Edge of Tomorrow and Video Games

I wrote a little review for Edge of Tomorrow, a excellent sci-fi film that surprised me by being not as bad as I was expecting it to be! In fact, it was incredible!

I had some more thinking time with the movie. While some thought that the movie wasn't great, I can understand the sentiment. I mean, it is an action sci-fi flick in the summer. A genre that's generally pretty 'meh' when it comes to big wig film lovers. Even I had my doubts.

So why did I like Edge of Tomorrow so much? Well, let me tell you...


Well, I've mentioned before in my review that it was a clever plot and it actually didn't make Tom Cruise into an invincible action hero that we all expected him to be. Unlike his roles in Mission Impossible and what not, Tom Cruises character is vulnerable, and the film makes this very obvious at the very start.

Now hear me out. Sure his character can't technically die and sure he seems to have this power that he adopted from alien invaders that keep him from dying for good, but it's the idea that he constantly dies over and over again and starts as a character who's incredibly weak and powerless against an unstoppable force. He even shows fear and cowardice as he's dropped into the battlefield, yelling things like 'I'm not combat ready!'.

It's this powerlessness that made me not hate Tom Cruise in this movie. He's not invincible, not by a long shot. In fact he dies over and over and over again.

Trial and Error is the name of the game here and it's something that any Gamer will relate to.

So as my title suggests, Edge of Tomorrow actually has a lot in relation to video games. probably not a huge surprise since the source material comes from Japan. But the fact that the main character dies and resets the day is instantly comparable to how video games work.

The manga is based off of the novel of the same name.
The original source material for Edge of Tomorrow
(image from http://www.geeklegacy.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/All_You_Need_Is_Kill.jpg)

You die? Reload your save mother fucker.

You die? Restart at the checkpoint, scrub.

You die? Respawn at base, noob.

Sometimes you never really get into the most desirable situations
(image from http://blog.wtfast.com/CrgyA.jpg)

So when I think of it this way, Tom Cruise was the video game character and the entire movie was a single player campaign equivalent to something like classic NES games. Lose all your lives? start all the way back at the beginning.

Hell, the idea that Tom Cruise tries to change the outcome of the day by doing things slightly differently is just like the concept of constants and variables in Bioshock Infinite. Even indie game platformer Super Meat Boy shares this idea by showing a replay of all your attempts in one go after you clear a level. You get to see yourself die in many different ways until that one little sprite manages to make it through by getting things exactly right.

What will it be this time...?
(image from http://i2.wp.com/dustycartridge.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/variables-feature.jpg?resize=743%2C282)

Just look at all that death!
(image from http://cdn.highwinds.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/40800/ss_b2998adf37b0276c240315732169e06886942e78.1920x1080.jpg?t=1386730867)

Another comparison can be made with speed runs. If you don't know what a speed run is, it's basically where you play a game and try to beat it in as little time as possible. In order to do this, most people like to use glitches to warp them around the game faster. The more hardcore will beat the game in it's entirety.

To do this effectively the player must learn enemy positions, must learn every situation, must learn how to use the environment, must learn the correct routes, etc etc.

Sound familiar?

Well if you've seen Edge of Tomorrow, it's exactly what Tom Cruise does.

He learns, he adapts and eventually he conquers. But he's still not invincible. So the sense of progression in the movie is there. You're left wondering what other variable he could take in order to successfully bypass certain roadblocks in his journey. You're left on the edge of your seat as you try to think of a way out of this infinite loop. You are left with the question of 'can fate and destiny truly be challenged?'

This concept is what makes me think that Edge of Tomorrow is great. It doesn't outright say that it's like a video game, nor does it give the viewer a straight message of saying 'Hey, so that destiny thing...think it's set in stone?'.

No, in fact it goes around the conventions and lays it out for us to decipher ourselves, something most movies of the summer don't do. The idea of fate is brought up when we know that the alien invaders can see our every move, can predict every plan. So how do you overcome something that will always know what you're doing?

Based on Edge of Tomorrow, it's just to find the right path and come up with your own solutions.

In the end, Edge of Tomorrow provides an important question for all of us. In that if you think that the future is set in stone, it's not. If you want it to change, do something about it, or else the cycle continues to repeat itself over and over again.