I just finished seeing the trailer to the new Tekken live-action movie and like many fighting movies before it, I don’t have my hopes up. I will admit I have a better feeling than I did when I saw the trailer for Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li but I’m just setting myself up for disappointment, so I thought to myself how could you make a fighting game into a good movie and only one thought came up, you can’t. Although there is another way to make it work and I’ve had this idea for a while and it doesn’t look like I’m breaking into Hollywood anytime soon so, I’ve always thought to make a fighting game into live action it could only work as a TV show.
There are too many characters and too many stories to try to fit it into a two-hour movie. A TV show on the other hand has numerous hour-long shows and multiple seasons that can fit a fighting series perfectly. Just imagine how detailed you can be with the characters, the show can even end with a battle and of course the finale could be the championship bout. I’m being so vague because of the various games out there all have different setups and stories.
A Street Fighter show would be amazing, and it could help flush out some of the great stories most people don’t even know about because of all the characters the game has introduced over the years. The anime has followed this formula and they are the most interesting of the street fighter media, aside from the games of course.
Tekken would be a great show, the characters and the stories have grown so much over the years. The best part is it has a constant story going on it the background. The Mishima blood war playing in the background can work as the glue that ties it all together. The Tekken games are six in total, which means you at least have six seasons of story to work with.
Mortal Kombat I feel would be the biggest draw, although it might have to play on a premium channel to really be itself. The game’s story tells itself and like Tekken it revolves around a tournament of the best of the best. Thankfully it has a huge roster so some of those fatalities can actually take place. It might be best to forget about the whole Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe thing when it come to the show of course.
The stories are made to be adjusted and changed when needed but there’s a lot that can be done with these shows and with the drought of good TV shows out there, one of these games turned to a show would be great. It could also hit all the genres; Action of course, you can throw in a romantic story in there for the ladies and whatever else the director can think of.
I really hope to see these ideas come to life in a way that they can finally be represented properly. I guess people underestimate TV shows and still think the only way to make money is in movies but with TV shows being downloadable and on DVD for sometimes the price of three DVD’s. It’s about time someone looked into this goldmine, and made some entertaining TV and makes games into something that can be taken serious when it come to Hollywood.
