Adaptation Decay 29: Detective Pikachu
🕑 Added 2019-08-18 16:01:00 +0000 UTCDetective Pikachu made a big splash before its release by audaciously featuring realistically-rendered Pokémon in a live action setting. While those 'mons are absolutely the high point of this adaptation, the film itself is a perfectly serviceable kids' flick with lots of good moments.
Comments
Zack Thornhill
Really great episode!
Alexander McConnell
Adapting the spirit and not the plot is I am still convinced the only road to making decent movies out of video games. Legend of Zelda movie? Link, green tunic, master sword, musical artifact, magical princess, fight with Ganon. DO NOT try to adapt Ocarina of Time or Breath of the Wild directly into a movie. It will hobble the plot of your movie and fans will 100% hate whatever concessions you have to make. Tell a new story, but with all that familiar iconography and maybe some little winking references for fans. I'm pretty convinced this is the only way real adaptations could work. Videogame plots are just not movie-shaped. Even something like Metal Gear would just be completely absurd if you tried to do a Zack Snyder's Watchmen style slavish adaptation that many fans think they want and would completely hate. I've said this is the way to go to make video game movies adaptable for a long while now. Maybe now that even the old people who write stuff like movie scripts have probably grown up playing some of these games rather than having that, "What's a Pikachu?" reaction, we can actually get some of this going...
Terra Parker
I enjoyed the hell out of this movie, excited to hear the episode