Why Are Alien Invasion Movies Dumber Then Game Equivalents?

J

John Uskglass

Venerable Relic of the Wastes
I'm watching Independence Day.

My God this movie is dumb. I mean honestly. insanely moronic. Firstly, the aliens invade earth to consume organic matter. WTF? They could create enough. Certainly. I mean, for fuck's sake, THEY BUILD THINGS 1/4 THE SIZE OF THE MOON AND SEND THEM ACROSS THE GALAXY. They are advanced enough to have those host bodies...but they are organic? They can be stopped by a weapon 500 years removed from a sword? A little bit of titanium thrown in their direction and bam, massive organ failure and death. Not to mention their tactics during invasion; they want to consume organic matter, but they burn humans to a crisp. That's just dumb people. Not to mention the entire NUKE-EM sequence. Firstly, who would think that a ship capable of interstellar travel would be effected by something as inelegant and simplistic as a nuclear weapon? Then, of course, the tank watching this whole thing just goes on to report on the obvious; the ship is still there. This, despite the notable fact that the EMP wave should have fried all the technology in the hunk of Human junk.

It's an incredibly stupid movie. It may have a halfway decent cast, but it wastes it's effects budget on the moronic (terrible alien, alien ship design) or the meaningless jolts (the fucking DOG surviving).

Now, HL2 is an entirely different story. Rather then simply destroying human civilization with some manner of WMD, they quickly subdue an already damaged humanity in 7 hours, then place a human figurehead government completely controlled by them while they attempt to change the best examples of humanity into another species worthy of contributing to their empire.

That actually makes sense. If humanity continues to progress at it's current rate, if not even faster, we could easily become a threat to this alien species, and perhaps to the existence of the entire universe. Rather then risk this, they simply decide to force them to become allies. Think an alien version of America forcing Japan to open up, only with a lot more weird hybrid alien-human thingies.

But HL's plot is more then that. Even if the main character is an MIT grad, Freeman is kind of the defense of magical thinking; in the face of an extreme rational, highly intelligent enemy, a simple Messiah figure takes the entire system down.

It's genius. And it took maybe 1/100 of the budget. And I'm sure they didn’t hire as many writers.

WTF is wrong with Hollywood?
 
Great topic CCR...not only with Independence Day, but also mentioning HL2.

Its sad people can become "immersed" in such lame crap when theirs such wonderous story's to behold in gaming...I swear Hollywood must have a chain-gang of chimps going for hours at typewriters to write Hollywood scripts...with an equally large number of unemployed actors reading the scripts for something vaguely legible to be made into a blockbuster.

Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller
 
I think the obvious answer between Movies vs. Games, is that more people are mentally capable to hand over money to drool at big effects, than those able to install computer applications for themselves. Now throw in having to learn the interface. Now throw in puzzles.

Simply put, there are fewer intelligent people in the herd than the masses of the herd.
 
You may be right Rosh. In fact, I think you are. But the thing is, it's entirely possible to have action movies with pulpy images and widescale popularity that are downright savage in their satire and are on some level brilliant movies. Just look at Dawn of the Dead; the film was the highest grossing of all time until The Blair Witch Project. Or the movie I am watching right now, Starship Troopers; the movie is downright brutal in it's satire of violence in society and Heinlein's overt Fascism, yet at the same time it made massive profits in DVD sales.
 
I always judge games and movies by how well people still like them years later. Everyone has their favorites, but certain titles seem to stick out, while other ones are forgettable. It all boils down to the obvious effort spent on the title. ID4 is as forgettable as Harbinger. Fallout, Ultima, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and The City of Lost Children, are different from the norm and well-crafted in their own right, and therefore are memorable.

On the other hand, game sales also do selectively well in the terms of Lowest Common Denominator, a fact that every marketer in the gaming industry wants to use to think that they are "brilliant" in making development of games aim for that low. Yet the good ones shine above the crap, even if the average consumer might not be intelligent enough to truly appreciate it.

Game players who enjoy specialized genre/settings like Half-Life 2 have likely seen/played a lot of similar setting work in the past. It is fairly certain they have seen Alien, Pod People, maybe even V. They probably have already seen the cheesy sci-fi original shows/movies as well.

ID4 was meant to be a brainless summer action flick, and HL2 was required from the start to have a story to set it above most of its genre. It comes down to audience exposure to the genre or writing that is obscure to the layman vs. broader appeal, and I think it's obvious which route each went down.
 
ID4 was terrible, but I think the greenies wanted the earths resources (and maybe some chargrilled white meat). As for the nuke inside the mothership, things explode far easier than implode. it just sucks the way they had to have an alien staring at a counter and the pretty graphics on the alien computer terminal.

a movie I enjoyed awhile ago was House of One Thousand Corpses. Quite the shocker.

HL2had a good plot and some good scripted combat but was too linear. I'm sure we've all played fallout and enjoyed its freedom but HL2 is like a rail shooter and towards the end I just wanted to uninstall the thing. The plot is lost in the end scene too. Damn that mysterious briefcase wielding headcrab loving freak.
 
Roshambo said:
I always judge games and movies by how well people still like them years later. Everyone has their favorites, but certain titles seem to stick out, while other ones are forgettable. It all boils down to the obvious effort spent on the title. ID4 is as forgettable as Harbinger. Fallout, Ultima, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and The City of Lost Children, are different from the norm and well-crafted in their own right, and therefore are memorable.

On the other hand, game sales also do selectively well in the terms of Lowest Common Denominator, a fact that every marketer in the gaming industry wants to use to think that they are "brilliant" in making development of games aim for that low. Yet the good ones shine above the crap, even if the average consumer might not be intelligent enough to truly appreciate it.

Game players who enjoy specialized genre/settings like Half-Life 2 have likely seen/played a lot of similar setting work in the past. It is fairly certain they have seen Alien, Pod People, maybe even V. They probably have already seen the cheesy sci-fi original shows/movies as well.

ID4 was meant to be a brainless summer action flick, and HL2 was required from the start to have a story to set it above most of its genre. It comes down to audience exposure to the genre or writing that is obscure to the layman vs. broader appeal, and I think it's obvious which route each went down.
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Rosh, to be honest, I don't think I can agree with your judging of movies and games. It's better to judge them on how YOU think of them than on how other people think of them after they've aged.

One thing that Hollywood's doing that REALLY pisses me off: The Doom movie coming out in August is going to SUCK.
 
uziel said:
Rosh, to be honest, I don't think I can agree with your judging of movies and games. It's better to judge them on how YOU think of them than on how other people think of them after they've aged.
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I was speaking in general, that movies that last in memory for some time tend to have had quality work behind them.

One thing that Hollywood's doing that REALLY pisses me off: The Doom movie coming out in August is going to SUCK.
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- Mars
- Hell
- Demons
- Marines
____________
100% Bullshit without any DOOM in the title

I certainly noticed that the id developers have cameos, of sorts, by having characters share names with them. Oh, yes, it doesn't suck... :roll:

Games made on movie licenses = Crap²
Movies made on game licenses = Crap³
 
Only it's just got
-Marines

-Mars
-Hell
-Demons
won't be in the Doom movie. It won't be Mars, they won't be going to hell, and they won't be fighting demons. It's some alien or virus or some crap like that. Damn you Hollywood. Damn ye to hell.
 
Nonono... there are Special Ops in the DOOMed Movie, far different than the hordes of marines that died in DOOM.
 
if house of one thousand corpses doesn't do it for you guys how about Dr Strangelove or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb? Or a more recent movie of high calibre and comedy value Team America, world police.
 
Of all the games with fantastic stories out there, why does Hollywood always choose to make a flick inspired by such utterly boring and inane games as Doom, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter and Tomb Raider? Why not make a Deus Ex movie? Or a Planescape: Torment movie? Or - why the hell not - a Fallout movie? I know idiotic masses fall for explosions and action, but action doesn't need to exclude all notion of clever and intriguing plot, and vice versa. Yes, a Deus Ex movie would have lots of shooting, too, but it would also have a plot that doesn't make you feel like a bloody retard while watching. Or are movie directors so stupid and uneducated that their knowledge of games boils down to the most primitive forms of gaming, such as shallow beat-'em-ups and first person shooters? The only game-inspired movie so far that shows some potential is probably Silent Hill - everything else is a load of dung.
 
Ratty said:
Or are movie directors so stupid and uneducated that their knowledge of games boils down to the most primitive forms of gaming, such as shallow beat-'em-ups and first person shooters?
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That would probably be a reasonable explanation.
 
Didn't Mortal Kombat have a few sequels? If so it had to be popular.
Fear the hive-minded masses!
 
One thing i noticed in these lame movies........"nukes" are always a joke.

They always only launch one and then its completely ineffective.

Realistically speaking,if an alien invasion occured,every government would spam out all the nukes they had.

In the movies,how many is it?One nuke.Of course its from the US.And of COURSE...it does jack.

And a worse movie i can think of would be mars attack.Christ,that was awful.People were depicted as complete and utter retards in it.

And the military basically fired a few rifles and some tank mounted MGs........no tank canons.No anti-tank missles.No aircraft in sight.

If a goddamn spaceship lands on earth the US would have the whole damn place surrounded with enough AT weaponry to kill a titan from the warhammer 40k universe.

If hollywood wants to do a alien invasion movie,please god,DO IT WITH CLASS.

At least use some common sense when shooting scences with military/police involvement.
 
Mars attacks was a spoof and a pretty damned funny one too.
There were two nukes in ID4, the second was inserted into the heart of the mothership by two brave american retards.
 
I mean the launching part.

Mars attack was yea,not really serious(the damn classical music bit?christ),but some effort could have been made to make things make more sense.

The scence where the aliens just sorta run into the white house(which is as i understand it supposed to be heavily guarded) with only 1 or 2 guys firing pistols at them just kept me thinking about why terrorirsts didnt just storm the white house if it was that easy.
 
Question said:
Mars attack was yea,not really serious(the damn classical music bit?christ),but some effort could have been made to make things make more sense.

The scence where the aliens just sorta run into the white house(which is as i understand it supposed to be heavily guarded) with only 1 or 2 guys firing pistols at them just kept me thinking about why terrorirsts didnt just storm the white house if it was that easy.
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Mars Attacks! was meant as a tribute, pinnacle and closing word to the old alien invasions series. It's hard to understand the film unless you're from the generation of those films or have at least seen them.

Mars Attacks! succeeded at being the epitome of "Martians invade!" films in much the same sense that Eight Legged Freaks did, although Mars Attacks! does it better.

Understand that, like Fallout, Mars Attacks! was never meant to be realistic, they're making a direct representation of how alien invasions were represented back in the original days of Martians invade movies.
 
Dude. You haven't lived if you haven't seen Plan 9 from outer space.
 
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