Reviews

The action is certainly better executed. It is not as floaty, nonsensical (everyone standing out in the open blasting at nothing), or full of eye-rolling "Tee-Hee it's a videogame!" moments.

Unfortunately, this series is still chained to the back-burnered "SyFy Channel Original" world and story established during the first season. The bizarre focus on human shamans and mysticism, "Chosen Ones," wacky costumes and mannerisms of The Rubble, and baffling major diversions from the source material simply don't feel like Halo. I don't mind changes to "lore" or "canon" if it still captures the soul found in Halo's books and games... but the simple fact is that, despite surface level references, set dressing, and character names, this isn't a Halo show. It has none of the elements that make Halo special or stand out from other science fiction shows.

Halo has fallen so far from its potential. We could easily have had something great. Instead, after years upon years of waiting, we get this. I just can't wrap my head around how we got to this point. How did we get from Peter Jackson and Landfall to here?

It's as if no effort was put into this show's writing. Not even an attempt to make it feel like Halo's world. It's a Hallmark Channel knockoff.

This show's passion for the world of Halo can be summed up in two words: "Reach City." Couldn't even be bothered to call it New Alexandria.

The quality of the writing on its own is simply... not good. Even removed from Halo's high expectations.

It's unfathomable.

The writing is middling to cheesy. Dialogue even more so. Picture any of the hundreds of generic SyFy shows out there and you'll get a pretty good idea of what this show is. Production quality is somewhere around that of a daytime or early AM TV show you'd find while channel surfing. Some parts of the show look incredible. Some parts look like an amateur YouTube fan film. Most of it lies somewhere in between.

From the first episode, you can tell this show doesn't have much to do with Halo outside of the name. The overall spirit of the world is vastly different. Every single character's core personality and driving motivation is changed dramatically, to the point where they might as well be a different person entirely. In fact, they're polar opposite. Nuanced conflicts between the UNSC and Insurrectionist factions have been reduced to your bog-standard "cartoonishly evil Empire vs plucky rag-tag resistance." There's even some heavy-handed "chosen one," "mind wipe," and "robot learns how to feel" cliches thrown in for good measure. (And I do mean played-straight cliches). Basically it's the plot/setting of every generic SyFy world imaginable smushed together with "Halo" slapped on top. If it weren't for the pelicans and (at times cheap, plastic, and costume looking) Mjolnir armor, I honestly wouldn't be able to tell this was supposed to take place in Halo's universe. The foundational pillars simply aren't there.

Covenant haven't been established as much of a threat so far. (No, shooting up some disorganized rebels and unarmed children, then getting curb-stomped by the military and never spoken of again does not count.) UNSC high command doesn't display much urgency when discussing Covenant matters. They're more of a small, background third-party group of raiders than looming existential doom.

Overall, this show seems to be mostly focused on forced soap opera style interpersonal drama between characters that only share a name with their Halo counterpart. I can already make a pretty good guess where the story is going to go and how it will play out.

(Wait, its budget was WHAT?!)

It's fairly obvious this show started life as a script for an entirely different SciFi that couldn't stand on its own two legs, so Halo's name recognition was brought in and used as a crutch. It's got character names and locations pulled from Halo's world, but that's about it. The soul is missing.

Now, I've never cared too deeply about "canon," so the show being its own thing doesn't bother me. However, an adaptation should still follow the underlying spirit of its source material. This show is about as far removed from Halo's core values as you could possibly get. The only thing it shares with Halo's world is the name.

As an avid fan of the books, I would have LOVED to see morally ambiguous conflicts between the UNSC and Insurrection explored in greater depth. The birth of the Spartan program. All overshadowed by the hopeless struggle against Covenant invasion. There's limitless potential and nuance behind it all. But this isn't the UNSC, it's a cartoonishly evil Sith Empire. These aren't Insurrectionists, they're your stereotypical downtrodden rag-tag rebels fighting the good fight. The Covenant are such a small footnote that four episodes in and I'm genuinely not even sure if they're actively at war with humanity.

Key characters like Halsey, Miranda, and John are polar opposites of their Halo counterparts, to the point where they might as well be different people entirely. Halsey in particular has been Flanderized to hell and back as an evil, heartless sociopath. Her guilt, her regret, her motherly love for the Spartans and internal struggle over whether she truly is doing the "right" thing in such dire circumstances is nowhere to be found.

John's no longer a disciplined, professional soldier with a dry sense of humor and a deeply ingrained drive to protect others, but your stereotypical emotionally stunted, unquestioning supersoldier that needs to learn how to feel and become "humanized." (You know, that story we've all seen in a thousand YA novels.) Miranda is a timid scientist instead of a fearless ship captain. And that's not even scratching the surface. Nearly every character is "off" in some way. Even the UNSC troopers are missing their iconic peak-brimmed helmets in favor of what looks like reused thick, round Starship Troopers props.

That said, the incredibly weird thing is (and the reason I'm giving it 5 stars instead of 4 or 3)... this show occasionally nails certain small things. The look and personality of the Prophets. High Charity (although not necessarily its bland white interiors). The Pelicans. Establishing shots of Reach, Madrigal, etc. It goes to show that they can create an authentic Halo experience, but for whatever reason, they're just choosing not to?

Remove Halo names or visuals from the equation and this is flat out just another generic SciFi show packed full of cliches, clunky writing, and at times low-grade CGI, iffy editing, or cheap looking cinematography.