I'm still waiting for my Street Fighter movie.

Having seen most of the movie and anime versions of Street Fighter, I'm left with one nagging question: why do video game adaptions often deviate so much from their source material? While I liked most of the Street Fighter movie incarnations as reminiscent to varying degrees of the games I've spent years playing, not a single one of them follows the storylines laid out throughout the series.

Some iterations portray certain aspects but fail on others. The Movie featured themes somewhat related to the actual Street Fighter II game, but the many of the characters were completely unrecognizable from their video game counterparts. Alpha did the opposite, with a fairly accurate portrayal of it's cast but a peculiar storyline unrelated to anything in the Street Fighter universe.

Generations and II V missed the mark almost completely. The main characters (Ken, Ryu, Sakura and Akuma/Gouki in Generations and Ken, Ryu and Chun Li in II V) weren't too far off base, but the plots and most of the other Street Fighter characters were far removed from SF canon. Merely changing some names would've left anime that didn't resemble anything remotely Street Fighter.

There is an American Street Fighter cartoon that, if I recall, takes place after Street Fighter the Movie. Despite that, the characters and the series itself are supposed to be closer to their original forms. I have yet to see it, but all indicators are that it takes several liberties of it's own (and it would have to, if it's based on the Movie's plot).

That leaves Street Fighter II: the Animated Movie. Sometimes mistaken as a sequel to the live-action movie, it's a completely unrelated adaption of the same game as the movie (Street Fighter II). This is the closest they've gotten to successfully putting the game on the big screen, with fairly accurate character depictions and a plot somewhat reminiscent of the game of the same name. It's close in many respects, and certainly more true to it's inspiration than most, but not without taking liberties of it's own.

Street Fighter isn't even the only victim. The Resident Evil movies have little to do with their electronic counterparts. The Mario Brothers movie is some peculiar mix of inspiration from the classic game and an odd, distinctly American Hollywood approach. And just about any game movie Uwe Boll touches becomes something almost unrecognizable (and pretty awful as far as any film goes).

Is it really that hard to translate these storylines into moving pictures? All I want is licensed properties that stay true to it's source material; why would I want one that didn't? I want my Street Fighter to be Street Fighter: is that really too much to ask?

Addendum: A friend just reminded me there's another live action Street Fighter movie dropping soon by the name of "The Legend of Chun Li." Here's hopin' my wish will be granted... but my breath is not being withheld.