Portal movie

[Cthulhu]

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2016/09/29/jj-abrams-a-portal-movie-announcement-is-coming-soon

Also, Half-Life movie possibly in the worHALF LIFE 3 CONFIIIIIRMED

 

[Channy]

FUCK HALF LIFE, PORTAL MOVIE, WHOOOOOOOO

 

[X-SOLDIER]

I can't wait to see what fantastic madness comes of this.




X

 

[Channy]

I wonder who/what (hopefully) no name they would cast as Chell.

 

[Flintlock]

This seems like a terrible idea.

 

[Splintered]

Hollywood making movies about games

 

[Octo]

Yeah, I dunno I just don't feel like Portal really lends itself to a film. What was great about it was actually playing it, and the joy of discovery.

But in a film we're not the ones discovering anything. So like, I dunno we're left with a sorta funny version of Hal from 2001 a Space Odyssey.

I mean it could be funny I suppose, but I don't think it's going to capture the greatness of the Portal games. Not for those who have played them.

I might be wrong

 

[Channy]

Screw you all, it's going to be brilliant.

 

[lithiumkatana17]

This was a triumph

I'm making a note here, HUGE SUCCESS

 

[ForceStealer]

Yeah, I gotta be on the downer side of this one, I'm afraid. How do you translate the portal puzzles? How insufferable are they going to make Chell? How hard are they going to work to find SOME way to shoehorn in a horrendous romance plot?

It's like the threats of the Shadow of the Colossus movie, no way is Hollywood brave enough to make a movie with so little dialogue. (Sure GlaDOS talks a lot, but it's never a dialogue. It just happens while you wander around doing other stuff.)

 

[Tetsujin]

Here's a great interactive puzzle game!

Now let's take out the interactive puzzles!

Or: Just watch a fucking playthrough on YouTube.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Well, it'd be pretty easy to introduce a character like Wheatley, or even Atlas & Peabody as someone capable of communication with your main protagonist to break up the introductory area of someone like GlaDOS or Cave Johnson talking either AT them or generically at anybody in X area while they're totally isolated, in order to provide the audience dialogue that's not just coming from above or introspective if it's felt that that's necessary.

Also, while the puzzles are a very interesting part of the game, they're only as much a part of the storytelling as the commentary they provide in their design psychologically or topically. A lot of the basics that work aside from that from a filmmaking perspective are all of the copious amounts of dark comedy embedded in the sort of science and experimentation that Aperture Science was engaged in.

Conceptually, you're looking at a framework of something like Mazerunner insofar as you have your main protagonist in a vastly complex contraption of unknown purpose, and they have to figure out as much of, "How, What the fuck, & Why?" as possible and you don't need a huge cast to accomplish that effectively – as the games have shown.

I mean, you can even accomplish that with:
• How'd I get here and what is all this?
• Run tests for this cool portal gun.
• Tests are done & now you die.
• Escape the mad science lab and figure out what I can along the way from the clues left behind.
• Confront the entity at the end.




I legit don't see what all the negativity is about.




X

 

[Flintlock]

I always feel like I'm on thin ice talking movies with you, X, because you seem to know everything there is to know about them and I know almost nothing, but...

I legit don't see what all the negativity is about.

It's a video game film adaptation. Isn't that reason enough to be negative? I'm yet to see a good video game film adaptation, and I've seen a few. I've maybe only seen one which I enjoyed in parts (Prince of Persia), and even then, I wouldn't call it a good film.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

I always feel like I'm on thin ice talking movies with you, X, because you seem to know everything there is to know about them and I know almost nothing, but...

I legit don't see what all the negativity is about.

It's a video game film adaptation. Isn't that reason enough to be negative? I'm yet to see a good video game film adaptation, and I've seen a few. I've maybe only seen one which I enjoyed in parts (Prince of Persia), and even then, I wouldn't call it a good film.

No need to feel on thin ice with me. For real.

I understand that videogame adaptations have been okish to utterly shite in the past, but they're slowly getting better. I'd also argue that videogames venturing into more cinematic territory and that natural crossover with VFX, Acting, & Performance Capture has made for a lot of the film industry to start to look at them differently than they used to. I think a video game used to be seen as, "An IP that I can probably at least make some return on investment from, even if they're total garbage" *cough*Uwe Boll*cough* or just as a story that's already been told, but is less simple in adapting than a book or other property.

Nowdays, there're a much, MUCH larger amount of games to show that they've got compelling long-form storytelling that's successful in an episodic format which is what both film and TV do. I think that the playing field between those stories and their formats is a lot more even than it used to be (and also it's likely more common to be something that people in that industry are aware of vs. just seen as a niche thing that caters to basement dwellers). We'll have ta see how Assassin's Creed goes to see if the curse is already broken before this becomes a thing, since it's seemingly just coming in along into that scene.

Just like with any different genres and IPs, there's a LOT that can go wrong with them - especially from whoever's in charge of them from studio to director to actors, etc. Hell, it took a while before we started getting really solid comic book movies, and even now, not everyone's figured out how to really nail that. Overall, that's why I don't think that its origin as a videogame alone is reason to worry as much as it would've been in the past.




X

 

[Obsidian Fire]

On the one hand, cool. I can totally see how this could work.

On the other hand... I really think both Portal and Half-Life would make better movies without the main character (Chell, Freeman) in them.

The crazy part about both Portal and Half-Life is that neither of the main characters talk; in fact, it's specifically mentioned by other characters that they don't talk much. In video game logic, this is fine as it leaves how the main character feels about what's happening up to the player. For a movie, this would suck.

The other thing is that I don't want to watch a movie of Portal/Half-Life 3. I want to play those games. I want to be Chell exploring the world above Aperture Labs with the portal gun. I don't want to watch someone else's version of her doing that, I want my Chell doing that.

However... Both Portal and Half-Life have a ton of events that happen to scripted characters the players have no control over. I'd love to see movies about what happens while Chell/Freeman were in stasis. Cave Jonson and Caroline starting Aperture, Caroline becoming Glados, Glados taking over Aperture, Ratman escaping Aperture, etc. Those would be really cool to watch and they'd be about characters people want to see more of without sacrificing the player's version of the main character.

So... I'm reserving judgement until we find out who the movies will be about.

 

[ForceStealer]

I think it would be easy enough to transfer Half-Life to film, which is why Prince of Persia mostly worked, and why Uncharted would work even if it just looked like an Indiana Jones ripoff. Those play cinematically. Even Final Fantasy can, though never in a long enough movie to do it justice.

But games like Portal and Shadow of the Colossus...they are just so...they're the pinnacle of what can be done with the medium. And in a way that would it be difficult for a movie to capture. I mean think how hard it would be for a Hollywood movie to capture the emotions of Journey, it's like that. Games that use gameplay as one of the primary modes of storytelling are always going to be really hard to convert.

 

[Splintered]

Nah, still feeling pretty negative about it. I don't think Valve stories get anything from being translated into a passive experience. I think they are deliberately constructed in such a way that allows it to feed off being a game. I'm not even sure how much I'd like Half Life into a movie, even with a stronger narrative. Then again I only played a little Half Life, but even then I remember distinctly the lack of cutscenes and the decision of mine to either pick up a can or not.

I do think that certain games can become movies, but have yet to really see a director or producer that treats the source material with enough respect to make it great. That's the second part of this. I'm still mad at the comments the would be director that Uncharted said. Many of these guys don't necessarily understand how stories are done in games, and that makes the transformation awkward, and if there are that do, well, they aren't really making the ones making the games.

I dunno. There's too many ill feelings and mistrust to make me excited just by saying "remember that game u like that did that meme you heard 100000X, we r making a movie : )"

And then trying to do the puzzle thing. I suppose it would be okay to see a few puzzles worked out on screen, but nothing like how brilliantly constructed the game was done. Even watching an LP would be more interesting, because you understand that this person is working out the puzzle. I mean, I like watching FFVII speed runs, doesn't mean I would care about watching an action sequence with an ATB sequence during an actual movie. Two different experiences.

Pick a different game. Give me a director that cares.

I'm grumpy.

 

[Ghost X]

For a puzzle game to convert well to film and be faithful, you'd need a lot of character interaction and/or sufficient puzzle elements that contribute to the story line. I don't think the first Portal does that too much. You got the level by level interactions between Chell and GLaDOS, the companion cube, and cake (which is a lie anyway, so... ), iirc. The rest is just obstacles, which could only serve plot development for so long. Maybe some humorous interactions with turrets. Sure, I could imagine how a decent movie might be made, but would require some changes from the game. Portal 2 would be better. Both single and multiplayer storylines.

I haven't actually played SotC (I should watch a playthrough >.>), but if it is anything like the Last Guardian is looking to be like, it would probably convert far better to film. I'm more interested in watching it anyway, rather than playing it .

 

[Splintered]

SOC would be absolutely ruined as a movie. /snob

But seriously some things only really work as a game and soc is one of them.

 

[Hisako]

Examples like Shadow of the Colossus and Portal are considered great games precisely because of the way their gameplay is designed around particular techniques of storytelling that run directly counter to the way stories are presented in mainstream film.

Even where film adaptations worked for previously-thought unworkable sources such as Halo, they never directly adapted source material, instead focusing on secondary characters not constrained by specific restrictions due to being the player character. The silent protagonist is a big hurdle, as is level design built around large, expansive and relatively expressionless areas. As for puzzle games, the hurdle also lies in conveying a sense of challenge without making it overtly obvious or obtuse to the audience. These are all elements that tend to be sidestepped in most adaptation material.

tl;dr, I dunno, they're making a Tetris movie, for fucks sake. I'm sure they'll figure out how to make it work