What The Hell Is Going On Between Video Games And Movies?

   

    I saw the new Uncharted film trailer today and, quite frankly, I am unsettled. Not because Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg do not fit their characters whatsoever or because it looks like a terrible movie all around. In fact, I never much cared for the original games to begin with. I am unsettled because of this strange, symbiotic relationship between two mediums that is now apparent to me. 

    Uncharted was created to riff on the Indiana Jones film franchise and really popularized heavy film elements in video games. Prolonged cutscenes, a real care for the cinematography, and top-notch performances to name a few. They also have very "movie-like" writing with quippy characters, fun action set-pieces, and countless tropes. Naughty Dog essentially set the stage for modern-day "cinematic" games and owe a lot to preexisting films and media that gave them the inspiration to meld those various elements with standard gameplay. They made their name through imitating films and what sets their games apart is exactly that; they are playable movies with tropes, writing, and character archetypes that people can instantly identify with due to their familiarity.

    But now we are getting an Uncharted movie? A movie based on a series of games that are pretty much successful because they are very movie-like but are video games? You see my confusion here, right? In fact, this caused some existential unrest within me. My understanding of both mediums was just thrown through the wringer and I could not believe my eyes as I was watching the Uncharted trailer. What is even the point of video games if they will just be turned back into the medium they take most inspiration from anyways? So I reflected. 

    Video games are essentially in their "seeking acceptance" phase, a phase film itself has gone through during its younger years. Therefore, the video games that truly get praised as prestigious art are games like The Last of Us, God of War, and Uncharted. Games with many film-like elements, elements from an already widely accepted, "prestigious" art form. This is precisely why these games are so highly regarded. Of course, they are also highly polished, high-quality products but I believe that a lot of the praise comes from these film elements present. Sony, at this point, makes better movie-like games than they make actual movies. 

    However, it looks like now the film industry itself is attempting to borrow elements from video games but for a different purpose. The gaming industry is now more profitable than film and, therefore, films are looking to branch out and attract a gaming audience through various projects like adaptations of games and movies about games, like Free Guy and Ready Player One. Those projects are not even based on any specific video games but both are gross attempts at capitalizing on the medium with crudely unaware and out-of-touch representations of what video games are. Many films even look more like video games now with excessive CGI and green screen effects, while games are advancing towards realism and attempt to look indistinguishable from films. 

    And then there's Fortnite. The game that is now essentially more of a cross-medium advertisement space than it is a game. So many crossovers with various film franchises occur within Fortnite and films are attempting to imitate it with countless references to other films and franchises. Free Guy in particular was disgusting to me with its blatant Disney product placement, such as Captain America's shield and a Lightsaber. References that have nothing to do with anything within the film; just blatant advertisements. In fact, many recent blockbusters attempt to also promote other franchises; the aforementioned Ready Player One (although it more or less makes sense within the context of the film but is not less gross because of it), Ralph Breaks The Internet, Space Jam: A New Legacy, etc. 

    All of this just makes me picture a Venom-like symbiote just clinging on for dear life to its host. The host and the symbiote are interchangeable. What a weird time to be alive.