Adapting the Videogame and Why the Uncharted Movie Sucks | Dan Drambles 

I do hope everyone doesn't get too hung on on the criticisms of Uncharted as this is a very detailed look into something I had no idea was really a thing but is super interesting and would love to see more pieces of media analysed through this lens.

The Nathan Fillion fan made short film from 2018 was more compelling than all the trailers for this version of Uncharted.

Based on the title I was hyped for an old school geeky glasses review, complete with all the sarcasm and north east humour. Honestly though I kind of prefer the dan drambles video essay style. As someone who enjoys nerding out over some niche personal interest, it's also fun experiencing somebody else nerding out in a similar fashion! Always getting a like from me!

As somebody who played this game to get through a very tough time in his life, and has “Sic Parvis Magna” tattooed onto his skin… It feels so good to hear you say everything I thought the moment I learned they were making an Uncharted movie.

I'm actually starting to think that the more recent video game adaptation are not for people who already like the game but is used to get people into the game. In the same way that a lot of animes are made to sell the manga or novel that it is adapted from.

This is such a good video about format storytelling and adaptation. I wish there was more people that talked about this stuff. This is One of my favorite video essays. I think that this lack of format storytelling is why I find a lot of manga adaptations to anime kinda weak adaptations. A lot of the time even when I haven’t read the manga, I can tell when something is just taking something from the manga with mouth movements. People will always say color and voice acting, but most of the time color is used better in manga by being monochromatic, and voice acting is just a natural change from mediums. It’s crazy how I used to look down comics, but now I can totally see a lot of the advantages of comics after actually reading them. What a surprise!

The Play That Goes Wrong is amazing!

I love how well made your videos are. I look forward to seeing and hear more of your work.

Do not underestimate the quality of your 'geeking out' because it was well-put, to the point, excellently illustrated, in both text and visuals, informative and entertaining. Oh, and played to the medium of video essays, too. Well done. Once again.

This was awesome! And I really liked the discussion of Format Storytelling in particular: I've never used that term but it's something I think/talk about constantly.

You raise some very good points! In my opnion adapting comics usually doesn't work because of these specific formatting choices and the way they reveal information, which is why the Sin City movies never quite worked for me. "The play that goes wrong" sounds awesome btw.

I really liked this video essay. It was so interesting to consider storytelling format and how it impacts the quality of the final product. Also, bonus points for your discussion of Arcane- I’d love to see a more in-depth video essay or review from you!

Yay!! Dan, it's great to see you!! Your takes are always so thoughtful! Loved this!

21:58 You really missed a trick not using the scene of Nate and Elena playing Crash Bandicoot

Dan! Good to have you back pal.

Finally getting around to this one and was overly delighted at The Show Goes Wrong and The Goes Wrong Show. The bit with the hanging of the jacket and the painted on coat hook literally brought me to tears laughing that I had to pause and comment Then to move onto talking about Watchmen, well, what finer example of shifting formats not working is there? A+ as always, and I rather loved the extended runtime talking about every facet surrounding adaptations. No shame in a 35 minute video when the content is *this good*.

Ugh. I'm so sad this came out *after* I finished teaching Creative Writing. It would've been such a great resource for my students to really hammer home the ways format works in storytelling because there are so many examples and... sdljflkd. Beautiful.

Very interesting I definitely learned about formatting. Thanks. Daniel. Nice to see you uploading.

It's a good day when Mr. Drambles uploads. Great content as always 😊

Glad to see your work again, Dan. I like your considered opinion and clear enthusiasm in what you have to say

Great essay Dan! Sorry you've been sick

Another advantage of the approach that you point out leads to better adaptations (take some combination of the universe, lore, characters, and "feel" of whatever you're adapting from, then build a story tailored to the medium you're adapting *to* ) is that it can actually make the source feel bigger, less claustrophobic, more real. With Detective Pikachu, that means that by telling a story that's best told as a movie in a universe which has been built mostly around video games (and animated TV series and movies which very much feel like they're in the orbit of the games), that universe now feels like it's big enough to include video game stories *and* movie stories. Making a movie based on a video game which tells a video game-style story just makes it feel like that universe is so small as to only be able to accommodate video game-style stories; after all, that narrowness is strong enough that it constrains the stories that can be told in a movie in that setting.

Cool video, both myself and Hannah are just coming out of a bout of COVID so hope you're not doing too bad and will be feeling your normal self soon :)

I LOVE this channel so much ❤️

Thanks Dan! Something that I didn't know which makes so much sense. I do believe Spider Boy is an absolute star, which made me put it on my 'one day' list. As usual, I trust your observations! Keep it coming!

Really interesting video Dan

This applies to the animation to live action adaptation issue, which also comes with an entirely unearned sense of “legitimacy” - as though making Avatar in live action is somehow more worth of grown up attention because it’s not a cartoon. Never mind that the animation of these richly drawn characters and how they use their powers is a huge part of what makes them great.

Holy shit! I kept thinking - what happened to Geeky Glasses TV? Turns out you are still making videos and they are even better than ever. I'm gonna binge through everything for sure.

GF is jealous after hearing me squeal "yay he's back!"

Tom Holland in uncharted must go down as one of the worst miscastings of all time!

I would say Sony doesn't care about the art of adapting video games into movies... they just want their own IPs do be multimedia juggernauts like Disney's...and the casting of Tom Holland really feels like a meta tantrum about Spider-Man.

I'm glad that this isn't dependent on seeing the film, and doesn't encourage/strongly discourage watching it. This is a really interesting take on the topic.

While I liked this movie, the biggest problem I had was that there were way too many betrayals. 1. Chloe's 3rd betrayal made her too unlikeable and caused her to be left out of the climax. She should have gone through a character arc where she learns to be more trusting. 2. Sully lying to Nate about Sam made Sully too unlikable(and Chloe since she knew too) and messed up Nates motivation for going after the treasure while also taking away the emotion from Sully sacrificing the treasure. Just have Sully tell Nate about Sam's death when they first meet and focus on building their bond, while they decide to go after the treasure both for money and to honor Sam's memory. Also don't have Sully already know Chloe and Braddock, since that's a lazy excuse to avoid fleshing out characters. 3. Moncada didn't have enough screentime with Nate/Sully/Chloe and Braddock wasn't developed enough to be worthy of taking over as the main villain. Braddock should have betrayed Moncada during the climax. Hopefully Sony releases an extended cut like Spiderman No Way Home. There's about 20 minutes of unreleased deleted scenes e.g A scene at the beach resort where Nate and Chloe kiss. Also some alternate scenes are much better e.g Nate's first meeting with Sully. Still a good movie overall, due to fun characters, great action and being well paced. Hopefully a sequel can focus on building character relationships and rivalries, instead of constantly trying to subvert expectations by having characters backstab each other.

This is why I continue to say Silent Hill is the only *successful* direct VG adaptation (successful does not necessarily means good, keep in mind). Part of the interactivity of the games is just like, *wondering wtf is going on.* This is something that doesn’t require a controller for someone to interact with and Christophe Gans did a masterful job of translating that to the screen, especially in the second act of the film which is mostly just the protagonist roaming around the town looking at shit. It’s just unfortunate that the moment people start talking the film falls apart. 🤷‍♀️

I've never really considered what makes a good media adaptation or how much the format you choose affects how the story comes together so this was a super interesting watch! Completely agree with everything you said about Uncharted. Arcane ❤️❤️❤️

mood on the covid though, hope you're okay

Uncharted? More like . . . uh . . . Who-Farted! Aye. I think you can technically make a good videogame movie adaptation. You gotta adap the feel of the source material. But any filmmaker, whether they be good enough or not, still got all the box ticking movie studio notes AND the games makers sticking their nose in to protect their IP. It can be done. But current movie making culture ain't gonna produce a movie worth remembering. God knows what the Streets of Rage film will be like.

Good video. I enjoyed the movie very much, I would like to offer a rebuttal to your argument You ended your video by saying “the best adaptions take the source material and explore that same world, same characters and ideas, but specifically through a new lense in ways that being valuable new elements that play to the storytelling strengths of the format the narrative is now being delivered in”. You acknowledge that a movie has no way to make up for the lost interactivity of a video game, and you suggest at multiple points throughout the video that there wasn’t a point to making the movie (despite acknowledging that Uncharted is a great candidate for a movie adaption). I argue that by adapting the movie in the way they have, they breathe new life into the franchise by introducing it to an audience that doesn’t play video games. By casting Tom Holland and Mark Wallburg, they have recognisable talent that can put butts in seats for years to come. In conclusion, flying pirate ships are cool and not many movies have them.

If they wanted the movie to succeed they should have done two things, stick to the story the first game was based off of, and do a recast. I think Tom is a good actor but he wasn’t the best Nathen Drake

Excuuuuuuuse me but there's no way that the Mark Wahlberg spinoff prequel would be called "Sully" since that name is already taken. It'd be called "Sully - an Uncharted story"

all I've heard about it was "mark whalberg ruined it" but never any detail on how. also it seems reductive to the point of being just kinda wrong so this will be very interesting. I'm sad tom signed on just because I think hes great and I want to see him in more good films.

The fate of this wreck was sealed when the world knew Tom Holland would be Drake, and Wahlberg would be Sully. How in the world?!? It's like picking Stallone to be Indiana Jones. Pretty sure the cast director will not be casting anything for the foreseeable future... Totally disgusted after 10 minutes in. Horrible.

There might be a lot to say for loose video game adaptations but it's a blurry line from there to things that don't need to be adaptations. My favourite adaptation is Castlevania which I love to the bitter or surprisingly upbeat end but doesn't inspire me to play the games.

I've missed ya, you mad Northern sod!

Awesome video.

An additional problem is that Uncharted (and a number of video games, let's be honest with ourselves) doesn't have particularly interesting characters. Taking away player choice/control just leaves you with cinematics about not-so interesting characters (Drake quips jokes... like almost all generic movie characters do now) in fairly standard action movie set pieces. Meanwhile... I have thought many times that something like The Last of Us, while a competent game, would be better suited to a movie or limited-run show (10 to 12 episode?). Because the gameplay isn't that great. It's fine, sure, but since games also tend to be _long,_ after a few hours the gameplay has overstayed its welcome. But the story is captivating, the characters have depth, there's _DRAMA._ And yes, it would still be an adaptation from a game, but I think removing control to have a tighter authorial voice would be a gain in that case. Being able to focus on the story and characters with less of the gameplay to get in the way (there are long sections of nothing-gameplay that's there so that you can have character moments and development without the _gamer_ getting bored) would actually be a gain in that instance. The only thing you'd lose with TLoU would be those few moments where the game has you, the player, control a character doing something bad/uncomfortable and you're meant to sit with that and reflect on it. However, being the giants of mental acuity that they are, I feel that most _gamers_ never actually put two and two together with those moments and instead just get angry because a game almost made them think introspectively for a moment and they didn't like it. ... But those really are the few moments where it makes sense for it to be a video game. At least in my opinion.

I don't know anything about video games but I'm getting "live action version of an animated movie/show" kind of intentions from this, but with a poorer result(?) I guess due to those medium mathematics

I maintain that the 2009 film utterly butchered the source material, Zack Snyder did not understand the book whatsoever.

They should've made Uncharted movie many years ago. The movie itself was just god awful and felt it had pushed more elements of each game, like how they used that plane scene straight from Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception. In my view I would've focused more to the first game rather pushing too much materials into one movie.

At 0:43, welcome to how Resident Evil fans felt after the first movie.

God I can't believe this movie existed

This video slapps

Are there any games in particular you'd like to see taken on in a film or TV series?

They cant fully capture the essence of a game due to avg length yes, but what blockbuster films goals are may also be the wrong thing. They are trying to cash in on the conventions of a popular franchise to gullible fans who fundamentally want something else. The fans want what they were originally mesmerized by, translated to a broader, unfamiliar audience, and are now with gaming's popularity, slowly learning that its unnecessary. While limited by linearity, if we look at films like Edge of Tomorrow or The Matrix , we have the arc of a protagonist adapting to an unfamiliar world and learning to master its system of rules towards a goal. Thats the essence of many a video game. Its discovery and adaptation that any future game films should attempt to go after.

It sounds like the uncharted movie is just a really long game trailer

If they wanted to cast Spider Man it should have been Andrew Garfield.

this video is so good

I still can't bring myself to watch the movie because I love the game franchise and the movie like you said Dan looks like a nothing burger.

Tom Holland was a horrible pick for Nathan Drake

Sacrificing a fatted calf to the almighty algorithm.

Tom Holland isn't a bad actor and he's not a great actor as well.

As a fan from day 1 that has plated 9 of the 11 games I love this movie and glad it exists, obvious not perfect but great.

For me when they cast Tom and Mark, that was the first sign it was decided by a board of clueless studio execs together in a room. Went with who was popular and not who is right for the role. It told me it was gonna be a play it safe, predictable, popcorn, turn you rbrain off movie. Which there's nothing wrong with but as those are some of my favorite games ever, you're gonna have to do better. Off the top of my head, Chris Pratt would have been way better, and maybe J.K. Simmons as Sully. Chis looks closer and would nail the sarcastic attitude, and J.K. would nail Sully. Might be better choices out there, Miles Teller might do a great job too. Young enough to make a franchise around which I assume that's the point of Holland and Wahlberg. If so that's smart. Tom does look like young drake in the third and fourth games. I will give him that. I also do like the guy.

Movie made a ton of money so us not liking it we are the minority

You are wrong! (Don't worry, I still love you though) Uncharted is not a *good* movie. But it is perfectly serviceable. It's like someone learning to make the current string of Tom Cruise Action flicks. They're competently put together. And have enough to get from scene to scene. Give it a few attempts, a couple special scenes and remarkable efforts at stunts etc. And They're have it down. This film is the best attempt so far imo at getting a video game film right