A Short History Of Games In Movies
Clearly, the portrayal of video games in film has progressed over the last 25-30 years. Part of this is because of the maturation of complex, computer-generated effects. However, another factor has been the evolution of the games industry and its changing place in both popular culture and society as a whole. It's no coincidence, for example, that as the video game industry began to take off in 1982 when a number of films with key video game scenes began to pop up.
Early 80s movies such as "Tron," "WarGames," and yes, even "Nightmares," played on the exciting and precarious potential of video game technology. Whether it was accidentally triggering a nuclear holocaust or getting sucked into cyberspace, these movies presented an intriguing and almost frightening aspect of a new technology media. This theme would be continued in films like "Never Say Never Again" and later with "The Lawnmower Man," where we are given games that are not real and seem to be beyond the realm of possibility - at least at the time of the film's release.
As the novelty of video game technology wore off in the mid 80s, movies began to focus more on games as product placements rather than as compelling subjects or premises. And indeed, the video game industry began using movies as a promotional media. It's interesting to note that one of the first instances of this is "The Last Starfighter," which was released in the summer of 1984 at the height of the video game crash. The film still performed well at the box office despite the industry collapse. However, Atari was hoping to use the film as a springboard to promote both an arcade version of "Starfighter" as well as a console title, and neither version was ever released to the public. Atari followed a similar pattern with "Cloak & Dagger," also released in 1984, though the company did release an arcade version.
Still, the trend of product placement continued into the late 80s and early 90s. The biggest example of movies as promotional tools for games is "The Wizard," which appeared in 1989 while Nintendo was at the height of its power. The movie is seen by many as nothing more than a 100-minute commercial for the NES, Nintendo Power Glove and Super Mario Bros. 3. Another notorious example is 1993's "City Hunter," which was adapted from a popular Japanese magna but has become infamous for its Street Fighter II scene. And of course, Sega made "Surf Ninjas" a cheerleader for the Game Gear handheld device. Ironically, several items that benefited from product placement - Atari's Starfighter title, the Power Glove, Game Gear - never took off.
Another example of product placement is "Back to the Future II," which features Nintendo's Wild Gunman title and the light gun. However, this reference is quite different than the scenes in "The Wizard," since Wild Gunman is used as a gag in the film and pokes fun at then-current video game technology. While not a quite a successful sequel, "Back to the Future II" marks one of the first examples of a humorously self-aware and even self-deprecating reference to video games as a whole. This trend would continue throughout the 90s.
The use of video games as a pop culture reference that illustrates a movie's characters instead of its plot may have started with the holo-chess scene in "Star Wars." But such examples are sporadic during the 80s and early 90s. "Night of the Comet" utilizes arcade games to portray the competitive, aggressive nature of the movie's tomboy heroine. Fast-forward more than 10 years to 1995, where the video game scene in "Mallrats" not only plays as a homage to a beloved title (NHL Hockey '94) but also stands as one of the first examples of portraying the modern gamer as an adult slacker.
A year later, the theme is bolstered with "Swingers" and the now classic head-bleeding Wayne Gretzky scene. Gamers are no longer portrayed as children playing kids games, and the games themselves are now used to identify the Generation X crowd. Games aren't viewed so much as a technology in films but as a cultural indicator. More comedies would follow suit, with "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," "The Break-Up," "Shaun of the Dead" and "Grandma's Boy," which all use games to illustrate their respective characters. Spike Lee's "Inside Man" is one of the few examples where a video game scene is used for social commentary, as well as for laughs. In a sense, the evolution of video game scenes comes full circle as the movie shows how games have progressed and become more adult in nature yet we are returned to the notion that games are for kids, too, rather than just for adults.
One of the more interesting scenes in modern film is the opening scene to "Stay Alive." The horror movie isn't very remarkable outside of its premise - a haunted online game that kills its players - and its first five minutes where some specially designed video game animation sets up the film. Will the use of game animation for crucial scenes be the next trend for films? Time will tell.
