Valve Wants the Half-Life Movie Done Right

[Andy Chalk]

Valve Wants the Half-Life Movie Done Right

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Valve honcho Gabe Newell says the only way a Half-Life [http://www.amazon.com/Half-Life-2-Pc/dp/B00006I02Z/ref=sr_1_11?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1282925977&sr=1-11] movie will ever be made is if Valve does the job itself and suggests that someday, it might actually happen.

Despite the hype, Hollywood and videogames have not been a match made in heaven. It's a marriage that has so far produced, at best, a small handful of semi-watchable popcorn flicks, none of which have done justice to the source material. In Newell's eyes, the reason is fairly simple: Hollywood types just don't get it.

"As a Blizzard [http://www.worldofwarcraft.com] making the movie."

Not long after the launch of Half-Life, Valve had a "whole bunch of meetings" with people from the movie industry who were pitching ideas for turning it into a film. "And their stories were just so bad. I mean, brutally, the worst. Not understanding what made the game a good game, or what made the property an interesting thing for people to be a fan of," Newell said.

"That's when we started saying 'Wow, the best thing we could ever do is to just not do this as a movie, or we'd have to make it ourselves.' And I was like, 'Make it ourselves? Well that's impossible'," he continued. "But the Meet The Team shorts [http://www.amazon.com/Orange-Box-Pc/dp/B000PS2XES/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1282926420&sr=8-2], is us trying to explore that."

Putting together a feature film is a huge undertaking, although Valve has displayed a definite flair for the cinematic with its Meet the Team trailers for TF2. I don't think we should hold our collective breath waiting for it to happen but given what Hollywood has managed to do with some really great properties (I'm looking at you, Mr. Payne [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0467197/]) I sure wouldn't mind seeing the boys from Bellevue give it a try.



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[Fuhjem]

If it floats their boat, let them.

They did a good job with Meet the Team.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Sure but why?
For who?
People who want to know the story but don't like games?

 

[Drop_D-Bombshell]

I for one hope they do it, and if pulled off like their TF2 videos, it could extremely brilliant.

 

[Pielikey]

Meet the Pyro should be a full-length film now.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Why, for the love of God, does it need to be a movie?

It's already a game.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

They're aren't movie makers. They can make a great short film, but I doubt they could make the Meet the- series feature length.

If they work with the Directors and actors to get the characters just right, and the writers for the story, then ya it is possible.

Just very doubtful.

 

[The Procrastinated End]

You could always go with something like this

 

[Arachon]

Then I'd rather see Half-Life becoming sort of a miniseries, then they won't have to finish EVERYTHING in one go.

 

[Icehearted]

What a shame Valve doesn't want the episodic content done right. I don't think the Star Wars Trilogy (aka 'episodes') too this fucking long to make.

 

[ArMartinez02]

You could always go with something like this

Yeah city 17 has always been a favorite of mines, but if valve wants to make their own and not let their hollywood producers get their discusting little greasy hands of a movie for valve, then its ok with me, valve make the movie yourself, they did good with the "Meet the..." shorts, also a movie of half life aint that bad of a idea, even if we know the story so far, maybe they should make the about freeman when he was in MIT lol, and a little bit of what happened between the end of HL1 and starting HL2.

 

[Kris015]

I would watch a Half-life movie.. Just sayin'

 

[Andy Chalk]

I think Gabe's initial idea is this best: Just don't make one. The idea that properties can naturally and easily move between media has been proven false time and again. We don't need a Half-Life movie. (Sure wouldn't mind seeing Episode 3, though.)

 

[Casual Shinji]

I think Gabe's initial idea is this best: Just don't make one. The idea that properties can naturally and easily move between media has been proven false time and again. We don't need a Half-Life movie. (Sure wouldn't mind seeing Episode 3, though.)

Exactly.

What made Half-Life so great wasn't watching it, but experiencing it. Same as every other good narrative game. Watching a Half-Life movie would be the same as watching someone play Half-Life: It's not bad, but I'd rather be playing it myself.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

What a shame Valve doesn't want the episodic content done right. I don't think the Star Wars Trilogy (aka 'episodes') too this fucking long to make.

I'd suggest you read the idea for the Sandman movie they pitched to Neil Gaiman first; it's in the book "Tales from Development Hell".

Oooh god, it's bad. Like astonishingly bad. Makes Legend of Chun Li look Oscar-worthy.

Valve Time [http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Valve_Time] exists because Valve want to do it - not just right - but brilliantly; and if it takes Duke Nukem time, then it'll be worth it.

Spoiler: Anyway, we all know who's gonna be playing Freeman ;)

Edit: What they could do, very effectively, is tell Eli's story...

 

[dfcrackhead]

Then I'd rather see Half-Life becoming sort of a miniseries, then they won't have to finish EVERYTHING in one go.

Because they always finish their episodic endeavors.

 

[cplsharp]

it would be brilliant to see it become reality, but unfortunately, as mentioned they just don't deliver the story as well as the game itself, uwe boll isn't fantastic and he's butchered many films but for what it's worth he did a fair job with the postal movie he delivered on some of the fans favourite game references but all in all not a fantastic movie, but at this time we have michael bay, the cg mad explosion vomiting madman that created the transformers movie, which once again wasn't great but wasn't awful.
we have uwe boll as mentioned above, and a few more names like alexandre aja, who aren't fantastic but once again make watchable movies, i think something like half-life is so well made and the story is so rich that the best way to get it across is in game form, same with world of warcraft and other blizzard titles *stares lovingly at starcraft* there is a lot of lore and back story which was told through the medium of games and books working fantastically, but because of this its a fair enough guess that they just wouldn't deliver as a movie.
its not true with lets say the lord of the rings movies book to movie is sometimes workable.
but all in all it only worked because peter jackson was a fan of lord of the rings, if somehow a director who enjoyed half-life teamed up with valve to work on a film as team then we would probably have a fantastic film. But the chances are rather slim and the budget would have to be immense so its probably a long shot unless valve release their own set of cgi movies maybe 30mins in length to tell the story part by part, kinda like the games that would work.

i do apologize for the essay, just a subject i find interesting
also other things that would make a fantastic movie/movie series....
Warhammer universe 40k and warhammer fantasy.
Elder scrolls series would be fantastic.
even fear could make a half decent movie.
just my opinion anyhow

 

[Jared]

I would love to see a Half Life film, and I am glad to see they are not rushing to hand over rights!

 

[Swarley]

If they made a movie of equal quality to the Meet the Team videos I would see it 5 times.