a woman. Metroid stopped dead in the 90's, but returned in 2002 with a new look and a more in-depth story. Years ago, Metroid was rumored to be attached to John Woo to direct a feature, but since then Metroid has developed three more games with good stories and great action. It was one of the first games that showed the Wii's potential, but what pitfalls would Metroid cross before hitting the big screen?

Story:

Metroid Prime revamped the
dormant series in 2002.

If you use the Metroid Prime story, Samus Aran is called to Tallon IV to stop the Space Pirates from growing an powerful and volatile chemical called Phazon. Through the process, Samus stops a Space Pirate mining operation only to discover that there was a plan to create an ultimate weapon called Metroid Prime. Unlike it's brethren that would attach to a life form and drain it's energy, Metroid Prime was a larger creature that could adapt to different environments and different attack weapons. Samus destroyed the creature, but in a secret ending it's revealed Samus gave life to something much worse. The Metroid Prime trilogy is one of the most successful franchises released by Nintendo and could spawn a series of films.

Metroid: The Other M was the first
Nintendo game that let the lead talk.

However, if Hollywood follows the latest edition -Metroid: The Other M- the series could go in a different direction. In The Other M, Samus details that she used to be a member of the Galactic Federation Army, but left after a dispute with her commanding officer to become a bounty hunter. After defeating Mother Brain and watching the baby metroid that saved her killed, Samus is "cleaned up" by the Federation doctors. After answering a distress call, Samus travels to "the bottle ship" where she finds that the planet Zebes was recreated in this structure. Through her adventure, she re-encounters the rest of her old platoon -including her superior officer Adam Malkovich. Little-by-little, Samus finds out that the Federation "cleaned up" Samus by taking all of the DNA off her suit to make these creatures- including Ridley and Mother Brain. As a result, Samus must defeat her enemies- including the enormous Queen Metroid- while she tries to find out who killed the members of her old platoon. The story was crafted well and Samus was flushed out as a character better in this edition.

Samus is as attractive as she's deadly. Who could play her and do her justice?

Jennifer Lawrence has two
franchises going right now.
She'd be perfect for this one.

Casting:

There's really only one character to cast in this series- Samus Aran. In all editions, Samus looks the same; blonde hair, blue eyes, athletically slender build and perfect looks. She has the look of Kate Upton, but the attitude of Alien's Ellen Ripley. Now, Hollywood would love to get another heroine to the screen as they're hard to come by. In recent years, they got The Hunger Games, Twilight and Prometheus but one more couldn't hurt. As a matter of fact, one of those films has the ideal actress to play Samus Aran: Jennifer Lawrence of X-Men: First Class and The Hunger Games. Lawrence has two aspects that would make her perfect: she looks the part and can act. A former Oscar nominated actress for Winter's Bone, Lawrence has proved herself over-and-over again in various films over the last couple years and proved she could be an action star in the last two years. Give her a good script and Lawrence will deliver.

Mother Brain was a powerful enemy,
but Hollywood would need to expand
her character.

Hurdles:

Metroid never really clarified their story until Metroid Prime, but that's not the major hurdle. In most Nintendo games, their heroes (or heroines) were mute. In Metroid: The Other M, Samus finally spoke. To hard core fans, Samus was too sensitive and too overcome by feelings, but some found the story compelling and moving. The scenes between Adam, Anthony and Samus were good, but the feel for the other members will have to improve. Another problem that arises is Samus' enemies are mute. There's no feel for what the Space Pirates, Dark Samus or Mother Brain's motives are, unlike the atmosphere you get with the Legend of Zelda or Super Mario series. Perhaps that's why The Other M would make a better film, but executives wouldn't like starting a series at what's essentially part 3 of the story. Without a good supporting cast, even with great action, Metroid would be doomed.

What's Already In Place:
A great sci-fi angle and a good main character, but Metroid's action sequences could be impressive. With several different creatures and bad ass bosses like Ridley, film adaptation should be great. The scenery is impressive and gives you a different feel for the areas. The presentation of Metroid through the years makes it interesting how to deliver it. It began as a side scrolling game, then first-person shooter and then a 3D interactive side-scroller. All those presentations will not matter if adapted to the big screen, but it's still important to understand the feel of the series.  However, the music is what separates Metroid. It's style was more like a techo-score and mix that in with flashy action and it'll get your blood pumping. The Metroid Prime series was listed on my Best Music in Video Games.

Who could pull this off:
Renowned action director John Woo would have been a decent choice, but it's not the only option depending on what you want out of this franchise. If you want better story, Ridley (no pun intended)  Scott or James Cameron would be a homerun, but the chances of them taking on a Video Game movie is unlikely. The horror would be that Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov gets the gig, which would make fans clammer for Woo again. Perhaps a studio could discuss Jon Favreau as a possibility after his success with Iron Man and mixed reviews of Cowboys and Aliens.

Will we ever see a Metroid film? Hard to say. Nintendo was burned by their Super Mario Brothers movie and they tend to shy away from the big screen. That said, sooner-or-later, Nintendo is going to give it a shot and it's more likely that Metroid would get it's number called before any of their other franchises. That way, fans of Zelda don't get mad if their movie sucked or another black eye if Super Mario movie failed again. Metroid is just popular enough to take the chance without alienating it's fans if the results are... well... Resident Evil-esc.

Why Video Games Movies Haven't Worked

Remember the days when playing a video game was just simply popping a quarter into a machine and trying to finish a level? Whether it was playing Donkey Kong, Spy Hunter or Arknoid, people had fun with arcade games before it moved in the home with Pac Man, Super Mario Bros and Sonic the Hedgehog leading the way. Let's just say things have evolved since then. Now video games are well-written narratives that engross their player into a story -where some even evoke an emotional response- all tuned to music from a full orchestra written by the same guys that write the scores for blockbuster motion pictures. Hollywood is trying to get more video games on bigger screens than your flat screen at home. However, these stories haven't been able to be adapted to the big screen. Why? Were their casts not good enough? Did they not have top notch directors? What went wrong?

For starters, look at the facts. Despite making about $678 million worldwide during it's series, the Resident Evil movies have been mediocre at best. Their Rotten Tomatoes score never broke 34% so critics and audiences didn't like it too much despite what box office grosses have to say. Part of the problem to the hardcore RE fans is that the addition of Alice changed the story completely. The RE game was about a special OPs team that was dropped into a strange situation, only to discover that one of their own agents assisted in creating the ultimate biological weapon. The movie... went another way. It begins with the incident and turns into a bizarre retelling of "Alice in Wonderland". Does that sound like the same story? Of course not, but somehow this spawned THREE more movies and a fifth coming in September. In spite of low quality of these films, it keeps making money. Guess that proves movies don't have to be good, just slapped with a brand name.

The fundamental part of the video game storytelling is gone when put on screen. Plug in your console and pop in a random action game. Usual formula now is cinema scene (tutorial maybe) and then a task that leads to the expanding story. A film needs to introduce the character and have an inciting incident to draw the viewer in. A video game already has the viewer and the experience expands the story, whereas a film has to tell the story. Hence why a game like "F.E.A.R." works well, but if made into a film wouldn't using the exact same formula would be dreadful. Take "Gears of War" (always rumored in production) uses a 5 act structure. There's only three acts in a movie. So right away there's two acts that needs to be removed and that's not including that the original Gears game focused on Marcus Fenix without explaining E-Day. It wasn't until the second story that Gears developed Dom's story and the history of the War. "Gears of War" cannot do that if they make a film, especially if the producers want the trilogy. 

Part of the problem with video game films is that the player is meant to be in a game for several hours. A film is meant to hold you for 2 hours. Now, how do you just remove bits of story without hurting the overall experience your audience has already enjoyed? Take "Super Mario Bros" -the first video game movie- which made up a story about plumbers who travelled to another dimension to take on Koopa, who is a crime boss and not a giant turtle-like creature. This film was doomed from the start. Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo as Italian plumbers? Really? None of the film embodied it's more successful namesake and what's worse is that it proved what not to do with a video-game-movie. At least "Double Dragon" didn't make the same mistake... oh wait.

The other way around is true as well, look at "Street Fighter" and "Mortal Kombat" which were two games that had minimal story and yet were expanded to make 90 minute movies. The result was two films with weak storylines and characters you weren't sure if you wanted to root for them in the first place. A fighting game doesn't really have a hero. It has heroes. So there's no clear person to root for and what if your favorite characters was Ryu and Johnny Cage and the film centers around Guile and Liu Kang. Seriously, did anyone think Raiden was a good guy?

Now, it is possible to make a good video game movie. If you consider "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within" as one. Instead of making a film about their highly successful "Final Fantasy VII", Square Soft told another story with new characters. This film featured the voices of Ming Na, Ving Rhames, Alec Baldwin, Donald Sutherland, Steve Buscemi and James Woods. It was the highest rated video-based film... that was not based of a game. "Silent Hill" and "Prince of Persia" focused on their stories a little bit more and lead to a better product, but there still hasn't been a "Citizen Kane" for video game films. There were rumors of John Woo being attached to "Metroid", but there still hasn't been any activity from Nintendo with rumors that "The Legend of Zelda" will never find it's way to the big screen. One good thing came from the failure to make "Halo", Peter Jackson ended up using Neil Blomkamp to make "District 9" when they couldn't get a script for the game.

Maybe Hollywood gets it right sometime soon. They're going to have plenty of opportunities coming up.  Internet rumors have up 20 games being optioned to become features, but will they ever be the same quality as the comic book films that have come out in the last decade. Hard to tell, but don't let this ruin you from popping back in your favorite game and playing it again.