Tomb Raider: Film vs Game

By Yuli Atta

It is common knowledge that if a book becomes famous enough, it gets adapted into a film or a TV show. Most of the time these adaptations aren’t even good according to a lot of the people who have already read the book but at the same time, the ones who have watched the screen adaptation may decide to read the novel as well. There are even a lot of memes online, showing how big the differences between the screen adaptation and the original itself are. One of those memes shows the tip of an iceberg above water and how much bigger it actually is underwater which is a great metaphor for the changes made in the film. So, what about games and their screen adaptations? Are there any differences? Is the meme just as valid for games and their films as it is for books?

   In this Headshot’s issue, we are looking at Tomb Raider’s screen adaptation that came out on the 14^th of March 2018 which is based on the 2013 reboot of the game.

   The first Tomb Raider game came out in 1996, featuring Lara Croft, an archaeologist - and adventurer, who got approached by Larson Conway, a hired man working for a wealthy businesswoman who wanted her to retrieve an ancient artefact. Soon after completing the mission, Lara finds out that the object is, in fact, just a part of a whole and she is now chased by a second hired man who is supposed to finish the mission. After many dangerous and deadly encounters, Lara manages to get all pieces together and finds out the truth about the powers of the artefact and the identity of the woman who originally hired her.

  While in the original game she is presented as an experienced archaeologist, in 2013 reboot she is more of a novice, who finds herself on an unknown island after a shipwreck. In this version of the game, she is younger, more vulnerable and does everything out of instinct and desire for survival.  

   Lara Croft is a popular and beloved character who has been out there for a while. The first video game came out 22 years ago, which means that along with more than sixteen games and various spinoffs on other platforms like iOS and Android, there are also two films already out there, starring Angelina Jolie and the new one, starring Alicia Vikander. Fans have given various feedback on both actresses’ performance and mostly negative feedback on the films in general.

  With an average rating of 6,4 stars out of 10 by 135,785 IMDb users, the film doesn’t seem to be doing badly but when looking for reviews, it’s easier to find negative ones, with a rating of two and three stars out of five, than positive reviews. Why is that?

  It’s doubtful that fans of the game expected its screen adaptation to be exactly like the game but people are always hopeful that the necessary changes won’t be too many or too bad. However, in Tomb Raider’s case, there are quite a few.

  The execution of the film as a whole isn’t bad at all. In fact, it is quite detailed when it comes to places, people and their appearance. Alicia Vikander, for example, pulls off Lara Croft’s updated outfit and weapons very well and just the fact that she looks exactly like the character she is playing is enough to give hope to the game’s fans that maybe, just maybe, the adaptation won’t be too bad. If anything, just from Vikander’s appearance, one could get very high expectations.

  The film itself isn’t bad at all and if you are someone who’s never heard of Lara Croft before, you would probably enjoy it but when you’re familiar with the original plot and characters, then it is a little hard to stay unbiased and make no comparisons while watching.

  The new Tomb Raider film is heavily based on the 2013 reboot of the game but it manages to deviate itself from the story, characters and even Lara herself. In the screen adaptation, she goes on an unexpected adventure to find her missing father and ends up in the middle of something way bigger that includes a threat to humanity itself. So far, so good.

  However, one of the biggest differences between the film and the game is that her father in the game is dead. A Trinity agent named Ana was hired to get close to him and kill him but grew too attached to the family so another agent was tasked to finish the job. His murder is made to look like a suicide and Lara was raised by a family friend, called Conrad Roth. In the film, however, her father is absent for the majority of her early life, because he was looking for Himiko's secrets.

  Additionally, in the film, her dad is a businessman who practices archaeology as a hobby, while in the game he is a successful and popular archaeologist whose reputation starts going downhill when it’s found out that he has started looking into some supernatural rituals for resurrection after his wife’s passing.

  One thing that both the game and the film have in common is that Lara rejects her inheritance but the major difference here is that in the game she continued her education, works odd jobs to support herself and eventually becomes an archaeologist. In contrast, the movie Lara didn’t go to university, instead, she works as a courier and occasionally gets beaten up at her boxing practices while in the game Lara’s guardian, Conrad Roth, taught her self-defence.

  Another big distinction is the reason she went to Yamatai. In the game, this is her first major expedition, along with the famous archaeologist Dr James Whitman and her best friend Samantha Nishimura and five more people, who are all non-existent in the film. They work together in order to survive the island and escape the cult and Samantha ends up having a major role in the story. In the adaptation, Lara is joined by Lu Ren who also wants to find his missing father. Surprisingly, he doesn’t exist in the game.

  In the reboot, Trinity isn’t the main enemy, instead, the island is home to a brotherhood that worships Himiko and is looking for her successor by putting innocent women through a deadly ritual to see if her body could hold the dead queen’s spirit. Samantha ends up being their next victim. In the film, that brotherhood doesn’t exist at all and the main antagonist is Trinity.

  Moreover, Himiko, the ancient queen in question, was evil, according to the game. While in the film her body is the home of a deadly disease spreadable by touch, in the game Himiko has actual supernatural abilities such as controlling the weather. Maybe the idea of the disease that spreads by touch came from the original story in the game, according to which Queen Himiko was so evil that she could kill with a single touch. On top of that, Yamatai was her kingdom and she, its ruthless ruler, while in the game she was exiled there.

  These, of course, aren’t all of the differences between the film and the game but they are some of the major ones. Looking at the reboot’s plot and the film’s, one could say that the game appears to be a lot more appealing and thrilling. There are more characters to connect to and worry about and it’s easier to understand the relationships between them because they all have had some backstory together.

  However, excluding the major differences between the game and the film, there is one that isn’t actually a bad one. In the screen adaptation, Lara is presented as a more relatable and sympathetic character than her game counterpart. While in the game she kills countless people and doesn’t show any real emotion, which makes her an unsympathetic and unreliable character, the film shows the effect her first kill had on her which also adds up a more realistic touch to the whole story. By keeping her kill count up to just two victims and focusing on her humanity, the film manages to transform Lara’s character into something better and more humane.

  Films based on games aren’t always received well, making a 10-hour long story into just under the two-hour-long film isn’t an easy job and sometimes the attempts are less than unsuccessful just like the case with the Assassins’ Creed film that focuses on the least interesting aspects of the story, and World of Warcraft which apparently suffered from studio interference. If it hadn’t been for the audience of the games, these films would have probably had less success while Tomb Raider, with all its imperfections, could be considered independent, thanks to its plot and a good cast.