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"Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li" may be yet another awful movie adaptation of a video game, but its human portrayal of its leading lady offers us a glimmer of hope.

The phrase “hope springs eternal” perfectly sums up the state gamers find themselves in when it comes to movies based on their favorite video games.

That is, time and time again, those of us who love video games have seen our hopes dashed on the cruel rocks of reality as one movie adaptation of a game after another has been slapped up on the silver screen … to god-awful results.

And yet, we continue returning to the theaters, hoping beyond all reasonable hope that one day a genuinely great movie based on one of our beloved games will finally arrive.

“ Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li ” — a movie based on the long-running “Street Fighter” series of games — opened in theaters over the weekend, offering gamers the latest sliver of hope. And like the dutiful, bull-headedly optimistic gaming fans we are, we marched off to buy our tickets and our popcorn.  And, as per usual, the movie didn’t fail to disappoint.

“The Legend of Chun-Li” is dreadful in so many ways it’s hard to know where to begin. And yet, after sitting through an hour and a half of cinematic awfulness, I can say that just maybe, perhaps, there’s reason to believe that things are starting to look up. In fact, a look at several recent video game movies as well as a look at what’s to come down the road reveals perhaps the most promising signs yet that there might be better days ahead for video game adaptations.

For starters, Mike Newell, the director behind the excellent “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” is now working on the movie version of one of the all-time great games — “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.” Meanwhile, Gore Verbinski — director of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films — is bringing the hit game “Bioshock” to the big screen. And one can’t help but believe that if he can make fun, smart and compelling movies out of a Disney ride, then certainly he can make something solidly cinematic out of such a brilliant game.

I mean … right?

But more important, after watching the new “Street Fighter” as well as recent game-based movies like “Hitman” and “Max Payne,” I’ve noticed that video game-inspired films have started taking steps — albeit baby steps — toward getting one crucial element of great movie-making right: character development.

Oh the humanity
There are plenty of theories about why video games have failed to make a truly impressive leap to the big screen — that these adaptations are being made by people more interested in cashing in than in making great movies, that video games are an interactive medium and movies are a passive one and never the twain shall meet, that the resolutely untalented director Uwe Boll is continually allowed to helm these crossovers.

Certainly, in the early days, the translation difficulties were more understandable. That is, games and movies had little in common outside the fact they were both a form of entertainment.

Back in 1985 when the “Super Mario Bros.” game launched, for example, it had what was most important: lots of really fun turtle- and mushroom-pouncing gameplay. But it featured little in the way of a meaningful plot or well-developed characters. And so there was nothing about it that begged to be made into a movie. Nothing except for the massive following the game boasted (something money-hungry execs thought they could cash in on by taking the game to the theaters).

Consequently, the resulting film adaptation of “Super Mario Bros.” in 1993 was a failure of epic proportions, panned by film buffs and game buffs alike. And more of the same would soon follow.

Timothy Olyphant's portrayal of a conflicted Agent 47 makes the "Hitman" movie perhaps the best video game adaptation yet.

But these days, video games and movies have far more in common — that is, games often feature not only cinematic style visuals, but the kind of epic and original storylines you might find in a film. Meanwhile game protagonists often are less cartoony and, yes, more realistic — increasingly complex characters who find themselves on increasingly complex and meaningful journeys. And so it seems, video games are genuinely ripe for translation to film.

Take the game “Max Payne.” It presented players with a protagonist haunted by the death of his wife and child, a man who sets out on a mission to bring justice to a drug-and-crime-ridden world. Certainly, it’s the kind of story line we’ve seen handled effectively on film, and so it made sense that this game would be brought to the silver screen.

Indeed, the recent slate of game-translating filmmakers seem to understand that while video game protagonists often have super-human abilities (after all, that’s what makes them fun to play), film-going audiences will only truly connect with characters who are genuinely human on some level. Last year’s film version of “Max Payne” was not a great movie for many reasons, but Mark Wahlberg’s beleaguered and vulnerable Max took it a step in the right direction.

Like “Max Payne,” the latest “Street Fighter” film is problematic on many levels. From the laughably bad dialog, to the hole-riddled plot, to the gratuitous use of flashback, voice over and slow motion — it all adds up to one cheese-filled movie experience. But “The Legend of Chun-Li” is a significant improvement over its predecessor — the 1994 “Street Fighter” film starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. That’s because instead of giving us nothing but one hyper cartoonish character after another it actually tries to give us something of a real human being in our leading lady.

Yes, this is the story of a young woman who becomes a bad-ass fighter with the ability to tornado-kick her way through throngs of nefarious ne’er-do-wells and toss around balls of electricity as if they were basketballs. But at the heart of the story is a young woman who loves her father and is struggling to grow up in a cruel, cruel world. As cliché-ridden as this tale may be, actress Kristin Kreuk actually delivers some glimmer of genuine human emotions to the film.

Who am I any way?
But to be human, I would argue, is to be conflicted not just about what’s happening in the world around us or happening to us … but to be conflicted about ourselves. To be human is to be confused about our place in the world, to struggle with who we really are. We humans are an incredibly insecure lot after all.

And this is why I’d argue that 2007’s “Hitman” film is, so far, the best of the game adaptations. Like the game, the film delivers us into the world of an uber-assassin — a cool character with the ability to shoot and slice his way through a non-stop string of baddies. But for all of Agent 47’s over-the-top killin’ skills, the movie-makers gave us a character struggling to find his place in the world … and more importantly, struggling with himself.

Raised to be nothing but an ice-cold murdering machine, Agent 47 (as portrayed by “Deadwood’s Timothy Olyphant) finds his world … and his notion of himself … turned upside-down when, unexpectedly, he finds himself experiencing genuine human emotions (for a woman, of course). Throughout much of the film, he doesn’t just struggle to survive the onslaught of opponents sent to kill him; he struggles to understand who he is and who he wants to be.

And whether viewers recognize it or not, that’s what makes for a truly compelling film: Internal struggles — not just external ones.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the great video game adaptation of all times needs to be a navel-gazing affair in which our hero — Pac-Man — does nothing but contemplate the meaning of a life spent munching pills and chasing ghosts, only to realize that it has all been for naught. I think the great video game adaptation can be an action-packed flick that pays homage to the gripping gameplay that first brought it to our attention. I just believe that it can, and must, be something more than that.

After all, while video games allow us to enjoy being super-human, movies truly succeed when they remind us that we are all too human.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, right, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, governor of California, pose for photographers in Hanover, northern Germany.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger opened a major technology fair in Germany Monday along with Chancellor Angela Merkel, and recalled his time in the country as a young man.

“We are gathering in challenging times,” Schwarzenegger acknowledged at the CeBIT fair, where California is the partner state this year.

However, he added that it is time “to stand up and refuse to fail.” The fair is “all about pumping up your business,” he said.  “Technology is our greatest asset,” Schwarzenegger said. “Technology is also helping us to develop cleaner cars … and to fight against climate change.”

During his visit to Hannover, Schwarzenegger is to pick up an award from the American Chamber of Commerce in Germany for his “extraordinary commitment to environment and energy.”

Despite California’s severe budget crisis, the Republican governor is well known for his crusades against global climate change and his advocacy of alternative energy.

Schwarzenegger, a native of neighboring Austria and a former champion bodybuilder, said of Germany that “this country holds a special place in my heart.”

“I spent two years in Munich, and those were the crucial years of my life,” he said, having moved there at age 19. “It was the springboard for my bodybuilding career.”

“I’ve always cherished the time spent here,” he said, adding that he “never imagined that I would come back to Germany as the governor of California.”

Schwarzenegger added in German that he is “looking forward to German beer and German food.”

He ended his remarks with a catch phrase from his acting days: “Hasta la vista, baby.”

Facebook is inviting its 150 million users to help decide how the social-networking site is run.

(CNN) — In keeping with the democratic nature of user-generated media, Facebook is inviting its 150 million users to help decide how the online gathering place is run.

A week after a policy-change blunder sparked widespread protests, the Web’s most popular social-networking site announced a new approach Thursday to give users more control over future Facebook rules and practices.

Site managers published the Facebook Principles, a set of 10 values they hope will make Facebook more transparent, along with a proposed statement of rights and responsibilities governing privacy, content ownership and other issues. Users will be able to comment and vote on the wording of the documents.

“As people share more information on services like Facebook, a new relationship is created between Internet companies and the people they serve,” Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, said in a statement. “The past week reminded us that users feel a real sense of ownership over Facebook itself, not just the information they share.”

Facebook became caught in a content-rights battle after revealing this month that it was granting itself permanent rights to users’ photos, wall posts and other information, even after a user closed an account. Member backlash was swift and severe, as tens of thousands of angry users either canceled their accounts or created online petitions.

To quell the uprising, Facebook hastily announced last week it was reverting to its old terms of use policy on member information “while we resolve the issues that people have raised.”

Thursday’s announcement seemed aimed at further reassuring users that they, not Facebook, will retain rights to their postings.

“You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, including information about you and the actions you take,” reads the proposed statement of rights and responsibilities, which condenses almost 40 pages of legal jargon into fewer than six pages.

Facebook said Thursday it will continue to make independent decisions about the timing and rollout of products. But users will now help determine future changes to Facebook policies through online voting.

Over the next month, the fast-growing site will host virtual “Town Halls” to collect user comments on the proposed new principles and statement of rights and responsibilities.

As of Friday morning, more than 8,600 users had joined a Facebook group to solicit feedback regarding the proposed Facebook Principles, while more than 7,800 had joined a group that was set up to review the proposed statement of rights and responsibilities.

Facebook says that after the comment period ends March 29, it will review users' submissions, then republish its policies to incorporate feedback. All future policy changes would be subject to similar notice and comment periods.

Facebook also plans to establish a user council to participate more closely in the development of future policies and practices.

"Companies like ours need to develop new models of governance," Zuckerberg added. "Rather than simply reissue a new Terms of Use, the changes we're announcing today are designed to open up Facebook so that users can participate meaningfully in our policies and our future." Initial reaction to Facebook's more open approach appeared to be positive.

"The idea that a major company like Facebook would give its users a vote in how the service is governed is remarkable," user Julius Harper, co-founding administrator of the People Against the new Terms of Service group, said in a statement posted on Facebook. "This decision should go far in restoring people's trust, and I hope it sets a precedent for other online services to follow."

But other members had concerns about section 2.3 of the proposed statement of rights and responsibilities, which states that users will grant Facebook license "to use, copy, publicly perform or display, distribute, modify, translate, and create derivative works of ... any content you post" until a member deletes the content or closes an account.

"This is precisely why I pulled one of my photos and why I'm now considering the deletion of my account," Bertha Chambers of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, wrote in a Facebook post Thursday afternoon.

"If Facebook wants to make money through advertising ... that's fine with me. BUT, I'm not giving Facebook permission to use my words or my art for their profit or in ways or reasons that I might not personally support."

Fasten your seat belts. There could be some bumpy nights ahead in the IT department.

When the information technology guys discover how painful it can be to upgrade their current PC hardware to Microsoft’s Windows 7 — the successor to the much-maligned Windows Vista — they may be tempted to switch to Linux or Apple’s  Mac OS X.

That’s the conclusion of the product specialists at CRN’S Channel Web — a publication geared more to IT professionals than to the typical Mac user — after running the latest Windows 7 beta through their Test Center.

“On both fresh hardware and on first-look upgrades from Windows Vista machines, Windows 7 met the world looking like a champ,” writes Channel Web’s Ed Mozen in a post published Tuesday. Upon closer look, though, it appears as though Windows 7 could actually be more of a challenge for businesses than Vista ever was. The upgrade path from Windows XP – which is still the predominant desktop OS in businesses — can be described graciously as ‘ugly.’”

Part of the problem is that you can’t install Windows 7 beta directly from Windows XP. Instead, you have to upgrade to Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) or later before attempting an install — a process the Channel Web team found to be non-trivial.

Among the scariest quotes in their report:

• “While Microsoft has assured the world that if the hardware works with Windows Vista it will work with Windows 7, the reality is that is misleading at best.”
• “We’ve almost lost count of the number of blue screens we’ve seen in the CRN Test Center during the Windows 7 evaluation process.”
• “We tried to do the upgrade on an Acer TravelMate, but were stopped in our tracks by Bluetooth driver incompatibilities.”
• “On a series of 3-and-a-half year old ThinkPad T43s, an IBM security processor refused to let the notebooks boot up with Windows 7. We needed to crack open a couple of four-year old desktops … to add memory just to try to get a system image.”
• “Across the XP-Vista-Windows 7 landscape, Microsoft has fostered an ecosystem that now holds out the prospect of a mind-numbing number of incompatible drivers, unsupported devices, unsupported applications, unsupported data, patches, updates, upgrades, “known issues” and unknown issues.”

Channel Web concludes:

“One at a time, these problems can be blown off as inconsequential or simply what happens during beta testing and an upgrade process. But, taken together, these problems are appearing all at once after Microsoft’s botched XP-to-Vista upgrade and during the worst economic decline in generations….

“A solution provider can now expect to spend many hours, billable or otherwise, dealing with all the extra pain points brought about by having to navigate through a mine field of three concurrently used Microsoft operating environments.

“Or they could opt to give Linux or Apple’s Mac OS X a try. That’s not as crazy an idea as it may have been in years past.”

During his annual “strategic update” conference call Tuesday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told Wall Street analysts that while Apple “has probably increased its market share over the last year or so by a point or more,” he was more focused on the competitive threats posed by Linux and Google (GOOG).

In response to a request for comment, a Microsoft spokesperson wrote:

“Customers can purchase upgrade media and an upgrade license to move from Windows XP to Windows 7; however, they will need to do a clean installation of Windows 7.”

Windows 7 is scheduled to ship in early 2010.