The Ultimate Superheroines Forum

I watch these things, so you don't have to (unless, of course, you want to).
The Halo series is a military sci-fi television show based on the extremely popular video game which I knew almost nothing about (other than the name "Master Chief"), but I was surprised to find out is actually based on the names of many actual star systems in Earth's general stellar neighborhood.

It takes place in the 26th century in the Orion Arm region of the galaxy, where humanity has at some point colonized about 800 worlds under the iron fist of the United Nations Space Command. There are also a handful of worlds in the Outer Colonies but their rebellions are in the process of being crushed in the pursuit of resource acquisition (especially deuterium, which is needed to power the ships). The UNSC's most powerful weapons in this conflict are the Spartans, a small group of elite superhuman soliders (called the Silver Team) who almost can't be killed. It's unclear why there are only a handful of them - you'd think if the UNSC could build four of them, then they could build hundreds. Maybe they only have four so that the Spartans can't take over.

The opposition in this universe is a confederation of alien beings called The Covenant who worship the ancient alien artifacts of a previously prosperous galactic race called The Forerunners. Also in league with The Covenant is a human female named Makee (relationship to the term 'Maquis' from Deep Space Nine, etc, unknown) who serves the same traitorous function as Baltar does with the Cylons of Battlestar Galactica.

The main character in this story is a Spartan named John 117 who interfaces with an AI named Cortana. Also prominent in the story is an added character who never appeared in the games: a young Asian girl named Kwan Ha who serves as kind of a snotty rebellious type...a Rose Tico with more gumption, if you will. She seems totally unnecessary to the story, but she's there, so deal with it.

The universe of the TV show is substantially different in several important ways (including the existence of Kwan Ha, and the existence of her planet, Madrigal) from the actual Halo game. For this reason, Halo gamers call the show's universe "The Silver Timeline" after the Silver Team. It looks like they were trying to tell more expansive stories than the game universe would allow,
but you can also see parallels in "casting agenda" between this show and many other recent shows (including the show "From", where I just finished Season 1).

Got to say, there isn't much beauty in this world, nor many beautiful women, at least not yet. There's a bunch of stark killing scenes, a junky asteroid belt full of reprobates (similar to the Belters in The Expanse), a female scientist named Halsey who is a ruthlessly cold experimenter (she kills her own clone for scientific progress!), and some pretty great-looking aliens from The Covenant. There's also a completely devised conlang (done by the same guy who created Game of Thrones' Dothraki) for the Covenant's "Sangheili" lingua franca. On this website, you can read the actual text of the Sangheili lines in the script - it's pretty cool.
https://archiveofourown.org/series/2828287

Alright, I don't think I really gave that much away, because this universe did take a fair amount of explanation anyway.
I watched the first three episodes, and my analysis is that the visuals are stunning but this is kind of a poor man's version of
Battlestar Galactica or The Expanse. If you are familiar with the video game, you might think otherwise, but I have seen some Youtube videos where longtime Halo fans have a big problem with this show, and they rip it apart (for example, they seem to have a huge problem with Master Chief showing his face and body so much..way more than the Mandalorian does).

But I've no need to be that brutal.
So what did you think of the Halo series so far?

It's a mish mash of "Whats!?" "Meh..." and begrudging 'its okay' moments tbh. I am giving it a watch merely cause we happen to have Paramount Plus and..... its okay... not terrible... not fantastic. It's bound to offend die hard fans of the games... I've seen a lot of people complaining about the Chiefs helmet coming off like that should work and the character is Judge Dredd despite the fact he takes his helmet off IMMEDIATELY at the end of the first game and has to put it ON in front of people all the time... Just... He's NOT Judge Dredd... You can't do a narrative tv show about a person who never takes their helmet off with a character who canonically is perfectly happy to take their helmet off when not in a direct firefight.

The show is VERY 'network' though and it reeks of writers who aren't very familiar with complex drama that isn't of the typical sort. It's already going down the 'corrupt millitary' vain despite the fact the games storyline just doesn't have TIME for that. We're courting extinction here from an alien race with a religious agenda to eradicate humanity from the face of the universe... but we still are wasting screen time with basic programming politicking and backstabbing like anyone would realistically CARE about this shit with extinction on the horizon... and even if we think it would in reality... they wouldn't and DON'T in the HALO universe. They 'genetic brainwashing' thing they're doing with the Spartans is an additionally disingenuous addition as it further dumbs down the fascinating complexities of the situation... even Cortana's creation appears to be gummed up with a lot of motivations that are very 'network writing'... about the best I can say is that DESPITE these things they currently appear to at least be limping through the nonsense toward something approaching the facsimile of where we were at the start of the first Halo game... so who knows... maybe we're just painting a pre-fall of reach picture before sharpening things into focus more but to say I wish they weren't focusing on all the BS is an understatement.

John and Cortana are pretty fun to watch at least... but its still early days. They still have time to swing opinions either way...

Well, is it still worth catching? I have played Halo up to Halo 4, which I thought was very interesting on where it was heading. Does the series expand upon what has been established in the games?

No it's not worth catching.



So here's the ultimate spoiler. A certain website is even calling the ninth and final episode "a bigger bait-and-switch than He-Man."

Spoiler

"Lying on the ground after being hit, Chief closes his eyes, his HUD slowly beeping out of service before ceasing operation completely.

Projecting an image of herself outside of the Chief’s armor to mourn the loss of her partner, Cortana then proceeds to fulfill his dying wish, taking control of his Spartan-II armor and rebooting its systems.

Initializing her own unique HUD within the armor’s helmet – a visual confirmation that Chief is no longer in control of his body – Cortana-as-Chief launches into a viscous attack on the Covenant, sweeping through the battlefield with robotic precision as she attempts to clear a rescue path for Silver Team.

Moments later, the team is miraculously rescued by their UNSC Pelican – ostensibly summoned by Cortana – and successfully make their way off of Hesduros with the team mostly in-tact.

As the episode draws to a close, Cortana-Chief is found sitting alone at the controls of the Pelican as it drifts through space before being joined by Kai.

Taking the co-pilot’s seat next to the Spartan, Kai proceeds to ask her teammate, “John, is that you?”, drawing only silence from Cortana before the episode cuts to credits."

Yup, that's it.

As someone who grew up playing the Halo series and read and digested basically every ounce of outside material(novels, comics, related film(Forward Unto Dawn, etc.)), this show was a massive head scratcher/disaster on so many levels. Typical Hollywood having tons of source material and instead just going off and doing what they do best, ruining already established characters in favor of whatever nonsense pops into their heads. I knew it would be "interesting" when they said from the start they weren't paying attention to any Halo canon or the games...but never imagined how bad it would be.

shevek wrote: ↑

4 years ago

No it's not worth catching.



So here's the ultimate spoiler. A certain website is even calling the ninth and final episode "a bigger bait-and-switch than He-Man."

Spoiler

"Lying on the ground after being hit, Chief closes his eyes, his HUD slowly beeping out of service before ceasing operation completely.

Projecting an image of herself outside of the Chief’s armor to mourn the loss of her partner, Cortana then proceeds to fulfill his dying wish, taking control of his Spartan-II armor and rebooting its systems.

Initializing her own unique HUD within the armor’s helmet – a visual confirmation that Chief is no longer in control of his body – Cortana-as-Chief launches into a viscous attack on the Covenant, sweeping through the battlefield with robotic precision as she attempts to clear a rescue path for Silver Team.

Moments later, the team is miraculously rescued by their UNSC Pelican – ostensibly summoned by Cortana – and successfully make their way off of Hesduros with the team mostly in-tact.

As the episode draws to a close, Cortana-Chief is found sitting alone at the controls of the Pelican as it drifts through space before being joined by Kai.

Taking the co-pilot’s seat next to the Spartan, Kai proceeds to ask her teammate, “John, is that you?”, drawing only silence from Cortana before the episode cuts to credits."

Yup, that's it.

You know that would have been cool to see in game or as one of the animated shorts they did while back if it was some other Spartan and some other AI, but I can not see if being Master Chief and Cortana. I guess I am glad that asked about it.

Anyone wanting to do a show based on a game should just look at how Castlevania was handled. 20+ years of source material respected and fans loved it.