Transcript note: This transcript is based on the original working script. It may contain production notes, draft wording, spelling mistakes or other material that differs from the finished video - these scripts were meant to be spoken, not read.

Back in 1989 Jordan Mechner created a new benchmark for games with Prince of Persia

it featured rotoscoped characters and platform action built around weight, timing and realism.

It was a revolution, and - Over time - It quietly became one of those franchises that mattered.

Over two decades later the series was refined for a new generation.

In 2003 the franchise reboot would kick off a new wave of games, The Sands of Time didn’t abandon it’s roots, far from it - And in fact, it built on them quite well.

The updates came in the form of proper parkour abilities, running along walls and that kind of stuff - But, in a twist the also added a rewind mechanic - The ability to instantly try again if you failed.

This new way of playing quickly became the thing that separated it from everything else around at the time and Prince of Persia was reborn for a new generation of gamers.

It’s one of the rare times where the theme and the mechanic of a game, becomes its thing.

Which makes what happened next, well - Interesting.

When Hollywood got hold of Prince of Persia, they didn’t really misunderstand it.

They just… flattened it.

Let’s take a look at Prince of Persia - The Sands of Time

[intro]

On paper, the 2010 film actually does a lot right.

It’s big, expensive and practical where it counts.

Visually - Well - Yeah - You can’t complain at all - It looks FAR better than most other video-game adaptations of the era.

You’re not going to mistake it for any of the other straight to DVD fodder that was mostly doing the rounds - It was clear from the start - This is a film that wanted to take itself seriously.

But - That’s where the problems actually start with this one.

Prince of Persia - It doesn’t need to be serious.

Now - The film borrows from the game, but doesn’t try to replicate it entirely - Which, to be honest is fair enough - It’s a long running franchise and not everything has always stayed the same.

There’s the stolen dagger, the misuse of the Sands, betrayal within the royal family, and a final rewind that resets the timeline with only the Prince remembering what really happened.

At a glance, those beats clearly echo Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

But where the games expand that idea across the two sequels, Warrior Within and The Two Thrones, the film tries to have it both ways.

It pulls elements from the entire trilogy-the setting of Sands of Time, the darker stakes of Warrior Within, and the royal betrayal of Two Thrones-and blends them into one two hour package.

But in the limited run time they have for the film, it loses the point.

In the games, these ideas were spread out to show a Prince being slowly unraveled by his own choices.

By mashing them together into a single loop, the film turns a decade-long character study into a simple weekend mistake that gets fixed with a quick rewind.

It has the pieces of the of a jig saw puzzle, but it also ends up solving the picture too quickly for us to care.

As for the characters of the game and film? - Well - No - They aren’t the same.

The Prince has a name for starters: Dastan. In the games, he stayed anonymous-less of a defined 'person' and more of a way for the players to put themselves in the game.

By giving him a name and a backstory, the film is already turning a mystery into a Hollywood Lead, who in this case is Jake Gyllenhaal.

Tamina, and Nizam are new creations, not versions of the Prince, Farah, Kaileena, or the Vizier from the games - they just fill similar roles.

The film borrows the concepts of a Prince, a time-rewinding dagger, and a betrayal, but the people experiencing those events are entirely different, which is why the story feels familiar without actually being the same.

Is it perfect? No.

Does it work here? Yes.

What doesn’t work is - Well - The game expects failure - It’s the point of the rewind mechanic and so it actively encourages it.

You fall, or mistime a jump or even hit a trap that you didn’t see coming? - You, rewind.

As if the game is saying “No, that didn’t work - Try again”.

The film? - Well - It can’t do that.

It’s got the Dagger of Time - But - It has to use it sparingly, not just because it only holds a minute's worth of power - but - because in a movie - Consequences have to stick.

And, that immediately robs the Prince of Persia film, from the thing that makes the games special.

The game's Prince isn’t a hero because he’s chosen to be one - You do that - The player - You earn the skills by failing, repeatedly.

In the film - The Prince is already a pretty capable kind of guy.

Which means the story is the only place left to grow, and - It can’t do much of that either, really - It’s still the Prince of Persia.

It retains the spectacle, the betrayal and the destiny side of it - but - there’s very little left to discover here.

I mean - Don’t get me wrong - It does what it can.

The action is clean, the parkour is on point and because it’s practical it all has that heavy physical feeling the games do.

And, it should - Really, they got the founder of Parkour, David Belle, to train Jake Gyllenhaal, which kind of shows the level of seriousness they took all of this.

It looks as it should - Sand, stone and vertical spaces.

In theory, it’s there - In practice - Well, it doesn’t understand the experience of it all.

The games weren’t about winning as such, more about learning how not to lose.

And the film, well - It can’t sell you that as easily.

And, so - Almost inevitably - The film has to compromise.

Then it just becomes, well - Fine.

Perfectly watchable, but perfectly forgettable.

Which - Is well - A bit of a shame really, because this one actually tries.

What makes this more interesting is that the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time wasn’t a failure in the way people tend to remember it.

It made solid money worldwide, it performed especially well outside the US, and for a while it was Ubisoft’s most commercially successful game adaptation

It even challenged Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) as the highest-grossing video game adaptation worldwide.

And, it proved the same thing Tomb Raider did years earlier: audiences will show up for game adaptations that feel like proper adventure films, even if they don’t fully capture what made the games special.

But, it didn’t launch a franchise as intended, sequel plans were quietly shelved and they moved onto making Assassins Creed films instead… Which, well… Is a different video.

The respect for the Prince of Persia source material is there.

It looks the part and it’s nowhere near as embarrassing as many of the other game to film adaptations out there.

The games were about mastery, rewinding till you got it right.

The film gets one shot at that, and… Just, plays it safe.

It’s not fair to call the film terrible. It wasn’t.

But it wasn’t enough to do the name justice.

Anyways…

I’ve been Paul and this was Pixels, Popcorn.

If you’ve liked this video, do me a favour and drop me a like to let me know.

Subscribe as well if you want while you’re there?

Or don’t - I’ll be here when you get back and I shall hopefully see you on the next Rewind.

Thanks for watching.