Valve, J.J. Abrams Want to Collaborate on Movies, Games

@UberExplodey said:

Who was REALLY asking for Half-Life or Portal movie?

Let games be games. Let Gabe be a knife-obsessed Muppet.

I wasn't asking for a Waterpik. But then I got one and now my mouth feels amazing!

@MoleyUK:

and rapscallion! don't forget rapscallion!

But really, imagine The Departed, if it was 2 films, 1 from DiCaprio's PoV and 1 from Damon's. I'm not saying it would be easy, but how COOL.

@MutieLover said:

@TheGorilla said:

@MutieLover said:

@Yanngc33 said:

@arch4non said:

Why does JJ Abrams suddenly have control over everything nerdy?

Because that Star Trek reboot was pretty damn good

Assuming you don't really know/care what "Star Trek" is all about and only want to see it's surface elements skinned over a generic sci-fi action flick.

Bullshit. As someone who has watched all of TNG and most of DS9 I loved 2009's Star Trek and it definitely has some of the core principles of the franchise. The most important part of any story is its emotional core, and for Star Trek that tends to be self-sacrifice and friendship, two things the reboot was full of. Everything else is just the window dressing.

@Branthog: What endings are you even talking about? Has he even been involved in the endings of any of the TV shows he started? He didn't write the endings to any of those shows, and I don't know if he was even still involved at that point. You can't really judge him by his early work, so all you're really left with is MI3 and Super 8 which both had fine endings and Super 8 had a great last scene.

I call bullshit on your bullshit. Star Trek is about exploration and humanity reaching its zenith. Self-sacrifice is as common as water in any movie/TV show that is based around a crew/group of people.

@damnable_fiend said:

I could not be less excited

QFT

Abrams taking the helm of most half decent established sci-fi properties is a scary thing indeed. Star Trek was OK, but I'm not a huge Star Trek fan so didn't mind. I can't imagine how he would not ruin Half-Life, and well Star Wars... the only way is up I guess...

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/6763-A-Disturbance-In-The-Force

So.....who's JJ Abrams? I've heard his name a lot recently, but have no idea what movies he's actually made.

If they get edward norton to play Freeman and actually stick to the games plot (Obviously with some heavy modification to eliminate the purely-gameplay based sections) a half life movie could be excellent Post Apocalypse is big these days and a combine ruled earth could be interesting to see on the big screen.

@LikeaSsur said:

So.....who's JJ Abrams? I've heard his name a lot recently, but have no idea what movies he's actually made.

Super 8, Mission Impossible 3, Star Trek, Cloverfield. All very solid, none outstanding. What you call workmanlike stuff. He's better known as a TV producer for Lost, Felicity, Alias, Person of Interest and a few others.

He's well regarded because he's reliable. I don't have a problem with that. The man is more... conservative with his stuff than I'd like, and I mean that from a political standpoint, mostly, all intuition and destiny and faith and very little intellect, but that's minor stuff and I don't object to his skill or craftmanship. Leave it to nerds to whine endlessly about good professionals doing cool stuff.

I don't want a Portal movie but a half-Life movie could work if they don't make it about Gordon Freeman (who probably would be played by Bryan Cranston). Make it about, I dunno, just some freedom fighters in City 17. You can make your stupid lol-references (like, at some point somebody picks up a crowbar and says something like "what am I supposed to do with this piece of shit" and then grabs a gun or so. At some point somebody will mention a "mute nerd" or something stupid like this) but don't focus the main story on Gordon.

Whatever. The more promising a game movie seems the less likely it is that it actually comes out. So thats probably the last thing we hear about this (well, maybe in 5 years we hear about a change of directors or something like that)

I cannot imagine a situation where Half Life or Portal as a movie are any good, JJ Abrams or not.

I dunno whether to yawn or sigh, so I guess I'll do both.

Now, if you had said Joss Whedon, I might be interested.

Oh please no. We don't need a Half-Life movie about how mysterious the aliens are.

@Icicle7x3 said:

Where's Half-life 3?

Lost.

THE INTERNET IS NOW CLOSED FOR THE DAY! SOMEONE RING THE BELL! THIS MAN WON IT ALL!

@MutieLover said

Star Trek is about exploration and humanity reaching its zenith.

Which of those two categories should I file the Gorn under?

sounds good lets do it

Guess things will be like the original Unreal game where there will be even more lens flares all over the place. If the game is good then fine but not feeling like this will give much more than the average or less bunch of movie tie-in games.

J.J. Abrahms, GOD of all Sci-Fi universes!

Dig Deeper into Gabe Newell

@MutieLover said:

@TheGorilla said:

@MutieLover said:

@Yanngc33 said:

@arch4non said:

Why does JJ Abrams suddenly have control over everything nerdy?

Because that Star Trek reboot was pretty damn good

Assuming you don't really know/care what "Star Trek" is all about and only want to see it's surface elements skinned over a generic sci-fi action flick.

Bullshit. As someone who has watched all of TNG and most of DS9 I loved 2009's Star Trek and it definitely has some of the core principles of the franchise. The most important part of any story is its emotional core, and for Star Trek that tends to be self-sacrifice and friendship, two things the reboot was full of. Everything else is just the window dressing.

@Branthog: What endings are you even talking about? Has he even been involved in the endings of any of the TV shows he started? He didn't write the endings to any of those shows, and I don't know if he was even still involved at that point. You can't really judge him by his early work, so all you're really left with is MI3 and Super 8 which both had fine endings and Super 8 had a great last scene.

I call bullshit on your bullshit. Star Trek is about exploration and humanity reaching its zenith. Self-sacrifice is as common as water in any movie/TV show that is based around a crew/group of people.

Ugh. This, right here, is why we can't have nice things.

Things change. Abrams' Star Trek was a reboot, meaning no one cares what you think Star Trek is "about." This Star Trek was about something different. Just because something is different doesn't make it bad. If a filmmaker (or any artist) had to take into account that "oh, this part may anger some fans" or "this part isn't really in line with the source material", everything would suck and nothing creative would ever be made. It would just be iteration after iteration on the same basic ideas appeasing old fans and never trying to do anything new, which I'm sure many fans would be perfectly fine with. An artist should have a vision that is their own, not the vision of some people commenting on the internet.

If you didn't like Abrams' Star Trek, fine. That's okay. Personally, I thought it was fantastic. (that opening scene gets me every time) But to dismiss it on the fact that it's not what Star Trek is "about" is just short sighted.

@ManiacalMech said:

Oh please no. We don't need a Half-Life movie about how mysterious the aliens are.

The movie will only feature people getting face humped by headcrabs and sucked in to barnacles with an exception of the friendly alien creature.

I love how nerds calim everything they like to be nerdy now. Star Wars and video games are not nerdy, these are mainstream things you geeks. Stop trying to make yourselves feel less like geeks :)

Just fuck off already, J J.

J.J. a fan of SWERY too? Maybe a clue right under our noses.

Well I'm glad I like J.J. Abrams. Hopefully something awesome comes out of this.

Is there a video of the keynote on the internet somewhere?

When did JJ become Hollywood?

It feels like a Carfax commercial for me every time I see a Valve story.

"Yeah yeah, that's great... Just show me Half-Life 3."

Cause you know what universe is great? Half-Life.

@Nekrokreuz said:

Dig Deeper into Gabe Newell

I salute you, sir.

What a silly pose he is doing in the photo.

@FCDRandy said:

I cannot imagine a situation where Half Life or Portal as a movie are any good, JJ Abrams or not.

There's no reason they have to follow the exact plot of the video games. If they used the setting from Half Life it would be awesome. Kind of like District 9 maybe, with a very realistic feeling world, but with futuristic elements. I've always thought it would be cool to see those half life baddies on the big screen, with their stun baton and masked electronic voice. It's like a Nazi invasion in the future, but not as ugly as Killzone. And you know, Gordon Freeman is sorta like a super hero when he puts on that suit.

Get Erik Wolpaw to write the script and you'll be set.

Great now the half life or portal film will look like EA DICE made it.. LENS FLARES EVERYWHERE!

The Dig.

@JoelTGM@FCDRandy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4drucg1A6Xk Portal sure made for an awesome short by Dan Trachtenberg .p

Don't take everything Jar Jar Abrams!

@JoelTGM said:

@FCDRandy said:

I cannot imagine a situation where Half Life or Portal as a movie are any good, JJ Abrams or not.

There's no reason they have to follow the exact plot of the video games. If they used the setting from Half Life it would be awesome. Kind of like District 9 maybe, with a very realistic feeling world, but with futuristic elements. I've always thought it would be cool to see those half life baddies on the big screen, with their stun baton and masked electronic voice. It's like a Nazi invasion in the future, but not as ugly as Killzone. And you know, Gordon Freeman is sorta like a super hero when he puts on that suit.

Personally, the idea of a drama-comedy set in old Aperture starring JK Simmons as a pre-dead-cos-moon-dust Cave Johnson makes me giddy. They could be doing a bunch of dubious pseudo-science! Or maybe even founding the company! Man, any kind of Portal side-story that doesn't focus on GLaDOS or Chell would probably be amazing. A Ratman movie? A Caroline movie? A movie about the doomed Aperture Borealis ship?

@Pr1mus said:

Half-Life 3 will turn out to be a J.J. Abrams film done with Source Filmmaker with the Source 2 engine showcasing all sorts of new crazy lens flare tech.

Lens flare and real-time, silly goddamned ragdoll physics.

Considering they have mutual feelings, I feel kinda hopeful for whatever they do. Can't imagine Valve, one of the most careful studios when it comes to their games, would let anyone call the shots when it comes to their existing IPs.

@Andy_117 said:

@JoelTGM said:

@FCDRandy said:

I cannot imagine a situation where Half Life or Portal as a movie are any good, JJ Abrams or not.

There's no reason they have to follow the exact plot of the video games. If they used the setting from Half Life it would be awesome. Kind of like District 9 maybe, with a very realistic feeling world, but with futuristic elements. I've always thought it would be cool to see those half life baddies on the big screen, with their stun baton and masked electronic voice. It's like a Nazi invasion in the future, but not as ugly as Killzone. And you know, Gordon Freeman is sorta like a super hero when he puts on that suit.

Personally, the idea of a drama-comedy set in old Aperture starring JK Simmons as a pre-dead-cos-moon-dust Cave Johnson makes me giddy. They could be doing a bunch of dubious pseudo-science! Or maybe even founding the company! Man, any kind of Portal side-story that doesn't focus on GLaDOS or Chell would probably be amazing. A Ratman movie? A Caroline movie? A movie about the doomed Aperture Borealis ship?

I just don't think the story or setting of either franchise lends itself particularly well to a non-interactive experience.

Portal rewarded non-linear solutions to puzzle mechanics with a narrative that informed the setting. It was well-written and acted, but at most a Portal movie would be origin stories of ancillary characters. A Cave Johnson movie would just be a story of an eccentric industrialist who goes crazy, and then it's just "and after this, he was the guy what did the Portal thing." A Rat Man movie would just be a story of a dude on the run from robots, and then it's just "and after this, he was the guy what wrote on the walls in the Portal thing." If you're going to make those movies, just go ahead and make them independent of the Portal connection, which would be tenuous at best, even with the best writing.

Half-Life, on the other hand, has just been systematically filtered through countless rose-colored lenses that people forget what a linear and self-contained experience it was. You're a dude who shoots some bad dudes and runs away from some other stuff and then a gravity gun. That's not a good setup for a movie, and even if it were, any way you shoehorn it into the Half-Life fiction, it's still just "and then this dude was the guy who showed up at that one part in Half-Life." Both games benefit well from the depth of their writing, but not enough that thoroughly exploring the edges of these worlds or doing anything outside of continuing the stories already in progress is a worthwhile pursuit.

@Darthozzan said:

@JoelTGM@FCDRandy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4drucg1A6Xk Portal sure made for an awesome short by Dan Trachtenberg .p

This was neat, but that's exactly the depth of what a Portal movie could be, and it was only 6 minutes long.

@prestonhedges: this would make a great movie.

Soon comic-con will have only one panel with JJ announcing everything.

@Andy_117 said:

@JoelTGM said:

@FCDRandy said:

I cannot imagine a situation where Half Life or Portal as a movie are any good, JJ Abrams or not.

There's no reason they have to follow the exact plot of the video games. If they used the setting from Half Life it would be awesome. Kind of like District 9 maybe, with a very realistic feeling world, but with futuristic elements. I've always thought it would be cool to see those half life baddies on the big screen, with their stun baton and masked electronic voice. It's like a Nazi invasion in the future, but not as ugly as Killzone. And you know, Gordon Freeman is sorta like a super hero when he puts on that suit.

Personally, the idea of a drama-comedy set in old Aperture starring JK Simmons as a pre-dead-cos-moon-dust Cave Johnson makes me giddy. They could be doing a bunch of dubious pseudo-science! Or maybe even founding the company! Man, any kind of Portal side-story that doesn't focus on GLaDOS or Chell would probably be amazing. A Ratman movie? A Caroline movie? A movie about the doomed Aperture Borealis ship?

Not a movie. TV Show. Made by the Archer people. Actually, it would basically just be Archer, but with dubious science instead of spies.

Think about it. Thinkaboutit.

YES.

@Milkman: No, I disagree- making everything generic and pleasing to the mass audience is whats going to make everything suck and not be creative. I'm glad you enjoyed the movie, but really if they had stripped away the veneer of Star Trek and made up their own shit (other than name recognition and mass marketing), would it have made any difference?

What was the new Star Wars about, other than spectacle and being a cash-cow?

Hopefully something good comes out of this collaboration. I would love to see a Portal-themed or Half Life-themed movie come out of JJ and Valve working together.

Reading Abrams and Valve in the same sentence just made me think of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU_reTt7Hj4

Anyway, don't enjoy Abrams' work; do enjoy Valve's. This could go either way.

Yea, I'm totally sure the dude heading the Star Trek and Star Wars movie franchises has time to make a movie about a video game.

Straight to DVD choose your own adventure in the style of Thayer's Quest.

This is Half Life 2: Episode 3, gentlemen.

Please let it be Half-Life.

Leave my Portal alone.

I don't know how well this is going to work. Jar Jar Abrams is a talented guy, but the nature of the stories in Half-Life and Portal are so dependent on direct interaction.

The movie will be titled Half Life 3, and all will be whole.