Remaking classic films inside video games

Gamers in the US and China use everything from Minecraft and Halo to Grand Theft Auto and Total War to remake films like Titanic, Lord of the Rings -- or even Game of Thrones

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“People think this world is like a video game with no consequences,” says the protagonist of Not Normal. (Picture: Matt MacDonald/Vimeo)

Published: 10:07pm, 7 Jun 2019Updated: 9:06am, 20 Sep 2019

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

Many people love both movies and games, but not everyone knows that they can mesh the two together. Making movies using games remains popular in both the US and China.

The machinima genre has actually been around for years. Some may remember Diary of a Camper, a short film made using the first-person shooter Quake way back in 1996. Perhaps better known is Red vs. Blue, a comedy series that originated as a simple voiceover of the Xbox game Halo: Combat Evolved. Started in 2003, it’s the longest running episodic web series.

Red vs. Blue is the hit online machinima show now in its 17th season. (Picture: Jonathan Whisenhunt/YouTube).

Machinima has continued to evolve over the years and has spanned continents. Here are some of the games popular among machinima artists today.

Total War

If you watched the Battle of Winterfell in the final season of Game of Thrones, you may have noticed that the screenwriters lacked some knowledge about war strategy. Some “professional armchair generals” decided to fix it by playing out the battle again -- this time in the game Total War.

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