Q&A with Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner

Jordan Mechner / Photo: M. Concepcion

Industry veteran Jordan Mechner has been responsible for sucking hours from the lives of gamers since he created Karateka in 1984. That game, along with his follow-up, Prince of Persia were admired for their fluid character animations as well as having combat systems that forced players to think quickly and act swiftly. While he has not worked in the gaming industry full time in recent years, he has kept himself busy with the film adaptation of Prince of Persia, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. We spoke with Jordan during the film's media stop at WonderCon.

Many gamers admire your character animation work with a Ray Harryhausen-like reverence.

I felt those early days with the Apple II were like the early days of silent film. I loved movies growing up and Karateka and Prince of Persia were games that were inspired by movies. In the original Prince of Persia specifically, so much of it was about the running, jumping, platform game which made it feel real. I tried to make the character very flesh and blood, someone who can be hurt if he fell too far.

Thinking about the sword combat in Prince of Persia, it must feel gratifying to have helped influence combat in games today.

When you play the original Prince of Persia, the character is 40 pixels high and when you clash swords, you bring a lot of imagination. The battle that you're playing in your mind is an extension of the battle that's playing on the screen. It's great to see the technology advance to a point where you can have all this visceral action.

Did you think back when you made Prince of Persia that it could become a movie?

I always thought Prince of Persia would make a great movie back in the Apple II days. I think not every game should be a movie, but this one really lends itself well. It's got a very human, relatable hero. It's got this swashbuckling action that has always worked well into film. As a game that was inspired by movies, it does seem natural for this film version to be a swashbuckling adventure movie.

And now you're here promoting the film.

It's amazing. It's been decades since Hollywood has made a big A-level adventure movie set in this world inspired by 1001 Nights. The 1940's Thief of Baghdad was one of the inspirations for the original game. It's wonderful to me that this little Apple II game has become the excuse for Hollywood to revisit the genre with a grand scope and the level of visual effects that hasn't been possible before.

What was the pitch process like when you approached Disney?

I brought the game to Disney and pitched it to them in 2004. I showed them a two-minute trailer of video game footage from Sands of Time to illustrate what kind of movie it would be. Jerry (Bruckheimer) liked it obviously. I wrote the first two drafts and we went from there.

I guess two minutes was all the time you had to sell yourself to these busy producers.

It's great to have visuals when you're pitching a movie. You can talk but it's hard listening to someone when they're just describing something. You can see the original pitch trailer on my website if you like.

Your attachment to the property obviously compelled you to not simply rehash the story of the game. What changed and what stayed the same when doing the movie version?

The idea of a dagger that could turn back time was of course at the heart of both the game and the movie. That started as a gameplay idea. We thought it would be cool for the player to save himself and turn back time rather than having to die and restart from a checkpoint. The story the Sands of Time and the Dagger of Time was the story I made to justify that gameplay idea. Of course with the movie, it begins with that story.

Both the movie and the game are about a young prince who comes into possession of this incredible dagger that can turn back time and keep it out of the hands of villains. The story I wrote originally for the game was meant for the game and is specifically tailored to be experienced by the player. It wouldn't make sense to adapt that story beat for beat as a movie because what's fun to play isn't necessarily fun to watch in a theater for 2 hours. So what I did was I pitched it to Jerry as a new story that starts out similar to the game. It has a lot of the same plot elements and the same themes, but the plot goes in a different direction.

Most video games are successful obviously because of the gameplay, and that of course is the element that does not translate to film. The challenging thing about adapting a video game into a movie is that the movie has to stand on its own merits no matter the source material.

To clarify, your responsibilities with the film focus just on the writing, correct?

My real influence on the film is as a writer. This is actually the first time a video game creator has made the transition to writing the screenplay for a film adaptation of a game. People ask, "Why not make the film faithful the game? As the game's creator, why not take the chance to do so?" My answer is if I had a screenplay and tried to make a movie with the game's story, game fans would have been disappointed. The reason why The Sands of Time story in the game works so well because it's a story told through the gameplay experience.

Things have come a long way since you were taking pictures of your brother for the animation in Karateka.

I was just out of college and home for the summer. With my love of movies and my Apple II, I had my brother, who was in high school at the time, run, jump and do all the movies on the high school parking lot. That became the basis for the animation. To go from that to Jake (Gyllenhaal) doing all the stunt work trained by the best stunt people in the world, it's quite a journey.