Halo: TV Series on Paramount Plus

[spacelordmaster]

 

[Steven P. Administrators]

Will it be good for people who have never played Halo @spacelordmaster ?

[George P Global Moderator]

That's the teaser technically.  The full blown official trailer is going to drop soon.   Half time of this AFC championship game.    The series looks good so far IMO.

 

As far as if it's good for those who don't play the games, it's doing it's own separate timeline.  All the key moments from the games are still going to match but there's going to be changes here and there to.  I think it's perfect for those who don't play the games or bother to read the books.

 

I personally have only played the games and haven't read a single novel.  I do watch some spoiler vids about them so I can get the story bits though.

[George P Global Moderator]

 

[margrave]

Can't wait!!!

 

Psyched!

 

March 24th ... happy birthday to me!

[Asher Madan]

On 30/01/2022 at 08:50, Steven P. said:

Will it be good for people who have never played Halo @spacelordmaster ?

Yes, it takes place in an alternate timeline. No prior knowledge is needed. 

[spacelordmaster]

@Steven P.

 

For your information sir, Halo was the very first FPS game I ever played, so yes, I am familiar with Halo. I just don't like the new Halo Multiplayer. It sucks. They need more maps.

[FloatingFatMan]

On 01/02/2022 at 10:31, spacelordmaster said:

@Steven P.

 

For your information sir, Halo was the very first FPS game I ever played, so yes, I am familiar with Halo. I just don't like the new Halo Multiplayer. It sucks. They need more maps.

Pretty sure he wasn't asking if you were familiar with Halo... He just asked if the show would be any good for folks who weren't...

[George P Global Moderator]

With any adaptation you're going to have those who don't like it.  I give MS/343i points for coming out from the start and telling you this isn't going to be the same timeline and will be it's own thing.    Better than trying to take something like a game and forcing it to fit the format of a movie/tv show.  

 

Anyone who knows about Halo in general but hasn't played any of the games, let alone read any of the 10 or so novels,  should be fine jumping into the tv show.

[RadishTM Veteran]

Trailer was awesome. Just wish they got Steve Downes to do Master Chief's voice like the games (just as Jen Taylor plays Cortana in the new series), that would have been amazing.

 

But definitely going to watch it regardless as I love all things HALO

[George P Global Moderator]

On 02/02/2022 at 04:28, RadishTM said:

Trailer was awesome. Just wish they got Steve Downes to do Master Chief's voice like the games (just as Jen Taylor plays Cortana in the new series), that would have been amazing.

 

But definitely going to watch it regardless as I love all things HALO

Jen wasn't going to do the voice originally.  They had to fall back to her because of the pandemic, otherwise the actress who plays Halsey was going to do Cortana to.   They didn't want to delay filming I guess.

 

Others have brought up the lack of Steve doing the voice but I think that we're going to get Chief with his helmet off.  Maybe we don't see much of his face directly but it'll happen I'm sure.  So they got a real actor to play him and not just a body to fill the suit.

 

 

 

Official poster.

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

Trailer looks great, a little disappointed they didn't use any music from the soundtrack though  

 

(Also changed the v to an uppercase in the title, it was bugging me)

[George P Global Moderator]

Wouldn't surprise me if the iconic intro music we've been getting in the games doesn't come up in the intro to the tv show.  

[George P Global Moderator]

https://www.digitaltrends.com/movies/halo-series-teaser-character-posters/?amp

 

New teaser and some posters. 

[techbeck]

Enjoyed the first episode. Lots of sounds and images from the game. Sucks one episode per week. 

[George P Global Moderator]

On 25/03/2022 at 01:01, techbeck said:

Enjoyed the first episode. Lots of sounds and images from the game. Sucks one episode per week. 

I liked it to, my only nitpick is that the 2nd half kind of starts to move a bit quick at one point.   Right off the start though I love how brutal the combat is.

 

Spoiler

We don't get this much in the games but seeing plasma weapons blasting off human arms and legs and even vaporizing people was not what I expected but a pleasant surprise.  I also liked the story reason way they handled him taking off his helmet.  They didn't just do it for the sake of doing it, I think they handled it well.  I can see lots of core fans complaining though but w/e.  

 

[techbeck]

On 24/03/2022 at 16:13, George P said:

I liked it to, my only nitpick is that the 2nd half kind of starts to move a bit quick at one point.   Right off the start though I love how brutal the combat is.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

We don't get this much in the games but seeing plasma weapons blasting off human arms and legs and even vaporizing people was not what I expected but a pleasant surprise.  I also liked the story reason way they handled him taking off his helmet.  They didn't just do it for the sake of doing it, I think they handled it well.  I can see lots of core fans complaining though but w/e.  

 

Spoiler

Was not expecting bodies blowing apart either... Especially kids.

And there will always be those who find something to complain about. 

 

Combat was good and I recognized a lot of sounds effects from the games as well. 

Spoiler

Hopefully we get Cortana next episode...

 

[George P Global Moderator]

I wish we could get the first two episodes together but oh well.

[hagjohn]

I liked all of it so far. Good acting, graphics, CGI, fight choreography, IMO.

[Emn1ty]

I've got some major issues with where it's going but I'll leave it at for now. Can post details if people are interested. Overall it wasn't bad for a first episode but there are some red flags I found in it that have me concerned over where the story is going and give a lack of confidence in the writers.

[FloatingFatMan]

Not much of a Halo player myself (only really played the first one on PC forever ago) but it certainly seemed to have all the expected characters, aliens and tech in it, so I don't see why so many folks are crying "It's not Halo!".  Seems like a reasonably competent sci-fi action show that I will continue to check out over at least the next few episodes to see how it progresses.

 

 

[Emn1ty]

On 26/03/2022 at 11:48, FloatingFatMan said:

Not much of a Halo player myself (only really played the first one on PC forever ago) but it certainly seemed to have all the expected characters, aliens and tech in it, so I don't see why so many folks are crying "It's not Halo!".  Seems like a reasonably competent sci-fi action show that I will continue to check out over at least the next few episodes to see how it progresses.

It's a competent show with good special effects and an unexpectedly gritty (but welcome) feel to it. I'm hoping the show opens doors for more Halo media, but it's definitely going to be in a weird spot with lore fans.

 

Spoiler

Silver Team is a derivative of the original Blue Team. With analogs for Master Chief's original team:

• Vannak (Assault): analog for Fred (Assault)
• Riz (Communcations): analog for Kelly (Scout)
• Kai (Marksman): analog for Linda (Marksman)

I don't really mind this so much, though. It keeps them from having to be super on-point with the characters and it's a different timeline anyways.

 

What is a little unfortunate is that in the first combat scene we only see Elites. No Grunts, no Jackals... I was actually expecting to see Hunters when the door to the settlement blew open but we didn't get that either. Elites were typically commanders or spec-ops troops. They didn't usually come out in force like that, which was also the reason why early on in the war nobody even knew they existed because if you saw one you usually died. I think it was years into the Human-Covenant war before even the Spartans came face to face with them. But also forgivable, not a big deal in a different timeline. Just mildly disappointing we didn't get to see the other races.

 

Where the lore starts getting screwy though is with the changes to the Spartan's backstory, and the alterations for Miranda and Captain Keyes. Again, excusable in this alternate timeline but an odd decision. Keyes would never be one for assassinating innocent people even if it was "orders". Let alone be so at odds with his own daughter.

Regarding the backstory for the Spartans... in the original show they never "erased memories", in fact they never really hid anything from the kids. They were up-front with why they were there and what their purpose was from the start. And basically all the Spartans were on the same page. They were humanity's best hope for stability, but then the Covenant came and they became their best hope for survival. None of them ever truly questioned their role, especially not John. And the fact a random piece of alien tech has him questioning himself because of a few memories is frankly odd. They've gone through over a decade of hardcore training by the time this show takes place (they were kidnapped when they were 6, and in the show they are early 20's).

It also betrays Halsey's original position as a mother figure. She was really the one who cared greatly for them, so the idea that she'd hide this from them just reeks of bad writing and a way to incorporate "government evil" into the overall plot. Which they didn't need to do... cause there's an entire organization for that purpose in Halo called ONI.

So what I don't really like here is the story is likely going to go in the direction of Master Chief losing trust for Halsey and the fact his memories were taken from him; something that almost completely irrelevant to the world of Halo and ignores so much of what can be explore for a really overdone plot line that we've all seen before in tons of other movies and shows. Not to mention how they are treating the alien tech they found as a McGuffin device, which just further pushes the poor writing.

 

Also, I dislike that Silver team was making literal poses when they were about to open the Pelican; those stupid Halo 5 and Infinite poses from the games. All-in-all I'm hopefully, if not optimistic.

 

[+mram Subscriber²]

It's bound to be different.  I like that they didn't make a huge deal about masks.  I hate how we have shows like Mandalorian where you never see expressions.  

 

First shows are always awkward because you have to establish a lot of ground.  I think this one did marvelously at getting us intrigued.  Looking forward to the next one.

 

What I really didn't like the most was FPS viewpoints.  I don't want a game, I want a narrative.

What I liked the most was basically all of the new things.  I am all about different variants of stories.  Hell, I grew up with Hitchhikers Guide, and every media that went into had an altered story.  It's ok guys, it really is.  

[Emn1ty]

It's fine for things to be different, what I don't want is more of the same with a Halo skin.

[George P Global Moderator]

On 26/03/2022 at 21:41, Emn1ty said:

It's a competent show with good special effects and an unexpectedly gritty (but welcome) feel to it. I'm hoping the show opens doors for more Halo media, but it's definitely going to be in a weird spot with lore fans.

 

  Hide contents

Silver Team is a derivative of the original Blue Team. With analogs for Master Chief's original team:

• Vannak (Assault): analog for Fred (Assault)
• Riz (Communcations): analog for Kelly (Scout)
• Kai (Marksman): analog for Linda (Marksman)

I don't really mind this so much, though. It keeps them from having to be super on-point with the characters and it's a different timeline anyways.

 

What is a little unfortunate is that in the first combat scene we only see Elites. No Grunts, no Jackals... I was actually expecting to see Hunters when the door to the settlement blew open but we didn't get that either. Elites were typically commanders or spec-ops troops. They didn't usually come out in force like that, which was also the reason why early on in the war nobody even knew they existed because if you saw one you usually died. I think it was years into the Human-Covenant war before even the Spartans came face to face with them. But also forgivable, not a big deal in a different timeline. Just mildly disappointing we didn't get to see the other races.

 

Where the lore starts getting screwy though is with the changes to the Spartan's backstory, and the alterations for Miranda and Captain Keyes. Again, excusable in this alternate timeline but an odd decision. Keyes would never be one for assassinating innocent people even if it was "orders". Let alone be so at odds with his own daughter.

Regarding the backstory for the Spartans... in the original show they never "erased memories", in fact they never really hid anything from the kids. They were up-front with why they were there and what their purpose was from the start. And basically all the Spartans were on the same page. They were humanity's best hope for stability, but then the Covenant came and they became their best hope for survival. None of them ever truly questioned their role, especially not John. And the fact a random piece of alien tech has him questioning himself because of a few memories is frankly odd. They've gone through over a decade of hardcore training by the time this show takes place (they were kidnapped when they were 6, and in the show they are early 20's).

It also betrays Halsey's original position as a mother figure. She was really the one who cared greatly for them, so the idea that she'd hide this from them just reeks of bad writing and a way to incorporate "government evil" into the overall plot. Which they didn't need to do... cause there's an entire organization for that purpose in Halo called ONI.

So what I don't really like here is the story is likely going to go in the direction of Master Chief losing trust for Halsey and the fact his memories were taken from him; something that almost completely irrelevant to the world of Halo and ignores so much of what can be explore for a really overdone plot line that we've all seen before in tons of other movies and shows. Not to mention how they are treating the alien tech they found as a McGuffin device, which just further pushes the poor writing.

 

Also, I dislike that Silver team was making literal poses when they were about to open the Pelican; those stupid Halo 5 and Infinite poses from the games. All-in-all I'm hopefully, if not optimistic.

 

You bring up some interesting points but...

 

Spoiler

The idea that Silver Team is a alternate setup for blue team isn't much of a big deal since going off of core canon fireteams have the same 4 person setup.  And also in core canon MC doesn't work with just blue team, he's worked with other fireteams before, it's really nothing new.

 

As far as only seeing Elites in the start, sure it might be a bit of a shame but we're going to get Grunts and Jackals at some point because you can clearly see them in the trailers.  You can just explain this away by saying it was a small team just sent to retrieve a key Forerunner artifact on the hush hush and get back to HC.  Only reason they attacked was that they were spotted by the kids IMO.  I don't think the Profits would let anyone other than Elites handle and collect valuable artifacts lore wise.  Though we see Brutes take that role more later, in H2, after the Profits decided to backstab the Elites story wise.  

 

As far as the parts with Miranda and her dad, honestly the core canon doesn't give us much as far as I'm aware.  Miranda is never touched on much aside of her side character status in H2 and H3, she's pretty much 1 dimensional as far as the games go.  And I don't know if any of the books used her, but I haven't heard of any.   Captain Keyes is pretty much the same thing, aside from the bits we have of him in Reach and H1, we have no flushed out backstory, that I'm aware of.   So we don't know how he'd act to orders, specially from high up.  They're in the military, you follow orders and they're at war so...   Who's to say how he'd act?

 

The memories being locked away, I'll give you that one,  I think it's a creative change made so they can tell the type of story they're going for with MC, something Halo 4 and Infinite go into more than the first 3 games.   Going for a more humanizing story, so remembering your family works, otherwise if you're aware of your past and still just a advanced killing machine who follows orders to the letter, what do you fall back on?  It's too early in the story to play the Cortana key, which is what the games used.    I actually think it's a more realistic version of what would happen if you get snatched up and brainwashed into being a no questions asked killer.  

 

I also think Halsey isn't that far off from her original version, if anything she goes counter to the Generals orders and tells the team to protect MC, it's just one episode so we'll see how it goes but as far as core canon goes, it's been noted that the only one Halsey respects/fears is General Parangosky so they show a bit of that in the episode.  The chicks in charge of Oni, she's not someone to mess with even for the Dr.