Half Life Movie

Couldn't Valve pull the string on this for trademark infringement? I thought I'd read somewhere that Valve had multiple offers for Portal movies but was never interested. Not sure about HL.
 
Is anybody here anything short of convinced that a Half Life movie will be more than likely disappointing? I honestly believe that games just don't make good movies. It's not that the story isn't good, but there is something special about the interactivity of the game that makes it unique. Besides, some of the best games out there would take movies that are too long in length to fully explain and/or immerse the audience in the world of the game.

Seriously, just look at this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_video_games...

EVERY one of those movies ended up sucking major
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I donno man... the Resident Evil movies weren't that bad.
Decent sunday-hangover movies
 
Zuul said:
I donno man... the Resident Evil movies weren't that bad.
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You can't take a video game title and make whatever you want out of it and then expect gamers to like it. The RE movies were garbage. If they had stuck to the games' stories more then it would have been more entertaining but it was garbage. The movies were definitely not made for gamers. I have been disappointed countless times going to the movies to see these. The only two other upcoming video game movies I would watch in theaters is Mass Effect and Metal Gear Solid.

The worst offenders are Doom, and Resident Evil.

The only good RE movies are the following:

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and

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Also, the only other movies I would think are mention-worthy is the theatrical release of Silent Hill and the fan movie based on Metal Gear Solid called Metal Gear Solid: Philanthropy made by Italian fans of the game. Could care less for the story, but was shot well and stayed true to the game.

http://www.mgs-philanthropy.net
 
If they were ever to make a HL movie, I'd rather have the focus be set on a group of the resistance in City 17 and the battle against the Combine. Similar to the Escape from City 17 shorts. We would never actually meet Gordon, but other characters such as Alyx and Barney. Maybe we get a glimpse of Freeman taking down a Stryder with a rocket launcher, or in the final battle in Episode 2. In background conversations his name is brought up, but he is never really shown on screen.
 
zamardii said:
I honestly believe that games just don't make good movies.
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When was the last time a game-based movie was made that targeted a mature audience? Yeah...

It is not that a good movie cannot be made from a game story, it's just that any good games that are distinctly immature (sex, drugs/alcohol, nudity, violence, and/or gore does not mean mature by the way), cliche, unoriginal, predictable, two-dimensional, etc... are only interesting because of their *game* mechanics.

There are many extremely popular/successful games in that category, and none of them make interesting movies whenever they try, because the material they are starting with is poor. That's even assuming they stick to the original material even remotely...in many cases they make even worse material that barely resembles the original poor plot.

Then there are games that have a significant amount of the opposite aspects to the above. What do they do in those cases? Once again, deviate too much from the original plot in the good aspects, leave in the bad parts that only get a "pass" in games instead of focusing on the good content, fill it up with so much action that there is barely any of the actual story/character-development going on, etc...

Furthermore, most of the time the companies involved do not take the movie seriously in the first place - they just use it as a quick cash grab (like almost all comic book movies too unfortunately). They do not even try to make an interesting movie - they just try to make a quick action movie, and do not give the production the resources and talent it needs to be more than a poor action movie.

Bottom line, there is nothing that makes the more serious games nonconvertible to movie format, it is just no one has bothered to make a serious effort. Stick to the unique, interesting, mature content in the original plot, focus on the drama more than the action (though depending on the game, the action is likely an important part, but should be secondary to the drama), give it a 2+ hour length, give it the necessary resources and talent for an AAA movie, and you will have as much of a shot at a great movie as any other kind of movie. But we are in an age where quantity matters much more than quality, so I doubt we will see this happen anytime soon :/

Just take a look at the future Mass Effect movie - they gave the screenplay to some guy that has extremely little history in the industry and has only wrote the screenplay for one other unknown/low-budget unreleased movie. Unless by some miracle he has some special writing talent for science fiction that he demonstrated for them, which I would not bet on, especially considering the semi-disaster and disaster that was the ME2 and ME3 plots respectively, it looks like EA and Warner Brothers just threw the movie to the cheapest people they could get for a quick cash grab. Which is just completely stupid even for their own profits, considering how much long-term potential the ME universe (if they started over plot-wise from the end of ME1 and properly adapted the universe to movies in a mature manner) would have had - it could have been the next generation's Star Trek or Star Wars.
 
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While there's a few video game-based movies that are fine, most are not critically acclaimed ones. Some I have enjoyed, but most are palm-face ones. Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat are terrible. Fun to watch, but horrible movies. Resident Evil, Silent Hill? Okay, but still not terrifying or that engaging.

The games that do get film either have little to work with at all (fighting games) or too much that isn't incorporated into something good. I would also argue that some games, because of the progression and needing to find parts may make it difficult to get a handle on the material in a way that would be beneficial.

I don't see a video game movie come out and think that it's going to be a great movie. I think it's something that will be bad, hopefully hilariously bad that I can catch on Netflix in a couple years, but nothing that would make me want to spend $10 to see in a theater.

It would be nice to have a video game movie that gets the same caliber treatment as comic book movies we've seen over the past several years, but I'm not holding my breath.
 
GearChoices said:
When was the last time a game-based movie was made that targeted a mature audience? Yeah...

.
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Max Payne.

Yeah

I will say that I have some pretty moderate expectations from the Warcraft movie. Duncan Jones is a genius
 
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It says on the kickstarter that his will be free. They can't make it for profit as they don't even have the OK from Valve..
 
not going to be a very good movie when the protagonist doesn't have any lines.

might as well make a gta 3 movie.
 
Outamyhead said:
They should have stopped after making the first one though, series is a joke after that.
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Ya. I never understood what they were thinking or what any producer thinks when they try to make movie adaptations from video games.

RE is the perfect example of exponential failure.
 
Outamyhead said:
They should have stopped after making the first one though, series is a joke after that.
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Well, the first one seemed to take the concept and universe and sort of make its own storyline. After that they seem to just get as crazy as the games, and really just direct fan service. So if you liked the games I imagine you'd like the newer movies.
 
Forget Half Life,I want a S.T.A.L.K.E.R movie!
On second thought,forget it,they'll just screw it up anyway. Can't really think of a really good game to movie adaptation,Halo might of had a chance when Peter Jackson wanted to make it,but Microsoft messed that up with their greed.
 
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