Well I saw it last night and I'm leaving in about an hour to see it again with a friend of mine, but I was rather impressed with how the movie turned out in relation to the game series. Yes, the plot is a little different and yes, a lot of the characters are different or play different roles this time around, but overall I'd say that this is the closest adapation of GAME to MOVIE that I've ever seen. I'd say more now, but I'll just wait until more have seen it. Please place spoiler tags or label sections with spoilers if you intend to talk about the plot related content of either the film or game.
I saw it as well, and while I enjoyed it, I thought that there were several plot devices that didn't make sense. Don't get me wrong--I enjoyed the movie. I thought the story was very interesting, however the cracks that sometimes appeared in the plot made it seem a little B-movie ish.
Yeah, I read your LJ entry regarding that and while I can say that it has some definite plot loopholes and the occasional... well often, bad addicting to make it more B-Movieish, what I enjoyed about it was how well it captured the overall essence and theme of Silent Hill, The Game. And just for the record, the game's characters have always had terrible acting in their dialogue sequences to begin with, so having not-so-great acting in the movie works rather perfectly. lol I was wondering though if you had played the first game though Zonder? While the plot is a little different especially regarding how some of the characters are introduced, like
Lisa the nurse
and the various parallels drawn from certain newer characters filling the obviously placement roles from that of other characters that were in the game, the story and overall message is still fairly close to home with the first game. I'm sure if you play through the first game and compare it to the movie you'll probably understand a whole lot more about it as afterall, the movie is basically a chopped up hurried version of the overall story that is learned in 8-12 hours of the video game. Given the amount of time they had to make a film about it, I think they did an exceptional job, especially considering that it could be a lot worse. I think going to see it a second time really helped understand the movie version of the plot a bit better when comparing it to what I already know about Silent Hill.
Which reminds me, I need to find that site again that was dealing with the translation of a particular Silent Hill Japanese guide. This guide was primarily a Silent Hill 3 guide, but if you flip the cover over and upside down, the second/reverse half of the guide is a Silent Hill 1-3 plot, character and symbolism anaysis of Silent Hill in general. It was very helpful. I own the guide and always had meant to go check out the translation again, but never had. Perhaps this is a good a time as any. If I find it, I'll see if I can post the link to it here.
Back to the film, I personally loved how they did the monsters in the movie. They were extremely well designed and very scary to see, especially that of
Pyramid Head, the executioner of Silent Hill 2 fame
who was quite honestly the scariest bad guy ever to appear in a Silent Hill game.
The scene where Pyramid Head kills Anna by in sense, judging her before killing her was a nice touch I thought given the character that Pyramid Head is as the executioner of the abandoned Silent Hill prison from over 100 years before the events of Silent Hill 1. Yes it was a bit extreme and very gore-festive, but still an extremely nice touch I have to say. I honestly think everyone who ever sees that scene will always be shocked, even knowing what is going to happen. My friend Adam and Andy who both went to see the movie with me on Friday and Saturday both were like "Daaamn!! Did you see what he did!?"
But in closing I think the movie was excellent for what it is, a portrayal of Silent Hill and the kind of characters, theme, music and monsters that you would find there. And seeing as how most video game movies suck, this one is one of the ones that doesn't and I think one where fans who like the series most likely will not be dissapointed.
Actually I've never played any of the games, although I have seen other people play them a few times. Because of that I don't know much about the plot of the games, however I can say that the ambience of the games was reflected perfectly in the movie. I really enjoyed how dark and subdued everything was. Also, as I said before I found the whole idea to be very interesting and entertaining. Because of that I can say that I really did like it despite its faults, because itsn't that what movies are all about anyways?
One thing I didn't understand was the ending. Did the mother, daughter, and cop die during the vehicle accident in the beginning? And if that's the case, why weren't their bodies found by the police? I believe the police said that they had found the jeep. Or was it a case of the three of them just "slipping over to the darkness," or some other thing. Because as I recall, they were unable to leave until the end. The ending just confused me I guess, because I was under the impression that the little girl wouldn't let them leave until she had exacted her revenge on the religious cult.
I also think the movie had several shocking scenes that I found hard to watch. The one you mentioned of course is one, as well as the cop being burned alive (that was very hard to watch for me), and lastly the end, in which the little girl kills everyone in the cult. Truth be told, that last scene kinda reminded me of a scene in FFX, with the aeon Anima, who is also a tortured soul.
Anyways, like I said, I thought it was a good movie.^^
