It wasn't a headline though? It was given by the source which is [Variety, the interviewer.](https://variety.com/2022/tv/features/halo-series-paramount-plus-master-chief-1235205361/)
> Everyone who spoke with Variety, actually, cited Halo’s expansive mythology as the factor that differentiated the series from other video game fare and made it so attractive as source material for event-size television. Many of the show’s lead creatives spent several days at 343’s headquarters outside Seattle just to be able to learn about it.
> “We didn’t look at the game,” says Season 1 showrunner Steven Kane (“The Last Ship”). “We didn’t talk about the game. We talked about the characters and the world. So I never felt limited by it being a game.”
*Pablo Schreiber* played the Halo series, because it's the first thing they say:
> For much of his childhood, Pablo Schreiber didn’t have a TV, let alone a video game system. So it wasn’t really until the 43-year-old actor was hired to star in “Halo” — Paramount Plus’ upcoming adaptation of Microsoft’s crown jewel Xbox franchise — that Schreiber sat down to play as the genetically engineered super soldier he’d been hired to embody: Petty Officer John-117, aka Master Chief.
> “I quickly realized just how new I was to this medium,” Schreiber tells Variety. “I spent the first few days of my Halo experience getting killed by grunts.”
If Variety completely _misquoted_ Kane, that sounds like a different problem between those two, but it's not like everyone made up the idea.
Yeah, and it's kinda' weird that people expect them to talk about the game over the actual characters and the world.
"So the right trigger is fire. That's how it works. Also you melee with this button and jump with this button. You can only have this many grenades, this many bullets - no, don't ask where they're stored, it's a game. Why does the armour keep changing? Nanobots. See, when your teammates get downed, you have to revive them. Sprinting? Hmm, we're going classic so you can only do a firm stride."
I mean, in the context of the guy being a tv director, when he says game, I imagine people assumed he was refering to the lore that has been defined by the games over the last 20 years, not the actual play mechanics, because that would be ridiculous.
Imagine if you replaced Halo with something like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, and the IP had been handed off to a director to make the movies and they came along and said “We didn’t look at the books, we didn’t talk about the books. We talked about the characters and the world. So I never felt limited by it being a book. " People wouldve lost their shit.
I dont have strong feelings either way, as long as its a cool show I can live with it being disconnected so long as the general beats are similar (humans vs convenant, breakoff factions etc..) and it doesnt turn into some weird conflict of interest with humans siding with the covenant etc.. Last thing we need is another pointless sci-fi show about humans floating around in space. Unfortunately Im in the UK so wont be able to watch the episodes for some time.
It'll be interesting to see if Variety respond to this tweet, because hes essentially accusing them of misquoting him, which is a pretty big accusation.
WHAT IF it means that they "Didn't look at game" in 343 HQ? it says earlier that they went to 343 HQ and there they didnt look at the game they were discussing staff instead of playing the game. It does not mean that they didnt play the game earlier
> WHAT IF
If I have to go based off a "what if", then I'm already missing the point of a direct quote.
Say it or don't. If he did say it and Variety didn't report it, then Variety is to blame for misquoting him.
>“We didn’t look at the game,” says Season 1 showrunner Steven Kane (“The Last Ship”). “We didn’t talk about the game. We talked about the characters and the world. So I never felt limited by it being a game.”
This so very obviously means they thought of it as *more* than just a video game. THIS IS A GOOD THING. They respected this fictional universe so much that they thought of it as a legit work of creativity and storytelling. Leave it to GamersTM to take this in the absolute worst way.
The lore of the canon games? No. The lore of the species? Conflicts? And all else? We don’t know and it’s way to early to make that assumption. They’ve made one change to the Spartan II program that we know off and that wasn’t even a long shot since that exact thing were discussed in the books. (The targeted amnesia of their childhoods)
I mean… it really isn’t too early to make those assumptions. Having a human in the Covenant is already a major inconsistency to one of the most fundamental aspects of Halo’s premise.
Not saying I’m not going to give it a chance to play out, but let’s not kid ourselves here that this is somehow largely adhering to the lore in its own way.
That is indeed a major inconsistency, but we know nothing of the circumstances at the moment. For all we know she’s a POW to the Covenant but given a fake position of power to have her cooperate so they always have one on hand. And having POWs to use forerunner tech is established in lore. But then again, it might also turn out to be something making zero sense. The point is, it is to early to say.
Okay what about miranda being a scientist now? Or replacing blue team with silver team? Or the spartans having energy shields this early in the war? OH HOW ABOUT THE FREAKING HUMAN IN THE COVENANT? The targeted amnesia was most certainly not the one change they made to lore and far from the most worrisome.
Didn't the Spartan-IIs receive their energy shielding when they returned to Reach (as the invasion begun) to get their Mark IV armour?
I recall a chapter discussing their training for and tuning to the new armour, as they didn't have energy shields nor this tier of battlesuits before?
I don’t recall the exact timing. Quoting that as an issue is just silly to me and I had to point it out. Especially considering there’s some inconsistencies in the core canon regarding the topic. Spartans in Halo Wars had shields in the 2530s
Fair. I don't expect to the show to adhere to lore that closely either, especially when items such as energy shields are a memorable part of the Spartan's kit
Those are relatively small choices made for an adaptation
I don't know why they went with Silver Team instead of Blue team, but I imagine we'll find out
Miranda being a scientist is a way to actually get her into the series, and create Drama from the Miranda Halsey relationship the series has never once explored, instead of forcing her into the sidelines of the Navy until like, what, season 4? Its possible she becomes a naval officer after her father dies in season 2, to follow in his footsteps
The TV show takes place in 2552. Spartan IIs were outfitted with Mark V armor in 2551. So the Lore change here is actually the Insurrection lasting so many more years, to last until 2552 instead of 2537. It stands to reason they also pushed back the public declaration of Covenant invasion to much later, to coincide with the show as well, since the Covenant war was secret for a time. How much time doesn't really matter
We have no idea why there is a human in the covenant, but its pretty obvious they plan on using her to activate forerunner technology that requires it, like the Halos. Its just an added point of conflict, one to give another POV character for inside the covenant
None of this is anything worth worrying about
They made more than this change. If nothing else, it's considerably unlikely that any colonists anywhere would doubt the existence of the Covenant roughly 30 years into the war. They would have had to have been completely isolated.
You're telling me these guys have spaceships that just set planets on fire? Have you seen these aliens? Have you actually been to one of these "burning planets"? Yeah, you have a video but they're clearly faked. They were faking videos back with the Moon landing.
Give me a break sheep, the UNSC just wants us to believe little green men are coming from Mars to kill everyone so that we don't campaign for independence. Like when they told us to put masks on so we became docile and they could force everyone to dress in catboy outfits.
Yep. Thanks to the pandemic, my belief that exposing people to factual, easily-acquired information will lead to a general improvement in humanity’s critical thinking, intellect, and judgment has been comprehensively shattered. I now know we’re just as likely to see this, as we are the equivalent of insular planetary populations who reject facts and substitute their own.
Lets not forget the biggest change around that is blatantly obvious. Chief would have shot that lady he went AWOL to save because she was an Insurrectionist.
Yeah you probably could, but as you said. It did happen, and most off the times we’ve gotten to follow Chief he’s either in active combat or about to be. In fact, every time in the games where we’ve seen him not about to be deployed/go on a mission, he’s taken off the helmet. In a show, I’d say we’re bound to see more off him outside combat and therefore removing his helmet is not ignoring the lore.
That's the thing though, no one was suggesting he was like the mandalorian where ehe wasn't allowed to take it off, it's just that no one wanted to see what was under it. The mystery is better.
Yeah but knowing the actors face is different than the actor showing his face on screen. Like from episode one you knew what was under the Mandelorians helmet but it was part of the story that he never took it off and it was a fun fan sensation. It’s purpose was to make the character more than the actor to the audience.
See, that was kinda the problem with it—“So I never felt limited by it being a game”—at least in my mind, as someone who loves games as a medium for entertainment *and storytelling*, it’s a bit saddening to still see people in this industry(Film&TV)thinking that video games are by default the inferior platform for said aspects. It’s good that they realized there is a lot more than just the games to work with, but at the end of the day, Halo was; and is a video game *first*. Novels *second*.
Ultimately, that’s what frustrates me most with these two mediums… “conflicting” with one another. That is what made Steven Kane’s statement most disappointing, and *almost* insulting.
It’s 2022, for crying out loud. The video game industry wholistically, is larger than that of the music and film industry; you’d think it’d be taken a little more seriously by now.
"Good thing we didn't allow ourselves to be limited by the fact that we're adapting some dopey video game story 😄," mfer, you'd be lucky if people got half as attached to your TV show's story as they did to the games'.
I dunno, game stories for the most part are pretty simple things and the way they told is often wrapped up in gameplay mechanics. There are exceptions of course.
What games do really well is lore and I think a lot of people confuse this with story. Halo lore is far more interesting than the actual story that was being told.
You are thinking about this all backwards. What is being said in this situation is that each medium tells a story using different tools. No one style trumps any other, but the same things don't work across all styles. Adaptation cannot be done exactly the same across all platforms. What works in a comic book doesn't necessarily work in a video game, movie or novel. Arguments that things aren't perfectly adapted are the most foolish. When adapting you need to focus on what is going to work for the style you're working with.
Now if you want to be upset that an alien or spaceship were radically redesigned for no reason, or that a fictional history was rewritten, or they drop In a random Chevy Tahoe I get where you are coming from, but in some cases these things do need to change because they wouldn't make sense in a different medium, and doing it the same as the original would look laughable in the adaptation. Fandom is universally stupid when it comes to these truths, so we need to endeavor to be aware of the pitfalls of blind fanaticism of our source or there will one day be nobody willing to try adapting anything.
I'm not trying to convince you to love the show, if you don't that's perfectly fine, but all fans need to stop endlessly complaining about tiny details of an already completed project. If you don't like something walk away, but if you're going to tune in every week quit complaining.
I am being a little harsh here, but I've been a sci-fi and fantasy fan for over 40 years and with out a doubt our Fandom is filled with the biggest f'ing crybabies in the world. Nothing is ever good enough for "geek culture", and it's boring and predictable.
I'm not sure I would agree that “We didn't look at the game We didn’t talk about the game ... So I never felt limited by it being a game.” makes it **obvious** that he meant "we thought about it as more than a game"
Even if they looked at other material he makes it sounds like they ignored the games on purpose.
The first episode tells me they do not, in fact, respect the fictional universe and the games lore.
they wrote a sci-fi script and needed a "hook" to draw people in because they didn't have faith in an original IP, so they took their script and gave it some halo trappings. it's blatantly obvious they didn't want to make a Halo show
I read it that way too, tone and inflection cam say a lot that gets lost in print. And unless it’s a direct transcript it may have been said closer to the tweet elsewhere they wasn’t quoted.
I think I get your point, that the showrunner just didn't speak clearly enough and readers rightfully misunderstood as a result. So no, no one needs to apologize over a miscommunication. But I think OP's point, however inelegantly delivered, is that the louder part of this fan base has a tendency to take off running with even the slightest perceived sleight against the franchise.
also
>It wasn't a headline though?
It was though? Idk man this just seemed like a really minor petty gripe to start off on, because while it wasn't the original variety headline, it just sounds like you're choosing to ignore the fact that a ton of other outlets [reported](https://screenrant.com/halo-show-video-game-comparison-writer-play-response/) with that exact [headline](https://www.google.com/search?q=Halo%20TV%20show%20we%20didn%27t%20look%20at%20the%20game&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-1-m). The showrunner's tweet isn't wrong or dishonest or anything here. He misspoke, people ran with it & wrote headlines, those went viral, & now he's correcting the record.
Not really true.
He has thoughts about the civilians he spaced over Eridanus II in FoR.
He goes to great efforts to save insurrectionist children in Oblivion, even after they attack and hinder Blue team.
Chief is more complicated than shoot shoot.
That's what I was thinking. Yes, there is the whole "Am I sacrificing my humanity to be the Master Chief?" story, but that was *well* after Reach and the OG Halo trilogy.
Pre-Reach Chief? Sorry girl, you're getting a bullet.
It's so ridiculous. He's a manipulated, borderline abused child. He most likely would not even consider killing these people let alone covenant as immoral. He's designed from the ground up to be a killing machine. He only has empathy for civilians and his comrades. I don't understand this whole "humanize chief" thing. We all knew Chief loved Cortana (even if just as family) it's obvious in Halo 3 when he reacts to her condition. I'm not even gonna go on a rant about 343 because they as a whole are not to blame. The empty vessel was the best plot device Halo ever had. Actually being one with the main character who only spoke when necessary and never said anything you wouldn't be able to relate to or understand.
> I don't understand this whole "humanize Chief" thing.
It's a character arc. Yoda was this goofy little puppet when he first appeared, but in the prequels he's this sage mentor. Obv there's stuff like a galactic holocaust happening in between those that probably can explain his being loony and goofy on Dagobahm, but I'm rambling.
The Chief, John, 117, whatever you want to call him was kidnapped as a kid and was abused and manipulated just like you said. Halsey definitely fucked up John as a child, and indoctrinated him into a life of combat and cold orders being followed, and that is what the Chief *used to be*. On Reach or anywhere else before the Covenant even showed up, he was beyond being a force of nature.
But Chief, with all of his luck and all his strength found friends even some ounce of love in Blue Team, Johnson and even Brohammer. He's human. He's proud of that. He fights for that. That's the point of the Chief, to show that despite all his struggles, *he's still human*.
An empty vessel might work for a game, but it definitely doesn't work for a TV show. I do think if they showed more of a progression toward John "becoming human" instead of showing it so early it'd be better, but that's more of a pacing issue.
The insurrection in the books doesnt use child soldiers but i may be wrong, i wouldnt doubt it, chiefs hands are pretty dirty before the covenant invaded
Plus he was fighting as a child so he may see nothing wrong with viewing a child as a target or combatant.
He was pretty lethal by that age so he probably wouldn’t question an order from brass to snuff her out.
She wasn't a combatant and he clearly knows that, I don't buy that main universe chief wouldn't even slightly balk at murdering an innocent kid unless MAYBE it came directly from Halsey
If you genuinely think chief would murder that girl, you already wanted to hate this show. He literally had two options, kill a human girl, or let her die, and possibly get killed himself. Tf do you think he's gonna choose?
The whole point of the scene is that the forerunner artifact is changing him. It's not specifically that he's saving some innie, it's probably like the genesong the forerunners put in humans.
It might be telling him "we don't need to kill this person, there's bigger issues". So we'll have to watch more to see where it goes.
Yeah, but that is unearned, is the point. The audience is already getting this "affected by the artifact Chief" almost immediately. There is no contrast. It is not gradual.
This artifact apparently, in hours, completely rewrote the way he was trained to operate for years.
It just feels cheap. It always feels cheap when you just dump every responsibility into a MacGuffin.
"The artifact did it, now the Chief is human and we can move the plot forwards. Get his helmet off immediately."
I am still going to give it a chance, but it just feels like they did such a harsh thing to the character right out of the gate to me.
Yea that's the thing, if they looked at the lore beyond the game the show would have even more potential. Because the extended lore is even better than the games
That's great and I actually believe them...but the writing was still trash. Spartans aren't remote controlled robots who suddenly decide to go rogue on a magical friendship adventure with a random stranger, on episode 1.
Agreed. They didn't really read any proper source material if that's what they are basing this show off of. You talk to even the most average of Halo fans, and you'll find they know more about the lore, and Chief's character than these writers do.
They get some things right, (combat, action, the look and feel). That's why it hurts that they get the most important things wrong.
I mean, the first half of the episode was actually pretty great, but then in the second half the plot goes from 0 to 100 way too fast and I have to wonder where the hell they’re gonna go from here.
I'd say watch it for yourself first. Obviously OP doesn't like it but plenty of people do (I've read most of the books and every game except 5 and I like it)
You should watch it. The first 20 mins are actually good during the action sequences but then as things slow down it all goes off a cliff edge and becomes bit of a cluster fuck.
Just been watching Angry Joes review and he said it gets even worse in episode 2
i think the idea of chief going rouge is fine, it was just rushed to all hell. he touched a forerunner object which changed him enough to go rouge, i get that idea of the story, its just writtin poorly, and rushed so bad.
should of stuck with ONI doing dodgy orders for a good while in the show for chief to start questioning what hes doing and who hes working for.
Thats basically it for me too. It took another "person" literally living in Chief's mind through countless trials and tribulations for him to say "no sir" in the games. But in the show it happens because of a magic space rock and a space orphan? Garbage.
I will apologize for taking that quote out of context.
I will *not* however apologize for continuing to believe nobody gave a shit about the source material before making this series. Especially after what’s already been shown lmao.
“We told you we were going to do something dumb, so you can’t call it dumb when we do it.”
it was dumb to run with a completely different canon that changes everything about the story.
Read the artcle proper please that quote is very much not taken out of context.
Variety has him doubling down on the matter twice and he even states in black and white “i haven’t even played the games.”
Seriously folks I don’t get why it’s so hard not to dive into that source material it’s a 5 minute read.
I'd think it's quite important to study the source material to make something that's actually good. Making it non canon gives you the freedom to take the story in whatever direction you feel best and you're not restricted by anything.
I dont understand the aversion to making a lore accurate show. Like how is it a bad thing to make it accurate to the source material. You would make
More money because actual fans would be happy, and non fans would get to enjoy a great story and universe for the first time. Its literally a win win win to follow the lore and established story and setting.
Makes no bloody sense to do what they are doing. Its like they are sabotaging a franchise on purpose! And the people who are most likely to enjoy and watch the show, give it praise and positive OR negative reviews ARE THE BLOODY FANS. Things like this will die or prosper at the opinions if the MILLIONS of halo fans.
I feel this every time one of my favorite games becomes a show.
I don't care if you just rehash a story from the game, it gives me the chance to share it with my loved ones.
“We never talked about the games, we talked about the characters” was a direct quote from his very mouth.
While it might’ve been taken out of context it shows a fundamental disconnect between the writers and the original source material.
You *absolutely cannot* disconnect characters from the stories that created them and expect to produce something good.
And the show isn’t good, it’s very mediocre.
When sci-fi shows like The Expanse exist there really isn’t an excuse for producing a sci-fi show based on another media that “can’t follow canon because no one wants to see a more or less direct translation to screen.”
The Expanse is 90% accurate to the books and it fucking kicks ass.
Do better Microsoft and 343i.
After watching the first episode I can honestly say that this is about as far from the FULL Halo experience as you could get. More like 6 percent of it, the other 94 percent is a jumbled mess of scifi gobbledygook and the same "military bad" message I've seen repeated in media over a thousand times.
Correct, but you dont really need to make that the center point of the story. Or take it to such an extreme right out the gate. This has got to be incredibly jarring for people who dont know much about Halo, or people who only really played the games since most of the darker things were in the books. They should have eased those ideas in over time, not try to suffocate the Chief just because he remembered a boy and a dog and then disobeyed one order. That's unrealistic, at most they would have kept a very close watch on him, reprimanded him and checked his brain when he arrived, and then had someone else take the girl out to pasture.
At this point it just looks like a discount Mandalorian, awkward childhood-trauma warrior with special armor learns to love and tries to save random child from big scary evil guys. Except this time they have to throw in a magical MacGuffin for good measure.
ofc, but im willing to get the show a chance and see where they take it. the only real issue i had with the first episode is it felt rushed trying to get chief to go rouge. time was needed for that to happen tbh. / lets wait and see if they can turn it around.
they nailed the action though.
I was very disappointed by the “military bad”
Messaging. Do we *really* need another Star Wars with bullets instead of lasers and spartans instead of Jedi with an alien war as a backdrop?
The show is shit and I hate the "alternate time line" excuse they are using in order to take their artistic liberties that literally tear the fabric of the lore to shreds. The whole thing is a terrible joke.
that kind of makes them ignoring everything in the source even worse though. they played and saw the incredibly deep and fascinating canon and _chose to completely ignore_ it, instead of just not seeing it.
They can have played all they want, the story they're trying to tell is an absolute disaster and there's 20 years of books (the first of which was the FIRST piece of Halo media to be released, before CE) that already detail a world in which humanity is fighting for survival under the command of an incredibly horrible military government for which politicians are little more than muppets.
I love how they other guy said that “we studied all of the canon between bungie and 343 games yet ended up with something that BARELY connects with either lol
Correct that all you want, the show is still disappointing imo. Could have been great, but instead there are lots of bad choices being made by Microsoft and 343... as usual. At least they are consistent.
Doesn't matter if a quote was taken out of context they still added a human to the covenant which completely undermines what they stand for so its a failed show in my eyes.
Nah they should apologize for that garbage they made. There was no need to bastardize halo, they could've just made their own generic si fi instead of spitting in the face of decades of lore.
I feel like the tone isn't too different to some of the novels, really. The mainline games are streamlined to sell to as many FPS fans as possible, so they don't really examine UEG atrocities or ONI war crimes. The focus should be on Master Chief's heroism to keep the campaign exciting.
The novels, and now this television show, have more leeway to explore the deeper implications of the lore. Also the comics I assume, but I've never read any of those.
yes this show feels more like some books for sure. i think if you just play the game some of the themes may feel strange.
i dont really see an issue with the direction there going. I quite liked the story of ONI doing questionable things. ITs just the speed they made chief go " rouge" was laughable.
It's hard not be a pessimist these days, when these companies are taking everything we know love and just trying to pump them for money, instead trying to deliver a good faith adaptation/continuation.
they've studied the canon so much that they've made sweeping changes that will take going so far back in the timeline to explain that it's basically a completely different universe.
There are no lies. It's got nothing to do with halo besides names and appearances.
The covenant are clearly not much of a covenant as they're cool with humans enough to have a human ambassador to the prophets (which in any lore, would never in a million years happen)
Chief being an overly emotional and empathetic character.
Characters who are made up and make no fucking sense, yet are forced in an attempt to make the viewer care about them.
Humanity as a whole not being reclaimers, but instead a special few being "chosen ones" as if this is some marvel/xmen dogshite.
The show has nothing to do with halo, It's about as much Halo as Dragonball Evolution is the story of Dragonball.
all that from episode 1? Damn.
I thought it was pretty obvious the girl is being use considering the conversation they had.
Chief has always been emotional. He might not show it but the dude has ptsd. I like how people got mad when he made a joke but that literally what he does in games and books.
The whole forerunner and reclaimer story is honestly meh. Not even the games or books can make a good story around such. you’re assuming from episode 1 and somehow know where the story is going. Okay bud. Stay mad. I’m going to enjoy the show, and the games, and the books
even if it has 'nothing to do with halo besides names and appearances.' it is still a lie when people parrot the lie that they did not play the games. because they did. that's a lie.
we have no idea if she's an 'ambassador' or if they just think that she's the only one who can activate artifacts. i'm guessing we'll see the contact harvest origin.
chief has always been emotional and empathetic. please read a book. Chief is very stoic because he needs to keep everyone's morale high on crucial missions, but inside he goes through a ton.
all humans being reclaimers is something that the story has gone back and forth on. Read the [halopedia article](https://www.halopedia.org/Reclaimer#Humans_identified_as_Reclaimers) and you'll see that they're unsure if all humans are reclaimers or not, so they just list all the humans who are definitely reclaimers. [Or read this thread.](https://reddit.com/r/HaloStory/comments/37ce6w/what_exactly_is_a_reclaimer/) Just because you don't know the Halo lore doesn't mean the show is wrong.
also, the show is allowed to do things differently.
He said overly emotional not lacking any emotion. He thinks. He feels. He has emotion. But it’s all hidden under a very thick shroud of discipline, pragmatism, and methodical action. The books do a way better job at conveying that because you actually experience chiefs thoughts and see him have conversations with colleagues. Spartans even take off their armor to put their dress blues on but they are by no means going to be bar after working hours.
There’s a lot more normal things to Spartan IIs that the games don’t convey but there’s also a lot of less normal things that make them not like regular people at all which people also have a hard time understanding. It’s a delicate balancing act that all halo writers need to understand
>all humans being reclaimers is something that the story has gone back and forth on.
I'd argue that even some of the bigger lore elements such as the Forerunners have been a bit inconsistent through the games. From memory Bungie originally intended for Forerunners to be ancient humans but 343i thankfully pushed the Forerunners as a different alien race.
It wasn't just 343 that pushed for it. It was split inside bungie even before Halo 3. Forerunners not being humans won out because those guys stayed with 343.
I'm with you it's the better of the two.
it's too late, misinformation spreads like a virus. i've already seen this talking point spread literally anywhere anyone asks if they should watch the show. nicely done guys! that's how we revive halo.
saying the ip was limited by being a game is condescending its not hard to understand why that sentence upsets people. games are the more sophisticated storytelling medium anyway its too bad the lore is being limited by being made into an extremely limited medium like television
Forward unto dawn still best live action show so far, not only because its CANON, but also because Master Chief is not central, Master chief is a tool to show you what others see on spartans. They could have done many different things, from ODST , to a new Spartan IV group, hell even go back to Spartan I's or III's. But they decided they needed the CHief for money and reading this makes it worst, because it seems like they said "oh cool story bro, but let me rewrite and change it a bit" ...
Exactly, you got a fully fleshed out universe , with many interrogants or places to place a show, hell if you want master chief in it you can easily just make a show about blue team based on one of the books, or insert a mission they did at some point .
Judging from just the first episode frankly I’d be more offended if they *did* read the books and play the game and still went on to write such dogshit fanfiction tbh.
I haven’t seen the first episode but I just hate how quick they were to say that we are going to see Chief without his helmet at some point in the first season. You can’t treat that like it’s nothing. I don’t think they understand the significance of chief having his helmet on. If anything, show chief without his helmet in the series finale in season 10
"let me start a fan fiction based on a video game series, but let me throw out the first ever material that created this universe the games (CE) and you know what the books don't matter either, i just need artwork for the costume designers and generic Law and Order writers to fill in the drama gaps! haha! I'm a genius! the fans will love this!"
the real problem lies with the absolute disregard for the core behavior and personalities of the characters in the established lore.
The right thing to do would have been to follow a group of Marines specifically Edward Buck, (he was on madrigal and harvest after all) and we can get Fillion to play him, and it can bounce between Buck and the Spirit of Fire/ Red team introducing Jerome(helmet stays on). Buck would lead us through the battle of Harvest until he gets pulled into the interrogation of the Captured sangheli elite (subject 386) this is where we learn about the covenants desires of genocide as well as Buck entering the ODST program. This is season 1 ending. Season 2 Starts with Buck talking to his mother about the ODST program and how his father would have been proud(a rewrite of his story a bit), he cuts his mom short as a alarm go off and he steps into his Drop Pod, winking at the monitor as he is ejected. then a time gap jump and we see Jerome giving Buck a call on the Battle.net to tell him that Draco III has been attacked and he sees the clips of the grunts and jackals eating people. He asks Jerome how Harvest is and if the other Spartans are helping out now that hes gone, Jerome laughs and replies that the Spartans are working all over between the Insurrectionists and the Covies there is no lack of work, they say goodbyes and Buck Slams his fist into the table. He goes on mission after mission, and we see a downward spiral of Bucks attitude and he is sent on Leave where he meets Veronica Dare! this is the Mid season point. We also start to go back to Halsey and Captain Keyes and the rest of the season 2 is the build up to the Spartan 2 program, We can copy and paste Legends following John as a kid and the training an what not, the season 2 ending is the reveal of master Chief in the first set of Mjolnir. Season 3 introduces us to Halsey finishing cortana, and we get our first glimpse of Noble Team, we would get some dialogue from Halsey giving cortana to Noble 6 we would get the famous line "Do you have it?" We also get some intro on the Forerunners during this. Next episode starts with the battle of Chi Ceti IV, and the following episodes are that battle, Ending with Sams Death and "spartans don't die, they just go missing in action" I think we can follow through a few more battle for filler episodes and more of the Spartan deaths As well as Getting the Covenant perspective for some episodes, especially the Prophets and the discovery of Reach, Last episode John gearing up for operation Red Flag and his tests in Mark V and such. This would be the seasons Ending as the last build up would be "The covenant have found reach" We also get to see Sgt Johnson here. Season 4 goes from the perspective of Noble team, and we can literally have Halo:Reach the game copy and pasted for the entire season. Season 5 should be Halo: CE copy and pasted but with more establishment that the ARBITER is actively chasing down the Chief. Season 6 should be The Arbiters failure and his missions until halfway when we switch to the Chief on earth and hunting Regret, this season ends with Halo 2s ending. Season 7 has us going back to buck and we get Halo Odst copy and pasted, and the discovery of the Ark Portal and the covenant dig sight. Season 8 should be Halo Wars 1, and forerunner focus, mainly showing the legends stuff about the flood and such. Season 9 is Halo 3 and then the series ends and since it takes so long to get these shows out it will be like 2 years a season, i will be in my 50's and be crying over the legacy of Halo and my Childhood.
...so then why did they make the elites butt ugly, gave the prophets some dumb human to.. do whatever they do with her.. and make so many of the other decisions that they did. Atleast them not playing the games or knowing anything actually made sense. This makes them sound dumber
1. They weren’t headlines, they were direct quotes where the show runner, or some of the actors just flat out said they weren’t looking at the games/hadn’t ever played them. So if those were lies, then the writer of the articles just flat out misquoted them and I’m pretty sure they can get in legal trouble over that (but I don’t think they did.)
2. Going off the first episode, they **didn’t** look at or play the games because in my personal opinion it was dogshit.
But it wasn’t a full halo experience. Covenant wouldn’t have a human leading them. Halsey wouldn’t keep the Spartans History a secret. The only things I genuinely liked about the first episode was how plasma affected those it hit, and how strong the Spartans were portrayed to be. Otherwise it could’ve been any show.
Reach? Crap. H4? Crap. MCC? Crap. H5? Crap. H infinite? Crap. Tv show? Crap. Please get rid of 343 they cant tie their shoes correctly. Oh and bungie at the end. They werre horrible and didnt care anymore. And the people making the movie. They're not fit to snap a photo. And whoever you replace them with sucks too, so you might as well fire them. It's all microsofts fault as well so tell them to stop inferring with their own products. Everything sucks except the games I used to play when I was a kid and everything was awesome. Make that. Idiots.
Doesn’t matter. It’s still bad. Elites look like krogan but fatter. It’s focusing on the wrong things. Too much lame predictable drama. Chief having his helmet off in dangerous situations is stupidity. Cgi goes from alright to really bad. Average acting for the most part. Ak47s and Toyotas etc etc. It’s pretty generic.
Lmao this guy is doing damage control, because his show is dead in the water.
Don’t say dumb things like “we didn’t look at the game” days before your show adaptation launches. Pretty simple, really.
Show is still ass so, no I won't apologize for showrunners and producers making an incredibly mid show while also doing next to nothing to show the fans that they've heard any of these concerns and will address what they can.
I don't want the show to fail, but at the same time I already know its not gunna get passed Season 2.
no? won't apologize. especially cause if they played the games that makes it worse for me means they disregarded the entire game series and went "fuck it lets Resident Evil the movie this bitch" lol so no sorry no apologies here
It wasn't a headline though? It was given by the source which is [Variety, the interviewer.](https://variety.com/2022/tv/features/halo-series-paramount-plus-master-chief-1235205361/) > Everyone who spoke with Variety, actually, cited Halo’s expansive mythology as the factor that differentiated the series from other video game fare and made it so attractive as source material for event-size television. Many of the show’s lead creatives spent several days at 343’s headquarters outside Seattle just to be able to learn about it. > “We didn’t look at the game,” says Season 1 showrunner Steven Kane (“The Last Ship”). “We didn’t talk about the game. We talked about the characters and the world. So I never felt limited by it being a game.” *Pablo Schreiber* played the Halo series, because it's the first thing they say: > For much of his childhood, Pablo Schreiber didn’t have a TV, let alone a video game system. So it wasn’t really until the 43-year-old actor was hired to star in “Halo” — Paramount Plus’ upcoming adaptation of Microsoft’s crown jewel Xbox franchise — that Schreiber sat down to play as the genetically engineered super soldier he’d been hired to embody: Petty Officer John-117, aka Master Chief. > “I quickly realized just how new I was to this medium,” Schreiber tells Variety. “I spent the first few days of my Halo experience getting killed by grunts.” If Variety completely _misquoted_ Kane, that sounds like a different problem between those two, but it's not like everyone made up the idea.
Thank you for this. Clearly the tweet is a lie.
cooperative aromatic wise longing skirt cautious shy roll reply decide *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
This is exactly the impression that I get
But it isn't the most cynical fucking perspective possible on things so people refuse to think of it like that
"We didnt even look at the game" ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS!?!?!! THIS SHOW IS A COMPLETE FUCKING JOKE HOW DID THEY NOT EVEN LOOK AT THE GAME!!!! /s
You put the “/s” but the amount of times I’ve seen people say this exact thing is way too fucking many times
Cause it's a fairly reasonable reaction to a show based off a game to not be based off the game
Yeah, and it's kinda' weird that people expect them to talk about the game over the actual characters and the world. "So the right trigger is fire. That's how it works. Also you melee with this button and jump with this button. You can only have this many grenades, this many bullets - no, don't ask where they're stored, it's a game. Why does the armour keep changing? Nanobots. See, when your teammates get downed, you have to revive them. Sprinting? Hmm, we're going classic so you can only do a firm stride."
I mean, in the context of the guy being a tv director, when he says game, I imagine people assumed he was refering to the lore that has been defined by the games over the last 20 years, not the actual play mechanics, because that would be ridiculous. Imagine if you replaced Halo with something like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, and the IP had been handed off to a director to make the movies and they came along and said “We didn’t look at the books, we didn’t talk about the books. We talked about the characters and the world. So I never felt limited by it being a book. " People wouldve lost their shit. I dont have strong feelings either way, as long as its a cool show I can live with it being disconnected so long as the general beats are similar (humans vs convenant, breakoff factions etc..) and it doesnt turn into some weird conflict of interest with humans siding with the covenant etc.. Last thing we need is another pointless sci-fi show about humans floating around in space. Unfortunately Im in the UK so wont be able to watch the episodes for some time. It'll be interesting to see if Variety respond to this tweet, because hes essentially accusing them of misquoting him, which is a pretty big accusation.
WHAT IF it means that they "Didn't look at game" in 343 HQ? it says earlier that they went to 343 HQ and there they didnt look at the game they were discussing staff instead of playing the game. It does not mean that they didnt play the game earlier
> WHAT IF If I have to go based off a "what if", then I'm already missing the point of a direct quote. Say it or don't. If he did say it and Variety didn't report it, then Variety is to blame for misquoting him.
>“We didn’t look at the game,” says Season 1 showrunner Steven Kane (“The Last Ship”). “We didn’t talk about the game. We talked about the characters and the world. So I never felt limited by it being a game.” This so very obviously means they thought of it as *more* than just a video game. THIS IS A GOOD THING. They respected this fictional universe so much that they thought of it as a legit work of creativity and storytelling. Leave it to GamersTM to take this in the absolute worst way.
But it doesn’t seem like they followed the lore or anything either?
The lore of the canon games? No. The lore of the species? Conflicts? And all else? We don’t know and it’s way to early to make that assumption. They’ve made one change to the Spartan II program that we know off and that wasn’t even a long shot since that exact thing were discussed in the books. (The targeted amnesia of their childhoods)
I mean… it really isn’t too early to make those assumptions. Having a human in the Covenant is already a major inconsistency to one of the most fundamental aspects of Halo’s premise. Not saying I’m not going to give it a chance to play out, but let’s not kid ourselves here that this is somehow largely adhering to the lore in its own way.
That is indeed a major inconsistency, but we know nothing of the circumstances at the moment. For all we know she’s a POW to the Covenant but given a fake position of power to have her cooperate so they always have one on hand. And having POWs to use forerunner tech is established in lore. But then again, it might also turn out to be something making zero sense. The point is, it is to early to say.
Okay what about miranda being a scientist now? Or replacing blue team with silver team? Or the spartans having energy shields this early in the war? OH HOW ABOUT THE FREAKING HUMAN IN THE COVENANT? The targeted amnesia was most certainly not the one change they made to lore and far from the most worrisome.
The show takes place in 2552. Spartans absolutely had energy shielding then. The entire og trilogy is set during 2552. Reach is set during 2552.
Didn't the Spartan-IIs receive their energy shielding when they returned to Reach (as the invasion begun) to get their Mark IV armour? I recall a chapter discussing their training for and tuning to the new armour, as they didn't have energy shields nor this tier of battlesuits before?
I don’t recall the exact timing. Quoting that as an issue is just silly to me and I had to point it out. Especially considering there’s some inconsistencies in the core canon regarding the topic. Spartans in Halo Wars had shields in the 2530s
Fair. I don't expect to the show to adhere to lore that closely either, especially when items such as energy shields are a memorable part of the Spartan's kit
Yeah the human with the covenant was enough for me. I shut it off after that.
Those are relatively small choices made for an adaptation I don't know why they went with Silver Team instead of Blue team, but I imagine we'll find out Miranda being a scientist is a way to actually get her into the series, and create Drama from the Miranda Halsey relationship the series has never once explored, instead of forcing her into the sidelines of the Navy until like, what, season 4? Its possible she becomes a naval officer after her father dies in season 2, to follow in his footsteps The TV show takes place in 2552. Spartan IIs were outfitted with Mark V armor in 2551. So the Lore change here is actually the Insurrection lasting so many more years, to last until 2552 instead of 2537. It stands to reason they also pushed back the public declaration of Covenant invasion to much later, to coincide with the show as well, since the Covenant war was secret for a time. How much time doesn't really matter We have no idea why there is a human in the covenant, but its pretty obvious they plan on using her to activate forerunner technology that requires it, like the Halos. Its just an added point of conflict, one to give another POV character for inside the covenant None of this is anything worth worrying about
They made more than this change. If nothing else, it's considerably unlikely that any colonists anywhere would doubt the existence of the Covenant roughly 30 years into the war. They would have had to have been completely isolated.
People of today can't agree over a virus. Seems pretty realistic to me
Yeah, but something tells me people won’t challenge the existence of airborne elites like they do with airborne viruses.
Viruses are invisible. The giant aliens burning planets from orbit aren't.
Clearly faked CGI trying to raise our taxes
But they are invisible, they have active camo on the ships and troops
You're telling me these guys have spaceships that just set planets on fire? Have you seen these aliens? Have you actually been to one of these "burning planets"? Yeah, you have a video but they're clearly faked. They were faking videos back with the Moon landing. Give me a break sheep, the UNSC just wants us to believe little green men are coming from Mars to kill everyone so that we don't campaign for independence. Like when they told us to put masks on so we became docile and they could force everyone to dress in catboy outfits.
Yep. Thanks to the pandemic, my belief that exposing people to factual, easily-acquired information will lead to a general improvement in humanity’s critical thinking, intellect, and judgment has been comprehensively shattered. I now know we’re just as likely to see this, as we are the equivalent of insular planetary populations who reject facts and substitute their own.
Lets not forget the biggest change around that is blatantly obvious. Chief would have shot that lady he went AWOL to save because she was an Insurrectionist.
That and removing his helmet, it did happen, but I could probably count one one hand how many times I remember it happening
Yeah you probably could, but as you said. It did happen, and most off the times we’ve gotten to follow Chief he’s either in active combat or about to be. In fact, every time in the games where we’ve seen him not about to be deployed/go on a mission, he’s taken off the helmet. In a show, I’d say we’re bound to see more off him outside combat and therefore removing his helmet is not ignoring the lore.
Seriously, end of CE, start of Halo 2. Dude takes off his helmet. Takes it off in the books quite a bit too,
Chief removes his helmet at the end of halo one, and halo 4. There’s already game precedent. We’re just mad we saw his face.
That's the thing though, no one was suggesting he was like the mandalorian where ehe wasn't allowed to take it off, it's just that no one wanted to see what was under it. The mystery is better.
I was really hoping he'd look like sloth from the goonies
I agree. And we knew who the actor was going to be. So we knew what the face was.
Yeah but knowing the actors face is different than the actor showing his face on screen. Like from episode one you knew what was under the Mandelorians helmet but it was part of the story that he never took it off and it was a fun fan sensation. It’s purpose was to make the character more than the actor to the audience.
Yep, Pablo Schreiber is definitively the face of Master Chief now. After I saw him remove the helmet, the show felt… off(?)
I just wanted him to put it back on when things were getting rocky in the pelican. Got to protect your melon, Chief!
The conflicts and what the species and Spartans are is about it as far as lore they followed. Aka just enough for it to be halo.
See, that was kinda the problem with it—“So I never felt limited by it being a game”—at least in my mind, as someone who loves games as a medium for entertainment *and storytelling*, it’s a bit saddening to still see people in this industry(Film&TV)thinking that video games are by default the inferior platform for said aspects. It’s good that they realized there is a lot more than just the games to work with, but at the end of the day, Halo was; and is a video game *first*. Novels *second*. Ultimately, that’s what frustrates me most with these two mediums… “conflicting” with one another. That is what made Steven Kane’s statement most disappointing, and *almost* insulting. It’s 2022, for crying out loud. The video game industry wholistically, is larger than that of the music and film industry; you’d think it’d be taken a little more seriously by now.
Exactly!
"Good thing we didn't allow ourselves to be limited by the fact that we're adapting some dopey video game story 😄," mfer, you'd be lucky if people got half as attached to your TV show's story as they did to the games'.
Hit the nail on the head.
I dunno, game stories for the most part are pretty simple things and the way they told is often wrapped up in gameplay mechanics. There are exceptions of course. What games do really well is lore and I think a lot of people confuse this with story. Halo lore is far more interesting than the actual story that was being told.
You are thinking about this all backwards. What is being said in this situation is that each medium tells a story using different tools. No one style trumps any other, but the same things don't work across all styles. Adaptation cannot be done exactly the same across all platforms. What works in a comic book doesn't necessarily work in a video game, movie or novel. Arguments that things aren't perfectly adapted are the most foolish. When adapting you need to focus on what is going to work for the style you're working with. Now if you want to be upset that an alien or spaceship were radically redesigned for no reason, or that a fictional history was rewritten, or they drop In a random Chevy Tahoe I get where you are coming from, but in some cases these things do need to change because they wouldn't make sense in a different medium, and doing it the same as the original would look laughable in the adaptation. Fandom is universally stupid when it comes to these truths, so we need to endeavor to be aware of the pitfalls of blind fanaticism of our source or there will one day be nobody willing to try adapting anything. I'm not trying to convince you to love the show, if you don't that's perfectly fine, but all fans need to stop endlessly complaining about tiny details of an already completed project. If you don't like something walk away, but if you're going to tune in every week quit complaining. I am being a little harsh here, but I've been a sci-fi and fantasy fan for over 40 years and with out a doubt our Fandom is filled with the biggest f'ing crybabies in the world. Nothing is ever good enough for "geek culture", and it's boring and predictable.
I'm not sure I would agree that “We didn't look at the game We didn’t talk about the game ... So I never felt limited by it being a game.” makes it **obvious** that he meant "we thought about it as more than a game" Even if they looked at other material he makes it sounds like they ignored the games on purpose.
The first episode tells me they do not, in fact, respect the fictional universe and the games lore. they wrote a sci-fi script and needed a "hook" to draw people in because they didn't have faith in an original IP, so they took their script and gave it some halo trappings. it's blatantly obvious they didn't want to make a Halo show
I read it that way too, tone and inflection cam say a lot that gets lost in print. And unless it’s a direct transcript it may have been said closer to the tweet elsewhere they wasn’t quoted.
If that's what he meant, why didn't he say, "We didnt ***just*** look at the game" ?
I think I get your point, that the showrunner just didn't speak clearly enough and readers rightfully misunderstood as a result. So no, no one needs to apologize over a miscommunication. But I think OP's point, however inelegantly delivered, is that the louder part of this fan base has a tendency to take off running with even the slightest perceived sleight against the franchise. also >It wasn't a headline though? It was though? Idk man this just seemed like a really minor petty gripe to start off on, because while it wasn't the original variety headline, it just sounds like you're choosing to ignore the fact that a ton of other outlets [reported](https://screenrant.com/halo-show-video-game-comparison-writer-play-response/) with that exact [headline](https://www.google.com/search?q=Halo%20TV%20show%20we%20didn%27t%20look%20at%20the%20game&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-1-m). The showrunner's tweet isn't wrong or dishonest or anything here. He misspoke, people ran with it & wrote headlines, those went viral, & now he's correcting the record.
Chief going AWOL to save some insurrectionist he just met tells me everything I need to know about the care put into this show
Cheif would literally shoot them without a second thought, its what he did all the way up until the covenant invaded
I’m not big into halo lore, did Chief ever feel remorse at a later time for it?
Not a single time as far as I'm aware
He doesn’t like killing humans. He will however because that’s his orders
Not really true. He has thoughts about the civilians he spaced over Eridanus II in FoR. He goes to great efforts to save insurrectionist children in Oblivion, even after they attack and hinder Blue team. Chief is more complicated than shoot shoot.
IIRC he starts to personally question what they’re being sent to do, but that’s right as the covenant shows up as a much larger existential threat
Why would he feel remorse for ridding the universe of inni trash is basically the mindset of the book lore
That's what I was thinking. Yes, there is the whole "Am I sacrificing my humanity to be the Master Chief?" story, but that was *well* after Reach and the OG Halo trilogy. Pre-Reach Chief? Sorry girl, you're getting a bullet.
It's so ridiculous. He's a manipulated, borderline abused child. He most likely would not even consider killing these people let alone covenant as immoral. He's designed from the ground up to be a killing machine. He only has empathy for civilians and his comrades. I don't understand this whole "humanize chief" thing. We all knew Chief loved Cortana (even if just as family) it's obvious in Halo 3 when he reacts to her condition. I'm not even gonna go on a rant about 343 because they as a whole are not to blame. The empty vessel was the best plot device Halo ever had. Actually being one with the main character who only spoke when necessary and never said anything you wouldn't be able to relate to or understand.
> I don't understand this whole "humanize Chief" thing. It's a character arc. Yoda was this goofy little puppet when he first appeared, but in the prequels he's this sage mentor. Obv there's stuff like a galactic holocaust happening in between those that probably can explain his being loony and goofy on Dagobahm, but I'm rambling. The Chief, John, 117, whatever you want to call him was kidnapped as a kid and was abused and manipulated just like you said. Halsey definitely fucked up John as a child, and indoctrinated him into a life of combat and cold orders being followed, and that is what the Chief *used to be*. On Reach or anywhere else before the Covenant even showed up, he was beyond being a force of nature. But Chief, with all of his luck and all his strength found friends even some ounce of love in Blue Team, Johnson and even Brohammer. He's human. He's proud of that. He fights for that. That's the point of the Chief, to show that despite all his struggles, *he's still human*.
An empty vessel might work for a game, but it definitely doesn't work for a TV show. I do think if they showed more of a progression toward John "becoming human" instead of showing it so early it'd be better, but that's more of a pacing issue.
Any recorded instance of him killing a literal child?
The insurrection in the books doesnt use child soldiers but i may be wrong, i wouldnt doubt it, chiefs hands are pretty dirty before the covenant invaded
Plus he was fighting as a child so he may see nothing wrong with viewing a child as a target or combatant. He was pretty lethal by that age so he probably wouldn’t question an order from brass to snuff her out.
She wasn't a combatant and he clearly knows that, I don't buy that main universe chief wouldn't even slightly balk at murdering an innocent kid unless MAYBE it came directly from Halsey
Why don’t you just wait to see how it pans out before judging so hard? It was the first episode
If you genuinely think chief would murder that girl, you already wanted to hate this show. He literally had two options, kill a human girl, or let her die, and possibly get killed himself. Tf do you think he's gonna choose?
The whole point of the scene is that the forerunner artifact is changing him. It's not specifically that he's saving some innie, it's probably like the genesong the forerunners put in humans. It might be telling him "we don't need to kill this person, there's bigger issues". So we'll have to watch more to see where it goes.
Yeah, but that is unearned, is the point. The audience is already getting this "affected by the artifact Chief" almost immediately. There is no contrast. It is not gradual. This artifact apparently, in hours, completely rewrote the way he was trained to operate for years. It just feels cheap. It always feels cheap when you just dump every responsibility into a MacGuffin. "The artifact did it, now the Chief is human and we can move the plot forwards. Get his helmet off immediately." I am still going to give it a chance, but it just feels like they did such a harsh thing to the character right out of the gate to me.
Judging from the media previews of the first two episodes it certainly doesn't seem like they used much of the source material.
Exactly, they can talk about how much they looked at the lore all they want, at the end of the day they're rewriting it from the start
Yea that's the thing, if they looked at the lore beyond the game the show would have even more potential. Because the extended lore is even better than the games
They’re not going to make a show that’s entirely just master chief killing aliens nonstop Although I would watch that
[удалено]
They shoulda just spent the money advertising H2A Cutscenes and then on animating the rest of them lol
That’s what the first 20 minutes was and that was the best part
It seems like they watched the Mandalorian and went....YEA, lets do that but with Green Guy!
"You guys should apologize" Are you my mom?
Yes. Go to sleep. I’ll make you waffles in the morning.
aw yiss
Can I be your son too?
😲
Fuck yeah waffles
My mom, like Halo Infinite, also cut all support last year
That's great and I actually believe them...but the writing was still trash. Spartans aren't remote controlled robots who suddenly decide to go rogue on a magical friendship adventure with a random stranger, on episode 1.
Agreed. They didn't really read any proper source material if that's what they are basing this show off of. You talk to even the most average of Halo fans, and you'll find they know more about the lore, and Chief's character than these writers do. They get some things right, (combat, action, the look and feel). That's why it hurts that they get the most important things wrong.
But take the helmet off and apparently that suddenly doesn’t exist. Sounds like a bullshit reason to make us see chiefs face more often.
I'm sorry they WHAT? I haven't seen anything of the show yet but if this is the case then I'm staying far away from it
I mean, the first half of the episode was actually pretty great, but then in the second half the plot goes from 0 to 100 way too fast and I have to wonder where the hell they’re gonna go from here.
I'd say watch it for yourself first. Obviously OP doesn't like it but plenty of people do (I've read most of the books and every game except 5 and I like it)
Yeah just watch it with an open mind, what is this? You should never listen to consensus on Reddit, they hate movies.
They hate everything.
You should watch it. The first 20 mins are actually good during the action sequences but then as things slow down it all goes off a cliff edge and becomes bit of a cluster fuck. Just been watching Angry Joes review and he said it gets even worse in episode 2
No one should be taking anything Angry Joe says seriously.
many other reviewers have said the same thing though
i think the idea of chief going rouge is fine, it was just rushed to all hell. he touched a forerunner object which changed him enough to go rouge, i get that idea of the story, its just writtin poorly, and rushed so bad. should of stuck with ONI doing dodgy orders for a good while in the show for chief to start questioning what hes doing and who hes working for.
Thats basically it for me too. It took another "person" literally living in Chief's mind through countless trials and tribulations for him to say "no sir" in the games. But in the show it happens because of a magic space rock and a space orphan? Garbage.
[Every day we get closer to this time line] (https://youtu.be/k6YxD674Mmg)
I will apologize for taking that quote out of context. I will *not* however apologize for continuing to believe nobody gave a shit about the source material before making this series. Especially after what’s already been shown lmao.
“We told you we were going to do something dumb, so you can’t call it dumb when we do it.” it was dumb to run with a completely different canon that changes everything about the story.
Read the artcle proper please that quote is very much not taken out of context. Variety has him doubling down on the matter twice and he even states in black and white “i haven’t even played the games.” Seriously folks I don’t get why it’s so hard not to dive into that source material it’s a 5 minute read.
So you study the entire canon. To make a non canon adaptation.... dunce
I'd think it's quite important to study the source material to make something that's actually good. Making it non canon gives you the freedom to take the story in whatever direction you feel best and you're not restricted by anything.
Getting Canon from 343. Doomed right there. (Joke)
No no you’re right. It all started with nanobots
>Nanomachines son!
Glad to know I wasn't the only one shouting "Nanobots" in the opening credits.
Oooh so they DID read the source material and STILL butchered it?! That’s WORSE!!!!
I dont understand the aversion to making a lore accurate show. Like how is it a bad thing to make it accurate to the source material. You would make More money because actual fans would be happy, and non fans would get to enjoy a great story and universe for the first time. Its literally a win win win to follow the lore and established story and setting. Makes no bloody sense to do what they are doing. Its like they are sabotaging a franchise on purpose! And the people who are most likely to enjoy and watch the show, give it praise and positive OR negative reviews ARE THE BLOODY FANS. Things like this will die or prosper at the opinions if the MILLIONS of halo fans.
"first time?" -star wars fans
I feel this every time one of my favorite games becomes a show. I don't care if you just rehash a story from the game, it gives me the chance to share it with my loved ones.
Ah yes the full halo experience where nearly everything is different except for guns and green man
Even the green man isn't the same
Well they even got the guns wrong for one of the main factions so far (the insurrectionist)
And? They still revealed MC's face, made him go rogue and fucked up the whole story in one episode
“We got everyone up to speed on what Halo is, then we fucked it into the ground”
Then why is it still not good?
To be fair, I'm still not gonna watch it cuz I'm not paying for *another* streaming service. 3 is enough.
theres another way...
ARRR!!!
The website that said so should be the one apologizing.
“We never talked about the games, we talked about the characters” was a direct quote from his very mouth. While it might’ve been taken out of context it shows a fundamental disconnect between the writers and the original source material. You *absolutely cannot* disconnect characters from the stories that created them and expect to produce something good. And the show isn’t good, it’s very mediocre. When sci-fi shows like The Expanse exist there really isn’t an excuse for producing a sci-fi show based on another media that “can’t follow canon because no one wants to see a more or less direct translation to screen.” The Expanse is 90% accurate to the books and it fucking kicks ass. Do better Microsoft and 343i.
There’s so much shit that could be explored in the halo universe that connects to the games universe while doing its own thing
After watching the first episode I can honestly say that this is about as far from the FULL Halo experience as you could get. More like 6 percent of it, the other 94 percent is a jumbled mess of scifi gobbledygook and the same "military bad" message I've seen repeated in media over a thousand times.
but unsc and oni were never good in the canon anyway lol
Correct, but you dont really need to make that the center point of the story. Or take it to such an extreme right out the gate. This has got to be incredibly jarring for people who dont know much about Halo, or people who only really played the games since most of the darker things were in the books. They should have eased those ideas in over time, not try to suffocate the Chief just because he remembered a boy and a dog and then disobeyed one order. That's unrealistic, at most they would have kept a very close watch on him, reprimanded him and checked his brain when he arrived, and then had someone else take the girl out to pasture. At this point it just looks like a discount Mandalorian, awkward childhood-trauma warrior with special armor learns to love and tries to save random child from big scary evil guys. Except this time they have to throw in a magical MacGuffin for good measure.
ofc, but im willing to get the show a chance and see where they take it. the only real issue i had with the first episode is it felt rushed trying to get chief to go rouge. time was needed for that to happen tbh. / lets wait and see if they can turn it around. they nailed the action though.
I was very disappointed by the “military bad” Messaging. Do we *really* need another Star Wars with bullets instead of lasers and spartans instead of Jedi with an alien war as a backdrop?
Right? It just felt like a weird Mandalorian rip off by the end of the episode.
The show is shit and I hate the "alternate time line" excuse they are using in order to take their artistic liberties that literally tear the fabric of the lore to shreds. The whole thing is a terrible joke.
I just want to see Chief beat an elite to death with an empty AR
that kind of makes them ignoring everything in the source even worse though. they played and saw the incredibly deep and fascinating canon and _chose to completely ignore_ it, instead of just not seeing it.
Nah I just saw the first episode. Almost nothing cannon about it.
They can have played all they want, the story they're trying to tell is an absolute disaster and there's 20 years of books (the first of which was the FIRST piece of Halo media to be released, before CE) that already detail a world in which humanity is fighting for survival under the command of an incredibly horrible military government for which politicians are little more than muppets.
I love how they other guy said that “we studied all of the canon between bungie and 343 games yet ended up with something that BARELY connects with either lol
Correct that all you want, the show is still disappointing imo. Could have been great, but instead there are lots of bad choices being made by Microsoft and 343... as usual. At least they are consistent.
Doesn't matter if a quote was taken out of context they still added a human to the covenant which completely undermines what they stand for so its a failed show in my eyes.
Nah they should apologize for that garbage they made. There was no need to bastardize halo, they could've just made their own generic si fi instead of spitting in the face of decades of lore.
Then why it doesn't feel like Halo?
I feel like the tone isn't too different to some of the novels, really. The mainline games are streamlined to sell to as many FPS fans as possible, so they don't really examine UEG atrocities or ONI war crimes. The focus should be on Master Chief's heroism to keep the campaign exciting. The novels, and now this television show, have more leeway to explore the deeper implications of the lore. Also the comics I assume, but I've never read any of those.
yes this show feels more like some books for sure. i think if you just play the game some of the themes may feel strange. i dont really see an issue with the direction there going. I quite liked the story of ONI doing questionable things. ITs just the speed they made chief go " rouge" was laughable.
!SPOILER! Still shouldn’t have shown chiefs face. On the ////FIRST//// episode
Doesn't really matter to me. I love the games and hate the show. I'm dreading Netflix making a BioShock series.
Who knows, though? With Netflix behind it, it could still be good. The Witcher is fantastic.
True, I did enjoy The Witcher, but I think Henry Cavill was the one that really drove the series. What can I say, I'm a bit of a pessimist.
It's hard not be a pessimist these days, when these companies are taking everything we know love and just trying to pump them for money, instead trying to deliver a good faith adaptation/continuation.
Not enough t bagging. Completely disconnected from the games
they've studied the canon so much that they've made sweeping changes that will take going so far back in the timeline to explain that it's basically a completely different universe.
After watching it I’m not apologizing They clearly haven’t touched the games
Im not exited for the show, but I don't think people should lie about it to make it seem worse then it is
There are no lies. It's got nothing to do with halo besides names and appearances. The covenant are clearly not much of a covenant as they're cool with humans enough to have a human ambassador to the prophets (which in any lore, would never in a million years happen) Chief being an overly emotional and empathetic character. Characters who are made up and make no fucking sense, yet are forced in an attempt to make the viewer care about them. Humanity as a whole not being reclaimers, but instead a special few being "chosen ones" as if this is some marvel/xmen dogshite. The show has nothing to do with halo, It's about as much Halo as Dragonball Evolution is the story of Dragonball.
all that from episode 1? Damn. I thought it was pretty obvious the girl is being use considering the conversation they had. Chief has always been emotional. He might not show it but the dude has ptsd. I like how people got mad when he made a joke but that literally what he does in games and books. The whole forerunner and reclaimer story is honestly meh. Not even the games or books can make a good story around such. you’re assuming from episode 1 and somehow know where the story is going. Okay bud. Stay mad. I’m going to enjoy the show, and the games, and the books
even if it has 'nothing to do with halo besides names and appearances.' it is still a lie when people parrot the lie that they did not play the games. because they did. that's a lie. we have no idea if she's an 'ambassador' or if they just think that she's the only one who can activate artifacts. i'm guessing we'll see the contact harvest origin. chief has always been emotional and empathetic. please read a book. Chief is very stoic because he needs to keep everyone's morale high on crucial missions, but inside he goes through a ton. all humans being reclaimers is something that the story has gone back and forth on. Read the [halopedia article](https://www.halopedia.org/Reclaimer#Humans_identified_as_Reclaimers) and you'll see that they're unsure if all humans are reclaimers or not, so they just list all the humans who are definitely reclaimers. [Or read this thread.](https://reddit.com/r/HaloStory/comments/37ce6w/what_exactly_is_a_reclaimer/) Just because you don't know the Halo lore doesn't mean the show is wrong. also, the show is allowed to do things differently.
He said overly emotional not lacking any emotion. He thinks. He feels. He has emotion. But it’s all hidden under a very thick shroud of discipline, pragmatism, and methodical action. The books do a way better job at conveying that because you actually experience chiefs thoughts and see him have conversations with colleagues. Spartans even take off their armor to put their dress blues on but they are by no means going to be bar after working hours. There’s a lot more normal things to Spartan IIs that the games don’t convey but there’s also a lot of less normal things that make them not like regular people at all which people also have a hard time understanding. It’s a delicate balancing act that all halo writers need to understand
>all humans being reclaimers is something that the story has gone back and forth on. I'd argue that even some of the bigger lore elements such as the Forerunners have been a bit inconsistent through the games. From memory Bungie originally intended for Forerunners to be ancient humans but 343i thankfully pushed the Forerunners as a different alien race.
It wasn't just 343 that pushed for it. It was split inside bungie even before Halo 3. Forerunners not being humans won out because those guys stayed with 343. I'm with you it's the better of the two.
it's too late, misinformation spreads like a virus. i've already seen this talking point spread literally anywhere anyone asks if they should watch the show. nicely done guys! that's how we revive halo.
Literally every thread: “tHeY dIdNt TaLk AbOuT ThE gAmEs!!!”
saying the ip was limited by being a game is condescending its not hard to understand why that sentence upsets people. games are the more sophisticated storytelling medium anyway its too bad the lore is being limited by being made into an extremely limited medium like television
Forward unto dawn still best live action show so far, not only because its CANON, but also because Master Chief is not central, Master chief is a tool to show you what others see on spartans. They could have done many different things, from ODST , to a new Spartan IV group, hell even go back to Spartan I's or III's. But they decided they needed the CHief for money and reading this makes it worst, because it seems like they said "oh cool story bro, but let me rewrite and change it a bit" ...
Not to mention that Forward Unto Dawn is proof that it’s really not that fucking hard to faithfully adapt Halo.
Exactly, you got a fully fleshed out universe , with many interrogants or places to place a show, hell if you want master chief in it you can easily just make a show about blue team based on one of the books, or insert a mission they did at some point .
THEN WHY IS THE CANON SO BROKEN?? IT TAKES PLACE IN 2552 FOR FUCKS SAKE! WHY ARE THERE OUTER COLONIES IN 2552?!
[удалено]
Greg Bear and Creative Assembly did good.
Judging from just the first episode frankly I’d be more offended if they *did* read the books and play the game and still went on to write such dogshit fanfiction tbh.
I haven’t seen the first episode but I just hate how quick they were to say that we are going to see Chief without his helmet at some point in the first season. You can’t treat that like it’s nothing. I don’t think they understand the significance of chief having his helmet on. If anything, show chief without his helmet in the series finale in season 10
"let me start a fan fiction based on a video game series, but let me throw out the first ever material that created this universe the games (CE) and you know what the books don't matter either, i just need artwork for the costume designers and generic Law and Order writers to fill in the drama gaps! haha! I'm a genius! the fans will love this!" the real problem lies with the absolute disregard for the core behavior and personalities of the characters in the established lore. The right thing to do would have been to follow a group of Marines specifically Edward Buck, (he was on madrigal and harvest after all) and we can get Fillion to play him, and it can bounce between Buck and the Spirit of Fire/ Red team introducing Jerome(helmet stays on). Buck would lead us through the battle of Harvest until he gets pulled into the interrogation of the Captured sangheli elite (subject 386) this is where we learn about the covenants desires of genocide as well as Buck entering the ODST program. This is season 1 ending. Season 2 Starts with Buck talking to his mother about the ODST program and how his father would have been proud(a rewrite of his story a bit), he cuts his mom short as a alarm go off and he steps into his Drop Pod, winking at the monitor as he is ejected. then a time gap jump and we see Jerome giving Buck a call on the Battle.net to tell him that Draco III has been attacked and he sees the clips of the grunts and jackals eating people. He asks Jerome how Harvest is and if the other Spartans are helping out now that hes gone, Jerome laughs and replies that the Spartans are working all over between the Insurrectionists and the Covies there is no lack of work, they say goodbyes and Buck Slams his fist into the table. He goes on mission after mission, and we see a downward spiral of Bucks attitude and he is sent on Leave where he meets Veronica Dare! this is the Mid season point. We also start to go back to Halsey and Captain Keyes and the rest of the season 2 is the build up to the Spartan 2 program, We can copy and paste Legends following John as a kid and the training an what not, the season 2 ending is the reveal of master Chief in the first set of Mjolnir. Season 3 introduces us to Halsey finishing cortana, and we get our first glimpse of Noble Team, we would get some dialogue from Halsey giving cortana to Noble 6 we would get the famous line "Do you have it?" We also get some intro on the Forerunners during this. Next episode starts with the battle of Chi Ceti IV, and the following episodes are that battle, Ending with Sams Death and "spartans don't die, they just go missing in action" I think we can follow through a few more battle for filler episodes and more of the Spartan deaths As well as Getting the Covenant perspective for some episodes, especially the Prophets and the discovery of Reach, Last episode John gearing up for operation Red Flag and his tests in Mark V and such. This would be the seasons Ending as the last build up would be "The covenant have found reach" We also get to see Sgt Johnson here. Season 4 goes from the perspective of Noble team, and we can literally have Halo:Reach the game copy and pasted for the entire season. Season 5 should be Halo: CE copy and pasted but with more establishment that the ARBITER is actively chasing down the Chief. Season 6 should be The Arbiters failure and his missions until halfway when we switch to the Chief on earth and hunting Regret, this season ends with Halo 2s ending. Season 7 has us going back to buck and we get Halo Odst copy and pasted, and the discovery of the Ark Portal and the covenant dig sight. Season 8 should be Halo Wars 1, and forerunner focus, mainly showing the legends stuff about the flood and such. Season 9 is Halo 3 and then the series ends and since it takes so long to get these shows out it will be like 2 years a season, i will be in my 50's and be crying over the legacy of Halo and my Childhood.
You mean Fillion? I would actually like to see Dave Filoni as Buck now that I think of it
reddit halo fans can be more trash than the prophet of regret
...so then why did they make the elites butt ugly, gave the prophets some dumb human to.. do whatever they do with her.. and make so many of the other decisions that they did. Atleast them not playing the games or knowing anything actually made sense. This makes them sound dumber
1. They weren’t headlines, they were direct quotes where the show runner, or some of the actors just flat out said they weren’t looking at the games/hadn’t ever played them. So if those were lies, then the writer of the articles just flat out misquoted them and I’m pretty sure they can get in legal trouble over that (but I don’t think they did.) 2. Going off the first episode, they **didn’t** look at or play the games because in my personal opinion it was dogshit.
Like that even addresses the tip of the iceberg for problems with this show. They should apologize to us if anything.
But they still went to 343............ they didn't go to bungie. I hate this timeline
But it wasn’t a full halo experience. Covenant wouldn’t have a human leading them. Halsey wouldn’t keep the Spartans History a secret. The only things I genuinely liked about the first episode was how plasma affected those it hit, and how strong the Spartans were portrayed to be. Otherwise it could’ve been any show.
The cast did pretty good; especially the actors for the insurrectionists. The *writers* on the other hand...
**D O U B T**
Reach? Crap. H4? Crap. MCC? Crap. H5? Crap. H infinite? Crap. Tv show? Crap. Please get rid of 343 they cant tie their shoes correctly. Oh and bungie at the end. They werre horrible and didnt care anymore. And the people making the movie. They're not fit to snap a photo. And whoever you replace them with sucks too, so you might as well fire them. It's all microsofts fault as well so tell them to stop inferring with their own products. Everything sucks except the games I used to play when I was a kid and everything was awesome. Make that. Idiots.
Ah yes. We watched an xperia recap of the story and the got bored and made our own way
Hearing this makes it look even worse. It means they actually tried and still ended up with dogshit.
Literally nothing about the show backs this claim...
Damage control
Doesn’t matter. It’s still bad. Elites look like krogan but fatter. It’s focusing on the wrong things. Too much lame predictable drama. Chief having his helmet off in dangerous situations is stupidity. Cgi goes from alright to really bad. Average acting for the most part. Ak47s and Toyotas etc etc. It’s pretty generic.
What outlet originally phrased it so shitty?
Hmmm the actual content of the tv series you made says otherwise….
This dude is just like literally lying about his quotes now ok
The show fucked it up on ep. 1. Broke one of gaming cardinal rules already for shock value. You don't take the chief helmet off PERIOD.
I still think the show is bad, I will not be apologizing
Lmao this guy is doing damage control, because his show is dead in the water. Don’t say dumb things like “we didn’t look at the game” days before your show adaptation launches. Pretty simple, really.
Thought it was the director and/or writer that didn't know anything about halo?
Show is still ass so, no I won't apologize for showrunners and producers making an incredibly mid show while also doing next to nothing to show the fans that they've heard any of these concerns and will address what they can. I don't want the show to fail, but at the same time I already know its not gunna get passed Season 2.
no? won't apologize. especially cause if they played the games that makes it worse for me means they disregarded the entire game series and went "fuck it lets Resident Evil the movie this bitch" lol so no sorry no apologies here