J.J.Abrams plans to direct Portal and Half-Life films

[Lieju]

NO.

?If you don?t care about the characters, nothing matters,? Abrams said.

Well yes, I agree. Which is why the Star Trek movies, especially Wrath of Khan 2; the wrathening, failed.
The action was good, characterisation no.

Abrams and Newell used clips from ?Cloverfield,? ?Half-Life 2″ and ?Jaws? to prove their points, with Abrams also playing a scene from his first ?Star Trek? to reveal ?Star Wars?? R2-D2 floating in space in a field of debris.

Abrams revealed the robot as an example of giving audiences additional details to enjoy upon multiple viewings of a film.

?We often ask what things can we hide that people will find over time?? Abrams said.

That's just an example of a small easter-egg. Anyone can do that. That doesn't even have anything to do with the movie, it's not like some piece of foreshadowing about the mystery.
But if you make your movie actually complex and with interesting themes, then that will make people want to watch it many times.

But you can't do that, can you?
Just go and make movies about some franchise with flashy action and one-dimensional characters.

Mortal Kombat

Like that.

Portal games are very intimate stories. In the original game there's just two characters, one could argue just one. Even in the sequel you're mostly alone.
A direct adaptation would not work as a Hollywood film, it would need to be some artsy indie-film with lots of silence and nothing happening.

A story taking place in the universe, I can see working, like about what happened in Aperture when GLaDOS took over or something. Although I don't know how that would end.
You could end it with Ratman waiting for Chell to wake up, but that would mean the story would continue in the games, so as a stand-alone adaptation it wouldn't work.

 

[Reaper195]

No. Portal as a movie would be bullshit. You wouldn't be able to capture the uniquness of Portal 1/2 without the movie itself actually being boring (I.E. Silent protagonist solving puzzles while Glados speaks). As for Half-Life...maybe? I'd be much more interested in a redoing of Half-Life. I played HL2 years after it came out and it was kind of lost on me. I hated the lack of a voice for Freeman (WHich made all character interaction bullshit) and the lack of cutscenes was...not for me. You can say what you want about not being forced to watch something, but you are. I was too busy playing with that teleporter in the lab at the beginning to pay attention to what people were saying. And trying to replay that game was horse shit. Can't skip the talking and story advancements when I just wanted to drive a mint buggy.

But a movie...maybe?

 

[MagnumOsprey]

All I'm going to say is...

Why in the heck would I want to see THAT guy's "creative new take on popular games" when I can play the real deal? I'm not much of a half-life fan, I'll admit, but portal is over. Portal 2 said "Hey, guess what guys? Now it's REALLY over". I don't think there's anywhere Abrams can take it without mucking something, if not everything up.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I'll bet you anything that if they ever make a Portal movie, it'll be about a group of racially diverse stereotypes who wake up in a diabolic test chamber and must escape the torture mazes with horrific results until Chell AKA Final Girl remains to confront whoever the fuck masterminded the experiment.

With lots of lens flare.

You basically described the "Cube" series.

Which means it's perfect. It abandons the source material, it satisfies the director's quota of diversity at the expense of character development and it's not even original!

Maybe the big twist is that the whole movie takes place INSIDE the Companion Cube, and we've been watching Cube IV all along?

 

[Smooth Operator]

Oh god that's the flare guy, I really don't appreciate his efforts to burn out my retinas, perhaps this is the perfect time we start getting graphics settings in movies as well.

But on the source material I would just go completely off the game scope, wouldn't even feature the protagonists more then in flyby mentions. And then for Half Life I'd cover the period after HL1 when humanity falls, and in Portal anything before the cataclysm.

 

[Somebloke]

As far as I recall, this was back in February. Newell and Abrams had their little discussion in debate form, comparing storyelling in different media, and the movie adaptation thing amounted to no more than to them wrapping up with something along the lines of: "maybe it would be nice to work together some day, though".

 

[Lunar Templar]

$50 says the half life film is done before episode 3 is.

50 says the flim IS Half Life 3

 

[Strazdas]

I see escapist has already made better plots than the movies would actually be. well done.

JJ Abrams needs to stay away from anything that geeks love and hold dear. The man confessed a complete lack of interest and knowledge in the Star Trek universe before tackling the films, and while they are fun action flicks, they're hardly of the same sort of tone and atmosphere as everything else in the Trek canon. I don't know if he's actually a Star Wars fan or not, but I hope that they replace him with someone who'll treat the the mythos with some reverence.

IF a person who is not over-saturated by, lets be honest, ridiculous Star Trek Canon is what is needed to make the new franchise good. then so be it. i dont care about his personal interest, as long as his movies end up good ill keep watching them.

I'll bet you anything that if they ever make a Portal movie, it'll be about a group of racially diverse stereotypes who wake up in a diabolic test chamber and must escape the torture mazes with horrific results until Chell AKA Final Girl remains to confront whoever the fuck masterminded the experiment.

With lots of lens flare.

You basically described the "Cube" series.

Which means it's perfect. It abandons the source material, it satisfies the director's quota of diversity at the expense of character development and it's not even original!

Maybe the big twist is that the whole movie takes place INSIDE the Companion Cube, and we've been watching Cube IV all along?

I would love more Cube movies. at one point i tried to scour the internet for all movies that are similar to Cube. i saw like 30 similar movies. Cube was still the best of the lot. i want more, much more!

Oh god that's the flare guy, I really don't appreciate his efforts to burn out my retinas, perhaps this is the perfect time we start getting graphics settings in movies as well.

But on the source material I would just go completely off the game scope, wouldn't even feature the protagonists more then in flyby mentions. And then for Half Life I'd cover the period after HL1 when humanity falls, and in Portal anything before the cataclysm.

So you want 2012 wrapped up in half-life universe?

 

[Windcaler]

To everyone complaining about the lens flares in star trek, Abrams apparantly had a reason to do that because of his personal creative vision. He said something like he did it because he could not envision a future that wasnt that bright. Now I still dont like the lens flares (or the movie because it was a crappy action movie even by action movie standards and it wasnt star trek) I can certainly understand his artistic vision and why they were there even if I dont feel the presence of so much lens flare is appropriate

 

[Nazulu]

The same response to when I heard they wanted to revive The Terminator. WHY!!? Whats the point? How about not leeching of popular franchises and think of something that would work really well for a film? No, too advanced for you?

I truly hate the movie industry's these days. I want them all to die.

 

[Gatx]

Honestly, I can kind of see Portal. Abrams movies (just judging based on the Star Treks and MI3) have a kind of clear, sterile look to them that I think would work great with Portal. But also that game has like little to no plot and no character interaction outside of a robot voice putting down a test subject, so it's the kind of thing that would work as an artsy short film, but not a full movie since you're lacking in the "thinking with portals" department that makes up the majority of the experience.

 

[Undomesticated Equine]

Well i hoped that HL and Portal movies would be directed by Guillermo del Toro. This is troubling news.

 

[skywolfblue]

I could see a good movie being made with Half Life 2. I'm not sure Half Life 1 would work so well...

But Portal? I can't see that working out.

 

[Olas]

My current impression of JJ Abrams.

I don't really see the point in making movies from these games. The games told the stories as well as they needed to be told, we don't need tie ins going into further detail. Besides, the only people attracted to this will be fans of the games, who will almost certainly also be the most critical if they change anything or get it wrong.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

I don't get why we need any of these movies. Either do a straight adaptation of the game and give it a new director's flair, or do nothing at all, because more often than not video game movies with original stories are like bad fan fiction or should be considered non-canon.

How exactly would one make a good adaptation of Portal? A game where the main character never speaks and half the time is spent doing puzzles. Half life is much the same. I think the only game series that would work as a movie if given to a competent director is the MGS series, but that would only be in a Harry Potter/LOTR-style adaptation.

For portal, I'd imagine something such as a "fall of Aperture" plot. It would be either about Ratman or some other scientist that was trying to survive GlaDOS's first attack. For Half-life, idk what they'd do. Also, a film adaptation of MGS would be hella interesting. I'd honestly like to see a film adaptation of the original Metal Gear Solid. For the sequel, I'd like to see it follow snake's journey through the Big Shell.

I really wouldn't like those ideas if they were put into film, mainly because they tell stories that don't/shouldn't be told. We learn a lot about the fall of aperture from in-game easter eggs and references, if it was shown to us the impact of learning it all for yourself would be diminished. As for the Big Shell idea, we really don't need that. We know most of what Snake was doing whilst Raiden was in the Big Shell, and the Snake's Tales part of MGS2: Substance also gives us a ton of info. A good film adaption of MGS2 would pretty much be a straight adaptation but update the final messages for the newer, modern world and make it a critique of movie sequels and expectations instead of game sequels and expectations.

The problem with pretty much any idea for a game movie is "Does it really need to be told", which is why I think there should be more straight adaptions instead of side-stories.

 

[KOMega]

My current impression of JJ Abrams.

I'm not much of a movie person and don't know if I've seen any of this dude's films, but he seems to be getting a lot of important IPs... It kinda worries me that a lot of stuff in in one basket.

 

[RJ 17]

I could see a Portal movie working, but ONLY if they pulled it off PERFECTLY, and doing that would be VERY difficult. They'd have to treat it as an exact representation of the game. The only voice throughout the whole thing would have to be GLaDOS, the main character can't say a single word. For that matter, there could only be one person in the movie (other than GLaDOS, that is). With a game as cherished as Portal, anything else would feel like a complete bastardization and REALLY piss fans off.

The only other way I could see it working as more of a movie-type thing would be if they went with "humorous mockumentary" showing the history of Aperture Science with Cave Johnson as the main character. I'm just worried if they try anything outside the realm of the games, like a movie where Portal technology has been released to the public, then it's going to bomb horribly.

As for that list of other game movies.......is that a list of stuff that will be tried AND has been tried? Or a list of what's coming down the pipe and thus will be tried? If so..............another Mortal Kmobat movie? Good god....

 

[RicoADF]

Nooooooooooooooooooooo! The glare, the unholy glare!

Portal as a JJ movie, gah my eyes!!!
Lens flare.... all that lens flare.....

Seriously this guy needs to be kept away from Valve games, he'd kill of the franchises in 1 fell swoop. Quick start a partition letting Gabe know to tell abrams to jump in the lake fast!