First contact - movies meet video games!

It all starts somewhere.

Movies have been around for more than hundred years now. Within the rise of computing technology and several decades after first films, video games came to life. It was just a matter of time until these two industries began to form a relationship together.

first video game based on a movie

Star Trek: Phase Strike

based on the movie

Star Trek: The Motion Picture 

Year - 1979

box containing Microvision device 

Both, video game and the movie came out the same year - 1979. This video game was played on a Microvision device and was created by Milton Bradley. This device was also the first handheld gaming machine. Since it was only 1979, the graphics are, well, simple, so basically when playing the game you are unable to destinguish the story behind it, you do not even know it is a Star Trek game. Youtube user NecroVMX created a nice preview of this game here. This game was, however re-released under the name of Phase Strike, because it lost the licence to the movie.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture trailer:

first movie about a video game

               

                      

Year - 1982

Tron is the first movie where the world inside a video game is percieved and is the center and point of the action of the movie. It was written and directed by Steven Lisberger and starred Jeff Bridges, whom later in 2010 played the same character in Tron: Legacy. Tron is one of those movies that were positively recieved by the public, which is a rarity when it comes to video game movies. In the same year a coin-operated arcade video game with the same title - Tron was released.

first movie based on a video game

Super Mario Bros.

based on a video game

Super Mario Bros.

This was the very first adaptation of an actual video game that was created into an international full-length feature and was released world wide in 1993. No other video game is known to a public as much as Super Mario is, so it was a brilliant choice for a movie - video game milestone. Well, I am not going to tease you, the movie was crap. At least that is the general word, but I still do have it on my old VHS somewhere hidden in my old room. Eventhough, the critics killed the movie, it is worth a try and experience, and still it is not that bad :-)