Originally posted by KrisV
Movies are made for the masses, not for the 207 dedicated followers.
The fact is that there are more than that many "dedicated followers" AND its irrelevant, lets take the Final Fantasy movie as an example for a bit so as to distance the point from the "it is wing commander" or "it isn't wing commander" train...
Final Fantasy is a set of games which aquired a large following on nintendo, then switched to playstation where it gained an even huger following, whilst each game was set in its own universe there were certain plot factors that always remained the same and they were very plot orientated whereas the film had non of the Evil warped from a traumatic childhood badguys with magical powers nor any of the beautifull princesses... it was infact a sci-fi action movie attempting to leech of the liscence, the result a disaster.
Wing Commander had followers at around the 1 million mark, because you have to understand that to appreciate a game, although Kris this is the way you and many others including myself appreciate wing commander, you do not have to be an active member of the community, you do not have buy all the merchandise or even own all the games.
After playing WC3 and 4 I was a fan of wing commander, I didn't rush out and buy the old games but I would have been disgruntled with the film had those been the only two games I ever played. Some people, even if they liked a series get put off by bad review scores I should point out.
Now is this the only issue? Wing Commander had also proved a winning formula with its focus on plot and character interaction with a good mix of action, the visual style had proved pleasing, the timeline had won many computer games fans hearts, why would these things not appeal to the movie goers?
The fact is that Resident Evil succeeded because it didn't alienate the fans so that their voices were heard complaining everywhere and it provided the same formula of an intresting plot which is however only dished out in small doses and scares from Zombies, Lickers and monster dogs, gigantic creatures ripping inside trains. It did alienate people by adding the Red Queen, artifcial intelligence, a working AI is something hard to swallow, the games had proved that audiences liked virus infected Zombies but had done nothing to show peoples opinions about homicidal Artifical Intelligence (something which had failed to be we well greeted in many other films before it) as such it is the least liked part of the film.
Tomb Raider was about as successfull as the current games (far less than originally) for the same reason as the games did, big tits and two guns
So what if we'd had futuristic style carrier and fighter interiors and exteriors, what if the Kilrathi were furry creatures and the use the force Luke stuff abondoned with the exclusion of the Pilgrims, what if they'd created a plot like the ones found in the novels which work within the universe without distorting it?
The truth is that we'll never know, all that can do is look at the track record of video game movies and which have succeeded to conclude that movie goers may not be all that different from gamers so why change the winning formula?