Zelda, Hitchcock, Lynch
Though I normally take a long time to play through video games, I have been making relatively quick progress through Zelda: Twilight Princess. Based on reviews I have read about the game I think I am roughly half-way through the game. So far it has lived up to much of the hype of being a bigger version of the series' most popular installment The Ocarina of Time.
Recently I have watched several Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch movies and I realized a few similarities with the Legend of Zelda series of video games. Many Hitchcock films have similar plot lines, without being repetitive, of the regular person being mistaken for someone else and being thrust into extraordinary circumstances. In the same way Lynch uses the same dual worlds theme in many of his films. Both Hitchcock and Lynch perfected these themes over their careers and made more and more complex versions of what is at its most basic level the same film. This is the same as the Legend of Zelda series of games from Nintendo. By taking the same basic mythology and game structure and modifying the items and dungeon design Nintendo has gradually perfected it's flagship series.
As an example, Ocarina of Time has the child and adult worlds and Twilight Princess has the twilight and light worlds. Hitchcock made The Man Who Knew Too Much and North By Northwest (among others with similar themes) both with average Joes becoming swept up in sinister plots. Lynch's Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire are very similar in concept if not in execution.
I'm sure this comparison could be made with many video game series (Metroid comes to mind), but I think it applies best to Zelda since they are very cinematic games by nature.
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