Half-Life/Portal Movie In The Works

Yeah . . . Half Life needed straight up comedy to dull the pain. Until Valve said Portal was explicitly in the HL universe, Civilization might not have been bad outside of Aperture, people simply didn't know what was going on.

Now . . . escape is kinda a let down.

I actually didn't know Portal was a spinoff of Half-Life. I just assumed it was its own thing.

Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.

Aperture is mentioned in HL 2 E 2, so they do share a Universe. Well, a version of Aperture exists in HL's Universe. I think they've confirmed it's the same one, but I don't have a source.

I'm not sure on the time frame but I think they've set it so Portal and Half Life wouldn't cross without some kind of multiverse/time travel shennanigans.

Of course, it's kind of difficult reconciling the serious tone of Half-Life with the Rule of Funny shenanigans of Portal. The two series are established as running off of different sets of rules (in Portal, a man of questionable sanity like Cave Johnson is apparently still able to make it as CEO of a company that invents artificial intelligence and portal technology, something which wouldn't happen in Half-Life).

A fistful of me.

Just played HL 2 for a couple of hours. I gotta say, the prospect of a film is looking quite attractive. I just hope that if it happens, they don't go overboard on the gore side of things, as that would be a really easy way to ruin my viewing experience. Ravenholm comes to mind.

Wanna see the random crap I get up to? Me neither. http://jesseskwilliams.tumblr.com/

It could be a movie based on an original plot but still taking place in the same universe. For example, through the eyes of a random resistance member or something, or a person with the unfortunate name of Frohman.

edited 9th Feb '13 7:46:16 AM by GaryCXJk

Signatures are for lamers.

You only need to reconcile the two if you're doing a crossover. Otherwise, you can run the movies like the games and keep them mostly separate. Given that HL 2 E 2 referenced Aperture, and that Breen allowed the Resonance Cascade in the first place, I somehow think that someone like Cave Johnson actually COULD have worked in Half Life. He DID make stuff work. His marketing was just off. Odds are government contractors looked into how his products functioned and realized they could use them for the purposes we players did.

Cave simply thought, "Man, those soldiers sure do need to lose weight." Although why we lost the 7 hour war in the first place, with Cave's inventions backing us up, I will never know.

edited 10th Feb '13 8:11:29 AM by Journeyman

Because Cave's inventions were backing us up?

edited 10th Feb '13 9:46:14 AM by Yej

Da Rules excuse all the inaccuracy in the world. Listen to them, not me.

By the time the 7 Hour War ran, the Bring Your Daughter To Work Day has run its 30th(?) anniversary, if you catch my drift. Also, before that, they already went near-bankrupt.

edited 10th Feb '13 11:17:48 AM by GaryCXJk

Signatures are for lamers.

Take out the AI and those inventions are actually GOOD. And I'm sure Mesa could fix that last one.

At least Eli could. He did build Dog.

I've always figured that if humanity was using Aperture's projects in a sensible way, they would have beaten back the Combine pretty quickly during the Seven Hour War - hell, maybe taught the Combine a lesson they wouldn't forget. Only thing is, Aperture was the epitome of the "eccentric scientist out of touch with humanity" trope, so they were incapable of articulating - hell, probably incapable of understanding themselves - how useful their products could be. In the end, they could only really sell the more boring, easily understandable, less physics-defying products, like turrets. And so Aperture technology stayed in Aperture.

I'd say I'm being refined Into the web I descend Killing those I've left behind I have been Endarkened

And even their sellable stuff had bizarre quirks in the basic design, like the turrets using springs to fire the entire bullet instead of using the normal methods. At the very least, the Combine would have no idea how to counter half of Aperture's stuff, especially if G La DOS was directing it.

Not Three Laws compliant.

Okay, that's it. If there would ever be a film, it should be about the Seven Hour War, and make it kind of like Inglorious Basterds, where they go like, fuck it, let's just win this shit using Aperture Science equipment. And have both Gordon and Chell cameo at the end.

Signatures are for lamers.

Valve's not above joking. Even about themselves. That Inglorious idea you just had is probably a valid option that has a chance to be made.

And of course they'll include the Heavy somewhere in there.

Although it's not what I'd prefer, I'm imagining that Inglourious Basterds-esque movie In the Style of Mars Attacks, and it's actually pretty awesome.

I'd say I'm being refined Into the web I descend Killing those I've left behind I have been Endarkened

Valve swears up and down that a Half-Life movie will never happen, and now they're doing it? Or might be doing it?

Valve's trolled us before (or rather, one of their employees has—remember the HL 3 shirt thing?), but I don't know... Something tells me they're NOT trolling this time. But that doesn't necessarily mean I think it's a good idea.

You need an adult.

It could go either way. With the right crew behind it, they could make a box office hit. Or completely tank the project and cost Valve serious cash. I hope it's the former, because the kind of cash flow a great movie could bring in could speed up production times on their other projects. Whose success could bring in more cash to flow into more movies.

Honestly, when it comes to adapting games, the adapters shouldn't be too focused on maintaining the exact same story. Even in a hit game with great plot, a lot of things are determined by the gameplay. Movies don't have that, and need to be able to hold peoples' attention without their interaction. For instance, you can get through Half Life 2 without a drop of knowledge of the back story. It's there, you can find it, but you have to look. I learned of this stuff AFTER I beat the game already, because I never found the newspaper clippings.

In a game, hiding this stuff is wonderful because it's a sense of accomplishment when you find it. In a movie? Not so much. If they're going to adapt the story, they need to come right out with the background info. If they can do that with other movies first, that will give them bigger projects to do and more potential for exploring the Universe as a whole. If it were me, I'd do the first one as a Dramedy about Cave Johnson and his secretay. Katherine, wasn't it? I'd include plenty of references to Black Mesa as a rival corporation.

Then I'd use that to lead into one about Black Mesa and the Resonance Cascade. I'd follow two or three people through it. Gordon for sure, but not all the time. Eli and/or Barney. In fact, I'd say forget Barney since he had his own game, and I'd follow Eli. We don't know what he went through during and after the Cascade. It'd give a writer new ground to cover without treading over what's been done.

The whole Ontological Mystery genre demonstrates that witholding the backstory from the audience can work; it's just done differently in a movie than in a videogame. Heck, look at the movie Dark City. In the cut that was shown in theaters, the film opens with a voiceover monologue from Dr. Shreber, explaining the entire backstory behind the City and the Strangers. In the Director's Cut, this same monologue shows up only after the movie is two-thirds over, when the protagonists approach Dr. Shreber to demand answers. In both versions, the search to understand the backstory is a driving force of the plot, and in both versions we get answers about the backstory sooner or later. But in the Director's Cut, the audience doesn't get that information until the protagonists do—the reveal is much more dramatic and meaningful because we've been left in the dark for so long, and we've watched the protagonists struggle to learn the truth.

Granted, I have no idea how well that approach could work with the Half Life verse.

The thing is, the only reason Gordon Freeman doesn't know what's going on in Half Life 2 is because he's been suddenly introduced to the world by the G-Man (and he's mute so he can't ask questions). And since there's no particular reason to make Gordon Freeman the protagonist of a Half Life 2 movie, there's no particular reason to keep the backstory secret.

edited 13th Feb '13 1:10:09 PM by DAStudent

I'd say I'm being refined Into the web I descend Killing those I've left behind I have been Endarkened

I understand what you're saying perfectly. But they did give away the story at some point. HL 2? You actively had to hunt for it to find it. And you could get through the game without any of that and still have fun.

You could do a movie without Gordon. Well, without following him. Either do an original character or follow one of the others out of the Cascade. As we all know, my vote would be on Eli. We're hinted that he's the guy who tells you to go for help right after the Cascade happens. The one bent over the other scientist. It'd be interesting to see a young Eli (Played by Don Cheadle or Denzel Washington perhaps? ) fight his way out of the labs, avoid the soldiers, and face down the Combine. Maybe even finish with a nice little monologue about how the world's changed, ending in a certain person's face on a viewing screen as Eli says, "And now things are about to change again." (Yes, I know. That line needs work.)

ETA: No, wait. I've got it! Samuel L. Who's King of the Nerds now, Mr. Abrams? Who's King of the Nerds now?

edited 13th Feb '13 6:57:34 PM by Journeyman

How about a movie that takes place between the Black Mesa Incident and the Seven Hour War? The period of time there is vague; some people imagine it as instantaneous whereas I prefer to think that several years passed when the Earth had to deal with wild Xen creatures with no knowledge of the Combine.

I'd say I'm being refined Into the web I descend Killing those I've left behind I have been Endarkened

I'm not up on the timeline. They really left that stuff open? Nifty.

Maybe we lost the Seven Hour War because we were already being whittled down by the wildlife. Aperture closed in on itself around Chell and that's why there were no Portal Guns active to combat them.

To be honest, it's not vague in the sense of "there's no evidence to support any hypothesis", it's vague in the sense of "there's evidence to support multiple hypotheses. Word of God is that prior to the arrival of the Combine, the Antlions were the greatest threat to humanity.

I'd say I'm being refined Into the web I descend Killing those I've left behind I have been Endarkened

http://www.slashfilm.com/votd-j-j-abrams-discusses-storytelling-with-valve-co-founder-gabe-newell/

JJ and Gabe discuss story telling at the DICE event, Storytelling Across Platforms: Who Benefits Most, The Audience or the Player?

While not related to the films in development, its interesting seeing the two interact as they do here after the deal they made.

Preferably audiences and players will meld into one at some point. Not likely to happen soon, and hopefully it won't destroy the film medium. I don't often have the patience to sit there watching for two hours straight, but there's things it's easier and better to do with a flat out film than with a game.

Like exposition. With a controller or keyboard at your hands, it's hard to sit patiently while someone talks. You want to be doing something.