Just gonna bring up both the Mario and Sonic movies as examples. One was highly successful, the other is seen as shit. There’s a very obvious difference between the two...
Neither one is 1:1 though, thus it doesn't really count.
The Mario film literally uses the names of characters and roughly their outfits, that's it.
The entire rest of the film isn't even close to any game lol
To be honest, the one thing I DON'T want from a movie based on a game is a carbon copy of the game. The recent Tomb Raider film did this and had no form of identity or value what so ever.
One film I will always defend is the Silent Hill film! I don't know why people rag on it so much. It had decent acting, a fresh spin on the story, brilliant effects and production value - especially the transition sequences. I honestly think it's a great film. Yet everyone seems to trash it, much like the sequel which IS garbage. I see it as an adaptation of the material rather than being canon with the games lore and it's really enjoyable.
I'm not saying Carbon copy, but let's take MK for example:
- Outfits are basically as they are in the games, but there are slight alterations to the non-Ninjas looks; it works and doesn't detract from anything (Sonya is the only one that is egregiously different and Johnny Cage has a shirt).
- Setting(s) ripped directly from the game, but they don't look exactly as they do in-game (the island, backrooms, dungeon, Outworld, etc.). Adding the real-life locations for where the characters are introduced, works well too.
- Plot is IDENTICAL to the game, save for Chan Kang's name being changed from Chow.
- Sound effects are also identical (Ed Boon's voice for Scorpion) and the music is somewhat similar, albeit more techno-oriented than the games, but VG music and electronica have always gone hand in hand with each other
These things are elements that we can see, grasp and hear from the games themselves, thus we identify and relate the film to the game, the closer they are. Going off of
@Tsukuyomimagi99's post, the areas to add the filmmakers' own artistic direction, can be seen in the following:
- Who fights who; in the game, you can go through the Kombatants in any order with anyone, thus if they feel Johnny was best to dispatch Scorpion and Goro, they can do it that way (which they did). Sonya never gets Kano in the early games, but since in the games storyline, his fate is muddled, it's not a big deal (unlike MK:A where they DO change multiple characters stories around and it adds to the confusion and BS)
- Original supporting characters; this is feel is the strongest point of the film, in terms of going off in its own artistic direction:
- Only 4 have lines (Liu Kang's grandfather, Art Lean, Master Boyd, the Director) and only Art's extend beyond one scene (and in the 2nd speaking scene, he only says, "What the...?)."
- None of them overshadow the main characters or even get considered a main character.
- They never interfere or meddle with the main characters.
- There aren't 50,000 of them.
- Minor, insignificant things, such as Reptile being made of bugs (which I still don't really understand lol) and changing the spear to a creature. While these aren't in the original games, they don't really mar the lore or plot of anything.
Compare it to say, Resident Evil (also direct by Paul W.S. Anderson), which has none of the settings correct, the main characters being supporting and not in every film and the plot being almost 100% different, there's a reason why none of those films are universally well-liked and not considered good films.
I still contend that Final Fight would make an excellent film and it is INCREDIBLY easy to do a 1:1
TL;DR: make more films like MK and less like RE.
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