A Necessary Correction: Affirming the Need for the Uwe Boll Petition

"So bad, it's good" has been a significant draw for audiences all over the globe. It seems like audiences like to watch the worst of filmmaking, almost as a sort of cleansing of the palate. However, audiences do not like to watch offensive, senseless, and useless filmmaking - that has only resulted in lost revenue and lost credibility. One of the most outstanding examples of this "style" is that of German director Uwe Boll, who, over the years, has made some of the worst-reviewed movies, almost all of which are video game adaptations, such as In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (right). Unsurprisingly, his name has become an insult in the video game community. Boll's films comprise the majority of video game film adaptations, and this has been instrumental in creating the public image that the video game is an unintelligent, immature medium that is incapable of any real storytelling.
While Boll is usually only referred to in asides and jokes, there has been a storm of activity due to a petition to permanently stop Uwe Boll's filmmaking career. The petition collects signatures as a sign of community-wide discontent with the director's filmmaking, and asks Boll to permanently retire his camera. Normally, petitions carry nearly no weight. Petitions for everything from political misnomers to cartoon DVD releases have floated through the internet, and have had a history of getting absolutely nothing done. However, the stakes are different on this one - in an interview, Uwe Boll personally stated if a million signatures landed on the "Stop Dr. Uwe Boll" petition, he would stop making movies. As soon as he made the declaration, sites for both video game and film aficionados all over the internet jumped at the news, posting it in an attempt to get as many signatures as possible. As of today, nearly 200,000 signatures grace the petition, which is almost a fifth of the requirement. However, Boll has shown early signs of not making good on his word, challenging the legitimacy of the petition. He claims that the petition is signed by a very small group of people, only twenty or thirty times per person. Of course, while that is possible, it would require twenty or thirty computers per person, as, according to slashfilm, the petition records the IP addresses of the voters. Any real debate over the petition is pointless, however: A filmmaker made a verbal, nonlegal agreement to stop his career when a virtual piece of paper had a million signatures on it. The entire deal has no legal backing, and is more a representation of a community hope to squash a terrible filmmaker. In other words, there's no guarantee that anything happen when the petition eventually reaches the one-million voter mark.
So, since there is no real reason to believe that this petition will go anywhere, is there a reason to continue it? Absolutely. In championing this cause, I have decided to look back at two blog posts written before the petition became such a championed cause. The first one, written by freelancer writer Dave White, a writer that seems to have made a name for himself discussing the worst that Hollywood has to offer. His article on MSNBC did not have a space for commentary, so I went to his website and commented on his blog post regarding the article. I responded to his favorable review of Uwe Boll's filmmaking, arguing that reading into his films for genius is a dead end. The second, by Dave McAvoy of film blog Whimsical F-Bomb, ("Film" being the four-letter word), questions the elitism of attempting to wipe a percieved bad taste from the film world. My responses are provided below.

Uwe Boll: Bad Filmmaker or Trash Visionary?
Response:
Mr. White, I have to say that I enjoyed reading your article on the liveliness of director Uwe Boll. In doing research for a blog post on Dr. Boll in the wake of the famous petition, I have to say that your article, as the only article respecting Boll's creativity, was a surprise. That said, I have to strongly disagree with your opinions on Mr. Boll's films.
Boll's films don't 'dismantle filmmaking,' even in his attempted lampooning. The camp that is derived from this is little more than a sinking desperation and a willingness to smear the lines of taste in order to make a profit. If these movies had been as bland as "Are We There Yet," as you pointed out, then the movie would have made next to no money at all - something we saw with "In the Name of the King." Instead, his movies belay an attempt to be a video game version of Micheal Moore - throwing controversy at the audience in the hopes of achieving success. Without the video game footage (a move probably made to milk the video-games-as-art controversy) and decapitated zombie, would anyone have gone to see "House of the Dead?"
I would argue that instead of a lovably off-the-wall screwball filmmaker, Boll represents a liability - in using the names of video games to sell his films, he has hurt the video game community. He has made fools of the German government by exploiting a loophole that allows him to write off his production costs. He may be no Spielberg, but he is certainly no Ed Wood, either.

Uwe Boll, Anti-Fan Activism, and the Tensions of Convergence Culture
Response:
I really appreciated your analysis of the psychological response to Uwe Boll. I have to admit that I have not read Hume and Kant, but your quotes very directly related to the topic at hand.
I do, however, take issue with your implication that this petition amounts to a "final solution," as you say, to what would be the Uwe Boll problem. Attacking something that one considers tasteless is not the same as attempting to eradicate anything under a certain standard of taste. This isn't a form of censorship; rather, it's an expression of outrage, in the same vein as Al Sharpton protesting misogynist stereotypes in rap music. The communities that have dedicated themselves to the promotion of this petition do so because of the very same capitalism that allows Boll films to exist. While Boll's films exist as part of a loophole in the idea of capitalism, their continued production is a sign of something that simply needs change, not something that should stand to be studied. It is an expression of fierce hatred, and one that, even if ignored by Boll himself, serves as a warning to potential investors and distributors. Attempting to make what amounts to a million negative reviews is not much different from any other protest - Boll's actions hurt the video game community, and as a community, they have chosen to create awareness and make a change. I don't think this is any more elitist than calling for micheal moore to make more truthful documentaries, or challenging the racism in the Resident Evil 5 trailer.

The Video Game Movie: An Untapped Resource

Although some of the best film screenplays have come straight from the mind of the screenwriters, adapted screenplays have an equally long history, and are no less successful. The source that the story is adapted from can be any of a variety of mediums. The brilliant "Children of Men" was adapted from a book, "Across the Universe" from a collection of songs by the Beatles, and the wildly popular "300" from a comic book. Most famously, the "Pirates of the Carribean" Trilogy was based on the Disneyland ride of the same name.

But out of all mediums recently mined, the video game has been the most unsuccessful. For years, the industry rarely strayed past the notion of using video games as an accessory to market a film. By making an "officially licensed game" that would make interactive the experiences of the movie, companies can cash in on a film's success, or a game could serve as advertising for a film. This has been done for years, with everything from Disney movies to blockbuster action films. Recently, however, the opposite has happened - film companies have been releasing movies based on the video games themselves. However, they have been almost exceptionally terrible - many are not even screened for critics before wide release, a move studios only make if they know that the reviews will be almost universally poor.

The debate rages on, however, as to which side of the creative process is responsible for the apparently poor quality of video game releases. Is it the source material, a young form of entertainment media that is without artistic merit, or the adapters, treating a fully-formed art form with out the proper care and respect to translate it to another medium? To be fair, it is equal parts of both. For instance, the latest video game translation, Hitman, is based on an intriguing premise that, as a game, was quite unique: a hitman is genetically engineered, and scours the world killing the worst the world has to offer. While the idea of an engineered vigilante had premise, the story of the game never really went past that.

But what film producers fail to grasp is that there is an ultimate purpose in a video game that is completely different from any pre-recorded medium -- The interactive experience. In any game that is well-received, the emphasis is on the player enjoying the game, and not the sound or story. Therefore, these qualities are necessarily secondary when a game is created. Since many games are inspired by film genres themselves, their storylines tend to follow the outlines of thousands of Hollywood movies before them. It should be no wonder, therefore, that when a movie translation sticks to the plot, they only seem like mediocre action films at best. This means that games will work mostly to establish a particular mood or setting, create a shell of a story, plug in a thematically attractive character, and then focus on the gameplay from there.

If producers would understand this fundamental difference, then translations would be handled much differently. Rather than looking to capture the specific storyline, producers should look to capture the soul of the game's story and themes. In these details, games are prolific in what they have to offer. Games usually contain backgrounds and levels that are akin to fully realized sets, and the characters are often constructed simply to get an image across (the Loyal American Soldier, or Amoral Con Man, for instance).

In fact, if this is kept in mind, games that have a near-complete lack of story could translate to an excellent film. One of the most successful games of the 2007 holiday season was Rock Band, a game created entirely around the idea that even the most musically challenged consumer has had visions of emulating their favorite rock stars. The game itself has little story, but the players that indulgein it can create any style of band they desire, and grow their band from indie sensation to rock legend throughout the game's story mode. If a film were to be made strictly following this, it would be quite poor. However, if it followed the idea, casted up-and-coming but everyday-esque actors, and turned them into phenomenons (something akin to HBO's Entourage, but for a music band instead of an actor), then that film could have the creative prowess to translate into a successful video game movie.