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Back in the heyday of Half Life, around 1999 or so, a British marketing agency produced a short film based on the mega-popular FPS Half-Life which was intended to be used as advertisement. However, Sierra and Valve, the publisher and developer of the game, refused to give them permission to release it.
Why you ask? Probably because the film is so bad that it would convince some people to stay far away from the game. The movie feels like it was shot on a home video camera, which it probably was.
The movie tries to give a reason for its shitty quality (I'll talk about that later), but I'm not biting. The movie looks like it was filmed by a bunch of high-schoolers in a few empty rooms of a school or office complex.
The movie opens with the sounds of an air raid. Not just any aid raid though, the exact sound clips of an air raid from the Half-Life game. If there's one thing about this movie that I have to hate the most (and believe me, there's a ton to hate), it's the use of the actual sound clips from Half-Life.
At first you think they were purposely trying to be retarded with this project, maybe making a spoof or something. But then it becomes painfully aware that they were actually trying with this thing. If you can't even afford to record some new sound effects for your video game movie, perhaps you shouldn't make one to start with.
After the thrilling air-raid, in which we see no planes or explosions but hear the sound clips instead, we see a lone guard patrolling a wall. That's strike two. If you're making a movie based on a game in which an entire military squadron tries to kill one guy, you had better be able to have more than one soldier in the movie. The lone guard isn't enough to keep out hero out- a scrawny dork with a hand-held camera who ducks and covers on the ground when the "air raid" hits.
Judging from the opening, the makers of the film couldn't find an abandoned building in a canyon, which is where Black Mesa is in the game. Instead they settled on a lush, green lawn, probably in the backyard of their parents' house.
After expertly infiltrating a top secret government installation by walking through the open front door, the reporter runs down a hallway and turns his awesome camcorder on. He introduces himself to the camera as Jazz Darvey. He establishes contact with his co-anchor, who tells him it's too dangerous and to get the hell out of there. Jazz refuses, saying that this story is his big ticket.
I realize that getting footage of some super top secret shit at a military base is a ticket to stardom (and a ticket to the military killing you), but I don't understand how Jazz means to get this footage when half of the time he's filming his own greasy face talking into the camera.
"Jazz" stumbles upon a lone scientist hiding under a table with a dead solider nearby. They only had one soldier costume, so you'll see the same dead guy throughout the movie. Perhaps it's a Weekend at Bernie's II type thing and he gets up and moves whenever they film plays a recycled Half-Life sound clip.
The scientist refuses to leave his super awesome hiding space, because no one will ever find him under a table. The film's greatest special effect comes next, with Ghostbusters slime dripping from the ceiling. What nefarious creature could secrete such a thing?
Jazz, being the great reporter that he is, decides not to investigate and runs away. Apparently the scientist dies, as they play a Half-Life sound clip of a gunshots and a scientist screaming.
Next we switch to the movie's other big effect, the "Alien Vision Camera." It's just like the normal camera, except it's in funkadelic colors and you have no idea what the fuck is going on- which is a good thing. The aliens have the benefit of not having to watch this mess.
After accomplishing the amazing feat of climbing up a ladder while still filming his doughy face from above, Jazz finds himself starring down the barrel of a soldier's gun. Just when it looks like he'll die and make the audience happy, a mysterious figure shoots the soldier.
The camera pans up to the assailant- a dumpy English woman with a gun. "Come with me if you want to live," she says, and the film ends with Jazz following her, leaving the audience heartbroken that we don't know what happens to our hero. Thankfully the story wasn't "to be continued."
The problems with the short film mostly come from the budget. With a budget of five dollars, it's hard to accurately depict a huge, top secret government complex in a large canyon in which a full-scale alien invasion takes place.
Getting your ROTC friends to prance around in an empty building while you film it with your mother's camera just isn't going to do a game justice. It's not hard to understand why Sierra never wanted this abomination to see the light of day, but I personally wish they had tried harder.
Maybe they should have taken a cue from Half-Life and bombed the studio that made this film, just like Black Mesa. There's one last curiosity at the end of the video that is of note:
Team Fortress II- Coming soon! Well, it's 2003 and I still don't see it, but at least we've got Half-Life 2 coming out to knock our socks off. Maybe another ad firm will make a HL2 movie set in which Gordon Freeman infiltrates the alien mother ship. They can film it inside a McDonald's playplace.
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