raycevick
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Why Not Adapt?
🕑 Added 2023-04-08 06:56:44 +0000 UTC
I recommended Cyberpunk Edgerunners last year, and after rewatching it just two weeks ago, I still do! I might've even enjoyed it more on the rewatch, because while I was previously judging the show as a stand-alone Anime, having just come off of also rewatching Arcane, I was more judging this as an adaptation…
And doing that made me realize just how truly different these two excellent shows really are, they're total opposites in approach.
Arcane is taking characters, backstories, and lore from an endless Multiplayer Arena and converting it into a drama.
There isn't a three lane forest where six characters spend half an hour each episode spamming ultimate's, you've got a perfect tragedy that'd make the Greeks proud.
Watching Arcane isn't like playing League of Legends, and thank god for that…
Edgerunners meanwhile feels a lot like playing Cyberpunk. It's main-character is the previous tenant of V's Apartment, he walks down the same streets, uses the same map, takes in the same sun, and even highlights enemies in first-person with the same guns, abilities, heads up display, and hacking mini-game within said display.
There's an episode about high-jacking a luxury vehicle I've driven multiple times, another where your handler Rogue's seen in the Afterlife, you can even see the bartender Claire in the background who has her own quest-line in 2077.
The point I'm leading to isn't that shows need to follow in Edgerunners wake. I just talked about Arcane, and as established, it's the opposite.
The point is, Edgerunners is one of the most direct video-game adaptations ever made, and it didn't hurt the reception at all. If anything, it might've improved it, as the first thing that friend of mine did after watching the show, was boot up Cyberpunk.
If you've watched the show, then you know how many people who hadn't played the game bought it to get revenge on one of the characters that appears in 2077.
Yet, it seems we're still in a time where adapting the video-game for your video-game movie or show is considered tacky, cheap, immature, or another word that perfectly describes the majority of video-game movies and shows.
Max Payne came out in 2008, and I watched it eschew the game's John Woo Noir cocktail for a conspiracy procedural that takes in the immortal words of Ryan Davis…
A FULL HOUR before there's an action scene.
Fifteen years later and I'm watching Halo give Chief a literal love story because… ???????
Enslave Lara Croft and hold her hostage on an Island multiple times because… ????????
Replace Monster Hunter's dinosaur sized weapons with a Humvee chain gun because… well, because Paul WS Anderson.
I understand the business, I understand the suits, I understand they're not playing these games, they're looking at IP.
The Mario movie isn't made because Mario is the best game to adapt into a movie, it's because Mario is the best known character for a movie. What I'll never understand are the implications and explanations beyond the excuse of business.
How would a Hitman movie about a terrifyingly impersonal agent coldly executing targets be less mature and gritty than whatever garbage they've cooked up twice?
Why would Lara Croft being a global trotting thrill seeking archeologist who works strictly on her own terms be less empowering than a twenty something forced to continue her daddy's work?
And most importantly out of all of these points…
How is seeing Cyberpunks HUD not fucking cool?
Comments
Jake Malone
From what i have seen, the best adaptations of video games into shows are ones that aren't truly adaptations. Arcane is established from background lore that is rarely explored in the game, Edgerunners stars characters that weren't in 2077 (with some exceptions). This way both people who have and haven't played the game get something new
