Silent Hill Heaven

I know this might set some off, but its just how I see it. I think the film could have been much better. It was starting out that way, but I dont agree with CGI affects. I also dont agree with how they went far from the first games ideas. I think a redo is much needed.

That being said, its a good film for what it is just not for silent hill 1. I do think its smart of them for the next to skip over silent hill 2 because they would mess that up and its smarter not to touch.

Anyone agree? I myself have my own film company called Out-Monitor Studios. We did a film inspired by silent hill 1 and 2. Its called Shattered Horizon and you can check out the trailer on youtube and buy at diabolikdvd.com

Well, movies are never going to be exact to a game, if they were, it'd be a long ass movie. But honestly, a director has to keep in mind what not only the fans of the games want, but also those who are looking for a nice horror flick. Now, I'd agree that, atleast in my opinion but I'm probably being biased, that I would love it to be just like the game, but most viewers may not agree. I think most of all, the director wants to bring his own interpretation of the game, from an artist's point-of-view. Just like we come up with our theories, the director comes up with his own theories on how to portray a game, and what could be the deeper meanings behind it. I thought it was a pretty good movie. There were some changes, and some, I'll admit, kinda big plot changes, but it all seemed to work out, and atleast stick to the main storyline somewhat.

One thing I've never understood is why they think all movies have to fall into being 1.5 to 2.5 hours long. Why can't a movie be 4 or more hours long if it needs to be? Too many movies based on books or games are way too short to properly convey the story. They end up chopping out a lot of the technical details or entire sub-plots altogether for "time constraints". And I'll ask again, what "time constraints"? It's a movie, why can't it be as long as it needs to be?

In this day and age of exorbitant ticket prices, don't you think people would feel they got more for their money if the movie was longer?

That said, I thought the SH movie was just OK. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great either. I felt they missed the mark as it pertains to the psychological terror the games exhibit. Essentially, they tried to make the movie too mainstream and lost the cult following depth that I always felt the games had. Typical Hollywood, I guess.

Rayder wrote:One thing I've never understood is why they think all movies have to fall into being 1.5 to 2.5 hours long. Why can't a movie be 4 or more hours long if it needs to be? Too many movies based on books or games are way too short to properly convey the story. They end up chopping out a lot of the technical details or entire sub-plots altogether for "time constraints". And I'll ask again, what "time constraints"? It's a movie, why can't it be as long as it needs to be?

In this day and age of exorbitant ticket prices, don't you think people would feel they got more for their money if the movie was longer?

That said, I thought the SH movie was just OK. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great either. I felt they missed the mark as it pertains to the psychological terror the games exhibit. Essentially, they tried to make the movie too mainstream and lost the cult following depth that I always felt the games had. Typical Hollywood, I guess.

No, they wouldn't. For movies people only have a certain attention span, and movies as long as The Lord of the Rings are pushing that. Perhaps with intermissions it could be alright, but then movies would also have to turn into a daylong affair, rather than dinner-and-a-movie-with-friends.

Why can't a movie be 4 or more hours long if it needs to be?

Unless you're a top-flight director and have an eminently marketable script, no producer on earth is going to finance a movie that long. Even assuming people have the attention spans for that, the cost of production will skyrocket against people paying regular ticket prices to see it. Movies that long are almost always a bad idea, financially.

Yeah, I love LoTR, but man...my poor ass gets a little sore after awhile. While fans of SH may enjoy a four hour movie, most people who are going for a good horror-esque film will be like, "GET ON WITH IT! I DIDN'T COME HERE TO SEE HARRY LOOK FOR HIS DAMN KID FOR 2 HOURS. START THE KILLIN'!"

Rayder wrote:One thing I've never understood is why they think all movies have to fall into being 1.5 to 2.5 hours long. Why can't a movie be 4 or more hours long if it needs to be? Too many movies based on books or games are way too short to properly convey the story. They end up chopping out a lot of the technical details or entire sub-plots altogether for "time constraints". And I'll ask again, what "time constraints"? It's a movie, why can't it be as long as it needs to be?

In this day and age of exorbitant ticket prices, don't you think people would feel they got more for their money if the movie was longer?

That said, I thought the SH movie was just OK. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great either. I felt they missed the mark as it pertains to the psychological terror the games exhibit. Essentially, they tried to make the movie too mainstream and lost the cult following depth that I always felt the games had. Typical Hollywood, I guess.

You know what movie I always wanted to see longer? THE CROW. Make the first hour all about the love story like NOTEBOOK type feel and just when you forget what your watching then they get murdered and the next hour or so would be the revenge.

I would have preferred if they had simply done their best to cram the game into film, every bit of it. Maybe add some extra content to keep the audience entertained, but otherwise just film the game.

There are a few reasons why in my opinion it did not work well and could have been better.

From reading an interview with Gans it seemed like he favored silent hill 2 over 1, but felt that it was impossible to make two because I guess he thought that he could not explain Silent hill's history and why it is the way it is with silent hill 2's plot. It seemed like instead he was going for mixing the two of them which would explain Pyramid Head's existance in the film but, because Pyramid Head like every other Demon/monster in Silent Hill symbolizes something specific, so Pyramid Head did not fit at all in the movie.

Same thing goes for the cleavage nurses, he tried to use the silent hill 1 plot while trying to give it a silent hill 2 atmosphere in my opinion anyways.
Gans stated that he believes and I quote "we wanted to do the second game. It was very natural, since that game is the favorite of every fan". He seems to think that every one that has played silent hill thinks that 2 is the best.

Don't get me wrong I loved 2, but it was not my most favorite, I personally think that what he said was a bit narrow-minded, I am not intending to flame him it is just my opinion. One of the big things that messed it up and before I say this I am not sexist, it is merely because the changes that were caused because of his decision to use a female protagonist.

He seems to believe only mothers can show so much devotion to their children as harry does in the game. He felt it was too much of a feminine quality for a father to have in real life or a movie. Sony complained about this change because there was no Male protagonist. The movie John Q starring Denzel Washington proves Gans wrong, because that movie showed a father so devoted making sure his son would live even if it meant committing a serious crime and pretty much landing him in prison.

Anyways about the gender change,
this is what forced him to do the scenes with Chris and Gucci that threw off the atmosphere, if either Sony had not complained or he had not gave the protagonist a sex change, based on what he feels is unrealistic, it would have changed the movie for better in my opinion.

I personally don't mind a female protagonist and would have been happy with it had it worked, but I don't understand what was wrong with harry being the protagonist in the game, and thought it made the games plot touching.
Though if he could have done the sex change without having to adding the Chris and Gucci scenes it would have been that much better.

I did however feel that the some plot changes were unnecessary, like the in case you had not seen the movie
There was no need to change or add those things to the plot he could have changed things to progress the movie differently from the game and keep the same ending except with Rose instead of harry/Chris.

Anyways I am no expert on directing or movies, so this is just an amateur's opinion, so please don't flame me

^Regarding your spoiler...

If they replaced Rose with Harry, got rid of Christabella, put Dahlia in her place, didn't make Cybil so damn assertive in the beginning, and got rid of that Dark Alessa bull, the game would have been perfect in my eyes. Oh. And maybe have Kaufman and Lisa play a role in the movie, (Lisa's role in the movie was TERRIBLE.)

^I hope they show more of Lisa in Revelation. Lisa is a very strong character in the games and really deserves some spotlight.

^ Yes, she's my favorite character, I hope we see her with Dark Alessa/memory of Alessa, whatever Revalations makes Alessa to be. Then maybe after Heather defeats her, (if she has to defeat her,) We'll see Lisa weaping, something happens, and Lisa dies. Lisa has to die. I belive it's becoming an injoke in the series that she always does and no one can save her... x3 A cruel injoke, but an injoke all the same.

^I'd like Lisa to appear as...

^ That would be extremly awesome. ....to think I nearly forgot her existance, xD

Even though I agree that the Chris/Gucci stuff took up too much time, I still enjoy watching those scenes. I'm quite fond of Gucci, and Kim Coates gave one of my favorite performances in the movie. There's just something I like about the stern authority figure who comes off as a bit sinister but instead turns out to be far more complex. He's not just an antagonistic police officer, but a genuinely decent man who saw the dark side of humanity and was never the same again. Sorry for the lengthy post, but I just had to say it.

I am not going to blame the "sex change" on Gans mostly because it was a decision from the producers. Gans wanted a 100% feminine cast to insist on the the "woman theme" which was largely present accroding to him in the games (at least for Alessa's story).

That theme got somewhat lost with the inclusion of Christopher whose scenes are completely pointless (quite ironically, the scene I enjoyed the most in the movie was where he "bumped" into his wife. Loved how it was done). The audience is constantly dragged in and out and looses the sentiment of being trapped and Christopher never learned anything that might have helped Rose eventually.

Christopher should then have had more implication along his wife. Maybe drag him in the other world. Support his wife in "curing" Sharon. Protect her with Cybil. Yeah I know "three is a crowd" but wattiagonnado.

If I watched this movie again with all of his scenes censored it might actually go from forgettable to okay.

boblecon1096 wrote:I am not going to blame the "sex change" on Gans mostly because it was a decision from the producers. Gans wanted a 100% feminine cast to insist on the the "woman theme" which was largely present accroding to him in the games (at least for Alessa's story).

... what? Gans was the one who decided to turn Harry into Rose. The only thing the producers did is force the inclusion of Christopher and Gucci.

Christopher should then have had more implication along his wife. Maybe drag him in the other world. Support his wife in "curing" Sharon. Protect her with Cybil. Yeah I know "three is a crowd" but wattiagonnado.

Half of Chris's character was for him to support Rose but not have as much interest in Sharon, if I remember correctly.

^I always thought people only assumed that Christopher didn't care about Sharon. I mean, I've heard the same, but I don't recall seeing/hearing proof.

After seeing the movie, I rewatched a fan edit called Restless Dreams ( http://fanedit.org/aztek463/silent-hill ... ms-images/ ) and it's much better. Still not perfect, but it got rid of all the stupid lines, the tediously long flashback story and all the parts with Christopher.

The movie still, I found, to be just alright. It's great to watch for the effects and the work they put into it, but not so much for the actual story. Also I didn't like how Dark Alessa was portrayed. I'm still confused to this day why they got everyone so dressed up in elaborate costumes then basically CG'ed all over it. They were painting VEINS on the grey child's feet ffs.