Hello everyone ^^
Can´t believe it´s already a month since I started with this little experiment jsjsjs.
Anyways, this week’s question is (in honor of the recent Mario movie release): Do you remember the first time you watched a movie based on a videogame? How was it? Wich movie it was?
Mine was Mortal Kombat (2021), I usually avoid this kind of movies jsjs.
Remember that I’ll be reading all of your replies. ^^
4 Likes
I think it was Pokémon 3 the Movie: Spell of the Unown. As far as I remember, it was pretty good.
2 Likes
Well, according to Wikipedia the first Hollywood video game adaptation was Super Mario Bros. in 1993, so I guess that’s the one.
But, if we count something that fudges the rules a bit because both arcade games and a movie were released in the same year, then I’ll count Tron in 1982. I first saw that on home video in and around 1983 or 1984.
4 Likes
This could be the one for me too and it had a huge impact on my 16 year old self. The Tron soundtrack is a timeless masterpiece and Wendy Carlos is a genius. Wendy Carlos - Wikipedia
I did not know at the time that there was a video game called Tron coming out.
I remember when the Mortal Combat movie came out (1995), but I thought it was too violent for me, so I did not watch it. Again, I did not know that it was about a game.
If Tron does not count then the first movie I knew was about a game and where I knew the game(s) and which I wanted to watch because of the game, was Hitman (2007). My expectations had been low and as an homage to the series it fell flat and I understand the bad reviews for it, buuuut something about the movie worked for me, though it is hard to describe what it is and it is a guilty pleasure of mine.
I fall into this group of two other people I guess, Wikipedia:
Roger Ebert notably gave it a positive, three-stars-out-of-four review, and said “Hitman stands right on the threshold between video games and art. On the wrong side of the threshold, but still, give it credit”.
Despite Hitman 's negative reception, Slovenian philosopher and film theorist Slavoj Žižek included the film in his personal list of 10 greatest films in a 2012 poll conducted by the Sight & Sound magazine. Commenting on his picks, he said the list contains “only ‘guilty pleasures’” and he made “no compromises for high quality or good taste”.
I have to add my worst experience with a film related to video games (talking about it helps to get over the pain) and that is, so far, PIXELS. I wish I could erase that experience from my brain. Other video game-related films may have been really bad, but they couldn’t hurt me, PIXELS caused me physical pain. shudder
3 Likes
I’m guessing it was probably Super Mario Bros. [the live-action one back in the day]
Last year, I added the Double Dragon and Street Fighter movies to my collection
2 Likes
Last year, I watched some Sonic and Mario movies.
- Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) – 3/5 – Very basic family fare with some groans, but also some laughs. Would probably be a 2/5 if not for Jim Carrey’s delightful mad scientist performance. A movie I expected to be terrible, but ended up fine. (And truly would have been a disaster if they stuck with the original character model they came up with. Absolutely would’ve been a 1/5 in that timeline.)
- Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022) – 4/5 – A solid step up in comedy, action, and plot. The movie embraces the video game silliness wholeheartedly this time… and to my pleasant surprise, I somehow found all the human characters more entertaining too. Some scenes are bizarre and drag on a bit, but still, lots of laughs from start to finish.
- Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie (1996) – 2/5 – A couple anime OVAs that were mashed together for a direct-to-video movie. I have a lot of nostalgia for this, but truth be told it’s not great. The first half is firmly in “half-decent” territory, but the second half is pure nonsense. I think this take on Sonic could’ve made for a nice little anime series, preferable to Sonic X in my opinion.
- Super Mario Bros: Rescue Princess Peach! (1986) – 2/5 – An anime film that was Japan-only. It got a very limited theater release, and was primarily only available from a specific video rental place. This one is clearly aimed for tiny tots, and feels very padded-out in terms of pacing… Which makes sense, when they literally had only one game (and its two-sentence storyline) to work with. Overall pretty dull, but also a bit fascinating in a time capsule sort of way.
- Super Mario Bros (1993) – 1/5 – Hollywood’s live-action take on Mario. It seems to have gotten a more devoted cult following in recent years (“people don’t like it just because it’s not accurate to the games”), but I gotta say… it’s just a bad movie. I think every scene of this makes me want to turn my head a la The Office with a WTF expression. I hear the making of this movie was complete and absolute anarchy though, so a documentary of it would probably be a lot more entertaining.
6 Likes
Mine was also that awful Bob Hoskins/John Leguizamo Mario movie. Can you imagine being a kid and excited for a video game movie and getting that nonsense?
OR, being excited for a Final Fantasy movie, and that movie is Spirits Within!?! lol what a travesty.
WORD. I was just talking about her and how iconic her style is that if you hear certain Moog synth sounds you just instantly associate it with Tron and how she developed that whole sound.
2 Likes
It is hard to place whether I saw the '93 Mario movie on TV first or the original Pokemon movie in theaters. I kinda feel like it was the latter as my Mario viewing was on the Disney channel and I didn’t really get into that until I was a preteen and attempting to phase Pokemon out (this attempt failed obviously).
'93 Mario sucks and made me angry, while I loved the original Pokemon movie. In hindsight, I think they’re both not great.
3 Likes
I have completely forgot about the Mario Bros live action movie, what a disgrace it was hahah. It was either that or probably one of the old mortal kombat movies which I don’t care enough to even know an estimated release date.
And completely unrelated, which part of the world laughs online like jsjsjs? We in Chile sometimes do it but because laughing is jajaja and s is right next to a in our keyboard.
4 Likes
Me too! I sometimes even add a “k”: jskjskjsksjk. It somehow feels more genuine than using “jajaja”. Due to that, I assumed OP is from Iberoamerica but now I’m curious about if other countries laugh the same way.
3 Likes
Was also Mortal Kombat, but the 1995 version. Went into cinema with friends and we were blown away. We were huge funs of MK1 ( I don’t remember if we had MK2 by then).
3 Likes
Probably Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, but I only saw the intro with Ryu fighting Sagat, and I never finished it. Might someday though.
4 Likes
I absolutely and completely forgot about the SF animated movies. Now I can remember particularly the one with Vega and a Chun-Li shower scene. 13yo me was flabbergasted.
3 Likes
In a ‘me likey’ way, or in a ‘ew, gross’ way? Pardon me asking, but you can never quite tell with 13 year olds…
2 Likes
Definitely the first one
3 Likes
That’s pretty cool!!! ^^
2 Likes
You mean the OVA’s from Street Fighter?
2 Likes
I wonder why 
Sobre lo otro pues, creo que somos vecinos jsjsjs
4 Likes
That mario Movie has become a cult movie, a bit creepy I must say.
2 Likes
I’m very nostalgic for that Pokémon movie tho.
I wouldn´t say that Mario ´93 sucks but I wouldn´t say neither that it´s a good movie, it´s like a hellish limbo.
3 Likes