Tekken for a Ride

Hasn’t Hollywood learned yet? Game to movie, anime to movie, comic to movie, book to movie adaptations become popular because of the fans. Of course Hollywood knows enough to pick up the story with enough following and capitalize on the name. And then we, the fans, are betrayed.

Fans stay glued to their sets because of something intrinsic, something quintessential and that thing has to be captured before anything else, before artistic license, before creative expression. That is the least anyone taking on an adaptation should do to respect the work and the fans. Anything less is an insult.

Tekken, that game series from NAMCO that started in 1994 (1995 for the Playstation) had a continuing story line of father to son struggles (not just for the Mishimas). Story lines and fighting styles have been part of why Tekken has such a following; it’s part of the quintessential thing that we’ve come to love about Tekken.

These things have been taken away from the fans, Marshall Law has lost his Jeet Kune Do, Paul Phoenix did not even appear in the movie, just a passing mention, Kazuya’s gloves were worn by Jin and came from Steve. Jin’s game rival Hwoarang was nowhere in sight. These changes just threw what I liked about Tekken out of whack. It felt as bad as seeing Batman’s nipples. The only thing so Tekken about it is Heihachi’s hair.

Over the years such “creative license” has ruined many good titles like the Mario Brothers (no mushrooms, and fireflowers), Disneyfied fairytales (Hera is not supposed to be a good mom to Hercules), Shumacher Batmans (no Bat-credit cards please and why was Bane stupid and minor?), and Dragonball Evolution (the Kamehameha is not an airbending technique!!! Goku can use it in space for crying out loud).

We need more film makers who are actual fans of the work they are adapting. See LOTR, the Chris Donner Superman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the first one) the Chris Nolan Batmans, Narnia (one of the few things Disney did right) and the A-Team, they were made by people who know what it means to be a fan and will feel disappointed as a fan if things go bad.

Tekken (and other games) need players, Anime franchises need Otaku, novels need readers. We don’t need fashion challenged, spaced out, surreal artistes, who can’t dream up their own creative work and so mess up another’s and put their “personal mark” on the movie ahead of the intended image by the person who made it lovable in the first place, the author.