video clip

[EvilJekyll]

D'aww

This has probably been posted before, but I still find Stephen Fry's What I Wish I'd Known When I Was 18 rather mood boosting.

[Zombie Protestor]

A fan-made Portal movie with near-cinema quality on its production. I wouldn't mind 84 more minutes of this expanded as a Portal movie.

Speaking of Portals, we haven't heard from Portals (the Spamuser) in a while, not since May of 2010.

[ntw3001]

This has probably been posted before, but I still find Stephen Fry's What I Wish I'd Known When I Was 18 rather mood boosting.

Stephen Fry usually has a pretty worthwhile opinion, but sometimes I find him a touch sanctimonious. Here he is bitching about people who talk about themselves, in a half-hour piece to camera wherein he tells thousands of viewers exactly what he thinks. Stephen Fry can say 'I'm sure you don't want to hear about my life' while knowing that you've probably already read his autobiographies. He claims to recognise the sweetness of his deal and the range of opportunities made available to him, but seems rather oblivious to the fact that everybody needs attention and not everybody can just get it. He's apparently (according to the aforementioned autobiographies) never had trouble obtaining sufficient attention to keep him comfortable, and is rather unfairly scornful of those who do. Not that I'm under the impression that every self-obsessed bore is actually pitiably lonely and just in need of validation, but it just seems that Stephen Fry takes a certain level of attention for granted.

Not that I particularly want to criticise the whole piece, but that particular thing does bug the hell out of me.

[Binkatron5000]

A fan-made Portal movie with near-cinema quality on its production. I wouldn't mind 84 more minutes of this expanded as a Portal movie.

Speaking of Portals, we haven't heard from Portals (the Spamuser) in a while, not since May of 2010.

I was wondering about Portals just the other day. Portypants, wheeeere aaaaare yoooooouuuu?

[badplantmommy]

A fan-made Portal movie with near-cinema quality on its production. I wouldn't mind 84 more minutes of this expanded as a Portal movie.

Speaking of Portals, we haven't heard from Portals (the Spamuser) in a while, not since May of 2010.

I was wondering about Portals just the other day. Portypants, wheeeere aaaaare yoooooouuuu?

Yeah, I've been wondering where Portals went too.

[fanelian]

Me too. And also, Maychorian. Particularly because I recall her having some sort of illness.

[Judas Maccabeus]

Agreed on both counts, but particularly Portals. We've had people return after a while in other cases, though, so at least I haven't lost hope.

[James]

A fan-made Portal movie with near-cinema quality on its production. I wouldn't mind 84 more minutes of this expanded as a Portal movie.

I don't know. It was quite effectively realized, but beyond the thrill of recognition, I'm not really sure that this short offers enough of interest to be extended into a feature-length. Sure, the Truman Show thing at the end is new, but I don't really see it sustaining a whole film. I think a lot of what was great about Portal was the sense of discovery and, towards the end, exploration. I doubt either thing would be as effective in a non-interactive format.

I don't mean to say that a Portal film would be terrible, but I don't really get especially excited for the idea, not least because what makes for a brilliant gameplay mechanic may turn out pretty gimmicky and shallow on film.

[Zombie Protestor]

Me too. And also, Maychorian. Particularly because I recall her having some sort of illness.

I mentioned her a while back, and there is some hope of finding her again. She picked her name from the world she created for her fantasy writings, which was Maychoria (so her username is as if she is a resident of this place). I did a google search for it and found her stuff on livejournal, but she never replied.

EDIT: Portals (the game) really didn't have much plot except for the back story. If we're focusing on Chell or whoever this is, we don't get to go into that backstory. So being a puzzle game, I'm not sure what you can do to stretch it out.

[James]

Well exactly. It was a journey, but not much of a story. It's like that Shadow of the Colossus film they were (are still?) apparently going to make. I really enjoyed that game, but I don't think it'd be as effective as a passive experience.

Of course, in either case you could (and probably would) go other ways with the story, but at that point I start to wonder why one should bother linking it to the game.

[Zombie Protestor]

In general, video games make for poor movies. They have a pretty simple core plot and a lot of side quests or gearing up stuff that nobody wants to watch in theaters. The Zelda movie that people keep hoping they'll make would probably meet a similar fate as the Mario Bros movie, as there's not much you can do with the plot.

[MysticalDescent]

In general, video games make for poor movies. They have a pretty simple core plot and a lot of side quests or gearing up stuff that nobody wants to watch in theaters. The Zelda movie that people keep hoping they'll make would probably meet a similar fate as the Mario Bros movie, as there's not much you can do with the plot.

Video game movies should include all the original game's glitches. Then they should make a Fallout New Vegas film, where the protagonist wonders why those radscorpions seem to be wedged, head first, into the floor, but are still moving around normally, or why the kindly old lady at that shack a while back is now in the middle of a solar power plant attacking you like a crazy old cat lady. It'd be fun. They could make a pokemon movie with Glitch City.

[James]

In general, video games make for poor movies. They have a pretty simple core plot and a lot of side quests or gearing up stuff that nobody wants to watch in theaters. The Zelda movie that people keep hoping they'll make would probably meet a similar fate as the Mario Bros movie, as there's not much you can do with the plot.

That's very true, although I'd say in most cases (or at least in the case of action games), the reason is that games tend to focus an awful lot on repetitive actions (or "verbs", as I once heard someone referring to them as). Where in a film you generally want to avoid repetition, it is to a certain degree welcome in games, albeit with variation. The action is the nature of your participation with the game, and you want to repeat it.

With games like Portal, which is more of a puzzle game, with perhaps a touch of adventure, the focus isn't so much on repetition. I mean, sure, you shoot a lot of portals, but it's all about gradually building up your repertoire of puzzle-solving techniques and approaches, and then eventually calling back to them without the prompting you were given before. A bit like lessons and exams. Which is no sort of a revelation to anyone reading this, of course – it's long been said that the bulk of Portal is basically an extended tutorial for the end of the game, but my point is that watching somebody else learn and figure out something is fundamentally less interesting than learning it and figuring it out for yourself. Sure, most games would and do make terrible films, but when the subject matter is pretty much just shooting dudes within some specific aesthetic parameters, there could be space to squeeze a passable movie plot in there somewhere. I'm not sure the same space is there for things like Portal.

I don't know, perhaps I'm being too hastily dismissive. GLaDOS is a fun character, and I think the Half-Life universe could certainly support other forms of fiction. I think they'd have to be more removed from the games than that, though; trying to ape the games or retell their stories would be missing the point. Calling the film Portal, for example, would make it about the gun, which doesn't really make a good subject for a film. You could make it pivotal to the climax of the film or whatever, but that would inevitably be pretty contrived. Of course, they'd want to call it that, for brand recognition and so on, and at some point that seems to matter more than relevance to the actual plot. I think that fan-made HL2 short was more along the right tracks, in telling an ancillary story, although I might even move further from the games than that (by which I mean telling different stories in the same world, not changing details of the world – I'm not especially protective of canon, but once you start changing things like that, there comes a point where you might as well start a new fiction).

I'm not necessarily saying that any of this would be a good idea, but if one were to do a film in any way related to Portal, I think that would be the way to go. Maybe tracking the downfall of Aperture, or the fate of some other arm of the company not seen in the games, or whatever. But perhaps that would detract from Valve's commitment to ambient story-telling, which I really admire and appreciate.

I'm rambling!

[quetzalcoatlus]

I'm back, and I come bearing men being massive jerks about their coffee.

[Skimba]

The links from that video made me laugh. I admit i9t. It may be the beer, but I found them amusing for the first 3.

[ntw3001]

I'm back, and I come bearing men being massive jerks about their coffee.

The scene at 0.20 could be in The Shining.

[PonderThis]

That's freakin' hilarious Quetz! Thanks for a good morning laugh there.

[Zombie Protestor]

Even if you don't like Dragonball Z, you might appreciate Team Four Star's DBZ Abridged. Scroll down to the bottom of the listing to start watching from the beginning. Me, being a former fan, thought it all doubly hilarious.

Vegeta: Yeah I'm fan-f*cking-tastic, nothing but gumdrops and ice cream in here.
Goku: Ooh can I come in too?
Vegeta: ...I'm surrounded by idiots.
Goku: I thought you were surrounded by gumdrops and icecream.
Vegeta: AHHHHHH!!!!!!

[EvilJekyll]

Cybergoth Dance Party.

[jvcc]

Cybergoth Dance Party.

I have so many questions. Is the guy in white mocking them? Why are they all facing one direction when they're dancing? Why are they under a bridge? Are goths allowed to dance?

[James]

Why are they all facing one direction when they're dancing?

I think I like this the most. A lot of people dancing in the same place at the same time and yet each of them strangely alone.

(I'd guess they're all facing the camera because they're doing an extremely low-budget low-concept music video, or because they're all narcissists.)

[chrismachine]

whyyy sooo serrrrioussss hahahaha

[Binkatron5000]

Hahaha that's how my ex danced. He was a star at the goth clubs

[PonderThis]

I had some goth clubs once.

No wait, that was golf clubs.

(I gave'em away)

[quetzalcoatlus]

Happiness Is Very Happy: What happens when you get a three year old to write pop song lyrics.