Speaking with PC Gamer, Gabe Newell said that the only way a Half-Life movie will be made is if Valve is at the helm.
In his discussion with the PC gaming magazine, Newell said that, after the release of Half-Life, there were numerous film offers but the development studio turned them down because they didn’t feel anyone but Valve could create an appropriate Half-Life film that didn’t butcher the storyline.
“As a WoW player, I would much rather that the WoW team made the movie, right? Than anybody else. I like Sam Raimi, I’ve been a fan ever since Evil Dead came out, but I would rather see Blizzard making the movie,†said Newell.
“We think that customers are like, ‘OK, we’re kind of sick and tired of the way you guys are slicing and dicing the experience of being a fan of Harry Potter, or Half-Life, or The Incredibles, and you need to fix it.’ And the people that fix it will be rewarded, and the people that don’t will be on the rubbish heap of history, or whatever the phrase is.
“Where we got into this direction was afterÂ
Half-Life 1 had shipped. There was a whole bunch of meetings with people from Hollywood. Directors down there wanted to make aÂ
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.
“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.â€
In gaming, there are few properties as sacred asÂ
Half-Life. The series didn’t invent the first person shooter, but what it did was completely reinvent what a first person shooter could be.Â
Half-Life involved the player to an extent that no other first person shooter had done. Rather than employing cutscenes, everything takes place through the protagonist Gordon Freeman’s eyes. This is exemplified by the opening sequence of the game, in which Freeman rides on a train through the gigantic Black Mesa research facility. He can move around the train, taking in the sights of gigantic southwestern desert mesas and sterile underground lab environments. As he arrives at the station, he goes about his business, meeting colleagues, suiting up in his environmental hazard suit, and eventually, setting off a resonance cascade that brings aliens onto Earth. Experiencing that while being able to control the character was revolutionary, and the immersive gameplay combined with excellent AI, a fantastic story, and endearing characters to create a series that is nearly untouchable in the gaming community.
Unfortunately, almost all game-to-film translations are awful, and by refusing to allow their title to be used by Hollywood, Valve is maintaing the series’ excellence. There is little more damaging to a series than a very bad movie. It not only can make an excellent video game story seem awful, but it can deter gamers from purchasing the next game in a series.
It’s a difficult transition from game to film (and vice-versa), and Valve should be commended for wanting to keepÂ
Half-Life original and untainted.