The transition from a video game to a movie is a tricky one, a notion that we have explored in the past on our sweet podcast. It seems that the only people who are capable of making a movie based on games are the developers themselves, but they lack either the necessary components or the capital to make a feature film. Valve Software, who we all know as the studio behind Half-Life, Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead, has stated that they’d like to try their own hand at making a Half-Life movie, saying that they were approached by a bunch of Hollywood types with horrible interpretations of the Half-Life saga. Here’s part of the quote given by the man himself, Valve’s CEO Gabe Newell, on what happened with the Half-Life movie:
Where we got into this direction was after Half-Life 1 had shipped. There was a whole bunch of meetings with people from Hollywood. Directors down there wanted to make a Half-Life movie and stuff, so they’d bring in a writer or some talent agency would bring in writers, and they would pitch us on their story. 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.
Sound like typical Hollywood, doesn’t it? So, if Valve didn’t want Half-Life handed off to a big studio, they would just have to do it themselves. Gabe also explained that the Team Fortress 2 “Meet the Team” shorts were a small part of the build-up to a full-fledged film.
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.’ But the Team Fortress 2 thing, the Meet The Team shorts, is us trying to explore that
Valve has been stating for a while that they would like to get into the business of comic books and movies, and recently they’re been taking a lot of steps in that directions. The Meet the Team shorts are getting longer and bolder, and almost every Team Fortress 2 update has had a comic associated with it. What’s your opinion on Valve’s stance towards the Half-Life movie? Do you think they could pull it off? What sort of stuff would you like to see come from Valve in the future?
Source: PC Gamer
I just hope that if they do make a movie, they should make one about the untold pieces of the story. Not about freeman.
[quote comment=”13103″]I just hope that if they do make a movie, they should make one about the untold pieces of the story. Not about freeman.[/quote]
I don’t see why they couldn’t use Freeman in the movie. They should distill the essence of Half-Life into a 2 hour movie and that would involve Gordon.
I would rather have Valve do it than McG
Well, i’d like to see more of “Meet the team”… but not done live action. Make it into little 10 – 15 minute episodes or whatever…
Same with half-life.. If they did a movie, I’d hope it was done in an updated source-engine sort of way.. not live action. Basically because Freeman doesn’t speak, so he couldn’t really be a main character if you’re watching him do tasks but not speaking.
I don’t know… I’m a little uncomfortable. At least Valve would do it right.. we’d just have to wait til 2024.
I think a movie of the game/s would dilute what the experience means to a lot of people. Something tangential like Aperture Science or the Borealis, etc., would be much more exciting.
Also, Hugh Laurie as Freeman!? Hell yes!
Here’s an idea, Valve: How about you finish Episode 3 before you start talking about a Half-Life movie?
Uh… I doubt Valve would ACTUALLY be the ones making the movie. More like producing, etc. I think their programmers wouldn’t be on set holding coffee for actors, etc. No worries 🙂
Yeah, this is more of producing thing, maybe hire their own writer and find a director they like or something.
This is the kind of issue that I foresee myself taking on, since I’d be a writer. Valve’s games already have phenomenal writing because they work so well as games. Half-Life was awesome because it was a good story within a fun and immersive game. Left 4 Dead was awesome because the story was vague and given to you in small parts via writing on saferoom walls and short character dialogue. This kind of writing has to be present in movies, and yes it is good writing, and typically when a game gets a movie transition, they don’t get a good writer who understands and can capture the same quality of writing that was in the game.
I think Valve should keep making Meet the Team’s and other similar shorts. They’ve got (a) fantastic writer(s) and even in their brevity, the shorts are very well-made.
@nevertell and Anthony: There are a few ways to approach a movie based on an expansive universe like Half-Life. Keeping the story within the same events as the game and including the same characters adds more depth to the main storyline. But you could also expand the entire universe’s depth (not just the main storyline) by creating a story from the perspective of another character, like Alyx or maybe just a Marine or whatnot. Either you tell more about the character and the main storyline or you make the entire universe richer. They’re both great ways to expand a story by using different media.
Hopefully, we’ll see future game-movies in general be of higher quality, although there’s not much hope, honestly. What you need is a competent writer who actually gives the time and effort to make a worthwhile addition to the series.
working at Valve just solidified its number one spot on the things I must do list even more seeing as I want to make both games and films. all Valve needs to do now is start their own film and visual effects studio and they can take over the world!
After all the cr*ppy video games movies that have come out of Hollywood, the notion of Valve doing it themselves holds great promise in my mind.
I hope they do it and I hope it’s awesome. Not just because it would be sweet, but because it would set a standard to allow other studio’s that know how to do stories right like Bethesda and Naughty Dog to justify trying their hand at it as well. Valve could potentially start something magical with this.
I wasn’t suggesting that programmers would be working as production assistants. I’m more concerned about this from an economic standpoint. Every dollar that Valve dedicates to a movie project is money taken away from game development and Valve doesn’t exactly have a great reputation for delivering projects in a timely fashion in the first place.
That’s great for them that they’re ambitious and aspiring filmmakers, but would you rather them spend millions of dollars producing/writing/marketing a movie or developing Half-Life 3?
Wow this is BIG stuff here! I’m very worried that if they cast someone for Freeman it might ruin the movie. Freeman doesn’t speak AT ALL in the games…i think for the movie they should just have Freeman be alluded to as a legend so that he doesn’t appear, but is still included.
Also the game already plays out like a movie so I think that they should make the untold parts of the story. One thing i would REALLY like to learn about is the events after Black Mesa, the 7 Hour War, and everything right before Freeman comes in Half-life 2.
Of course they’re going to have to make a LONG ARSE movie in order to fit everything from Black Mesa to the fall of the Combine, but thats the only way i think they can do it.
If they did decide to make their own movie, it might be in CG like their team fortress shorts. Those worked out pretty well and I can’t imagine Valve making a live action Team Fortress anything. They would have to really do a perfect job on the casting and such if they went live action. Though people would still say its horrible after that. I think the mostly thing they would do is a in engine short movie like team fortress has been doing, but on a larger scale. I don’t know if I would accept a episode 3 movie instead of having the episode 3 game. All in all if Gordon doesn’t talk then I’m fine. Look at link. They made him talk in his short cartoon series and all that is known for (at least by me) now is the phrase “Well excuuuuuuuse me princess!”. And we all know Gordon deserves better than that.