Silent Hill Community • View topic - You should give Gans a lot more credit

We all know, that a majority of the SH fanbase does not like the SH movie(I say majority, because me, and quite a few others really enjoyed the movie)Christopher Gans took a big risk taking a game like SH and making it into a movie. He worked hard, and imo, it really payed off.

So, okay, the movie isn't as good as the games, but like Gans has said, a movie is a movie, and a game is a game, 2 seperate things. The one thing I never saw in this movie, is how scary it really is to those who have never played a single SH game. I know A LOT of people who have never played the games, or even heard of the games, and when they saw the movie, they didnt even wanna watch it again it was so scary to them. So, no, Gans didnt make the perfect SH movie, but he succeeded in making one hell of a horror movie, a movie I would pick over Friday the 13th, nightmare on elm street, or Halloween, ANY day. Okay, maybe not Halloween, but the other two, Im a huge Myers fan

I think the second movie, even though it is directed in a totally different direction from the first, will be just as good, if not, better. I can't wait to get one of my friends to watch the second one, she doesn't believe me that a sequel is coming, but she will see >:)

I think if Silent Hill were a stand alone movie, and the game series never existed, that it could have received movie of the year, and so many other awards. Yep, that's how good I thought the movie was. I mean, compared to other horror movies now a days, Silent Hill had good scare factor, great acting, and a nice, non cheesy, or over the top script. I can't wait for the sequel to come out, good job Gans, and lets hope Bassett doesn't disappoint.

I absolutely agree with everything you said. It may not be a really good adaptation but it makes a great horror movie.
It scared me as well.

What gets me is that I didn't really know anyone that hated it when it first came out, but as time went on, people got bitter over it. In my opinion, the SH movie is the best video game adaptation I've seen and aesthetically it was incredible. I was able to get into the storyline too. I sound like a broken record when I say this, but try being a fan of the Bloodrayne games and having to deal with that adaptation. People have no reason to bitch about this film.

Mercury wrote:What gets me is that I didn't really know anyone that hated it when it first came out, but as time went on, people got bitter over it. In my opinion, the SH movie is the best video game adaptation I've seen and aesthetically it was incredible. I was able to get into the storyline too. I sound like a broken record when I say this, but try being a fan of the Bloodrayne games and having to deal with that adaptation. People have no reason to bitch about this film.

Or Far Cry, or Alone in the Dark, or hell, even Doom.
I agree here. It wasn't a perfect adaptation, but it did a hell of a lot better as an actual movie than most if not all other adaptations.

Don't forget Postal. xD

Far Cry, Alone in the Dark, Bloodrayne, and the aforementioned Postal all have one thing in common.

Uwe Boll.

Don't jab his movies though, or he'll publicly challenge you to a boxing match. xD

I agree with almost everything in first post. I got some fights here about this movie and as is already clear that I like the movie, I'll talk about something that I pick in my discussions. There was maybe three basic different ways to have making the script:

1 - The real story of SH1 or one of SH2 paths;
2 - A new Silent Hill story;
3 - A free re-imaging of Silent Hill using SH1 and SH2 elements simplifieds or as a parody.

In my opinion, the difficulty level decrease from 1 to 3 of making a script because the writer got more freedom. They tuck the easy way simplifying the elements and scrambling the characters and places. That's what dislike fans, though.

But when I see the movie again, I like it and I have to admit that is a good work. They were players and they try to do they're bests. But I think they where too academic with this crap that a thing is a thing and not another thing! The other possibilities are available for a movie team that got the ability and the guts to do it. Rules are to guide us, not to imprison us.

Gans did his part VERY well. The film looks gorgeous, and feels 100% through and through SH. All the problems lie with the script. WAY too much exposition and explanation. WAY too much time spent with human characters talking about human problems. The worst thing you can do to Silent Hill is over-explain everything, especially when the last 30 minutes of your film is just talking talking flashback talking talking...

That said, I love a lot of moments in the film (and own 3 versions of it, including the art book JPN DVD release). Pretty much every creature encounter is wonderful, and I love the game-y structure of Rose's progression, and little touches like collecting the knife, then losing the knife (you could practically see it vanish from her inventory). They were really close to it being an incredible SH film, and it's still a pretty good one. Hopefully the next film fixes those issues.

Yeah the film is my favorite game to movie adaption. Mortal Kombat a close second. It was nowhere near the levels of some of the movie adaptions, anyone remember Super Mario Bros?

Adam_WF wrote:Gans did his part VERY well. The film looks gorgeous, and feels 100% through and through SH. All the problems lie with the script. WAY too much exposition and explanation. WAY too much time spent with human characters talking about human problems. The worst thing you can do to Silent Hill is over-explain everything, especially when the last 30 minutes of your film is just talking talking flashback talking talking...

The people I know who were not prior SH fans but watched the film still found it overtly confusing. For a SH fan it is not, for anyone not familiar with the series it seems to be still rather confusing.

I am a part of the minority that genuinely liked the movie. Its what got me into the series in the first place. This coming from someone who doesn't like or watch many horror thrillers. I was freaked out by the movie to the point that I started doing research into it, and thus stumbled upon the first game. I got an emulator for SH1 and... The rest was history.

I owe becoming a fan of the SH games to the movie. Kudos, Gans.

Adam_WF wrote:Gans did his part VERY well. The film looks gorgeous, and feels 100% through and through SH. All the problems lie with the script. WAY too much exposition and explanation. WAY too much time spent with human characters talking about human problems. The worst thing you can do to Silent Hill is over-explain everything, especially when the last 30 minutes of your film is just talking talking flashback talking talking...

That said, I love a lot of moments in the film (and own 3 versions of it, including the art book JPN DVD release). Pretty much every creature encounter is wonderful, and I love the game-y structure of Rose's progression, and little touches like collecting the knife, then losing the knife (you could practically see it vanish from her inventory). They were really close to it being an incredible SH film, and it's still a pretty good one. Hopefully the next film fixes those issues.

SH is a VERY hard game to get at first, second, or even third playthrough. Its a game that doesn't hold your hand. Gans obviously knew this and did not want the movie to leave people coming out of the theater saying "wtf did I just watch? Did you get any of that? What was that all about!?" I wouldn't either. It takes much more time to understand a video game than to understand a movie, mostly because a movie is about 2-4 hours most of the time, while a game can stretch anywhere from 5-100+ hours. Gans needed to take all the good parts of the game and cram it into a 2 hour movie(or however long the movie was)and do it in a way where newcomers of the series will understand what is going on without having to watch the movie over 3 times.(even after 3 times, I dont think they would fully understand the lure that is Silent Hill, which is most likely why he crammed so much information of the games story into the script to be talked about)

Also, Meltdown, your awesome. You are a prime example of what good this movie has done for the SH community, introducing so many new fans into the games, I love it! Not only does it help the SH games, but it also helps for this forum to get more members, hehehe

Gans was responsible for all of the good things in the film, and only a couple of the bad things. He was the one who wrote the plot, hired the stellar actors, and gave the film its perfect visuals. The only mistakes he made were in letting Jodelle Ferland add the "meow" part of the tree scene, and in adding so much symbolism that almost no one actually understood the movie. Had he not been so symbolism-happy, I bet SH would have gotten better reviews, and Michael Bassett wouldn't be saying on his blog that he has to reexplain the first film because nobody understood it the first time around. Granted, the bad dialogue was a major factor in making the symbolism so overwhelming that people confused it with the actual plot, and that was most certainly not Gans' fault. I wish he had been brought back to work on the sequel, given the obvious love he had for the series.

Xuchilbara wrote:The people I know who were not prior SH fans but watched the film still found it overtly confusing. For a SH fan it is not, for anyone not familiar with the series it seems to be still rather confusing.

I strongly disagree with this statement, as I've had to explain the movie to just as many fans of the series as non-fans during my years on various SH forums. Even if you just look through posts on this board, you'll see all the misinterpretations from fans of the games. Gaming fans are just as likely to believe completely incorrect things such as Dark Alessa being the devil, the townspeople being dead, Sharon being Alessa's daughter, etc as anyone who's never heard of the games.

I like it alright. I think Jodelle Ferland as Alessa is so neat after seeing Tideland - she had experience living in the Gillespie house - that and other things make me feel there's a decent heart in the film.

Last year I saw Andrew Wyeth's "Christina's World" at the Museum of Modern Art. It was cool.

JKristine35 wrote:I strongly disagree with this statement, as I've had to explain the movie to just as many fans of the series as non-fans during my years on various SH forums. Even if you just look through posts on this board, you'll see all the misinterpretations from fans of the games. Gaming fans are just as likely to believe completely incorrect things such as Dark Alessa being the devil, the townspeople being dead, Sharon being Alessa's daughter, etc as anyone who's never heard of the games.

I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with. My comment wasn't excuding the game fans or talking about misinterpretations. I was referring to the fact the movie can be confusing to someone who is not familiar at all with Silent Hill, that doesn't mean someone is making bad assumptions, fan or no fan. As far as fans misinterpretating things, they were doing that far before the movie was announced, about the games. It's only natural they'd do that about the movie considering that many still believe, even today, that the incubus is Samael despite evidence to the contrary. Then you have Twin Perfect and their fandom, so yeah. My reference is to people who were not experienced with Silent Hill, I never said anything about the fans of the game series. Just the movie. As Meltdown said.

RoomofAngel wrote:
Adam_WF wrote:Gans did his part VERY well. The film looks gorgeous, and feels 100% through and through SH. All the problems lie with the script. WAY too much exposition and explanation. WAY too much time spent with human characters talking about human problems. The worst thing you can do to Silent Hill is over-explain everything, especially when the last 30 minutes of your film is just talking talking flashback talking talking...

That said, I love a lot of moments in the film (and own 3 versions of it, including the art book JPN DVD release). Pretty much every creature encounter is wonderful, and I love the game-y structure of Rose's progression, and little touches like collecting the knife, then losing the knife (you could practically see it vanish from her inventory). They were really close to it being an incredible SH film, and it's still a pretty good one. Hopefully the next film fixes those issues.

SH is a VERY hard game to get at first, second, or even third playthrough. Its a game that doesn't hold your hand. Gans obviously knew this and did not want the movie to leave people coming out of the theater saying "wtf did I just watch? Did you get any of that? What was that all about!?" I wouldn't either. It takes much more time to understand a video game than to understand a movie, mostly because a movie is about 2-4 hours most of the time, while a game can stretch anywhere from 5-100+ hours. Gans needed to take all the good parts of the game and cram it into a 2 hour movie(or however long the movie was)and do it in a way where newcomers of the series will understand what is going on without having to watch the movie over 3 times.(even after 3 times, I dont think they would fully understand the lure that is Silent Hill, which is most likely why he crammed so much information of the games story into the script to be talked about)

Also, Meltdown, your awesome. You are a prime example of what good this movie has done for the SH community, introducing so many new fans into the games, I love it! Not only does it help the SH games, but it also helps for this forum to get more members, hehehe

I'd say this before (very close to this description) and people almost burn me alive in Alessa's bed! It's a choose between a popular movie or an "alternative" movie.

Xuchilbara wrote:
JKristine35 wrote:I strongly disagree with this statement, as I've had to explain the movie to just as many fans of the series as non-fans during my years on various SH forums. Even if you just look through posts on this board, you'll see all the misinterpretations from fans of the games. Gaming fans are just as likely to believe completely incorrect things such as Dark Alessa being the devil, the townspeople being dead, Sharon being Alessa's daughter, etc as anyone who's never heard of the games.

I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with. My comment wasn't excuding the game fans or talking about misinterpretations. I was referring to the fact the movie can be confusing to someone who is not familiar at all with Silent Hill, that doesn't mean someone is making bad assumptions, fan or no fan. As far as fans misinterpretating things, they were doing that far before the movie was announced, about the games. It's only natural they'd do that about the movie considering that many still believe, even today, that the incubus is Samael despite evidence to the contrary. Then you have Twin Perfect and their fandom, so yeah. My reference is to people who were not experienced with Silent Hill, I never said anything about the fans of the game series. Just the movie. As Meltdown said.

I disagree with you too, but not strongly because I like you...

The story is not complicated and is kind linear, in opposition to SH original series. But you may thinking about people that are not used in get the basic elements in this kind of movie to follow the story right - this people will get lost sometime. The only advantage of SH players is the names of people and places so they can picture the story easier.

gustavopi wrote:
Xuchilbara wrote:
JKristine35 wrote:I strongly disagree with this statement, as I've had to explain the movie to just as many fans of the series as non-fans during my years on various SH forums. Even if you just look through posts on this board, you'll see all the misinterpretations from fans of the games. Gaming fans are just as likely to believe completely incorrect things such as Dark Alessa being the devil, the townspeople being dead, Sharon being Alessa's daughter, etc as anyone who's never heard of the games.

I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with. My comment wasn't excuding the game fans or talking about misinterpretations. I was referring to the fact the movie can be confusing to someone who is not familiar at all with Silent Hill, that doesn't mean someone is making bad assumptions, fan or no fan. As far as fans misinterpretating things, they were doing that far before the movie was announced, about the games. It's only natural they'd do that about the movie considering that many still believe, even today, that the incubus is Samael despite evidence to the contrary. Then you have Twin Perfect and their fandom, so yeah. My reference is to people who were not experienced with Silent Hill, I never said anything about the fans of the game series. Just the movie. As Meltdown said.

I disagree with you too, but not strongly because I like you... The story is not complicated and is kind linear, in opposition to SH original series. But you may thinking about people that are not used in get the basic elements in this kind of movie to follow the story right - this people will get lost sometime. The only advantage of SH players is the names of people and places so they can picture the story easier.

I'm not saying the story is complex! Is anyone actually reading what I'm saying? Am I speaking Greek? I'm saying that it's done in a manner that is confusing to people who have no background in Silent Hill whatsoever. I've had to explain it to people who were pretty intelligent but couldn't understand the movie so well.

And yeah the movie is executed in a manner that isn't normal for most movies and attempts to be somewhat Lynch like. So when people who don't know about the otherworld or anything like that see it, it's not the same experience as it is for someone who is very familiar with the concept. In fact I don't know many movies outside of Pan's Laybrith that employ an otherworld outside of a fantasy world. Most of the time it's in the manner of Wizard of Oz. The way SH movie was doing it (as an horrifying, hellish experience) is quite unlike most movies. It's also one of the plot devices.

I found what you said very easy to understand. :)

I wanna watch Pan's Labyrinth again. :o It has been awhile. I gave the DVD to my Nan for Christmas one year.

JKristine35 wrote:Gans was responsible for all of the good things in the film, and only a couple of the bad things. He was the one who wrote the plot, hired the stellar actors, and gave the film its perfect visuals. The only mistakes he made were in letting Jodelle Ferland add the "meow" part of the tree scene, and in adding so much symbolism that almost no one actually understood the movie. Had he not been so symbolism-happy, I bet SH would have gotten better reviews, and Michael Bassett wouldn't be saying on his blog that he has to reexplain the first film because nobody understood it the first time around. Granted, the bad dialogue was a major factor in making the symbolism so overwhelming that people confused it with the actual plot, and that was most certainly not Gans' fault. I wish he had been brought back to work on the sequel, given the obvious love he had for the series.

Xuchilbara wrote:The people I know who were not prior SH fans but watched the film still found it overtly confusing. For a SH fan it is not, for anyone not familiar with the series it seems to be still rather confusing.

I strongly disagree with this statement, as I've had to explain the movie to just as many fans of the series as non-fans during my years on various SH forums. Even if you just look through posts on this board, you'll see all the misinterpretations from fans of the games. Gaming fans are just as likely to believe completely incorrect things such as Dark Alessa being the devil, the townspeople being dead, Sharon being Alessa's daughter, etc as anyone who's never heard of the games.

So Bassett doesnt love the series as much as Gans? Thats a little bias on your part. Bassett is a HUGE gamer and loves the SH games, he is a great pick for the director of the sequel, and it shows by the way he is trying to make this movie more like the games than the first, which is a plus for me.

@Xuchillbara, you said fans of the series didn't find the movie confusing, which is what I was responding to. From what I've seen, that's not true. People who have played every SH game are just as likely to be confused and completely lost as those who have never heard of the series before seeing the film. Almost no one, gamer or otherwise, understood the plot, symbolism, or meaning of the film. Also, I completely agree with how you feel about TwinPerfect and their followers.

@RoomofAngel, I never once mentioned Bassett or my thoughts on him. Bassett has indeed said he's a passionate fan of the series... how that will translate onto the silver screen remains to be seen. Gans, on the other hand, wrote and directed the first film, which is the whole reason I even became a fan of the series. Rather than just talking about his love for the series, he's already proven it IMO. So yes, I would rather have the man who made one great adaptation back, rather than guessing and theorizing whether this new one can make his feelings on the series into a watchable film. That doesn't mean I think Bassett doesn't love the series.

JKristine35 wrote:@RoomofAngel, I never once mentioned Bassett or my thoughts on him. Bassett has indeed said he's a passionate fan of the series... how that will translate onto the silver screen remains to be seen. Gans, on the other hand, wrote and directed the first film, which is the whole reason I even became a fan of the series. Rather than just talking about his love for the series, he's already proven it IMO. So yes, I would rather have the man who made one great adaptation back, rather than guessing and theorizing whether this new one can make his feelings on the series into a watchable film. That doesn't mean I think Bassett doesn't love the series.

Actually, just to clear something up, you did mention Bassett in your quote, technically.

You should give Gans a lot more credit

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