Gaming Fest – Sony Interactive’s ‘Uncharted’

In this Gaming Fest panel titled “Sony Interactive’s ‘Uncharted’” Alex Gartner (producer) and Asad Qizilbash (PlayStation Studios and head of PlayStation Productions) talked about the making of the movie ‘Uncharted’ and how they incorporated aspects of the video game within the film. In the interview, they stated that they wanted to make the movie for a general audience. They didn’t want to make it so niche that only gaming fans knew what was going on, but they still wanted to incorporate parts of the game so fans would be excited about it. The idea behind this is to expand the Uncharted franchise and hopefully create a second movie.

Although this was not the very first movie that was based on a video game, it was one of the first where people from different disciplines who had never worked together came together. Game and film used to be separate, but now everything is blending together. They described how it is exciting that people from these different departments can collaborate and combine the sophistication of game storytelling with visual movie storytelling. In games, a lot of stories are very character-based, so this movie was an opportunity to take that and build upon it more. For example, in the Uncharted video game, you never see Nathan Drake’s back story of when he was younger. So the filmmakers took this as an opportunity to expand upon this story element and create their own story that had elements of the video game. Something very interesting that Alex had said was, “Simple story, complex character.” Those stories are usually the ones that make you connect the most with the game or visual media because of how storytellers can develop a character for you to relate to them. 

A question in the panel was asked about what game aspects were in the movie and which were not. The main reason for some aspects not being in the film was the fact that they couldn’t have too many set pieces, and of course, they were on a budget. They didn’t want to copy from the game completely, but they also didn’t want the movie to feel like something completely different from the game. So what they did was they took inspiration from pieces in the game to recreate set pieces that would feel as though they fit within this Uncharted “world.” One of the main aspects of the game that they wanted to represent in the movie was that Nathan Drake was constantly getting through hardships and then finding out there was another bigger problem ahead of him. This character, played by Tom Holland, was cast very well. Tom is a fan of the Uncharted video game, and while on set, he would suggest some changes that could be made to enhance the movie. A question was asked to the two guests “What was it like watching Tom Holland bring Nathan Drake to life?”

• Asad: “My favorite moment was seeing Tom in the full gear, I was totally geeking out. What I was most surprised was his knowledge of the game, it exceeded my expectation, some things he added because it was in the game but wasn’t in the movie.”

• Alex: “he was the perfect guy to embody it (Nathan Drake). He has the physical brilliance, good actor, and is a fan. He mixed all that together and made it his own, but you felt like these were things Nathan Drake might have done as a young man. Tom was so immersed in what made the game special and said ‘what if we did this’ or ‘what if we did that’, trying to capture the physical style of the action.”

Another question asked was, “What do you think the future of video game adaptations is?”

• Asad: “It’s just the beginning, some of the great stories and worlds are living in video game space, it’s opening the eyes to a lot of video game creators as opportunities. This generation now, they grew up playing games, they have a passion for games so its the perfect time to have some of the material they grew up with to adapt it to their creative medium.”

An additional question was: “Action sequences: How do they capture the spirit of the game?”

• Asad: “Out of the frying pan into the fire. In the game they have to be a little bit south of physically impossible because it has to be spectacular, you don’t do action pieces just for action. He gets to a point where he thinks he’s okay but then it continues to build. For the set pieces, the end set pieces with the gallion, that piece could have been in the game. It had something new and fresh but it paid homage to a scene that everyone could remember in the game.”

The creation of video game movies brings the question of whether we are going to see more of this in the future? And the answer to that is yes. Asad stated that visual media is being created based on The Last of Us, Ghost of Tsushima, Twisted Metal, and more. Uncharted was just the beginning to light the flame of expanding video game universes. Because these media can expand video games, it gives opportunities for the makers to add fun easter eggs. For example, the two guests stated that a couple of easter eggs in the movie referenced aspects in the game or other things. For example, there is a Naughty Dog sticker on one of the suitcases, and in another scene, there is an actual egg on a bookshelf that shows up in the video game. 

There is excitement about more collaboration between the creative disciplines in the future. So stay on the lookout for more video game adaptations and if you haven’t seen the Uncharted movie already,  give it a watch!