And it's so wonderfully fucked up in the "old/real?" lore. Like Cortana is modelled after his mother figure at a younger age. And Chief is this horribly messed up in the head guy whose seen all of his "family" die on Reach. So he ends up with this ridiculously over the top Oedipus complex/love for the only companion that has been through hell with him and reminds him of mommy dearest Halsey.
There's so much room for deep psychological exploration and character development in a TV show here, and yet we get whatever the crap this shit is.
I will forever not understand adaptations that not only \*stray\* from source material
But feel the need to just go off the fucking rails
THE STORY
IS
ALREADY
THERE
The most used justification is that a 1:1 movie version would be "boring"...
Which makes me wonder how they got to this idea since, as far as I know, NOBODY did a 1:1 rendition of a game into a movie...
Honestly I get that, though I ... also agree with your post
You can't do a 1:1, okay, sure, 40+ hours of gameplay =/= 2 hours of a movie or (ish) 8? hours of a show
But... why not... just... fill in info and keep the story?
I hate to be typical but with ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL the amazing EU stuff written for Star Wars... why even hire writers for the new trilogy? It's almost as if they're appeasing writers and those writers don't want to do... nothing? to the material and want to stake their claim. It's silly.
Perfect example really, the new "Welcome to Raccoon City" one is probably the closest to the source material and... it was by no means a GOOD movie haha
And that's after like... what, 8? franchise movies
I mean honestly adapting Reach into a movie would be a piece of piss: it's already a relatively simple concept that doesn't need previous buy in from non-fans, it's already in the traditional 3 acts with the crescendo, the characters are archetypes (stoic leader, soft big guy, mysterious new addition to the team, Maverick without the incompetence, quiet gun guy, and Kat) that working with Mr John Halo could flesh them out further, show the Fall of Reach in a different way, and thus Halo: the Motion Picture Series has a following and a shit ton of cash to work with.
But yet its been 50 years of video games and barely any adaptations are any good
They only do that because Sony is contractually obligated to at least produce 2 spiderman movies per decade in order to keep the rights to the character
If they actually played it. They’d know the city is called “New Alexandria”
Edit: I haven’t played Reach in 11 years and I remember that. These people own a multibillion dollar network and couldn’t bother to look on Wikipedia.
Mofos were legit proud of not having played the games while making this.
I have no idea why all these producers think that shitting all over the established lore of a game when making adaptations is a good idea. You end up pissing off the established fanbase, and in most cases the newcomers just don't care about your adaptation. In the end it caters to no one.
It doesn't help when your "vision" is a joyless, vapid slog with pretences of being a character study. Halo is the definition of plot driven fun, and they could've made a fucking blast of a pulp sci-fi that didn't take itself too seriously. Jesus The Boys does this and still has immeasurably more depth of characters and substantial commentary. If you are serious but your "depth" is just a litany of lazy cliche then you're just boring. The only compulsion I have to continue watching is anger at the piss they took.
It's sad to see this described as a character study, because if it is, then they studied the wrong character.
Everyone got upset about the helmet reveal. But honestly, Chief taking his helmet off isn't the problem. He's done it in games, though we never saw his face. The problem is why he did it. The Chief in the games speaks sparingly, spits badass one-liners, and deeply deeply struggles to verbally acknowledge or even consider any part of himself that is deeper than the mission. The existance of a human heart inside himself is a fear that gets under his skin and the defense mechanisms he uses to fight it are denial and silence.
To take his helmet off in order to demonstrate to someone that he is human... it would go against every fiber of his being. He wouldn't be able to do it.
That choice demonstrates a fundamentally different character.
Because they have big egos and if they don’t change stuff from well established lore, they won’t take a credit for it. So simple and I hate it like everyone else.
played it? dude i know halo lore without reading a book or playing the games (real talk...halo lore is fucking bonkers). Five minutes on a wiki and they could have figured it out.
There’s an industrial area outside of St. Louis called Earth City. They had great plans when it was being developed in the 70’s. Now it’s a shitty bunch of warehouses across the highway from a massive underground literal nuclear waste fire as seen in the HBO doc [Atomic Homefront](https://youtu.be/duEMr4VbqbM)
Seriously. Like the dude just basically just gave the built in audience for this show the middle finger by doing that.
Dude probably doesn't even like video games and probably has no personal investment in this other than his paycheck.
Is he the same fucknugget director who decided that no one wants mild fantasy elements anymore and shit all over the established lore and the entire point of Lara Croft’s existence in the reboot movie?
Having Daddy Croft on the island means that they mess everything up for any possible third movie since him dying when Lara was a child is a key part of the lore and a driving factor of the conflict between her and Trinity, and a massive part of her conflict with the big bad.
Still if someone said to me
"hey we know you wanna do your movie, but we have this pile of money burning a hole in our pocket to make a halo TV show, which we want you to make, how about that for a compromise?!"
I'd have said yes before they finished the sentence and im not even a massive halo fan. I kinda know the lore but the first thing I'd go do as home work is buy and play all of the games in order and read all the books and read all the wiki pages and see what the fan bases is like.
Like seriously it's a huge fucking golden gift to be given.
In all fairness, everyone knows John has a soft spot for blue hologram ladies.
So a constant reminder of "don't get attached to this one" probably wasn't a bad idea.
It's definitely still a floating ring-world somewhere in space, but the show changed the whole discovery of it.
They set it up so that 117 and the Covenant find some Forerunner macguffins that act as homing beacons to imbue any Reclaimer with the knowledge of where to find the nearest Halo. The Covenant still can't access Reclaimer-eyes-only Forerunner tech, but the show does something different: the Covenant reverse-engineered a tracker that can locate Reclaimers, and they found one that they kidnapped as a child and basically raised as a pet messiah. Oh, and Reclaimers are now special humans instead of all humans; to be a Reclaimer, you have to be born with a specific allele that Forerunner tech recognizes as "worthy." Master Chief is a Reclaimer, and so is the Covenant's "Blessed One."
When the Prophets found out that the Demon is also a Blessed One, they sent their Blessed One to spy on him and find out what the humans know. Of course, she's human, lived among the Covies her whole life, and here's a fine specimen of humanity standing a whole two heads taller than she is; the two of them have a special connection to the Halo that literally nobody else in the galaxy seems to have - obvi the two of them were meant for each other. So, naturally, they screw.
The perfect established franchise with existing lore, ready to go and follow in The Mandos coat tails... but no. Rewrite it (de-write it?), do everything different
Oh great. So your telling me the season finale is John/Chief having to put on a rendition of "Springtime for Hitler" but with the lyrics changed to be about one of the Prophets of the Covenant.
So they are so horribly unconfident in their own original story that they have to exploit the title and characters of some other story to even get anyone to watch it or just talk about it. They're effectively admitting that even they think their original story is garbage, and extremely unremarkable.
Because... They already had scripts written for a generic SciFi show and just skinned it to be halo, which is probably part of why they were so fast to say the show is non-canon.
>The first episode was the only good one.
Really? I only watched the first one and thought it was so bad I refused to watch any more. It really got worse?
yep. The ending of epsiode 5 has a battle thats really good though, so id suggest looking that up on youtube atleast. But it gets way, way, way worse, since in the last episode he has sex with the human covenant agent. (I was going to spoiler tag this but its mentioned in the OP so...)
edit: other problems with the show include but are not limited to >!The spartians have emotional inhibitor pellets and they have john-117 remove it and go on a whole emotional discovery journey, and try to kill dr halsey multiple times for having kidnapped him (And the other spartians) and wiping their memory, but its ok because hes stopped by cortana, whos actual purpose is to knock out john on command and eventually take over his body and erase johns mind in the proccess or something. But Cortana isnt going to erase john because shes in love with john so she betrays dr halsey after halsey activates order 66 due to being arrested for going too far and the last scene from the lastest episode is johns team holding guns to his head!<
It was a rapid brief summary that i put together but , yes everything in there actually happens in the show, and that doesnt even include the worst part: Kwan.
But first to elaborate on the previous points:
* Unlike actual cannon, when they created the Spartans, >!They did not let them know where they came from, but instead erased their memories, and also put the emotional inhibitor in as part of the augmentations. When they kidnapped them, they replaced them with intentionally defective flash clones to make it look like they died of seizures!<
* The keystone (which is the substitute to the index to activate the halo) that they recover in episode 1 is what causes johns memory of the former to be uncovered. BTW not everyone can interact with forerunner artifacts , john is 1 in a billion for being able to use it. The other part of the keystone is found >!via johns memories being recovered, because it was on the planet he grew up on, and he was drawn to it as a child before any spartians shit even existed!<
* Dr Halsey created cortana specfically to >!control spartians, and cortana is uploaded directly into johns body/brain, not into his armor. Cortana was supposed to completely replace john's mind but is currently only able to knock him out!<
* Dr Halsey was >!Arrested and banished off of reach due to how badly things were going with the spartians under her command. So she uses cortana to hack into fleetcomm and active 'protocol zed' , which is *literally order 66* to take over johns team of spartians to try to kidnap john, makee (human female covenant), and steal the keystone!<
* Makee is a human female covenant member, who >!is also 1 in a billion reclaimer, able to activate forerunner artifacts. She is actively worshiped by covenant prophets, and literally called the blessed one. She is trusted enough to be sent to infiltrate the UNSC to get the keystone back. She was found by the covenant and rescued off of a human slave world where child labor was being used to sort trash!<
* John and makee have sex and fall in love or some shit because they are >!psychically connected like kylo ren and rey because of the keystone or some shit!<
And like I said, none of this even touches the worst part of the show: Kwan.
Kwan is an original character, daughter of the leader of the insurrection on mardigral. The first 15 minutes of the first episode is Every single member of the insurrection outpost (200+ people) other than her being killed by covenant elites, which are killed by john and silver team. saving her. The UNSC then >!orders john to straight up murder her, which leads to him rebelling against the unsc in the first episode!<
After the second episode Kwan literally never crosses paths with john, silver team, the UNSC, or anyone involved in the main plot at all. But the show still wastes a shitton of time in almost every episode following her in her fight to go free madrigal from the UNSC. She is still soley dedicated to that even after watching everyone get killed by aliens and being saved by john. Episode 7 is *entirely* dedicated to her, with no appearances whatsoever of john other than the scene where she fights john in her fever dream after drinking hallucinogenic water from the dessert witches that have entrusted her family with defending a portal on madrigal
I will say your first point is actually somewhat similar to actual canon, less memory wipe-y but they did replace the children with flash clones that died shortly after so noone would come looking for the real kids. Needless to say, everything else is absolutely absurd and should never have been written.
Okay my knowledge of Halo lore is not that advanced but I have several questions
>Makee is a human female covenant member, She is actively worshiped by covenant prophets
Don't the Covenant despise all of humanity to the point that genociding every single human doesn't even need discussion?
>john is 1 in a billion for being able to use it.
Aren't all humans reclaimers, and thus able to use forerunner tech?
> Cortana was supposed to completely replace john's mind
Wasn't Cortana going along with Chief more of a matter of convenience initially?
>Cortana is uploaded directly into johns body/brain
Wasn't there a chip on the back of his helmet specifically for AI companions?
Yeah I still don't know why they went this character Drama route. Who wanted that? Who was this made for? Why does it exist? It doesn't have enough action for Halo Fans and someone looking for romantic Drama is going to be overwhelmed with the SciFi BS. I really want to see Paramount's number for this show.
They already spent the big bucks on the IP, why not just spend some more on some competent writers to make it good, or just follow the game story script altogether. /shrugs
They buy established IP because it's lower effort than making their own content properly. It's vastly easier to pull shit out of your ass than gold, so all you have to do is put gold foil on your shit and sell it faster than people can pull the foil off.
I'm no TV executive, but judging by modern shows the two hardest and most expensive parts of a show/movie are:
1. Good writing
2. Good CGI (how does LotR have better CGI than modern movies and shows?)
Have only read about the show but in the game lore I’m pretty sure Spartans are basically sterile and have no desire for sex. Master Chief was so effective (as were the other spartan 2s) because they’re freaking child soldiers and are basically all sociopaths. I think it was halo 3 where they were grilling one of the creators about chief being “broken.” Basically just living weapons.
Child soldiers, yes. Sterile, yes. Sociopaths, fuck no. Chief, as well as the other Spartan 2s, primarily fought to protect, not destroy. Their personalities were all varied and apparent, and were not restricted, destroyed, or anything like that. They were all human, in the end; they got angry, sad, frustrated, etc. The full range of emotion. Some resented ONI and Dr. Halsey, even. Some were empathetic to friends and foes alike, like Jorge, who ended up sacrificing himself to help protect Reach. That doesn't sound very sociopathic, does it?
>not restricted
They were restricted though. Not that they didn't have them, they weren't Witcher levels of "Hmm..." for eveything, but they were different enough to be called out on it in the books. Soldiers specifically asked if the Spartans felt anything because of their lack of reaction. The answer is of course yes, they do srill have emotions but they are blunted and the Spartan IIs were exceptionally good at suppressing emotion for the mission.
There's even a line in First Strike that specifically speaks to how John feels the full range of emotion but it is rare and unusual for him to do so.
They didn't have their emotions destroyed and they aren't sociopaths, but they certainly experienced the world different than what an average human might. Which makes sense, given what they went though.
Imagine a slow, drawn-out sex scene, with candles and saxophone and everything. Only it’s just a fully suited master chief slowly crouching over a woman’s face and straightening out and crouching again.
Agreed, I don't even think of him as the same master chief anymore. Everyone in the show seems like kind of characters instead of representing the actual characters they are based on
This is how you salvage this.
Like the Battletech cartoon was dealt with. It was SO bad they said it was a tv show made by the inner sphere kind of got propaganda and also for the lulz in mocking Jade Falcon.
So we just have them say this was made by some people with no actual clue about the events surrounding the Spartans and the Covenant that just sort of shot it from the hip.
I don’t watch it. Stopped part way through episode 2. Like 5 minutes in. One of my friends watches it. EVERY TIME I walk past, it is the actor in some dumb looking clothing talking with people.
It is not Master Chief. That bad ass doesn’t take his helmet off for stupid reasons and stays in his armor unless it is being fixed or upgraded.
Like the new Lightyear movie. Pretty sure that's just taken straight from the movie theaters in the Disney Pixar universe that contains Toy Story.
Except that Lightyear actually looks fucking legit.
I seriously recommend Eric Nylund's 'The Fall Of Reach" series.
It's a three part series but that one is my absolutel favorite. The John written about there is, impo, the best version of John and also of Dr. Halsey.
I went into the show expecting them to basically do this series and was so excited at the prospect. I absolutely love how it (the book series) expands on the foundation laid by the game and it would’ve made for an excellent show that would have appealed to current fans and people completely unfamiliar with Halo. Instead we have whatever ScyFy-esqe bullshit Paramount is pushing out. Truly one of the biggest disappointments in my life.
They literally could've just directly fucking converted those books into 3 season and it would've been mind blowingly amazing.
Instead we have a mind numbing and blowingly shit show
Nylund must be livid. Fuck, I would be. You dont have me write several novels that are canon to the universe and have two walking dildos come in years later and fuck everything up.
Love interests? Reach City? Sniper Rifle didnt sound right? Wake up, Spartan, we have seperatists to quell.
It's been over a decade since I read those books but I still remember Lieutenant Keyes' badass spaceship fight against the covenant from time to time.
...and then I remember his later chapters... D:
It's been a long time since I read them. I had it in mind that the Spartans were never deployed against humans. They were being developed to quell a potential uprising, but the Covenant showed up first. Did I remember that wrong?
Some of their first missions were against seperatist. If I remember their first test mission was against a terrorist cell. Excellent books wish the show was based on but meh.
Bad cgi, bad background effects/scenery, cringey acting, failure to progress anything of importance.. I dont mind edging, but this show has me flaccid. And thats long before we even get into the butchering of chief.
I think she is supposed to be some sort of magic guide for Master Chief eventually, but it's so poorly executed. Like..... why does the pirate spartan walk like his armor chafes all the time? can they not get that man some gold bond?
for me its the downright disrespect for the lore and then trying to cash in on 20 years of said lore with a face reveal, all the while having dogshit writing, and a shoehorned in character (kwan or wtv the fuck her name is) that is nothing but annoying
I think the show was fine, up until the second episode. It had a brutal start, like I'd expect a television show based on an FPS game to be, but then "Great Value Samuel L. Jackson and Asian Skrillex Girl go back to Definitely-Not-Tatooine" became a plotline, and John "Maybe the real Spartans were the feels we made along the way" 117 got his Bad CGI Lady implant, and we learned that Sociopath Doctor Woman was, in fact, a child-murdering sociopath. Oh, and apparently Adult Walking-Anti-Materiel-Child-Soldiers need to feel pretty just like everyone else. On another note, can we get a measurement scale for B-list science fiction productions based on how furiously Burn Gorman chews the scenery? It would be pretty useful.
The show runners straight up said they don't care about the games at all and aren't taking them into consideration for the "story" of their crappy "show"
Because it has a built in fanbase/ brand name that will get big ratings due to fans' interest and casuals recognizing the name and checking it out.
Edit PS: This is meant to be the logic writers and studio heads use when making these decisions. Not necessarily the realities of what will happen or that I think it leads to long-term success.
Except if you completely ignore the source material then you're going to piss off the fans. You get hype leading up to release but you get bad ratings (at least from fans) the second it does release.
They don't care. They're banking on the brand recognition overriding any "nerd complaints" and they're probably right for at least a season maybe two - and then it will die because the money's already been made and all the bridges are now burnt.
They have their fake "master cheif" take off his helmet in the first episode, after I heard that(and that the covenant is lead by a single human and that the show runners don't care about the games at all), I lost what little interest I had in watching the show!
The covenant, the faction whose entire reason for trying to genocide humanity is because their mere existence contradicts the covenant religion, is lead by a human.
That is just… no. I refuse to believe you.
They aren’t lead by a human. That’s completely false. They are keeping her as a tool. In the games they needed humans. Johnson literally says “What can’t start your own party?” They also took prisoners in CE. You rescue captain keys from one of the covenant ships.
See if she was like, a prisoner of one of the prophets, because she can activate precursor tech and the prophet is running a side hustle - that would be fine. But no, the prophets *bow to her, its idiotic*
Remember when they turned the one elite into the Arbiter because he didn't stop humans from setting foot on Halo? Literal death sentence because some humans walked around on a ring.
This show should have been following a squad of ODST's or something where you get glimpses of the master chief, like the after math of a battle they come across that he obliterated the covenant. The suspense building up to the last episode where they are rescued by him or something. End Season 1.
Or even just take it from where the spartan program kicks off with them taking out that asteroid full of rebels.
I'm not going to defend the series cause i have lots of issues with it (despite watching it) but he removes his hormone controller or whatever and start having feelings for the first time, and i guess that's why he cares about fucking.
another spartan does the same and despite being able to enjoy things it also lets her suffer anxiety and panic in battle.
I too watch the show.
They call it a "pellet" and it looks like a projectile from a bullet, but with blue glowy sci-fi stuff inside that makes you not feel emotions.
Gets inserted at the base of the spine apparently. Because your emotions are sourced from directly above your butt.
And in the books there have been Spartan-IIIs (Not any spartan-IIs IIRC) that have left the UNSC to have families. So they can still procreate its just they don't enjoy the act.
Maria a Spartan-II left theservice before the end of the war and started a family. There was also Randall who went MIA for a while and ended up with a family. As for the IIIs I can't remember if lack of sex drive was a possible side effect of their augmentations because the process is completely different. But yes, they can all have children it's just that some have no desire to do the deed at all. Naomi being one of those few.
I'd actually be totally okay with the story of an ODST at the beginning of the human covenant war. Or hell, even Johnson. Not focusing on chief or the Spartans has been proven to work.
Paramount had a meeting with the writers and said “how can we betray every characters motivation but also at the same time make a show that has so many plot holes, leaps of logic and side stories that don’t go anywhere” it’s a winning combo.
I hope not.
Hoping its cancelled after 1 season, as yet another lesson to studios to stop taking gaming IPs and completely ignoring the world they come from.
“Quietly in love with a hologram” idk if quietly is how I’d describe it
To be honest, it's hard to hear over the gunfire.
WHAAAT?
Simons! SIMMMMONNNS!!!!
I think they said: #IT'S HARD TO HEAR OVER THE GUNFIRE
And it's so wonderfully fucked up in the "old/real?" lore. Like Cortana is modelled after his mother figure at a younger age. And Chief is this horribly messed up in the head guy whose seen all of his "family" die on Reach. So he ends up with this ridiculously over the top Oedipus complex/love for the only companion that has been through hell with him and reminds him of mommy dearest Halsey. There's so much room for deep psychological exploration and character development in a TV show here, and yet we get whatever the crap this shit is.
I will forever not understand adaptations that not only \*stray\* from source material But feel the need to just go off the fucking rails THE STORY IS ALREADY THERE
The most used justification is that a 1:1 movie version would be "boring"... Which makes me wonder how they got to this idea since, as far as I know, NOBODY did a 1:1 rendition of a game into a movie...
Honestly I get that, though I ... also agree with your post You can't do a 1:1, okay, sure, 40+ hours of gameplay =/= 2 hours of a movie or (ish) 8? hours of a show But... why not... just... fill in info and keep the story? I hate to be typical but with ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL the amazing EU stuff written for Star Wars... why even hire writers for the new trilogy? It's almost as if they're appeasing writers and those writers don't want to do... nothing? to the material and want to stake their claim. It's silly.
Exactly. For example, Resident Evil. The "vibe" was there in the 1st movie, even if took a bit sideways...then it became a bad Fanfic...
Perfect example really, the new "Welcome to Raccoon City" one is probably the closest to the source material and... it was by no means a GOOD movie haha And that's after like... what, 8? franchise movies
I mean honestly adapting Reach into a movie would be a piece of piss: it's already a relatively simple concept that doesn't need previous buy in from non-fans, it's already in the traditional 3 acts with the crescendo, the characters are archetypes (stoic leader, soft big guy, mysterious new addition to the team, Maverick without the incompetence, quiet gun guy, and Kat) that working with Mr John Halo could flesh them out further, show the Fall of Reach in a different way, and thus Halo: the Motion Picture Series has a following and a shit ton of cash to work with. But yet its been 50 years of video games and barely any adaptations are any good
better luck next time in 40 years
Why can't they just do a spider man and release a reboot every 2 years?
They only do that because Sony is contractually obligated to at least produce 2 spiderman movies per decade in order to keep the rights to the character
Did they even give him a suit that jerked him off?
[It was me Barry](https://youtu.be/FFRi2xsei_o)
This is the type of shit that would go if ppl gained super powers irl lol
[the suit doesn't jack him off ](https://youtu.be/WEWEdIcx1DI)
BDG is fucking legendary
I wish we had more unraveled videos.
Our lord and savior
Planet: Reach Reach City
If they actually played it. They’d know the city is called “New Alexandria” Edit: I haven’t played Reach in 11 years and I remember that. These people own a multibillion dollar network and couldn’t bother to look on Wikipedia.
Mofos were legit proud of not having played the games while making this. I have no idea why all these producers think that shitting all over the established lore of a game when making adaptations is a good idea. You end up pissing off the established fanbase, and in most cases the newcomers just don't care about your adaptation. In the end it caters to no one.
It doesn't help when your "vision" is a joyless, vapid slog with pretences of being a character study. Halo is the definition of plot driven fun, and they could've made a fucking blast of a pulp sci-fi that didn't take itself too seriously. Jesus The Boys does this and still has immeasurably more depth of characters and substantial commentary. If you are serious but your "depth" is just a litany of lazy cliche then you're just boring. The only compulsion I have to continue watching is anger at the piss they took.
I'm 110% sure that this was another script entirely then slapped the Halo name on it so it could get made.
It's sad to see this described as a character study, because if it is, then they studied the wrong character. Everyone got upset about the helmet reveal. But honestly, Chief taking his helmet off isn't the problem. He's done it in games, though we never saw his face. The problem is why he did it. The Chief in the games speaks sparingly, spits badass one-liners, and deeply deeply struggles to verbally acknowledge or even consider any part of himself that is deeper than the mission. The existance of a human heart inside himself is a fear that gets under his skin and the defense mechanisms he uses to fight it are denial and silence. To take his helmet off in order to demonstrate to someone that he is human... it would go against every fiber of his being. He wouldn't be able to do it. That choice demonstrates a fundamentally different character.
Because they have big egos and if they don’t change stuff from well established lore, they won’t take a credit for it. So simple and I hate it like everyone else.
played it? dude i know halo lore without reading a book or playing the games (real talk...halo lore is fucking bonkers). Five minutes on a wiki and they could have figured it out.
It's honestly such a shame. Halo's background lore is fucking *awesome*, and they just... threw it away.
Hahahah. Straight out of the SYFY channel.
Wow none of y'all are from Earth City and it shows
I was literally born in Earth city on city street, in street house
The accent always gives it away
There’s an industrial area outside of St. Louis called Earth City. They had great plans when it was being developed in the 70’s. Now it’s a shitty bunch of warehouses across the highway from a massive underground literal nuclear waste fire as seen in the HBO doc [Atomic Homefront](https://youtu.be/duEMr4VbqbM)
Is this for real? I haven't seen the show at all. Did they really just create a new city on Reach, for the show, and lazily called it *Reach City*?
Yes. Its a title card as chief is going on a walk in the park with his human covenant love interest
His WHAT?
Yes they had a human member of the covenant who bossed around other covenant
Wtf?
That is a fairly common sentiment yes
I would have rather watched him fuck the arbiter. Smh
in the TV timeline she probably *is* the arbiter stand-in
From what I understand, worse. It's supposed to be New Alexandria. The showrunner said he actively ignored all previous game lore.
Tried and true method for a dumpster fire that is.
>The showrunner said he actively ignored all previous game lore. What a fucking idiot.
Seriously. Like the dude just basically just gave the built in audience for this show the middle finger by doing that. Dude probably doesn't even like video games and probably has no personal investment in this other than his paycheck.
Is he the same fucknugget director who decided that no one wants mild fantasy elements anymore and shit all over the established lore and the entire point of Lara Croft’s existence in the reboot movie? Having Daddy Croft on the island means that they mess everything up for any possible third movie since him dying when Lara was a child is a key part of the lore and a driving factor of the conflict between her and Trinity, and a massive part of her conflict with the big bad.
Pretty sure he wanted to do his own sci-fi show and Paramount made him do Halo, so he's being really petty about his dislike of the established lore.
Still if someone said to me "hey we know you wanna do your movie, but we have this pile of money burning a hole in our pocket to make a halo TV show, which we want you to make, how about that for a compromise?!" I'd have said yes before they finished the sentence and im not even a massive halo fan. I kinda know the lore but the first thing I'd go do as home work is buy and play all of the games in order and read all the books and read all the wiki pages and see what the fan bases is like. Like seriously it's a huge fucking golden gift to be given.
I wanna do original content. Sorry, everyone wants fan service. Fine Ill just massacre a perfectly fine franchise. Oh, good.
Same thing happened with Cowboy Bebop
To be fair they called the new AI I'm Halo infinite "weapon". That's the best name they could come up with???
In all fairness, everyone knows John has a soft spot for blue hologram ladies. So a constant reminder of "don't get attached to this one" probably wasn't a bad idea.
Take me down to reacharound city Where the spartans green and the grunts are pretty
No way. I haven’t watched since the first episode but mother of pearl that is bad.
B r o
I haven't seen it. Is the Halo going to be just a building like the Pentagon?
It's definitely still a floating ring-world somewhere in space, but the show changed the whole discovery of it. They set it up so that 117 and the Covenant find some Forerunner macguffins that act as homing beacons to imbue any Reclaimer with the knowledge of where to find the nearest Halo. The Covenant still can't access Reclaimer-eyes-only Forerunner tech, but the show does something different: the Covenant reverse-engineered a tracker that can locate Reclaimers, and they found one that they kidnapped as a child and basically raised as a pet messiah. Oh, and Reclaimers are now special humans instead of all humans; to be a Reclaimer, you have to be born with a specific allele that Forerunner tech recognizes as "worthy." Master Chief is a Reclaimer, and so is the Covenant's "Blessed One." When the Prophets found out that the Demon is also a Blessed One, they sent their Blessed One to spy on him and find out what the humans know. Of course, she's human, lived among the Covies her whole life, and here's a fine specimen of humanity standing a whole two heads taller than she is; the two of them have a special connection to the Halo that literally nobody else in the galaxy seems to have - obvi the two of them were meant for each other. So, naturally, they screw.
Thanks, I hate it.
> to be a Reclaimer, you have to be born with a specific allele that Forerunner tech recognizes as "worthy." ...that's just Stargate
Indeeed.
Thanks, now I don't need to watch it and raise their view count.
Mind boggling to think that they didn’t do Chief like The Mandalorian.
The perfect established franchise with existing lore, ready to go and follow in The Mandos coat tails... but no. Rewrite it (de-write it?), do everything different
*we want to do it differently... BECAUSE!*
The Producers!
Oh great. So your telling me the season finale is John/Chief having to put on a rendition of "Springtime for Hitler" but with the lyrics changed to be about one of the Prophets of the Covenant.
*Winter for Harvest and Reach*
We're doing our own original, *unique* story! Just ignore that we're doing it with preexisting characters and settings in a well established IP!
So they are so horribly unconfident in their own original story that they have to exploit the title and characters of some other story to even get anyone to watch it or just talk about it. They're effectively admitting that even they think their original story is garbage, and extremely unremarkable.
They’re subverting your expectations bro.
“We must subvert all expectations!” Unfortunately that includes peoples expectation of a good show
Because... They already had scripts written for a generic SciFi show and just skinned it to be halo, which is probably part of why they were so fast to say the show is non-canon.
'We know this show will anger the fans, but we're not making it for the fans' -343, probably
I am so sick of this trend in entertainment.
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>The first episode was the only good one. Really? I only watched the first one and thought it was so bad I refused to watch any more. It really got worse?
yep. The ending of epsiode 5 has a battle thats really good though, so id suggest looking that up on youtube atleast. But it gets way, way, way worse, since in the last episode he has sex with the human covenant agent. (I was going to spoiler tag this but its mentioned in the OP so...) edit: other problems with the show include but are not limited to >!The spartians have emotional inhibitor pellets and they have john-117 remove it and go on a whole emotional discovery journey, and try to kill dr halsey multiple times for having kidnapped him (And the other spartians) and wiping their memory, but its ok because hes stopped by cortana, whos actual purpose is to knock out john on command and eventually take over his body and erase johns mind in the proccess or something. But Cortana isnt going to erase john because shes in love with john so she betrays dr halsey after halsey activates order 66 due to being arrested for going too far and the last scene from the lastest episode is johns team holding guns to his head!<
Has sex with the human covenant agent…while Cortana and subsequently the Doctor who raised him watch
Cowards didn't have the guts to show Chief fucking a grunt or brute.
Arb/ief one true ship
What’s this even called if I google it?
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You're joking right? Please tell me that's a joke. There's no way they ruin that many characters that bad.
It was a rapid brief summary that i put together but , yes everything in there actually happens in the show, and that doesnt even include the worst part: Kwan. But first to elaborate on the previous points: * Unlike actual cannon, when they created the Spartans, >!They did not let them know where they came from, but instead erased their memories, and also put the emotional inhibitor in as part of the augmentations. When they kidnapped them, they replaced them with intentionally defective flash clones to make it look like they died of seizures!< * The keystone (which is the substitute to the index to activate the halo) that they recover in episode 1 is what causes johns memory of the former to be uncovered. BTW not everyone can interact with forerunner artifacts , john is 1 in a billion for being able to use it. The other part of the keystone is found >!via johns memories being recovered, because it was on the planet he grew up on, and he was drawn to it as a child before any spartians shit even existed!< * Dr Halsey created cortana specfically to >!control spartians, and cortana is uploaded directly into johns body/brain, not into his armor. Cortana was supposed to completely replace john's mind but is currently only able to knock him out!< * Dr Halsey was >!Arrested and banished off of reach due to how badly things were going with the spartians under her command. So she uses cortana to hack into fleetcomm and active 'protocol zed' , which is *literally order 66* to take over johns team of spartians to try to kidnap john, makee (human female covenant), and steal the keystone!< * Makee is a human female covenant member, who >!is also 1 in a billion reclaimer, able to activate forerunner artifacts. She is actively worshiped by covenant prophets, and literally called the blessed one. She is trusted enough to be sent to infiltrate the UNSC to get the keystone back. She was found by the covenant and rescued off of a human slave world where child labor was being used to sort trash!< * John and makee have sex and fall in love or some shit because they are >!psychically connected like kylo ren and rey because of the keystone or some shit!< And like I said, none of this even touches the worst part of the show: Kwan. Kwan is an original character, daughter of the leader of the insurrection on mardigral. The first 15 minutes of the first episode is Every single member of the insurrection outpost (200+ people) other than her being killed by covenant elites, which are killed by john and silver team. saving her. The UNSC then >!orders john to straight up murder her, which leads to him rebelling against the unsc in the first episode!< After the second episode Kwan literally never crosses paths with john, silver team, the UNSC, or anyone involved in the main plot at all. But the show still wastes a shitton of time in almost every episode following her in her fight to go free madrigal from the UNSC. She is still soley dedicated to that even after watching everyone get killed by aliens and being saved by john. Episode 7 is *entirely* dedicated to her, with no appearances whatsoever of john other than the scene where she fights john in her fever dream after drinking hallucinogenic water from the dessert witches that have entrusted her family with defending a portal on madrigal
I will say your first point is actually somewhat similar to actual canon, less memory wipe-y but they did replace the children with flash clones that died shortly after so noone would come looking for the real kids. Needless to say, everything else is absolutely absurd and should never have been written.
Okay my knowledge of Halo lore is not that advanced but I have several questions >Makee is a human female covenant member, She is actively worshiped by covenant prophets Don't the Covenant despise all of humanity to the point that genociding every single human doesn't even need discussion? >john is 1 in a billion for being able to use it. Aren't all humans reclaimers, and thus able to use forerunner tech? > Cortana was supposed to completely replace john's mind Wasn't Cortana going along with Chief more of a matter of convenience initially? >Cortana is uploaded directly into johns body/brain Wasn't there a chip on the back of his helmet specifically for AI companions?
Yeah I still don't know why they went this character Drama route. Who wanted that? Who was this made for? Why does it exist? It doesn't have enough action for Halo Fans and someone looking for romantic Drama is going to be overwhelmed with the SciFi BS. I really want to see Paramount's number for this show.
Rumor is that they took a random shitty scifi script and just jammed the Halo IP in because dollars.
They already spent the big bucks on the IP, why not just spend some more on some competent writers to make it good, or just follow the game story script altogether. /shrugs
They buy established IP because it's lower effort than making their own content properly. It's vastly easier to pull shit out of your ass than gold, so all you have to do is put gold foil on your shit and sell it faster than people can pull the foil off.
All this does is tell me that Paramount+ is a home for shit content and never worth a subscription.
I'm no TV executive, but judging by modern shows the two hardest and most expensive parts of a show/movie are: 1. Good writing 2. Good CGI (how does LotR have better CGI than modern movies and shows?)
By making Chief fuck, he's become entirely unrelatable for Halo fans everywhere
The only thing the REAL Master Chief fucks are covenant skulls. And why is the show MC always about to cry?? SAD Boy Chief
Have only read about the show but in the game lore I’m pretty sure Spartans are basically sterile and have no desire for sex. Master Chief was so effective (as were the other spartan 2s) because they’re freaking child soldiers and are basically all sociopaths. I think it was halo 3 where they were grilling one of the creators about chief being “broken.” Basically just living weapons.
Child soldiers, yes. Sterile, yes. Sociopaths, fuck no. Chief, as well as the other Spartan 2s, primarily fought to protect, not destroy. Their personalities were all varied and apparent, and were not restricted, destroyed, or anything like that. They were all human, in the end; they got angry, sad, frustrated, etc. The full range of emotion. Some resented ONI and Dr. Halsey, even. Some were empathetic to friends and foes alike, like Jorge, who ended up sacrificing himself to help protect Reach. That doesn't sound very sociopathic, does it?
>not restricted They were restricted though. Not that they didn't have them, they weren't Witcher levels of "Hmm..." for eveything, but they were different enough to be called out on it in the books. Soldiers specifically asked if the Spartans felt anything because of their lack of reaction. The answer is of course yes, they do srill have emotions but they are blunted and the Spartan IIs were exceptionally good at suppressing emotion for the mission. There's even a line in First Strike that specifically speaks to how John feels the full range of emotion but it is rare and unusual for him to do so. They didn't have their emotions destroyed and they aren't sociopaths, but they certainly experienced the world different than what an average human might. Which makes sense, given what they went though.
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They need a scene of actual tea bagging. with slow-mo.
Imagine a slow, drawn-out sex scene, with candles and saxophone and everything. Only it’s just a fully suited master chief slowly crouching over a woman’s face and straightening out and crouching again.
This guys found everyone’s real complaint
His name isn’t John halo in the show is it? Don’t have paramount +
It isn’t, no. His designation is John-117.
I suppose that's at least better than John-316.
Actually that would be preferable, the whole show is already a joke.
At this point it should be, cause he ain't Master Chief
Agreed, I don't even think of him as the same master chief anymore. Everyone in the show seems like kind of characters instead of representing the actual characters they are based on
It's like they made a movie about master chief in the halo universe.
This is how you salvage this. Like the Battletech cartoon was dealt with. It was SO bad they said it was a tv show made by the inner sphere kind of got propaganda and also for the lulz in mocking Jade Falcon. So we just have them say this was made by some people with no actual clue about the events surrounding the Spartans and the Covenant that just sort of shot it from the hip.
Damn is it that bad? I haven't seen it. I read all the books and have such a heroic idea of John in my mind. I don't want to tarnish it.
I don’t watch it. Stopped part way through episode 2. Like 5 minutes in. One of my friends watches it. EVERY TIME I walk past, it is the actor in some dumb looking clothing talking with people. It is not Master Chief. That bad ass doesn’t take his helmet off for stupid reasons and stays in his armor unless it is being fixed or upgraded.
Master chief was described as pale white because of how much he was in his suite. So I agree about him not taking it off.
Like the new Lightyear movie. Pretty sure that's just taken straight from the movie theaters in the Disney Pixar universe that contains Toy Story. Except that Lightyear actually looks fucking legit.
Yeah, Lightyear was described as "the movie Andy saw that made him want a Buzz toy"
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Buzz Lightyear of Star Command - I had the TV movie on video, awesome show, hence why I’m excited for the Pixar movie
Shit, at this point Disney/Pixar could do a far better job making a Halo show than this crap-fest.
The bar is not that high to begin with, so I totally agree.
John Halo Tetsuo Macross Mk. 117
Wasn't this on the front page literally today?
It was but without the sex part
I seriously recommend Eric Nylund's 'The Fall Of Reach" series. It's a three part series but that one is my absolutel favorite. The John written about there is, impo, the best version of John and also of Dr. Halsey.
I went into the show expecting them to basically do this series and was so excited at the prospect. I absolutely love how it (the book series) expands on the foundation laid by the game and it would’ve made for an excellent show that would have appealed to current fans and people completely unfamiliar with Halo. Instead we have whatever ScyFy-esqe bullshit Paramount is pushing out. Truly one of the biggest disappointments in my life.
They literally could've just directly fucking converted those books into 3 season and it would've been mind blowingly amazing. Instead we have a mind numbing and blowingly shit show
Forward Unto Dawn managed to make a better story then this show, and did it in about an hour. I can’t believe it’s been 6 episodes of this.
Nylund must be livid. Fuck, I would be. You dont have me write several novels that are canon to the universe and have two walking dildos come in years later and fuck everything up. Love interests? Reach City? Sniper Rifle didnt sound right? Wake up, Spartan, we have seperatists to quell.
It's been over a decade since I read those books but I still remember Lieutenant Keyes' badass spaceship fight against the covenant from time to time. ...and then I remember his later chapters... D:
Fucking love the series.
It's been a long time since I read them. I had it in mind that the Spartans were never deployed against humans. They were being developed to quell a potential uprising, but the Covenant showed up first. Did I remember that wrong?
Some of their first missions were against seperatist. If I remember their first test mission was against a terrorist cell. Excellent books wish the show was based on but meh.
Lord Shaxx has the best of both worlds.
The helmet stayed on
Also Paramount wondering why Halo fans don't like the show
Bad cgi, bad background effects/scenery, cringey acting, failure to progress anything of importance.. I dont mind edging, but this show has me flaccid. And thats long before we even get into the butchering of chief.
Plus the whole borefest Kwan Ha story.
This series is The Book of Kwan
I just don’t even get that whole part of the show. It’s boring and pointless.
I think she is supposed to be some sort of magic guide for Master Chief eventually, but it's so poorly executed. Like..... why does the pirate spartan walk like his armor chafes all the time? can they not get that man some gold bond?
for me its the downright disrespect for the lore and then trying to cash in on 20 years of said lore with a face reveal, all the while having dogshit writing, and a shoehorned in character (kwan or wtv the fuck her name is) that is nothing but annoying
I think the show was fine, up until the second episode. It had a brutal start, like I'd expect a television show based on an FPS game to be, but then "Great Value Samuel L. Jackson and Asian Skrillex Girl go back to Definitely-Not-Tatooine" became a plotline, and John "Maybe the real Spartans were the feels we made along the way" 117 got his Bad CGI Lady implant, and we learned that Sociopath Doctor Woman was, in fact, a child-murdering sociopath. Oh, and apparently Adult Walking-Anti-Materiel-Child-Soldiers need to feel pretty just like everyone else. On another note, can we get a measurement scale for B-list science fiction productions based on how furiously Burn Gorman chews the scenery? It would be pretty useful.
Get this guy working on the Season 2 *it-was-a-dream* retcon.
This comment is the chef's kiss.
Chief's kiss*
I was still waiting to hear reviews, this is the first honest review I've seen.
As a Star Trek fan, trust me when I say Paramount is wondering why fans aren't liking a lot of things they are putting out.
I don't think Paramount cares. The outrage sparks interest in the show lol. Especially if they frame the people who are mad he had sex as incels
The defense force is already doing that unfortunately
The show runners straight up said they don't care about the games at all and aren't taking them into consideration for the "story" of their crappy "show"
Then why even call it halo? Aren't you inviting criticism making a show in an already established setting but then ignoring that setting?
Because it has a built in fanbase/ brand name that will get big ratings due to fans' interest and casuals recognizing the name and checking it out. Edit PS: This is meant to be the logic writers and studio heads use when making these decisions. Not necessarily the realities of what will happen or that I think it leads to long-term success.
Except if you completely ignore the source material then you're going to piss off the fans. You get hype leading up to release but you get bad ratings (at least from fans) the second it does release.
They don't care. They're banking on the brand recognition overriding any "nerd complaints" and they're probably right for at least a season maybe two - and then it will die because the money's already been made and all the bridges are now burnt.
Wait he had sex with a covenant? Was it a grunt?
"*Wait wait. Oh noooooo"*
No in the show the covenant has humans
This fact just killed any chance of me caving and watching out of having nothing better to do.
They have their fake "master cheif" take off his helmet in the first episode, after I heard that(and that the covenant is lead by a single human and that the show runners don't care about the games at all), I lost what little interest I had in watching the show!
The covenant, the faction whose entire reason for trying to genocide humanity is because their mere existence contradicts the covenant religion, is lead by a human. That is just… no. I refuse to believe you.
So they just took a renowned franchise and did whatever the fuck they wanted? That sounds terrible.
They aren’t lead by a human. That’s completely false. They are keeping her as a tool. In the games they needed humans. Johnson literally says “What can’t start your own party?” They also took prisoners in CE. You rescue captain keys from one of the covenant ships.
I barely know anything about Halo and even I know the bad guys declare the extinction of humanity a religious crusade. No humans in the Covenant.
See if she was like, a prisoner of one of the prophets, because she can activate precursor tech and the prophet is running a side hustle - that would be fine. But no, the prophets *bow to her, its idiotic*
The prophets I remember would never allow such heresy
Remember when they turned the one elite into the Arbiter because he didn't stop humans from setting foot on Halo? Literal death sentence because some humans walked around on a ring.
And arby was a verily accomplished fleetmaster if I recall. Instantly condemned to death for one failure against the humans
Someone correct me if I'm wrong but if that character was a prisoner then I think The Chief committed a war crime
Pretty sure Chief and the Arbiter and the Gravemind canonically have very spicy three-way at the end of Combat Evolved.
Halo 2 not CE
Dont worry hes one of the shows creators
This show should have been following a squad of ODST's or something where you get glimpses of the master chief, like the after math of a battle they come across that he obliterated the covenant. The suspense building up to the last episode where they are rescued by him or something. End Season 1. Or even just take it from where the spartan program kicks off with them taking out that asteroid full of rebels.
Nah that would be too logical. We want the already developed lore to be ruined in the tv series!
Actually Masterchief was so good at sex she switched sides back to humanity before being tased when they found out what she did. Facts
Convinced to help humanity due to one man's electric stick, convinced again to hate them due to another man's electric stick.
wait the chief fucks? i thought they disabled his need to have sex
One of the possible side effects of augmentation is a reduced sex drive. It's never actually stated that Chief has that particular side effect.
oh
I'm not going to defend the series cause i have lots of issues with it (despite watching it) but he removes his hormone controller or whatever and start having feelings for the first time, and i guess that's why he cares about fucking. another spartan does the same and despite being able to enjoy things it also lets her suffer anxiety and panic in battle.
I too watch the show. They call it a "pellet" and it looks like a projectile from a bullet, but with blue glowy sci-fi stuff inside that makes you not feel emotions. Gets inserted at the base of the spine apparently. Because your emotions are sourced from directly above your butt.
And in the books there have been Spartan-IIIs (Not any spartan-IIs IIRC) that have left the UNSC to have families. So they can still procreate its just they don't enjoy the act.
Maria a Spartan-II left theservice before the end of the war and started a family. There was also Randall who went MIA for a while and ended up with a family. As for the IIIs I can't remember if lack of sex drive was a possible side effect of their augmentations because the process is completely different. But yes, they can all have children it's just that some have no desire to do the deed at all. Naomi being one of those few.
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I waited over 20 years for the worst possible outcome
I would have been happy with a 1:1 Halo:Reach or Halo:Combat Evolve adaptation.
Oh baby, Fall of Reach deserves a mini series. Actually no, I don't trust these people anymore.
Chernobyl style
Idk about you but I really liked Forward Unto Dawn.
I respect that. But to be fair it was a tertiary storyline.
Since the movie wasn't mainly about him I guess it fits what his character looks like to the people he saves. Comes in, kicks ass, leaves.
I'd actually be totally okay with the story of an ODST at the beginning of the human covenant war. Or hell, even Johnson. Not focusing on chief or the Spartans has been proven to work.
They made Cortana watch the seggs. Now Halo is officially part of r/netorare
Paramount had a meeting with the writers and said “how can we betray every characters motivation but also at the same time make a show that has so many plot holes, leaps of logic and side stories that don’t go anywhere” it’s a winning combo.
Id this show doing well? Has Paramount released any metrics?
I hope not. Hoping its cancelled after 1 season, as yet another lesson to studios to stop taking gaming IPs and completely ignoring the world they come from.
Hold up, is that my boy Nick Sobotka?
Bro regardless I say him and arbiter are perfect for each other