Gore Verbinski might be able to make a fantastic "BioShock" movie. Mike Newell may have a killer "Prince of Persia" in him. But after going to see "Wall-E" last weekend the movie I'd like to see made is a Pixar-animated version of "Portal."
Or maybe that's what I just saw. If you go see "Wall-E" you're seeing -- sort of -- "Portal: The Movie." If you're a "Portal" fan, you'll see a twist that could radically transform the gameplay of a "Portal 2."
The "Portal" connection can't technically be found in "Wall-E." It appears right before the movie. Like most (all?) Pixar moves, "Wall-E" is preceded by a short. Before "Wall-E" runs, moviegoers get to see a brief computer-animated comedy called "Presto," which stars a rabbit who is at odds with his magician-master over the consumption of a carrot. The gimmick for almost all of the gags in the cartoon is a pair of magical hats that share an unreal connection. What goes into one hat comes out the other. Ideally, that's how the magician in "Presto" fetches his rabbit. The rabbit wears a purple hat. The magician reaches into his top-hat. His hand passes into the cone hat and, when he pulls it back, he should have rabbit in hand.The problem is that if the rabbit's angry, it does things like putting its hat on an electric socket. The magician pokes his fingers into his top-hat and winds up sticking them into a high-voltage current.
Late in "Presto," the magician plummets high above his stage, and falls into his hat, only to pop up into the air as he is ejected from the second upturned hat. It's a sequence as clever as a puzzle in "Portal." It suits the game, because the connection between the hats in "Presto" is the same connection that exists between the blue and orange portals in "Portal."
In Valve's acclaimed game you can shoot one portal onto a wall, the other on the ceiling and then walk through the wall in order to drop from the ceiling. Valve's designers constructed some clever puzzles upon this simple concept. My favorite is a looping, multi-portal leap that I dubbed my favorite video game move of 2007.
Leaving "Wall-E," I thought back to "Presto" and how it could relate to a "Portal" sequel. I don't think I'd want a new "Portal" game to feature rabbits or magicians. But what if all those portals we lay down in a new game could be moved? What if they could be placed in front of the electric socket just as we're about to put our character's hand threw them?
Portals aren't new. They're not new to cartoons or even to Pixar, which had some fun with them in "Monsters, Inc." And maybe the world doesn't need a "Portal" movie. I think that's what makes "Presto" all the sweeter for "Portal" players: go to the movie and check out what could have been and what "Portal" could be if the stakes were raised from cake to a delicious carrot.
[Image and more info for "Presto" can be found at Pixar's official site.]