Are You A Bad Enough Dude?

I read yesterday that they're making a movie based on the 1979 arcade game Asteroids. I'm not really sure why, as far as I know the game is just an outline of a ship shooting the outline of some giant rocks, although I might be missing something as Asteroids is one of the few arcade games I'm actually too young to have played. It always amazes me how keen Hollywood seems to make movies out of video games, seeing as they're always awful. They tend to be far too ropey to appeal to people who don't know the game, and their complete disregard of game canon often alienates fans of the game. Most times, the best they can hope for is to be so bad they're awesome.

If they have to make video game movies, and I'd really rather they didn't, they could at least try and remain true to the narrative in the game. Many games have strong, well developed plots that could easily sustain a full length film. Take, for example, Data East classic Bad Dudes vs Dragon Ninja.

They might have to update it slightly for the times, to "President Barack has been captured by the ninjas", but it's a story that needs to be told. Michael Bay would have to direct it. Actually, Bad Dudes vs Dragon Ninja: The Movie sounds like it would be right up his alley.

A while back it also seemed like there was a disturbing trend of trying to make movies from fighting games, games which have even less plot than most, and involve the protagonists having to solve all of their problems through fighting each other, one at a time. Thankfully, I have heard nothing for a while about the rumoured Tekken and Soul Calibur movies, and I'm doing a pretty good job of convincing myself that Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li doesn't actually exist. But if they have to keep making them, I'd love to see SNK's Art of Fighting receive the treatment, as Ryo Sakazaki's epic quest to locate and rescue his kidnapped sister contains one of my favourite scenes in any game ever.

I simply cannot find words to describe the beauty and humanity of that scene. And if we can't have faithful plot conversions, maybe they could use some of the game's finely wrought dialogue in the movie. If they ever decide to make Fatal Fury: Special: The Movie, for example:

Don't we all?

Sorry, what?

Coming soon to a sinema near you!