Freeman on film

Hmmm. Oddly, I feel I should be overcome with horror at the thought, but I'm not - I think it'd make a great film. They'd have to do extremely well to make it a very good one, which of course they're not - it'll get farmed out to some talentless music-video idiot, will star Jason Biggs as Gordon and will be yet another God-awful exercise in Hollywood failing to understand gaming - but the plot, cheesy though it is, is plenty good enough. Let's not forget, there's the hallowed company of Lara Croft:Tomb Raider, or Resident Evil in the Hollywood annals.

However... both of those films traded heavily on their female stars and raked in a lot of sweaty and acrid-scented cash from immature menfolk. Gordon, bless 'im, isn't exactly a sex symbol, and while the notion of his part being assayed by, say, George Clooney would correct this - and would make it a bloody good film - it's not all that likely, particularly as his post-Solaris career plan is probably headed with NO MORE SCI-FI, SWEET JESUS NO scrawled in blood-red ink. I digress. Anyway, if they (a) avoid casting whatsername from the sequel (a notion I regret even as I type it, as the film won't come out before HL2 and thus my opinion of her will have changed dramatically by them, but, hey, stream of conciousness and all that and actually gosh if that's the case I don't need punctuation ahaha God that's going to annoy me when I read it back again I wonder if I'll actually proof it?) (b) cast someone who can actually act - let's pretend George, or Edward Norton for Gordon, and.... oh, Tommy Lee Jones as the G-man, that'll get some geek cred. Furthermore, they shouldn't neglect (c) having a decent special effects budget. In fact, something akin to Men in Black would go down quite nicely, actually, only with a hefty dose of Alien-style creeping horror.

Actually, yeah. Alien. That's the stuff. Ignore everything I've just written, and think Alien, with a load more weapons, a huge special effects budget, and some properly innovative camera work. Hell, you could even have Lance Henrikssen as Gordon; look at the images (ignoring the airbrushed beauty of the HL2 renders) and there's even a distinct resemblance. Also starring: Tommy Lee Jones as the G-Man, Guy Pierce as Barney, and Christopher Lee, Stan Lee, CliffyB, Derek Smart, Dave McCarthy, Kieron Gillen, Gabe Newell and Simon Byron et al cameoing as Doomed Scientists #64 through #4,603.

Okay, I am quite hung over. But I still think it's doable. If only as a back-page in-joke.

I'm going to go away now.