Halo (Paramount+)

[Mera'din 308]

So this is finally happening:

 

 

 

Doesn't look terrible. Some of it seemed a little weird vs what I've seen in the games, and hearing a different voice for Master Chief is going to be weird. Wonder if they just couldn't get the original guy or didn't want to? The person playing Cortana is just her voice actress, but people seem to be pretty upset she's not blue.  

 

I have no intention of getting Paramount+, especially for this, but I'll watch it eventually in some fashion or another I guess.

[MT 917]

I was just about to post this myself. It looks pretty good. I'm not sure how I feel about this human villain that looks to be leading the Covenant forces. They've never done anything like that in the games as far as I know, so it seems kind of odd. 

[Mera'din 308]

Yeah, that was a little weird too, but I don't think she was leading them. There was a shot of the throne/senate/whatever room with the 3 prophets (maybe. Was hard to see since it was pretty zoomed out). The way she talked too, she might not actually be human but that could just be the phrasing. Maybe they have a faction of humans that joined them too in this?  

 

Seems like they made Halsey a fair bit younger looking too. Hopefully they don't show Master Chiefs face. They got away with it (mostly) in the Mandalorian, so they can certainly do it here. XD

 

I know this is supposed to be an adaptation and not part of the game canon, so I'm sure there will be a fair number of differences. I don't have any real stock in the game series though so I can probably get over most anything they'd do as long as its good. 

[webhead 519]

I really do not like how Cortana looks at all.  There is some serious fucking uncanny valley shit going on there and the design is just unnerving a bit in general.  I'm used to her being blue or purplish.  Seems like a really arbitrary thing to change.

 

Other than that, interesting.  Wondering if the "human" with the covenant just TAKES that form.  Saw weird tentacles like the Gravemind thing from Halo 2.  Maybe it's supposed to be that or some other thing that is just taking human form (she does say something about "HUMANS" at one point).

 

Definitely not getting Paramount+ for this though.

[webhead 519]

 

 

[Revolver 27]

Its odd to make a show out of this property. A movie is a better fit, where you can just go all out with effects. It’s really amazing that they haven’t made a movie or show out of this until now.

[Mera'din 308]

They have. More than once. Just not in typical formats/platforms.

 

There was a legit big budget movie planned as well but that sat in development hell for a number of years before rights eventually reverted back to Microsoft, and morphed into a series of shorts directed by Neill Blomkamp (who had been set to direct the movie).

 

Halo: Forward Unto Dawn was a movie length feature that was released on DVD after they showed it in 15-min. segments as a web show initially.

 

Halo: Nightfall was another feature length thing produced by Ridley Scott and split up into a mini-series that was released with the Master Chief Collection and "aired" via an XBox app of some sort (and, as I learned too late, apparently goes a long way to explain why should give a fuck about half the characters in Halo 5).

 

They also did an animated anthology series released straight to DVD/BluRay ala The Animatrix, and an animated series titled "The Fall of Reach" that was included with the special editions of Halo 5.

 

There are also various other live action shorts that have been made.

[webhead 519]

9 hours ago, Mera'din said:

and, as I learned too? late, apparently goes a long way to explain why should give a fuck about half the characters in Halo? 5?

I doubt it does the job.  That game was poop.

 

At least Halo Infinite was interesting.  I actually had fun with that game.

 

I've definitely never watched any of the Halo media though.  Is any of it ACTUALLY good?

[Mera'din 308]

I haven't watched any of it, but it had some pretty solid names attached to them so maybe.

 

I hadn't played any of the games until recently and was trying to power through them so didn't worry about any of the extra shit. Couldn't play 5 since it was Xbox exclusive, but watched the cutscenes. I honestly think I wouldn't have minded that one if there had been any damn context going into it. Feels like there was a game missing in between 4 and 5. Infinite suffers from the same thing. The place where 5 ended and where Infinite starts feels like there was an entire games worth of shit missing, and I REALLY don't want to collect 5000 audio logs to fill in the blanks. Though they did a MUCH better job of half ass explaining stuff semi-quickly vs 5 just fucking off and not caring if you knew what was going on or not so there's that at least. 

 

These games definitely had a story problem though. Outside of 1 and 2, everything has been confusing as fuck and barely explained half the time. They just keep throwing new enemy factions at you each game and it never stops. Really hoping the show condenses some of that shit and makes it work better.  

[webhead 519]

The actual story of Infinite is finding out what the fuck was happening in a sense.  I didn't mind that it felt like I missed something even though for most of the game I was like....is this what happened in Halo 5???

[MT 917]

First episode wasn't bad. They made the Elites way more frightening in 30 seconds than the games ever have, was totally not expecting that. I saw some stuff earlier in the week about how someone high up on the show (I think maybe the director, not 10)% sure) mentioned they didn't even bother to look at the games at all, which had me a bit worried. You can kind of tell, as the story isn't (so far) anything relating to the games. There's the Master Chief, the UNSC, the Covenant, Reach is a thing, there's other Spartans, and so far that's really it. Chief even takes his helmet off in the last 10 minutes or so of the episode, which I wasn't expecting.

 

I'll keep watching for now, I enjoyed what I saw in this.