Half-Life TV show?

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mr.chips

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Do you think a TV series should be made instead of a movie. I mean, when the movie ends, you probably would have to wait a lot of years just to see the next one. But with a TV show, you get a storyline each week and it can keep continuing. Does anyone agree with me?
 
No. I don't agree with u end. dot.
 
I always thoght it would be cool if Gman did the nightly news. lol
 
You could make a passable series set before the Seven Hour War. There's enough background fluff for it to be interesting.
 
Can't really imagine it, I would prefer a movie but if it was done well, why not?
 
THIS WEEK ON HALF LIFE TV, THE COMBINE GET THEMSELVES IN A BUNCH AFTER GORDON DOES IT FREE STYLE AT HIGHWAY 7, WHAT EVER WILL THEY DO?! THIS WEEK WEDSDAY, AFTER LOST, HERE ON ABC!
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No, just can't picture this.
 
Just imagine late night with Gman, think of the possibilities people!
 
Well, it can be set through the eyes of another character. It doesnt have to be Gordon Freeman!
 
the TV show would have a much lower budget so it wouldn't have as good actors, special effects or writers.
 
I wouldn't like either a movie or a series, what I'd like is a book, but not one like Raising the Bar, rather, a novel-esque one.
 
The only sort of movie or show I would watch based on Half-Life 2 would have to be a movie. Because then it wouldn't only be about 4 seasons long but a full length movie. They would have to have the voice actors, the original people they modeled the characters after and even then the lip-syncing would be way too hard.
 
I think TV is a much more robust format that Film for putting across a good story. I wouldn't necessarily object to a TV version of Half life whether it be a short series or it be a Mini-series. The main difficulty would lie in the fact that in the game Gordon spends much of his time alone which isn't ideal for TV. One way of getting around the singular nature of the game would be to have Barney in there from the start, either as a buddy with him, or someone he encounters/rescues along the way. The ending would probably need some changing as well, because Zen would be a hard concept to put across successfully.
 
You don't have to set it in Black Mesa. Set it during the Portal Storms. See how normal people and official government react.
 
Exactly, let any TV show or Movie expand the franchise rather than rehashing what we've already seen.
 
Either that or make it Frohman-centric. Jim Carrey anyone?
 
If JJAbrams did the writing, we would have flashbacks to each character before the portal storm
 
That's not a bad idea actually. Flashbacks helps show that these characters were once normal, and make it easier to relate to them.

Did you ever read that short story which helped inspire Half-Life? The Mist, by Stephen King? It's a pretty good showing of how mysterious monsters showing up would affect people.

I have some ideas about how such a show would work.

I figure the first episode would be a "day in the life" of all the eventual characters. Either that or do an "in media res" kind of thing, just dropping you into the life of a guy who wakes up, and goes about his routine while dodging Xen creatures like headcrabs. Exposition would be a bit of a problem, mind.

I'm not sure what arc they could have; you could have people trying to figure out what happened in the initial arc. I figure it'd be best to focus on how one community, say some isolated town, which is cut off from government aid and have to survive the attacks. That would be the first episode, and later you expand to show how government reacts.

Alternately, it could be like 24, and show how the military, specifically a branch of the HECU, have to deal with Xenbeings. I prefer this idea, because we could see how normal people react, as well as show evacuations, fortifications, stuff like that via military reports (keeping the budget down.) You also have a strong episodic deal with the HECU being called in to deal with Xen beings. It'd be like Angel, with the demon detective agency, except official, so more like SG-1. Later episodes would deal with "this crazy-ass scientist freak from Black Mesa" having crazily befriended some aliens. It could work.

The problem is the Xenbeings... with a television budget, they'd end up looking like monsters from the latest Sci-Fi whoreathon movie. You can't keep them off screen... they're an essential part of the mythos.

Also, if I was making this, I'd try not to have the anti-science theme that Jurassic Park and other scientific disaster shows tend to have. There was an element of this in the original Half-Life (though it was mostly about bureaucratic incompetence), and I'm glad it was played down, and in fact subverted in the sequels. My idea would be to show how science improves the situation, even if it had inadvertently caused it.
 
i think mini series would be fun. but the actors would suck! so not a great idea lol.
 
Only way I see this working, is they don't do the main plot related "Gordon-Freeman, Alyx Vance etc" thing and just have a separate story based on the Rebels or something.
 
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