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If you’ve found yourself wondering why Marty McFly needs to escape hula dancers in Back to the Future for the NES, then this list is for you. Note: these aren’t the worst movie-based games, but the least authentic to the film they’re based on.
Movie
Batman - back when it was Michael Keaton - hunts the nefarious Joker - back when he was Jack Nicholson. The supremely gothic climax has the two battling on a cathedral tower, until the Joker starts to make his exit on board a helicopter. Batman (while dangling off the building) shoots his grappling hook around the Joker’s leg and a nearby statue. With nowhere to go, Joker plummets about fifty stories.
Game (NES)
As you can tell by these screens, the Batman literally could not give a shit about his moral compass and just punches the Joker off the building - satisfying kiddies with a more definite ending. In hindsight, it was probably difficult for the NES developer to program a climax without worrying about the differences between first-degree murder and accidental deaths.
Movie
SPOILERS: Cute, sentient trash compactor Wall-E falls in love with the sleek EVE, a reconnaissance bot for humans. EVE leaves the planet with Wall-E in chase. During a routine checkup, EVE is dismantled and cleaned, which promptly scares Wall-E into thinking she’s being hurt. And in a five-second visual gag, he grabs EVE’s laser and aims it at the other robots.
Game (Multi)
The entire middle section of the game tasks Wall-E with blasting enemy robots to pieces using EVE’s laser, which is completely unlike the *almost* violence-free film. There’s very little conventional action in the movie, yet we figure children would get bored if they didn’t get to kill something.
Movie
In the first film, Jason wasn’t even the killer. His mom was. But yes, in all of the other films, he terrorizes/murders teenagers in gruesome ways with any number of deadly instruments (our favorite was his bare hands). Fun fact: he doesn’t get the hockey mask until Part 3 (which was in 3D). Go eighties!
Game (NES)
Playing as a camp counselor, you spend most of the game fighting zombies in broad daylight. Jason shows up periodically to kill children (kids were rarely in peril in the films). Also, Jason scampers off when you beat him up, something he never did in the movies. And when he was finally defeated, he didn’t just slump into a corner. He usually fell in the lake or something and slept for a year until the next sequel came out.
