What is it about Stories?

I have to say that I am drawn to things with amazingly epic storylines. I love anything with outstanding character development which is developed through trials and tribulations both mental and physical. This is why I have LOVED any sort of media that contains this amazing storytelling, as it really is a dying breed. I refuse to see/read/play some things that do not have an interesting plot or have much more thought put into them rather than how the stunt doubles are going to get away from the next explosion. That's why I refuse to see movies such as "Ninja Assassin". I really just don't feel like it's worth spending my money to go see another cookie-cutter slash-em-up movie.

The best storylines can be told in multiple formats. As far as books go, I think that the storytelling of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth, and Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and even J.A. Applegate's Animorphs series are some of the best books I have ever read. The character development in them is outstanding, and I feel like I should have paid more than $7.99 (USD) for their amazing efforts, but while books may have been the second oldest storytelling method, we live in modern times and fewer people are reading today.

The disinterest in reading is being salvaged by the media industry working to convert some of the best-loved books into amazing silver-screened representations of the author’s original vision. Sometimes these movie productions fall far from the tree and create such utter works of crap that people never want to go read the book after seeing the movie. This was the case with Battlefield Earth. I was amazed at how bad of a job they did at converting the 1500+ page book into an hour and a half movie, but pleasantly surprised whenever I watched The Lord of the Rings by Peter Jackson. What about stories that never originated in books though? We are seeing more writers gravitate towards popular media today including movies, graphic novels, and even video games than ever before. The Watchmen was originally a graphic novel (a comic book for grownups), and it turned out to be a decent movie.

Many brilliant minds are now writing for the video game industry, creating interactive storylines that can either change based upon the player’s decisions, or simply work to physically involve the player in the storytelling rather than simply having them consume it. Perhaps one of the best-known examples of this is Final Fantasy VII. People today still love the game so much that they created a follow-up anime movie to it called Advent Children. There are many others out there including the beloved Resident Evil series, Knights of the Old Republic, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Final Fantasy, and of course, Halo.

What about the crossovers? These are really my favorite form of storytelling. A truly amazing story can transcend the media format and continue to tell the ongoing story through different avenues. The first example of this is the idea the writers of the Matrix sequels (don’t get me started) experimented with.

Yes, I kind of enjoyed the sequels but I really liked the innovative thinking that allowed the story to be told other ways. After the 2nd matrix movie, there game a game for PC and Consoles called “Enter the Matrix” which told the story of two supporting characters, Ghost and Nairobi, and took place between and partially during the 3rd movie’s storyline. This was further complimented by the Anime short story compilation called the Animatrix.  This told the history of the Matrix timeline, as well as explained who the random kid was in the 2nd and 3rd movies, and told the story of the Osiris, the ship that discovered that the machines were digging towards Zion. Cool, yes? Only those who were truly interested by the storyline got into those and they were optional with the streamlined story still being an option.

This style has been adopted by several different stories now including Dead Space, Resident Evil, and Halo. Halo is probably one of my favorite game-based stories of all time because of its rich lore and attractive characters. The problem with a first-person shooter though is that a lot of the storyline cannot be intrusive to the gameplay or a large portion of the gaming population won’t care to play it at all. Bungie turned to books, taking the opposite route that many movies take. Sure, you might laugh “Ha ha, you’re reading a book about a video game” but it’s not about the game, it’s about the storyline that forms the backbone to the game.  The most recent example of this, and by far the most popular in the world today is Blizzard’s Warcraft story.

Have you ever watched a trailer that gave you chills? I have. That’s silly you might say, or that’s pretty corny…well what about the way that they are composed? Look at the Halo 3 Announcement teaser http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOCXxtDMqXE that was shown at E3 one year. Bioware is a revered company because of its work on Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect, and now Dragon Age: Origins. The best video games are not simply the best gameplay anymore. They are also the best storytellers.  If any of you are worth your salt in Warcraft lore, then the WotLK Cinematic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu1EE7GheD0 was sure to give you chills (no pun intended).  Why? Because of the story.

Next Post I'll get into why the story behind Warcraft is so attractive, and what got me started on Warcraft...and why.