Portal (film)
| Portal, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Fire up the Incinerator | |
| |
| Directed by | Uwe Boll |
| Written by | Bob across the Street |
| Starring | Mark Hamill as Michelle "Chell" Aperture/Chell Johnson, James Earl Jones as Dr Clive Johnson, Hillary Clinton as the voice of GLaDOS |
| Produced by | Jerry Bruckheimer |
| Distributed by | Valve |
| Release date | 12/21/12 (Valve Time) |
| Runtime | Estimated at 1:30:31 |
| Language | Mostly harmless. Oh, you mean English or French? English. |
| Budget | Not a lot |
Portal is an upcoming film based loosely on the virally marketed, widely acclaimed video game Portal. The film is still in production; however, early reviews and lawsuits are abysmal.
History[edit | edit source]
When Valve finally decided PC gaming was dead, it decided to venture into new areas of media. This included a classic old medium, i.e. films. Valve created a subsidiary, Valve Studios (to which all the rights to those neat little TF2 videos were transferred also). This was to ensure the quality of the films, and not repeat the past failures of video game films.
Valve Studios' first project was the live-action film version of Half-Life. Unable to get a cast, they eventually turned this project into a machinima, and basically recorded someone playing the game. This, as one would expect, was a huge flop except with the critics, who praised the "low-quality graphics ahead of our time" and the "silence of the protagonist, as well as the innovative first-person perspective of the entire film." This incident showed the complete lack of video game literacy among movie critics.
They moved on to a live-action Portal film, for which they were more easily able to get cast members because of the good reviews for Half-Life. Mark Hamill, a dark horse, was revealed to have gotten a drag role, playing Michelle "Chell" Johnson in the film. James Earl Jones naturally signed on immediately after as Chell's father, Dr Clive Johnson. Hillary Clinton, in an attempt to raise funds for her 2012 presidential campaign, reluctantly agreed to play the role of the cold-hearted AI, GLaDOS.
The script was finished on July, and shooting began around August in an underground facility. The shooting script was unexpectedly leaked over BitTorrent, to which Valve Studios said, "Yeah, that's our script. Can we have it back?"
Synopsis[edit | edit source]
Michelle "Chell" Johnson (played by Mark Hamill), a physics student at Ohio State University, takes time off her studies and drives to the suburbs of Cleveland in order to visit her estranged father, Dr Clive Johnson, in the Aperture Science facility. Dr Johnson is developing "something big" according to a colleague in the hallway. While Chell is on her way to her father's laboratory with the half-hearted careless directional aid of a new AI called GLaDOS (voiced by Hillary Clinton), she sees a green mist suddenly spreading out across the facility. People near her scream in great panic. People in the distance run around madly. Pretty much everyone (all played by Oscar Wilde) screams and runs around madly in great panic. Chell does the logical thing and passes out.
The film flashes back to Clive Johnson's laboratory. Dr Johnson (played by James Earl Jones) has just finished the portal gun when the green mist starts to spread. Johnson passes out and dies.
“[deleted expletive]”
The scene cuts to Chell, waking up amid ten rocket-toting robots. Chell evades them in a flash by getting them to shoot each other (in Chell's words, "what a cliche"), and discovers the portal gun lying on the floor. Almost immediately, with mandatory dramatic flair, a turret flies down. Chell manipulates the portals so that the turret whizzes into one and flies out of another.
Chell runs through the empty, deserted facility, and hears the familiar voice of GLaDOS. GLaDOS reveals she has dispersed neurotoxin throughout the facility as an experiment on the viability of human life when exposed to neurotoxin. In that respect, GLaDOS notes, Chell is an outlier, and must be terminated. Chell runs for her life, but passes out promptly. A moment later, Chell wakes up. She is in a stasis bed, in a Relaxation Vault. She escapes using the portal gun, and GLaDOS announces Chell has been given a new identity, Michelle Aperture. She finds herself in a labyrinth of test chambers, chased by the Combine, G-Man (who she briefly has a relationship with), headcrabs, flying turrets, destructive robots, KARR, and whatnot. Several cliched action sequences later, Chell arrives at the central computing room. After a drink of tea, an extremely canned political debate on human experimentation, and some fighting, GLaDOS says she can put Chell's dad on the line. Dr Clive Johnson is heard from the loudspeakers.
“What did you wake me up for?”
But his voice sounds synthesised; still Chell confirms through some questions that he is her father. It turns out that Dr Johnson was resurrected inside of the computer after dying in his laboratory. Chell is explained every single detail of the portal gun by Dr Johnson, which drives her mad enough to press the facility self-destruct button. Magically, she wakes up in a faraway planet surrounded by the Nihilanth race. There, she runs through a Stargate into Black Mesa, where she finds all chaos broken loose.
Quotes[edit | edit source]
GLaDOS: You are an outlier. You will be ... missed.
Chell: But that's data fabrication!
GLaDOS: No, it's merely enhancing the truth.
Chell: That is data fabrication.
GLaDOS: Hey, you'll be dead. You won't know by the time I finish the thing because you'll be far too dead to notice.
Controversy[edit | edit source]
Portal fans were angered in staying after the credits and, instead of a neat little song or something, finding a black screen. Portal fans were also angered at the elimination of the Weighted Companion Cube and cake plot devices.
See also[edit | edit source]
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