You've seen the game, now go and play the movie - wait a minute!

I should say at the outset that I will go and see the new Iron Man movie when it opens.

Duh.

I'm a comic book geek and I love comic book-based movies. Always have. I guess what I want to say here is that I am just the tiniest bit concerned that the new Iron Man flick will come off looking to some degree like little more than a video game. I realize that technology has now reached the point where you can have a video game console sitting in your home that allows you to play games with graphics that look like something that not so long ago you could only see on the big screen. I also think that somewhere along the way, we have gotten used to playing games in the comfort of our own homes that have matched (if not surpassed) what we used to go and pay to play in the arcades. You can argue that the actual game play of most games sometimes falters, but the cut scenes in many games are really quite impressive.

It isn't just the constant improvement of game graphics that hasd me wondering about the new Iron Man movie though: it's the latest new Iron Man movie trailer.

Remember all the way back to super Bowl Sunday?

If you are a Patriots fan then I apologise for dredging that memory up for you. The reason I mention it is because that was when the masses got their first glimpse of the newest Iron Man trailer, and got their chance to think to themselves 'cool' or 'not so cool'. Many of us had already seen an earlier trailer online or in the theaters and really only noticed that this time we got to see Tony stark practicing his newfound 'flying' abilities ("yeah, I can fly"). However I noticed something else: this trailer really was the first time i thought to myself, 'hmmmm, this movie might look a lot like a video game'...

This is probably a good time to let you watch the trailer yourself so that it is fresh in your mind, so enjoy:




Now this might not be all that bad, in fact some of my friends might even be more inclined to see it if that is the case, however I can't help but think that this has been a growing trend in the last ten years - give or take. In fact, in the last year I can think of at least one major studio release which suffered in appearance - but not necessarily at the box office, because its CGI aspects looked too much like a video game and not enough like a live action movie. In the movie I Am Legend, the scenes involving Will Smith driving around a future disease-ridden New York looked more like something out of a racing game than a big budget movie. even some of the scenes with the vampire-like creatures looked almost like video game graphics than movie effects.

Maybe it's just a combination of two things: firstly, that near-movie quality graphics are more affordable for video game makers now, and secondly, that I am old enough to remember when only movie studios could afford to have those levels of visuals.

Wow.

Is it possible that in today's world you can become a pseudo old fogy before you even reach say ... forty?