It's no secret that video games movies have a long and troubled history. Hollywood has had a difficult time adapting games into films, and while there's certainly been an influx in video game movies releasing over the past few years, there haven't been any that have been met with an overwhelmingly positive response. Based on the first trailer for the upcoming Uncharted movie, the curse of bad video game films could be broken, and it makes sense that Uncharted is the gaming series to do it.

Before anyone gets excited, there are still a lot of unknowns about what the Uncharted movie will be like, but the first trailer paints a picture that looks similar to its source material. That said, fan response has been decidedly mixed, so it's anyone's guess at this point. Even if fans are lukewarm, Uncharted is already set up to be a solid movie based on how the games themselves were designed.

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Uncharted's Film Inspirations

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Naughty Dog has often received criticism for its games being too rigid and not allowing enough player choice. Because of how realistic the studio's recent games have looked, many enthusiasts have compared the experience of playing titles like The Last of Us 2 and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End to watching a long movie. While this is a valid criticism, it does make sense that the studio's titles feel so much like movies based on the fact they take some pretty heavy inspiration from classic films.

While it certainly has its own identity, Uncharted is clearly inspired by the Indiana Jones films among other series. From narratives about finding ancient treasure in lost cities to much of Nathan Drake's personality, the two share a lot of DNA. Because of this, the Uncharted movie should feel similar to an Indiana Jones movie, and the first trailer seems to have confirmed that. In fact, the trailer invokes the feeling of a lot of different adventure movies like The Mummy, Romancing the Stone, and the 007 franchise, which all seemed to have inspired the original Uncharted games in one way or another. It makes sense, then, why a film inspired by a game inspired by films would capture the essence of good movies.

The Star of Uncharted is the Story

Uncharted Legacy Of Thieves Collection A Steal

The Uncharted games feature pretty standard third-person shooting elements with plenty of action setpieces to break things up. The games are fun to play, but they aren't necessarily groundbreaking in terms of their mechanics. Instead, Uncharted has always pushed the boundaries of cinematic gaming narratives. This means the series is perfectly built for a film adaptation, because the studio making a movie doesn't need to worry about including sections of its runtime devoted to representing game mechanics.

The Uncharted games are already essentially action movies, so transferring the series to the silver screen seems like an easy conversion. It takes one look at the Uncharted fan film starring Nathan Fillion to see that a good script with some action and adventure is all an Uncharted film needs to work. The cast for this upcoming movie is solid, the action seems good, and while there isn't much in the trailer detailing what the plot will be about, its writing seems to be on-par with the source material. All of these things point to Uncharted being a critically successful video game movie, but only time will tell if that's actually the case.

Uncharted will release in theaters on February 18, 2022.

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