|SPOILERS IN THIRD PARAGRAPH|
So I'm a big Halo fan, but not fanatically so, I've enjoyed 343i's offerings to the universe and the Karen Traviss trilogy of books. I've enjoyed both Forward Unto Dawn and the animated anthology, and they took some liberties, but this is just lazy, I don't feel like anyone involved, the actors, the writers or the directors actually gave a damn about what they were doing. They had $70,000,000 to make this series, Ridley Scott is directing, I was expecting something well above what you'd usually get from a scifi TV show, maybe something with the production values of Battlestar or Star Trek, after all Forward Unto Dawn had a much lower budget and was a triumph, but no, what we get is at best a Syfy Channel original series with B-list acting and laughable CGI. For comparison, both Defiance and Falling Skies had better special effects, better acting and felt more genuine than this, and those shows were pretty terrible.
The issue is, this is not an original series, this takes place in an established universe loved by millions around the world, with rules and lore that need to be respected. Nor is this a new adaptation of the universe meant for TV, this show is broadcast on Halo Waypoint and aimed at Halo fans who own Xboxs and are already invested in the series.
|SPOILERS START NOW|
So, the first episode starts, and we're introduced to an alien...that no Halo fan has ever seen or heard of before. It looks like a Star Trek TNG alien, an actor in crude makeup, completely trampling all over Halo's reputation for exotic and creative aliens. Halo fans have fought tooth and nail against all the races of the Covenant, ranging from 3 foot tall methane-breathing crustaceans to one ton colonies of sentient worms driving battle suits, and we've never seen anything as lazy as this. So we get over that, and in comes a Covenant dropship, it looks good enough, it raises our hopes, and then we see the Sangheili it drops off. Or rather we see a blurry, jerky representation of a Sangheili Elite that looks like it was made in Blender. If you've played Halo you're accustomed to beautiful CGI directed by Blur studios that gives Avatar a run for it's money, and Blur studios this is not. So this blurry figure stumbles through the forest, and the half dozen ODSTs tracking him lose him, as the 8 foot tall, half-ton dinosaur in full battle armor disappears down a human-sized manhole cover. Our protagonist, the wooden and disinterested Locke, follows him into the sewer, and attempts to fight him. The Elite has a plasma sword, and repeatedly misses at close range, while Locke's M6 Magnum, a gun that can punch through an Elite's shields and armor in a few shots in the games, is about as effective as a paintball gun, and the Elite escapes. When Locke catches up to him in a shopping mall (where nobody seems to care that an Elite in battle armor is walking around, do they do their grocery shopping in Zealot pattern armor?) Locke climbs onto his back and unloads his M6 into the top of the Elite's head, the magnum breaks his shields but fails to penetrate his helmet. Again this is the iconic, fan-favorite hand cannon of the Halo series renowned for penetrating armor and shields like they're wet toilet paper at ranges that would make a rifle blush, this Elite's brains should have been soup by now. So this 8 foot tall Elite that's able to flip a military jeep like it's a Power Wheels toy is unable to shake a 180lb human, and is apparently driven to exhaustion by a 5-second struggle, dropping to his knees, the plasma sword he was carrying 20 seconds ago conspicuously missing. Locke, a high ranking ODST, then allows the alien to monologue, despite knowing what a Zealot is, and thus knowing that he can't be taken alive, allowing the Elite to set of his dirty bomb when he could have just executed him.
At this point I had lost interest, and the episode continued to butcher the lore, with outstanding examples such as the navigator telling the computer to "search the galaxies" for trace elements when Halo takes place in one galaxy, and there being a Pelican dropship that looked about three times larger than it should be, which is inexplicably capable of slipstream travel. The cast of ODSTs prattled on about honor for the duration of the episode, despite an ODST being a ruthless shock trooper with about as much regard for honor as a drunk in a bar fight, known for bad attitudes and getting the job done at any cost.
In summary, the actors did not care about their acting, the writers did not care about the source material, and the director obviously thought this mess was passable, or just didn't care, after all it's just a video game for nerds, right? I can't say I'm surprised, but I am disappointed, Forward Unto Dawn showed us that Halo can translate well into shows and movies, it was a great jumping off point for expanding the Halo universe into a multimedia empire, and instead the opportunity was squandered.
So I'm a big Halo fan, but not fanatically so, I've enjoyed 343i's offerings to the universe and the Karen Traviss trilogy of books. I've enjoyed both Forward Unto Dawn and the animated anthology, and they took some liberties, but this is just lazy, I don't feel like anyone involved, the actors, the writers or the directors actually gave a damn about what they were doing. They had $70,000,000 to make this series, Ridley Scott is directing, I was expecting something well above what you'd usually get from a scifi TV show, maybe something with the production values of Battlestar or Star Trek, after all Forward Unto Dawn had a much lower budget and was a triumph, but no, what we get is at best a Syfy Channel original series with B-list acting and laughable CGI. For comparison, both Defiance and Falling Skies had better special effects, better acting and felt more genuine than this, and those shows were pretty terrible.
The issue is, this is not an original series, this takes place in an established universe loved by millions around the world, with rules and lore that need to be respected. Nor is this a new adaptation of the universe meant for TV, this show is broadcast on Halo Waypoint and aimed at Halo fans who own Xboxs and are already invested in the series.
|SPOILERS START NOW|
So, the first episode starts, and we're introduced to an alien...that no Halo fan has ever seen or heard of before. It looks like a Star Trek TNG alien, an actor in crude makeup, completely trampling all over Halo's reputation for exotic and creative aliens. Halo fans have fought tooth and nail against all the races of the Covenant, ranging from 3 foot tall methane-breathing crustaceans to one ton colonies of sentient worms driving battle suits, and we've never seen anything as lazy as this. So we get over that, and in comes a Covenant dropship, it looks good enough, it raises our hopes, and then we see the Sangheili it drops off. Or rather we see a blurry, jerky representation of a Sangheili Elite that looks like it was made in Blender. If you've played Halo you're accustomed to beautiful CGI directed by Blur studios that gives Avatar a run for it's money, and Blur studios this is not. So this blurry figure stumbles through the forest, and the half dozen ODSTs tracking him lose him, as the 8 foot tall, half-ton dinosaur in full battle armor disappears down a human-sized manhole cover. Our protagonist, the wooden and disinterested Locke, follows him into the sewer, and attempts to fight him. The Elite has a plasma sword, and repeatedly misses at close range, while Locke's M6 Magnum, a gun that can punch through an Elite's shields and armor in a few shots in the games, is about as effective as a paintball gun, and the Elite escapes. When Locke catches up to him in a shopping mall (where nobody seems to care that an Elite in battle armor is walking around, do they do their grocery shopping in Zealot pattern armor?) Locke climbs onto his back and unloads his M6 into the top of the Elite's head, the magnum breaks his shields but fails to penetrate his helmet. Again this is the iconic, fan-favorite hand cannon of the Halo series renowned for penetrating armor and shields like they're wet toilet paper at ranges that would make a rifle blush, this Elite's brains should have been soup by now. So this 8 foot tall Elite that's able to flip a military jeep like it's a Power Wheels toy is unable to shake a 180lb human, and is apparently driven to exhaustion by a 5-second struggle, dropping to his knees, the plasma sword he was carrying 20 seconds ago conspicuously missing. Locke, a high ranking ODST, then allows the alien to monologue, despite knowing what a Zealot is, and thus knowing that he can't be taken alive, allowing the Elite to set of his dirty bomb when he could have just executed him.
At this point I had lost interest, and the episode continued to butcher the lore, with outstanding examples such as the navigator telling the computer to "search the galaxies" for trace elements when Halo takes place in one galaxy, and there being a Pelican dropship that looked about three times larger than it should be, which is inexplicably capable of slipstream travel. The cast of ODSTs prattled on about honor for the duration of the episode, despite an ODST being a ruthless shock trooper with about as much regard for honor as a drunk in a bar fight, known for bad attitudes and getting the job done at any cost.
In summary, the actors did not care about their acting, the writers did not care about the source material, and the director obviously thought this mess was passable, or just didn't care, after all it's just a video game for nerds, right? I can't say I'm surprised, but I am disappointed, Forward Unto Dawn showed us that Halo can translate well into shows and movies, it was a great jumping off point for expanding the Halo universe into a multimedia empire, and instead the opportunity was squandered.