Could Killer Instinct Get a Proper Movie or Show Adaptation? (movieweb.com)
Personally, I’ve always thought that KI would make for a terrific movie or show, but to me, it depends a LOT on the cast, crew and budget. Ideally, I’d want a filmmaker like Guillermo Del Toro to write and direct, just because of his affinity for storytelling and for creatures.
Perhaps I sound negative but I’d actually prefer an adaption that is not live action.
Somehow I feel like one would be able to stay more loyal to the originals by animation compared to live action. Just because even with the ideal cast, crew and budget, it all boils down to the story and what the filmmakers decide to do with the characters. I’d preferably have the story and characters not altered in anyway, save that the alteration makes the narrative much better. Live action for some reason tends to stray away from the original much better than any other form of media.
I could get a “I can’t think of a better person to play Orchid but I’m sure Orchid wouldn’t trade her brother for anything what is happening” and I don’t want that. But if I’m gonna get that I don’t want an adaption at all, thank you very much. This is just me though.
Yeah, he’d be perfect. He would definitely get all the horror elements right in place.
Well, even in the case of some of the animated adaptations, there’s always changes made to the original story. “Street Fighter 2 the Animated Movie”, for instance, while having some really cool fight choreography, in a lot of ways is a departure from the games, even though it does features cameos and has fights. “Tekken” was another animated movie that I absolutely hated; the only good thing about that was Rex, which is a character I would actually love to see in a future “Tekken” game. “Resident Evil: Vendetta” - yes, it features Rebecca Chambers, who is my favorite character in the series, but the movie itself? Garbage.
Going to KI and the question of it being live action or animated, I’m all for either, just so long as the resulting story and product is good, if not great.
Or at least either as an anime/anime-style series OR an animated web-series, probably? 
I honestly feel KI would be better portrayed in extended media through animation than live action, for multiple reasons.
First, given the surge of live action series subjected to horrible show runners and writers who don’t have any idea about what the core value of what makes the games special to players, it’s highly likely anybody given the task of writing a plot for this IP is likely to mess it up. Most Hollywood writers for Netflix, Paramount, etc. have shown time and again, they’re looking for IP to turn into live action or animation, but don’t care much the quality of it. They’ll then assign unproven, sometimes untalented writers to devise a plot or flow of a show around a set of lore, but without understanding the game that made it special and why it resonates with its core audience, they’ll likely mess it up. Kevin Smith did this with the He Man Revelations, to a near universal hate of that series, and honestly, I feel Halo is doomed to walk the same path.
That said, usually animation tends to have a better chance of capturing audiences because live action doesn’t do well to capture the spirit of the game. Again, Halo comes to mind, given that some of those sets and costumes are cheap looking and poorly designed, but then there’s also the old and even new Mortal Kombat adaptations, which do some decent or good costumes at times, but the sets are either generic, or the cg is overly used and apparent. It makes for awful presentation. However, at least with animation, given a talented studio, like the one who drew the He Man Revelations (to at least that credit, the show LOOKS great), or the Castlevania series on Netflix (I think?), you can create a higher quality presentation with a some continuous look rather than a disjointed appearance live action can present if not all elements of a scene are presented to par quality.
The treatment for writing for animation I feel is also handled a little different than for a live action adaptation, given that episodes are gonna have to be written and budgeted around actors, sets, and other expenditures which, if an episode is to be on budget sometimes, you’ll have to make creative decisions and cut content to fit that episode budget. While animation has a similar setup, at least you don’t have to worry too much and actors, costumes, sets, and all that encompasses, freeing up to explore episodes in a different way that doesn’t require those kinds of decisions to interfere with the writing of the episode.
Finally, given KI’s chaotic and bombastic nature, I just honestly feel the IP is better suited to animation to create a visual style that truely conveys the expressive, explosive nature of the KI series. You have a diverse crowd of characters and creatures, and animation feels like the next step up from being a video game.
That movie is a legend, and I love it.
Maybe write, but I don’t know…
I agree with this sentiment.
There have been some really bad animated adaptations as well. “Tekken” the animated movie, “Blood Vengeance”, “Resident Evil: Vendetta” - there are also some real stinkers that do a disservice to the games their based on. In terms of why a lot of these movies or shows not being as good as they could have been, I can’t really say as to the vast majority of why they went wrong, as every project is going to encounter its own set of issues depending on the showrunners, budget, etc. Also depends on the kind of game as well and trying to adapt that onto the big screen. It could also be the case where one could have a really good draft but over the course of production studio interference resulted in a script’s degeneration. There have been good live action adaptations - the first MK, the first “Silent Hill”, “Rampage” (granted, the creatures aren’t humanoid, nor are they created because of Scumm Labs’ beverage, but in terms of retaining the spirit of the games it’s pretty good), etc - it’s just kind of easy to lose sight of that amidst of the crap that had been churned out by the likes of Uwe Boll, whose method pretty much involves taking a dump on whatever series he sets his eyes to (although ironically he DID do a faithful adaptation with “Postal”. Shame that it’s a POS, though).
Of all the complaints I have about the Halo show, the sets and costumes are definitely not among them. As far as fidelity to the game, they’re pretty close.
I thought the sets and costumes in the 1995 version were really good. For the most part. In terms of capturing the sense of it being a sort of kung fu fantasy film, the first MK captured that aspect perfectly from the game. The costumes for most of the characters in the more recent MK are really good as well, although some of the sets felt kind of off somehow, if not a little generic in one or two aspects.
Ideally I’d want a mix of CG and practical, just so long as the resulting product looks good, if not great. I don’t mind if either is used, as they’re just tools.
To a certain extent that is true, but by the same token, though, one does have to keep in mind budget, the quality of the animations, acting and writing. There have been some pretty bad animated video game movies (cough cough “Pokemon”).
To a certain extent I agree.
It’s pretty good, but I wouldn’t say that it’s great. It could have been better. It has some really cool fight scenes, but I wouldn’t say that it does the game justice as an SF fan.
I acknowledged that, and said the He Man Revelations is the most prominent example to date in my mind, but that is by no means where the list ends. I’m also confident a lot of people were also really disappointed with Final Fantasy: Spirits Within, and to be honest I didn’t really like Final Fantasy: Advent Children either. It wasn’t bad, but I feel like it goes off on some weird tangents at times, and the character development for the villains feels off and rushed, at least that’s how I kinda remember, but it’s been a very long time since I saw it.
That season finale battle scene on the cliff looks highly cgi, and very cheap at that. While the spartan armors look good, some of the surrounding soldiers and Cortana especially look awful. I’ve heard the meme too many times lately about “soccer mom Cortana.”
The first film, yeah, not many if any complaints, but Annihilation has some really awful looking sets and costumes, like Sindel and the cyborgs of the movie. Thing is Halo is being made with modern technology, and it’s best cgi implementations at times look worse than the MK films.
You’ll have to be more specific on that one, as there are LOTS of pokemon movies, and I’m not sure if you’re talking about any of the old or new animated ones, the live action adaptation with Ryan Reynolds, or the newer cgi remake of Mewtwo Strikes Back or what, cause that’s something I’m confused on.
I would, it took a relatively plotless video game and gave it a fairly cohesive story. Maybe not any real character development, but Ryu and Ken are kind of flat arc characters to be honest.
Side note, I can’t stand the Japanese soundtrack, the American version to me is just better, the music for me tends to match the scene much better and there is some really good licensed tracks in the movie like “Them Bones” in there and it’s just got that memorable 90s era anime feeling embedded in it. Plus, Bryan “I am the one who knocks” Cranston is Fei Long in that movie, though for some reason regarding Hollywood unions, he dubbs the voice under a stage name, so he’s not listed correctly in the credits.
I didn’t mind Cortana too much personally. Granted, she was pretty different in the games, with much more of a digital look, but I thought she was alright visually. There might have been a few Marine uniforms that look slightly off, but it’s not that bad.
God, that f ucking movie. I didn’t mind the cyborgs too much since they looked very much like how they were in MK3. The operating theater where Jax fought Cyrax was actually pretty good. There were a LOT of problems with that movie, some of which has nothing to do with how characters look.
I don’t think it’s anywhere near that bad. There are some slightly rough areas in a couple of places, but generally speaking, the CG isn’t as bad when compared to some of the stuff by The Asylum or a lot of other shows on television that feature CG. Granted, there’s a bit of a gap in budget, making it kind of unfair point of comparison, but still, I’ve seen so much worse in terms of CG quality
Wait, “Mewtwo Strikes Back” had a remake? I mean…why? The original movie wasn’t even that good.
God, it’s been ages since I’ve seen a Pokemon movie. I think the last one had been “The Power Of One”, which I kind of thought had been better.
To an extent. Like, there are some great little moments and choreography, but the movie got rid of the tournament aspect. For myself, I kind of had been hoping that an SF movie would have been something like the first MK movie where you have some great fight choreography, music and characterization while also highlighting some of that supernatural/otherworldly element (a lot of the characters in the games had supernatural abilities, including Guile), ideally with all of these elements coming together as a whole. Here, it kind of rejects the tournament aspect in order to make a kind of thriller where Bison is searching out the strongest fighters in order to assassinate political figures. To be fair, I can totally see Bison doing that, but at the same time, this results in so many characters being shafted like Cammy, who turns up wearing that outfit to kill a politician for no reason other than “hey it’s from the game why not?” I don’t mind telling a more centralized and character-focused story, but for a movie that is proclaiming itself to be an adaptation of “Street Fighter 2”, it sets a certain level of expectation. Like, okay, I can accept it wouldn’t be a one-to-one adaptation of the game, that’s fine, but because of the nature of the game itself, when characters like Cammy start appearing, dressed the way they are and characters are wielding abilities that are given no explanation whatsoever like Guile or Blanka, it’s going to make viewing kind of a frustrating experience. And then you have that ending, which pi ssed me off. Add to that characters like Cammy and Sagat are just given throwaway cameos, and it ends up becoming frustrating.
If they do it right and respect the franchise.