The Setup

In digging through the dregs of the illustrious history of motion pictures, we can sometimes end up with some rather esoteric thematic selections for our Cavalcade events (Blaxploitation Horror, anyone?). We embrace this, for this is part of our love. We embrace this facet of our nerdom, this fetishistic desire to find the worst that cinema has to offer and share it with others. So as the hands of fate wended us from theme to theme, until leading us inexorably towards video game adaptations, we looked to the skies and gave thanks: because it was good.

Enough florid prose, let’s get down to brass tacks, shall we?

There’s no way to avoid a simple truth: All video game adaptations suck. The rare exceptions are the Tomb Raider films. The first Mortal Kombat movie also qualifies, just because its dumb fun. But even its sequel was a total mess.

The Formula

There really only seems to be one formula for video game adaptations.

1. Take an existing successful game franchise.
2. Warp it beyond all recognition
3. Throw in a few nominal references to the source material
4. Chuck it in a meat grinder
5. Shove it out the door.

Now, the first step makes complete sense from a business point of view, which is why we see so many adaptations of other materials. If you have an established property, you have an established audience for that property. Hell, even step 2 makes a kind of sense. The video game properties frequently adapted tend to exist very much in their own reality, one where it makes sense to have structured street fights as part of a martial arts tournament held by an evil multinational conglomerate, terrorist organization, invading dimension, or demonic overlord.

Other games feature brightly-garbed latex fetishists diving through the air while shooting rabid cybernetic zombie alligators in the face. The point being that in some games, the central tenet required for fun is the gameplay, and not necessarily the story. In others, such as Role Playing games, they have so much story to tell that there’s no way it’s going to fit into a movie.

Again, these are all problems that occur in other adaptations, but they are exacerbated tenfold by a singular belief that Hollywood has about fans of video games, and that is that we’re all 16-year-old slack-jawed idiots with limited intelligence, and most of our social skills running down our torn jeans and piddling on the floor. This is the same belief that held comic book adaptations back for as long as they did, and hell; they’ve been around for over 80 years.

The Menu

The Booze: The Yoshi and The Big Mario/Luigi

Blessings of the nerd gods on the people of Denmark! Specifically the students of the IT University of Copenhagen, who held a ridiculously cool bash dedicated to Super Mario Brothers at a local bar, and posted the entire menu of drink concoctions online! The drinks we’re borrowing:

Yoshi

Fruity, tongue-pleasing cocktail

• 2 cl Sour Apple liqueur
• 1 cl Melon Bols
• 1 cl Lime juice
• 4 cl Apple juice

Directions: Shake. Serve with ice.

Garnish: Two lime wedges

and

Big Mario and Luigi Shot

Layered shot… with a Vodka power-up!

• 1 cl Grenadine
• 1 cl Kiwi Bols
• 1 cl Vodka

Directions: Grenadine first. Then pour Bols – slowly! – over a bar spoon. Vodka goes on top.

The Food: Chips and Pizza, of course!

This may, in fact, be the easiest menu we’ve ever had to come up with. One stereotype that is fairly accurate for gamers is our predilection for junk food. So look for a wide variety of chips and such!

The Movies

As we are bridging from Event 21, we had to get creative in our first selection…

Double Dragon (1994) : Mark Dacascos and Scott Wolf as Jimmy and Billy Lee, along with Alyssa Milano as Marian, and Robert Patrick as the “evil I want to take over the world with shadows and my freaky bleached hair” dude. Taking place in the “future world” of 2007, this movie is so full of sucktastic awesome, it has to be seen to be believed.

Super Mario Bros. (1993): Mario (Bob Hoskins) and his brother Luigi (John Leguizamo ) in a comical dystopia ruled by King Koopa (Dennis Hopper).<—This is the straight-up description of the movie! It has NOTHING to do with the games, and it. Is. TERRIBLE. We have to admit, we’ve always wanted to share this one with people.

Suggested Alternatives

Well we certainly aren’t hurting for candidates for alternatives, that’s for sure. The hard part is narrowing it down to 3.

• We would be remiss if we didn’t mention Uwe Boll’s entire filmography , as he has failed utterly at ever making a decent picture. But special attention has to be paid to his turn on House of the Dead (2003). To save money on production, Boll actually used game footage to stand-in for some of the action sequences-and to convince us he wasn’t whoring an already nonsensical game franchise.
• Wing Commander (1993): Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Matt Lillard “headline” this terrible space opera supposedly based on the fantastic game series that featured, at the time, Mark freakin’ Hammil! What makes this even worse is the fact that it was written and directed by Chris Roberts, the guy who created the game franchise. That’s right! He has nobody to blame but himself.
• Street Fighter (1994): Words cannot express how bad this movie is. It really does kinda have to be seen to be believed. Featuring Jean Claude Van-Damme and Raul Julia in his last role before his death, this movie is simply a glorious exploration of how many ways a movie can go wrong. But really, it’s a laugh-a-minute, and firmly recommended for a Cavalcade.

Further Information

For further information regarding the February 6th, 2010 event, please check the following resources:

Cavalcade Event 22 Flyer

Event Page on Facebook