OTT & Transmedia

The place to discuss, share content and offer tips and advice to OTT - "Over the Top" streaming and Transmedia – the technique of telling a single story or story across multiple platforms including, but not limited to, games, books, events, films and television.

Adaptations Part Six: games based on other media

Kind of an oddball category that pulls in ideas from all over.

Some of the works in question…

First: I Have no Mouth and I must Scream was originally a short story by Harlan Ellison. A bleak story that’s ever more relevant today as the main antagonist is...

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Adaptations Part Six: games based on other media

Kind of an oddball category that pulls in ideas from all over.

Some of the works in question…

First: I Have no Mouth and I must Scream was originally a short story by Harlan Ellison. A bleak story that’s ever more relevant today as the main antagonist is an A.I., which isn’t quite called that in the story since it was written in 1967 when computers were barely a thing for most people. However, the military was using them and the rogue supercomputer is AM. Initially, “Allied Mastercomputer” to control one faction’s military in a 1984 style 3-way forever war, but it went rogue and took over the world. Skynet? Matrix, anyone?

The game came out in 1995 with Ellison’s input and was a point-and-click adventure game as was popular at the time. The story’s bleak and sometimes lurid descriptions are visualized and the world expanded on with character’s receiving backstories, thus its seems that the writing was as much work as the animation with this project.

Second, the many games based on James Bond, which are part of the franchise’s expanded universe, though not all are canon. Probably the most famous example is the 1997 game, Goldeneye 007, based inthe 1995 movie. Unlike with Ellison’s story metioned above, this game greatly pares down its source material to deliver an FPS shooter with some puzzle elements. And the classic multiplayer mode where you can play as characters from the movie (or other Bond movies) in settings from this and other franchise movies. This one doesn’t really add to the story, but it was a fun time.

Then, there’s the 2010 game version of Goldeneye 007, which used Daniel Craig’s likeness as he was the on-screen Bond at the time. Also, the story was updated to the 2010s. Redubbed Goldeneye 007: Reloaded and given some enhancements in 2011 for Xbox 360 and PS3 ports. However, the biggest change is that this version of the story follows Daniel Craig’s first Bond film, Casino Royale (itself reimagined from the original) and is set before his second film, Quantum of Solace. Among the changes is that the original ended in the heat of the Caribbean, this one ends in the cold of Siberia!

Third, somewhat related to the previous, but now movie tie-in games. These are essentially PR for a big movie release. Sci-fi and fantasy movies such as Transformers and The Lord of the Rings are perfectly suited for these. Who wouldn’t want to play at their favorite hero in the screen adventure? It’s audience participation in the story. Some games here veer into exxpanded universe territory.

Also, these have been around since the 1980s! The infamous game version of ET has been the subject of memes and ridicule, but realistically, what was to expected from a movie-based game at a time when Pac-Man and Donkey Kong were the norm? Those had bare bones stories and Atari adaptions are the bare bones of their movie counterparts. A relic of a time long gone, but with online emulators you can actually find many of these around.

And finally, Indiana Jones, who’s first game was Atari ”meh…” but as his luck would have it, the movie would be a huge hit and evetually some actually pretty good games arrived. I played Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine back in the early 2000s, but there was many and most, as far as I know, are canon. So Indiana Jones’s journey goes from film to game and back to film severa times if one is to follow his full route.

Is all of this part of brand marketing? Or genuine creativity? Good? Bad? Ugly?

And of course, do you know any others? Drop your thoughts.

Adaptations Part Five: Novelizations

Some of the works in question…

First: “junior novelizations,” which are young reader book versions of movies. I’ve read one: Jurassic Park but I saw the movie first and then later, read the orignal novel by Michael Crichton.

So my journey through Jurassic Park was t...

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Adaptations Part Five: Novelizations

Some of the works in question…

So my journey through Jurassic Park was trailer, movie, junior novel, original novel.

The junior novel, as I remember it, is just a simplified and noticeably tamer version of the movie. No swearing, gore, toned down terror, etc. It read much like a Goosebumps kids novel, which were booming at the time.

Second, there is the odd case of 2001: A Space Odyssey which was a novel written in conjuction with the film production, yet it was the film’s director Stanley Kubrick, who dictated the content of both versions. The rectangular monolith in the film was Kubrick’s idea, but so was the pyramid in the novel. Yet in the movie, the monolith is shot to resemble a pyramid.

So what was going on? Hard to tell, but certainly an interesting production history. Do you know any others where the book and movie where made at the same, or almost the same time?

Third, expanded universe novels. Star Wars you say? Yes, but also the game Halo and even Doom! I actually read the first two Doom novels which came out soon after the first two games and are based on them. The 2005 movie version didn’t reference them at all. The third and fourth novel go off in a wild direction of cosmic war that kind of gives off some vibes from the Doom remake series that started in 2016.

Do you know any others? Drop your thoughts.

René Belloq

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2 people like this
- Michael Dzurak
- Terri Morgan
6 days ago

There‘s a new James Bond game that has gotten high praise.

This time it‘s not a shooter but a narrative-driven action adventure.

This blends the lines between game, visua...

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Michael Dzurak

6 days ago

Interesting. I have mainly played the original Goldeneye but have enjoyed playthoughs of the other games on YouTube. First Looks quite interesting as yet another origin story for 007, thus it seems th...

Samantha Rivera

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1 person likes this
- Michael Dzurak
1 day ago

The best game adaptations like I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream actually deepen the original story by adding character and visualizing themes that prose could only suggest, while others are just inte...

20 hours ago

Samantha Rivera While tie-in games that release along side blockbusters are certainly "interactive marketing" and merch in a clever form, many of the 007 games are new stories. Kind of the like the St...

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- Dwayne Williams 2
6 days ago

Contra deserves said prestige treatment. I wrote a sci-fi action script inspired from that world. It also mines the same generation for nostalgia as the 2023 Super Mario movie did. The early games are...

Norman Sane

I'm currently developing an island on Fortnite that I plan to use as a virtual backlot for multiple films, including a mini series.

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- Banafsheh Esmailzadeh
1 week ago

That's fascinating. I don't think I have written anything that can be taken as such, however, I have seen a vlog that interprets the comedy films Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1993), The Room (2003), an...

I personally don't break the fourth wall. I have seen it done, though. For example, in the early 1990s screenwriter Shane Black made this his thing. Check out some of his scripts, he makes it really f...

2 weeks ago

I never participated in an ARG, but I saw one as promotion for the James Bond franchise. You go around London gathering clues. I think that's really clever for a secret agent story.

Emily Schooley

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- Michael Dzurak
2 weeks ago

Michael Dzurak that's fun!! Did you find any of the clues?

As I said, I only heard of these and read a bit about this James Bond one. But yes, it does sound like fun and a good way to generate buzz.

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- Maurice Vaughan
3 weeks ago

Jeffrey J. Mariotte There was a similar issue that I brought up in -- https://www.stage32.com/lounge/transmedia/Film-Adaptations-transposing-I... -- where the tie-in game for the film Ballistic: Ecks...

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2 people like this
- Maurice Vaughan
- Jeffrey Pemberton
3 weeks ago

Jeffrey Pemberton I read Tales of the Bountry Hunters from the pre-Disney Star Wars universe and it was pretty good. It read like five novellas compiled into one volume that offered lots of detail to...

Jeffrey Pemberton

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2 people like this
- Michael Dzurak
- Maurice Vaughan
3 weeks ago

Michael Dzurak I like that book too. The Dengar story was my favorite.

Jeffrey J. Mariotte

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3 people like this
3 weeks ago

Michael Dzurak, my first tie-in novel was based on comic book characters I had written in comics--Gen13, from WildStorm Productions/Image Comics (where I was also VP of Marketing). We produced an animated Gen13 feature and sold it to Disney, and Ace Books acquired rights to do three tie-in novels. They contracted a friend named Christopher Golden to write the first, and he asked me to collaborate on it. I did, then I wrote the second and invited another friend, Scott Ciencin, to take part. A different writer wrote the third. But Disney shelved the feature and never released it. Paramount released it internationally, so there are copies out there, and it's on YouTube.

Another bizarro tie-in story--for another publisher I was hired to write a 4-issue comic book miniseries adaptation of Terminator: Salvation. The script they gave us to work from was missing the final pages because they were terrified that somebody would reveal the ending (even though the first issue was scheduled to release when the film did, so the final issue wouldn't be out until well after the ending was known). So I wrote it without revealing the ending, since I didn't know it. But after the first issue came out, they demanded that we not release any more issues. So issue 1 (of 4) is the only one that exists, because the production company was terrified that we'd reveal an ending we didn't know.

My favorite? Probably the CSI stuff. The staff was great--welcomed me into the CSI family, set up an interview with Anthony Zuiker, had me up to the CSI: Miami set to pass out copies of of the first CSI: Miami graphic novel to cast members, which was filmed by Access Hollywood (which left me on the cutting-room floor but showed the book). And they used an original graphic novel of mine in the opening of a season 10 CSI episode. I wrote three novels for the Vegas series and one for Miami, plus comics for both of those, and as an editor I ran the comics line. Terrific people at the production company and at CBS, all of whom are still friends.

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- Jeffrey J. Mariotte
2 weeks ago

Jeffrey J. Mariotte That's very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Shadow Dragu-Mihai

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1 person likes this
- Michael Dzurak
3 weeks ago

Areale Hanks To answer your question: After it has recovered its production budget and made a remarkable profit, having established a strong and devoted fanbase, and not a fraction of a second before....

Areale Hanks

Shadow Dragu-Mihai thanks for your response.

David Taylor

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1 person likes this
- Michael Dzurak
4 weeks ago

So if AI steals a lot of stuff, it’s just a great artist? Humans borrowing bits is fine, homages are great, out and out stealing is breach of trust amongst creatives - unless credit is given - and ste...

Banafsheh Esmailzadeh

I wasn’t even thinking about AI David Taylor, and in the context of “good artists borrow, great artists steal” it means great artists take something that’s been done and make it theirs. I wasn’t talki...

Debbie Croysdale

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2 people like this
- Michael Dzurak
- Banafsheh Esmailzadeh
3 weeks ago

Universal themes, (at least some,) are relative to all. Geographic boundaries, social, political & economic situations may vary considerably, but the emotions triggered by the passages of life are a c...

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