Intro
1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.
2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.
The actor Jake Gyllenhaal seems like the ultimate softie, with his puppy dog eyes and his history of dating women who end up breaking his heart (Kirsten Dunst, Reese Witherspoon...who will be next?). So it’s a little weird to see him all beefed up and starring in the new action movie Prince of Persia.
In Prince of Persia Gyllenhaal plays a…well, a Persian Prince, who has to fight to save his kingdom. There may be more to the film’s plot than that, but probably not much, since the movie is based on a video game. Find out how Jeff and Devan feel about this new trend…and Jake’s new look.
Dialog
1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.
2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.
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Jeff: Hey, one thing I’ve noticed, Devan, is a lot of video games are being turned into movies these days. What’s your take on that?
Devan: Well, that’s been going on for a little while, you know, there was that Mario movie back in the early 90s. But I guess it didn’t start happening as frequently until recently, and that probably has a lot to say about the rise in popularity of video games. They sell like crazy.
Jeff: That’s true. There was also The Wizard starring Fred Savage.
Devan: Oh yes.
Jeff: Those are some early examples, but this Prince of Persia is coming out, and I think Tomb Raider was…that was a while back.
Devan: Yeah, that one with Angelina Jolie. Those…I don’t know, I mean, I understand that they’re huge blockbusters and they make a bunch of money just like the video games that correlate with them. But for me, it’s just mindless entertainment. I feel like generally to make a movie about something that’s a game, that’s like a mind-numbing thing children do, that movie’s gonna be just as mind-numbing, just as mindless as the video game’s gonna be, you know?
Jeff: I think the movies are basically advertisements for the video games, which is interesting, because video games lately a lot of times are advertised as if they were a movie.
Devan: It’s true. It seems like the story lines that go along with video games are really elaborate, like a film.
Jeff: Yeah, they’re, I mean, one nonstop action sequence, in both the film and video game format.
Grammar Point
Go Super to learn "You're vs. Your" from this lesson
Quizzes
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Discussion
Jeff says that turning video games into movies is becoming a trend. The new film Prince of Persia is based on a video game. Devan thinks that video games are mindless entertainment, so any movie based on a video game would also be pretty mindless.
Jeff says that video games have become more like movies in recent years. They often have complex story lines, and they have better graphics that make them look more like movies. Movies based on video games help sell the games, and the games help sell the movies. So some company makes a lot of money, even if both the games and the movies are a little mindless.
Are video games becoming more like movies? How? Do movies based on video games interest you?
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