When movies and television learn to level-up
Posted on 13. Aug, 2010 by Jef in Film, video games
Name: Scott Pilgrim. Rating: Zeitgeist.
One of the things that interests me about Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (which goes into wide release today) is the film’s heavy video game influence. There are the obvious visual cues — bad guys discorporating into coins, characters snatching 1UP power icons — but also the subtler, more meaningful ones, like how Scott’s video game-ish task of defeating his girlfriend’s evil exes is also the structure by which he slowly comes to terms with his own past and mental baggage.
Video games and movies are no strangers to each other — films such as Aliens and Blade Runner continue to have an impact on game design — but when we talk about influence, it’s usually just the one-way street. Switching gears to look at how video games have affected movies and television, however, and things get a little more interesting (or at least a little less obvious).
Games are stubbornly task-based, so when their narrative and functional conventions are transferred to the passive realm of movie watching (or channel surfing), action/interaction-centered creative choices take on slightly different purposes. Hence a steady stream of kung-fu battles for Scott is definitely influenced by fight games like Street Fighter II, but the end result, because it is a film after all, serves a coherent character arc rather than SFII‘s more straightforward laundry list of goals. By realizing that what he’s meant to do (in life!) goes beyond just running his fists through a succession of enemies, Scott learns to grow up. That’s not to say Scott Pilgrim vs. the World critiques gamers (though maybe it does — anyone?), it just goes to show the kind of wonderful things that can happen when directors and screenwriters are influenced by the games they play.
On that note, going beyond works that are merely about video games or are made to look like video games, here’s a list of my favourite video game influences on movies or television shows. Note: Three of the films were released in 1997-98, which is kind of interesting. The rest are all pretty recent, which either means this is a trend I stopped looking out for over the decade (true!), or that filmmakers and show runners are once again being influenced by games now that console power has led to new types of games being developed (possible!). Or, you know, gaming has become massively mainstream and gamers have grown up and are now holding down key jobs all over the creative industry (probable!).
Either way, yeah:
24 (2001-2010)
Jack Bauer IS video games. CIA agents, assassination plots, a kidnapped daughter — Bauer has all of this to deal with and, like Super Mario before him, he has a given amount of time in which to deal with it. Entire seasons take place in real time over the span of a day and, in a simple visual cue that recalls how gamers check their time and life bars to see how much longer they can expect to live, 24 flashes the time across its screen to increase audience suspense. Without allowing his bar to deplete, Bauer moves from task to task, which increase in difficulty and raise in stakes as the show goes on.
Bonus points: Bauer’s daughter Kim is a lot like a certain mushroom princess; it doesn’t matter how many times you save her, she’ll need rescuing again by the next installment.
LOST (2004-2010)
Geoff Klock (or one of his astute readers or guest posters) can take credit for once pointing out that the early seasons of Lost operated like a video game. Like game characters, Lost’s heroes venture out into the island and slowly discover or “unlock” different set pieces or levels. From the beach, they discovered the caves, then the hatch, and so on until the big reveal of the final level in Season 6. Each setting provided a new series of tasks, often rewards, and sometimes secondary uses (like using the hatch as a prison) depending on character innovation. The show’s final island-mission was especially video game-like in its task-based simplicity.
Bonus points: (SPOILERS) The revelation of the show’s final six candidates is like being faced with a Choose Your Character menu screen. Because interactivity is low and single-narrative is the rule, the show chooses Jack for us. Rather, it had chosen Jack all along, but really, like with Street Fighter, I think any character could “complete the game” and take over the island. Jack’s ending is the “true” ending just as Ryu’s is the true storyline of Street Fighter, but I do kind of wish I could go back and replay as Sawyer or Kate (or Mr. Eko or Ana Lucia in the special editions), just to see their end credits so to speak.
Cube (1997)
Video games lend themselves to episodic bursts and existential themes that are expressed through a series of problems (winning and losing often meaning life or death), and both were concerns for the film Cube, in which 7 random people make their way through a series of cubed rooms, each door leading to a new room, each room with its own particular temperament. The traps and tasks encountered have an obvious parallel to games (and the word “cube” itself suggests something computerized, a pixel, a console), but it’s the way the film’s game structure is used to create horror and communicate a Kafkaesque world view that makes it special.
Bonus points: Is a video game sequel for Cube actually a possibility?
Sliding Doors (1998)
Gwenyth Paltrow plays a woman whose story is told through a game-like convention: first, she catches a train, then later, she gets a second chance to try again and see what happens if she misses the train. The train is the starting point, and from there the different stories branch out in different directions but exist within the same time frame. Sliding Doors is interesting in that it takes a game-like experience with multiple outcomes but still ends up telling a linear narrative with no room for audience decision-making. It has to, which highlights the different types of stories that games and movies are able to tell given their respective limitations.
Minus points: What, you mean I can’t jump Gwenyth Paltrow off a cliff?
Run Lola Run (1998)
Video games aren’t Run Lola Run’s main influence (music videos are), but their impact on this film student favourite is essential to its charm. As later with 24, the pressure of time is heavy in Run Lola Run and images of clocks play a significant role. To accomplish her goal, Lola runs a breakneck pace through stairways and across streets, dodging obstacles and obliterating objects. In several sequences, Lola and the film takes a moment to reflect on choice and chance — after choices resulting in two deaths, Lola chooses to restart her adventure and try again.
Bonus points: These are the quotes that start the film: “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started,” (T.S. Eliot) and “After the game is before the game,” (S. Herberger). Any thumb-calloused gamer already knows these things to be true.
The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Again with the life bars! The 2008 Hulk relaunch uses two neat devices to measure and communicate the importance of Dr. Bruce Banner’s pulse: a watch that he wears to track his heart rate, and a title card that tracks the “days without incident” (i.e. how many days since the Hulk took over Banner’s body). When the watch beeps, Banner needs to escape the action and find time to heal/breathe. When he “hulks out”, the day tracker returns to zero. Both are simple devices with video game origins that shape viewer expectations.
Minus points: Filmmakers. Y’all know Banner had anger issues, not blood pressure problems, right?
Zombieland (2009)
The way Zombieland meshes monsters and comedy with an indie coming-of-age sensibility is a lot of fun, and the way it lays out the rules and geography of its balls-crazy universe is so totally video games. The opening scene serves as instruction manual, with Jesse Eisenberg’s narration detailing the skills and moves needed to kill and escape zombies. These skills are used throughout the film in a series of callbacks. The idiocy of the zombies also comically mirrors what it’s like to battle a brainless CPU — where else but in a video game can you escape a bad guy by running in a circle? Also, the film’s aimless wandering, especially in the second act, feels much like “open world” games ala Grand Theft Auto, where the storyline or lack thereof is driven by what the player chooses to explore. “Hey look! I can go into this house! Hey look! I can turn on the movie projector!”
Minus points: The open world meandering proves to be more fun than the actual overall story. When it comes time to fit the story in a tiny box for the final act, Zombieland loses most of its charm and betrays one of its characters.
Kick-Ass (2010)
My favourite sequence in Kick-Ass — a film essentially strung together by a series of fantastic sequences — is when child hero Hit Girl dons a pair of night-vision goggles and we watch in first-person as she mows down an army of bad guys. The p.o.v. perspective and the green tones of the night-vision thrusts viewers into the world of a first-person shooter game, except here we have no control. The lack of playability highlights the differences and strengths of the two mediums; we experience Hit Girl’s killer instinct in a way more visceral than seen in the rest of the film, but we’re also removed from her, able (required even) to sit back and gasp instead of lean forward and take the reins.
Bonus points: While it lacks the interactivity of a gaming experience, this scene also flaunts the sure-footed instincts of cinema over the more still noncomittal action/story/action nature of games. Hit Girl’s assault is definitive and awesome, and what she does to her enemies far outdoes whatever it was we as gamers might have done with her in the same situation.
I’m always interested in the topic of video games and storytelling, so please add to this list if you can. Even staying away from obvious choices like Tron or straight video game adaptations, there’s definitely a lot I’ve missed, either in films/shows I haven’t seen, or ones I have seen but whose video game influences I’ve failed to notice.
rafi
Aug 13th, 2010
The Matrix and Avatar both jump to mind with heroes who are easily viewed as proxy for gamers. They have to shift consciousness into another reality / manifestation to perform their heroics.
Jef
Aug 16th, 2010
I’m used to thinking about Buddhism when thinking about The Matrix, so I never really caught any video game influence (in its aesthetics maybe, but even with that it’s more anime than anything else). But good call. Especially with the easy-upgrade way Neo learns new skills and fighting styles.