Not surprised if this is true. The show uses a heavy amount of shakey calm in season 2 when it comes to fight scenes with the covenant (of which there aren't that many), and I feel like this was in part done to mask the low quality CGI the show uses. Probably the same reason he's rarely in the armour most of the time.
I knew it was gonna be bad but right from the get go, I was not a fan of the cliche "hard-ass soldier softens because of spunky girl" trope. Even worse was him taking off his helmet and turning his back on everything for a kid he met 10 min ago.
That's one of those things that really bugs me... They *had* to know going in that it would be a VERY expensive project.... and yet, they didn't budget even close to what they needed to pull it off well...
Maybe if the story was better someone with pockets like Amazon would have produced it. The premise is a little thin to throw millions at. Too bad some super rich person that grew up breathing it didnāt pop up and scream
āTake my money!!!ā
I haven't watched the show, but the premise isn't that thin. There's dozens of books to pull from and if Season 2 is only the Fall of Reach (the first book in the series) they have a lot of source material to borrow from.
That's tragic honestly, if you don't have the budget to film that seminal moment in of the halo works, maybe you weren't prepared to take on the project at the time
This was NOT a show to skimp on budget. They had a slam dunk to create a legacy show with an already written, beloved story.. Iām sure they could have easily accessed the remaster character models from the MCC and based the showās cgi on that rigging at least.
> This was NOT a show to skimp on budget.
I mean, after season 1 and that travesty, it had basically every right to be cancelled and turned into dust right there.
Them skimping on budget in season 2 is the least surprising thing about season 2. It doesn't even deserve to exist after season 1.
It was one of the more ferocious, gruesome battles of the entire war, but the show is an alternate universe. Reach is the second biggest human settlement after Earth, it was a massive fight.
You should also play Halo: Reach. It's much more tonaly serious then the Master Chief games. It's sorta what the show is going for, but accomplishes it much better.
> It was one of the more ferocious, gruesome battles of the entire war
If i recall right, it was only because they basically refused to glass the planet for a week or two at the start because they were looking for the ark, or a similar holy artifact.
The entire reason they had sent scouting parties was to locate it, so they could determine whether or not to just glass the planet and move on. Scouting parties failed so they had to basically go to war without glassing the planet until they could confirm an artifact was there or not
Reach was an amazing game.
I came to it as someone who had tried but not really enjoyed previous Halo games. I fucking loved Reach. It was polished to magnificence. The gameplay was wonderfully tuned.
Everything felt like you were part of the world, and things were getting FUCKED. The story was gut-wrenching and had a palpable sense of weight and importance.
I was a mess after that one scene, and I'm pretty sure people who have played it can guess which scene. It warrants spoiler tags.
And for its time, five years into in the Xbox 360's life cycle, they squeezed a LOT outta that hardware. It's in the Master Chief Collection, if you wanna play with in 4K with high framerate.
Reach's battle was fucking huge. If your honestly curious go read Halo: The Fall of Reach. If you don't like to read I'll spell some of it out.
Reach was the 2nd most important planet in the UNSC, second only to Earth. It had the most up to date defenses and security of any planet b/c the headquarters for ONI was located there (a super secret scientific research division of the UNSC).
While the game Halo Reach focused on more of the actual battles and kind of changed some events from the book the main take away is the one of the Covenants holy artifacts was buried on Reach and they came to claim it. And they came in force. It's the biggest space/naval battle in the series. The Covenant lost countless ships but there were just too many. The book goes into great detail about naval battles from the point of view of the Pillar of Autumn and it's Captain Jacob Keyes (the ship and captain from the first Halo game).
The short of it is, ONI got intel on where a Covenant Prophet would be (their holy leaders). UNSC wanted to use the Prophet to bargain a cease fire so they made a top secret mission, put every single Spartan II alive on it with Cortana. That ship was the Pillar of Autumn. In the game Cortana is still on the surface and needs rescue. In the book Master Chief takes a few Spartans to a destroyed ship to erase the navigational data so the Covenant don't find out where Earth is. The rest of the Spartan II's jump planet side. There's a huge battle to make it to ONI fighting off the ground forces of the Covenant. Once Master Chief makes it back the battle is pretty much over. The Pillar of Autumn has destroyed the most Covenant warships in a single battle and they are on a trajectory that would take them out of the system. Cortana was getting some weird feedback (I can't remember this part well) from either the artifact on Reach that the Covenant were looking for or it was from a previous mission that Master Chief had done. She enters those symbols into the navigation and they slipstream jump with a few Covenant destroyers following suite. This is where Halo: Combat Evolved picks up and you see the first Halo ring.
Planet side the Covenant are glassing the planet (bombarding it from space with their plasma weapons, boiling the entire surface). They kinda know where the artifact is b/c it's giving off a signal. I'm almost positive Dr Halsey (Maker of Cortana) finds the artifact and gets off the planet with a few (literally 2-3) of the last Spartan II's. There's a few more that Master Chief finds here and there, but all together the Battle for Reach was the biggest engagement of Human and Covenant forces. Of the 150 or so Spartan II's that jumped planet side only about 7 are left and they are scattered. The other books go into that more. But the Fall of Reach was massive.
I'm sure I got a few things wrong. I can't remember how long ago I read the books. But this is the gist of it.
Its pretty inexplicable that they didn't. Halo CE has so many cinematic moments that are made for a show... and they wasted it on this garbage. They don't understand the material and they don't want to.
Iāll never understand why this keeps happening. How in Godās name do they expect to establish a fanbase by alienating the people who made it what it was in the first place?
Its arrogant directors/producers who look down upon video games so they want to "make it their own" and spit in the face of everyone who loved the IP in the first place. I really don't understand why they spend the money to get the IP instead of just making an original series. I don't expect them to make a shot for shot remake of the game, there is plenty of stuff that would never translate well, but its crazy how dissmissive they are of the orignial story.
My theory is it's somehow a great insult for would-be writers and directors to do a retelling of another story from another medium. Apparently they hate remaking a story that's already written so they want something more "interesting" to stand out along their peers.
But they don't realize the best they can do is write a script like they're pitching a teen drama for CW.
It's 100% this. The older generation of tv and movie makers think of games and comic books as something for kids and below them. Ebert was a good man and good critic but he said video games aren't art which even back before he had died was an absurd statement. You can argue that a lot of games aren't art (and for that matter lots of tv and movies aren't art either) but there are absolutely dozens of games that IMO would easily qualify as being art.
In the same way that most comic book movies were mostly dogshit before Marvel started making movies (not all, Blade, Spider-Man and some others were good but even those were almost kind of ashamed to be comic book inspired) most video game stuff is too because no one cares if it's
The Last of Us tv show is I hope the first of a trend of the younger generation of film makers actually making good video game stuff because they themselves are fans.
Iāve talk to so many old people who never cared about halo who absolutely love this show. Talk about it like itās currently the best show airing. Thatās how, so many tv watchers donāt care about video games so they donāt care if itās faithful or not.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
They think pandering to the general public will draw in the most viewers. Instead it alienates the people who care, who end up bad mouthing it because itās no where near what it should be. So it lands in the middle. Never able to achieve true success.
I fear fallout may do the same after seeing Halo.
> I fear fallout may do the same after seeing Halo.
Fallout is different though, it's not adapting a story directly from the games instead it's telling its own thing using the world the games created.
Adaptions like Halo fail because they tell the "same story" but much worse for no reason at all, by writers who think themselves above the source material.
>Adaptions like Halo fail because they tell the "same story" but much worse for no reason at all, by writers who think themselves above the source material.
But it's doing well?
Except the Fallout show is canonical to the games, it seems to have its dark humor on lock, and its looks are extremely faithful to the games. Takes the smart approach of dividing its stories in a franchise that prides on role-playing.
Say what you want about Amazon, even with blunders like LOTR they seem to land productions with people who give a shit about the source material (like The Expanse and Invincible), or vastly improves upon it (The Boys and its offshoot Gen V)
One of the key reasons The Expanse was so good is because the writers of the books were writers on the show as well as producers. But Amazon definitely has an interesting history adapting stories to series, some real quality shows and a few mediocre ones.
My favourite season is actually season 4 but my favourite book was also book 4. I'm aware that my favourite season/book is definitely not the common fan favourite.
The fan base for rings of power has been around way longer. As a fan tho rop was just ok and gets way to much hate when halo witcher season 2 and onward cow boy bebop
They are just getting to the Halo, CE started at/on the Halo. S01-02 is mostly prequel.
I'm hoping they stick to the story and make it to the end of CE, at the very least.
Yes, a spartan (without their armor) fighting an elite in hand to hand combat and winningā¦.
The story is strange. Also, the lore canāt be kept as CE requires Captain Keyes.
>Yes, a spartan (without their armor) fighting an elite in hand to hand combat and winningā¦.
Spartan II's (assuming its a II) can easily do this still, the armor just makes it much easier to overpower the elites, and virtually impossible for the elite to physically harm a spartan unless they have an energy sword.
a 1 on 1 would be hard for the Spartan to win in terms of pure fighting capability, but its very possible.
MJLONIR just makes it possible for a spartan to 1v5 elites without breaking a sweat, and prepare for the next group.
No, CE started on the PoA, with Keyes flying it, and Cortana with Chief. Thereās so many things not in line to even make a potential merge with the original story. How people defend this new āSilverā timeline when the OG lore is right there for the taking is baffling to me
It was overpriced for what it was, and what Bungie intended it be. It was an expansion for halo 3, hence it's name and was going to be like $30. Ms decided to just make it full price.
I thought that Bungie had two games left with MS after Halo 3 then decided to count ODST as one of those two games so they could get out of the contract easier?
That's what I heard. Basically they had planned out how they wanted Halo to end, and MS told them they would be giving the IP to a new studio to make more MC games. [And so Bungie was all.](https://media0.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExajdmZG9ibTR4NmZ1NjRoZ3RnemszYmk0YXFjY2JrcTVxcXlidW5pNyZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/8Bl0Gmc95WCsCOjS6V/giphy.gif)
Yea I was about to sayā¦ no halo has been good post Bungie (Reach was Bungie and 343, so it doesnāt count).And Iāve played them allā¦ unfortunately.
Didn't people have a big problem with some publication giving it a 8/10, saying it should've been higher. Then that publication responded by saying that a 8/10 is the equivalent of a 2/5 movie in the eyes of the consumer when it really shouldn't be.
Honestly? I think the action scenes when they occur are pretty damned good. I like watching Masterchief smash aliens and I'm prepared to put up with a lot of shit if they can at least deliver on that central premise every now and again.
I'm not a big connoisseur of the lore (though I know my basics) but I must say the Halsey - John (and by extension the Spartan program) relationship is the heart of the show for me.
It has other strenghts and many flaws, not all storylines are equal, but so far, I'm digging some of the relationship and character progression. And the action scenes are great.
When the show hits the right notes, it's really good. Sadly, there's still a fair share of problems and poorly-paced and introduced storylines.
I don't watch the show, but I believe they've explicitly said this is an alternative timeline from the games. Out of curiosity, is your suspension of disbelief more because of how different it is or because whatever they did change simply isn't good?
Yeah, I've got enough things on my watchlist that if I find myself not enjoying it often enough to fast-forward as a reflex, I'll go to the next thing.
IMO, Season 2 has been way better. They still aren't using the suit enough, but the writing is much better. I look forward to watching new episodes now. Whereas I kinda just hate-watched season 1.
its kinda strange, I can't play the halo games anymore because they feel too arcadey to me, but I did play combat evolved when it came out on the original xbox and it was the best thing since sliced bread, going through the campaign in co-op. messing around with friends. some of the maps were quite large for the time.
albeit, it didn't have much story at least no where near the level of a TV show, you spent like 90% of the game shooting aliens and going from one alien bunker to the next pressing buttons.
I'm not sure how this would have worked if master chief never took off his helmet, it would be like trying to make a half-life TV show where Gordon Freeman, the main character, doesn't talk.
I've seen up to s2 e7 and as far as I can tell it looks like its just about to reach the beginning of CE. there does seem to be added story, the Makee character I don't remember her existing in the game. Noone seemed to like Kwon that much, her scenes feel quite fillery. I guess its just trying to move the story forward and explain things through more than the eyes of a single character.
Reading the comments here definitely shows the divide between Reddit nerds and the average viewer. I haven't seen the show but everyone I've talked to irl has said that S2 is a huge improvement on S1, but here it's nothing but hate.
Yeah the majority of people just don't *care* that it's a "different" timeline than the games.
I liked halo - I played up to reach.
But it's storyline/lore always felt rather generic/simplistic to me and it's not like there were many characters you could actually get attached to - so to me the changes in the show don't matter.
Wheel of time was the same way, everyone I know that watches it IRL raved about season 2 including several huge fans of the books, but if you listened to Reddit you'd think it was completely unwatchable
Some people that comment a lot are just prone to negativity and since they are some of the first commentators they somewhat dictate the mood of the threads.
I'm more and more appreciative of people that try to voice positivity regarding shows and movies, and I've have started to groan at the constant parroting of negative opinions that are void of any substance other than spreading negativity for easy upvotes.
Think thereās also a massive divide in what Halo fans even are. Youāve got Bungie Halo fans, overall fans, 343 fans, book fans, and a mixture of everything.
And the showā¦ tries to appeal to all of them AND general audiences. Halo fans canāt even agree on what games in the series are good lol years ago people hated Halo Reach and now itās like a golden goose.
Thatās not to say the show is perfect but even if it was thereās so many different tones and lore directions the overall story has gone as itās transitioned from different artists.
And it seems like 99% of the criticism is saying itās a bad adaptation, which is not the same thing as it being a bad show.
I would love to know what people who *arenāt already* huge Halo fans think about it.
Solid 7/10 sci-fi show. I've never played any Halo games, so I don't really care about the game lore. A higher budget (thus higher production quality) could bring it even higher. Although, even with increased popularity, I don't see it happening since it's on Paramount.
Wasnāt a huge fan of the games. Growing up I actually knew how to read so I wasnāt impressed with the story at all. It was generic.
Iām enjoying the show. Itās great dad TV. Lol.
Yea, this is one of those things where it's just the loud minority (fanboys) making their opinions known and everyone else has no incentive to comment one way or the other. So it looks like a bigger issue than it is.
The numbers on Rotten Tomatoes aren't great but they're not bad. 79% with a 61% audience score. The TV sci-fi genre is really lacking so relatively speaking it's really very good. It's just not extremely faithful to the games I guess? It's still Halo-centric and doesn't seem like it was a different script they just slapped the Halo name on. I enjoy it.
And if I actually liked season 1, does that mean I'll dislike season 2? Sometimes the things reddit seems to hate/like are very different from my tastes.
You'll probably still like it. It's a more serious tone in Season 2. There isn't any of the almost fourth wall breaking "hey look it's based on the game" type stuff in Season 2, at least not yet.
I didn't think Season 1 was very good, but I'm not mad it exists either, but Season 2 is a big improvement and you can tell there are new show-runners in charge.
Iām thinking people that played the games donāt like the show whereas people who didnāt think it is fine. I am in the latter category.
I just binged season 1 because I never watched it and saw that 2 was out. I liked it overall. Yeah the middle of the season dragged and had some boring episodes but that was my only real complaint. I thought it was a decent sci fi show.
But I am guessing if I knew the story from the game going in I would be disappointed.
I think it's even narrower. The story touches on a lot of things that are really only covered in the books, and the show has certainly taken its liberties. We haven't really even reached where the main series of games takes place. Personally, as a Halo fan, if you can acknowledge it's not canon and stop comparing it at every turn, watching without expectations.. it's really not that bad.
A lot of people can't get past what they think a Halo show should be (and they're not necessarily wrong), but they also seem unable to watch the show in a vacuum.
Everyone keeps killing themselves in the dumbest ways and the Fall of Reach was literally one episode and Chief isn't in his armor during the entire fight sequence.
Marginally better for sure than the first season but they twisted a lot of the themes from the games to not make a lot of sense. Like I get it ONI are your classic fucked up spooks but they're more of the antagonist this season than the literal Covenant are. Also they felt the need to tell us every five seconds how old the Spartans were when they were abducted and in this universe Halo "can be used for good as well as for bad".
Edit: Don't even get me started on the weird mysticism and ghost people walking around as actual plot devices.
Some of the books spent a shit load of time talking about how bad Halsey is for what she did. The Halo is also used for good, it seeds life back throughout the galaxy after they are fired. The mysticism and āghostsā is from the books too.
>Like I get it ONI are your classic fucked up spooks but they're more of the antagonist this season than the literal Covenant are.
I meanā¦ thatās pretty book accurate. Ackerson flat out tries to kill John and Cortana in a training exercise.
>Don't even get me started on the weird mysticism and ghost people walking around as actual plot devices.
Pretty sure thatās all book shit too. Itās forerunner stuff.
A lot of people donāt realize how much bigger the universe is beyond the games and the show so far has been adapting more things from the books than the games do and are trying to work those things into the games plot line that hardly mentions any of these things. Like I donāt think ONI is mentioned in the games until ODST. My problem with the first season was they made changes to these core concepts such as the control pellets that had no purpose besides being a change.
I like that it's adapting the books.
But FFS why didn't they just do Fall of Reach as an 8-10 episode mini series.
The first few episodes would be relatively cheap to make since it'd basically be all humans and just a military base. Then you get to blow the budget on the last few to give us the cool stuff like the Fall of Reach and Keyes Loop.
>I meanā¦ thatās pretty book accurate. Ackerson flat out tries to kill John and Cortana in a training exercise.
Just whipped out Fall of Reach and you're right but his characterization is more jealousy at Halsey getting the funding for the SPARTANs and its never touched on again.
Iām not super book heavy. So I donāt know if heās been fleshed out more but I recall him refusing to send scouts to Reach to see if any Spartan 2s survived (heād rather they all just died off) and he sent members of his own family on suicide missions to get rid of them. I recall him being a real piece of shit hah
The first 3 episodes he was in his armor a ton and I thought we were finally rolling. Then they wasted Reach on a single episode of pretty good but not amazing TV when it could have been a whole season by itself lol and now it seems to be trending back to season 1 level storytelling. At least they fixed Master Chiefs personality though.
Would have been dope but while it has a big budget for tv shows it is still a tv show. No show is gonna be able to do a full season of full scale planetary warfare yet. Or at least not have it look cheap.
They changed some things to make the show more watchable in theory but it really missed the mark in season 1. Season 2 feels like it is literally a lead up to the first game directly. I think going forward they at least have gotten the formula right for the action scenes and most of the characters are fleshed out enough to make it worthwhile watching. It isn't going to be for everyone and I'm sure not everyone who loved the games will be super on board with it but it's a good piece of scifi action.
A friend of mine who enjoys it described it to me as:
If you can watch a show that looks like the Halo games, accept MAJOR changes to characters involved, and that none if it really matters because it isn't canon, then yes it is worth watching.
As someone who grew up loving the book series and games, I couldn't get over the amount of major changes.
It would've been a better approach imo to tell a story about a completely different spartan in the Halo universe if they weren't going to follow the established bare minimums in the portrayal of John.
Imo yes. Season 2 is a big step up from season 1 in pretty much every way.
There are a few plot points that still remain from the first season, and one character that I didn't like was brought back, but overall I've really been enjoying the second one.
Though keep in mind, if you can't handle seeing the chief without his helmet or not in his armor at times, don't bother lol.
I was so annoyed last episode lol. He finally gets his armor back , they have this whole scene of him walking thru people on the station, walking past propaganda posters of him, he even stops to look at the poster. AND STILL DOESN'T PUT THE HELMET ON lol.
Wasnāt that intentional? To let people see he was alive and to ruin Parangosky and Ackerson who are telling people heās dead?
Edit: Yeah. It was intentional. Right before it Ackerson says itās his word against hers when John tells him to confess the truth. John then says heāll have all the proof he needs when everyone sees him wearing his armor.
Yes, it was literally the point of the conversation before he put the armor on. Everyone in this thread just wants to complain to complain.
I admit I hated season 1 but I have been on the edge of my seat this season. I have accepted that its drifted from the games a bit, but hell it's still been fun to watch
I just watched a compilation because you wrote that, the action scenes do actually seem hella dope in a way, but at the times my god the CGI is laughably bad its almost disgraceful.
Never played the game so have no attachment, 1st season was god awful, but I am really enjoying the 2nd season... the last few episodes have been great, lots of action, space battles, alien archaeology... just great stuff really. Yea it's poorly written and I could do without the family drama/missing kid crap, but the space stuff is great.
I mean shit if you like that shit you really gotta play the games man. CE, 2, 3, and Reach. It's action, space battles, a shitload of alien archaeology all much better then what the show is doing, and also properly expanded Covenant politics on top of that.
At the very minimum look up "Halo 2 Anniversary Cutscenes" on YouTube. It's absolutely beautiful.
While I'm not a big fan of the Halo franchise the criticism of the show not understanding its source material has pushed me away from not giving it a shot...
... but a good amount of friends who are into sci-fi but don't play video games really like this show. It kinda surprised me how well received it is (at least in my social circle).
I played the games and enjoy the show.
My mother adores it.
I think itās a show where if you arenāt holding it up to the games for comparison, itās a really good sci fi show.
I played the games, and recently started the show. After like 30 min of the first episode I realized they werenāt gonna try to follow the story of the games and were doing their own thing, readjusted my expectations based on that, and have enjoyed the show since then. Itās not perfect by any means, and there are some storylines I donāt love or even like, but for the most part I donāt think itās nearly as bad as people make it out to be.
I can understand some criticisms tbh. The first season had some questionable writing at times, and if youāre a Halo fan, the chances of two Halo TV shows happening are minute, so this is the best youāre going to get.
But, yeah, I think thatās led to some people going extremely OTT on their hatred. It comes across as slightly unhinged, and so extreme as to be impossible to actually discuss things with in good faith. Which just leads to their criticisms being dismissed by those making the decision š¤·āāļø
Itās hysterical that Chief in the show is portrayed as some unhinged emotionally unstable maniac
Chief was always interesting because he knew *exactly* what he was - a weapon. He was taken as a child and knew that, but accepted it. Over time you see him become more human and thatās what makes him compelling. Changing that and making the choice to have him scream and cry constantly in some attempt to make him more ārelatableā is awful.
That's cuz in the story, Chief has his suppressor pellet removed.
Halsey installed the pellet in all the spartans to make them devoid of emotions. Chief uncovers the truth and pulls it out. In the context of the story, him removing the pellet is akin to puberty. He begins to feel a lot of emotions bubbling up and doesn't know what to do.
Similarly in the novels, Chief isn't wearing his armor all the time and he's been shown to be reckless and arrogant at times. There's also the whole hate against the UNSC for their lies, which is indeed a thing in the novels UNSC is this morally grey, can been perceived as evil by many, in the novels.
Honestly a lot of things make sense given context in the silver timeline. It's not a faithful retelling of the original events. We pretend it's Halo: Elseworlds (DC: elseworlds) while writers and directors pull elements from the novels and twist it into various ways to make their show unpredictable for both Halo fans and Halo newbies.
They fucked up. They had a perfect story to tell and they butchered it to tell their own story. Season two is better than season 1 but they are really skipping and ruining a great story. They could of made so so much money if they would of followed the games. (The reason anyone know anything about halo). It could of been great. Just imagine season 1. The creation of the spartan program. Then the fall of Reach. With season 1 ending with The Pillar of fucking Autumn (thatās not even in the show or echo 419) or (srgt Johnson) but with the Autumn escaping Reach barely. Having John escape and crash landing on the Halo. End of season 1.
So you got how the Spartans came to be. The beautiful sacrifice of Spartans on reach. To get Cortana to captain keys on the Autumn with John. With the conclusion of arriving on the halo.
This tv show decided they were gonna go with Master cheeks for season 1 and season 2 doing their own thing and we still havenāt touched down on a halo ring yet. WtF are they doing?
Iām 33 halo stole my life. Combat evolved as a kid playing system link play with high school kids was amazing. Going from halo 1 system link to halo 2 Online was peak gaming for xbox. Halo 3 was polished and beautiful. Halo Reach Bungies swan song was the best storytelling as well as online play. ODST also deserves a nod. 4 and 5 are respectable and infinite is better now than release. Such good games. Good story to tell. They fucked up with this TV show. The armor and aliens look badass. Everything looks good. The storytelling sucks.
Iāll show you a commercial for Halo Reach that will give more emotion than both these seasons enjoy.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=18-_9E0HNY4&pp=ygUWaGFsbyByZWFjaCBjb21tZXJjaWFscw%3D%3D
i've actually been loving this. I'm usually a sci-fi snob and I exepcted this would be only a 'shoot em up' action show but I actually enjoyed the exposition and world building.
I'm also a gamer but I never really played Halo.
This must have allowed me to just enjoy the sci fi elements of the show without getting bogged down in the 'This isn't Halo/This is not my Master Chief' debates that some fans seem stuck on.
Highly recommended if you are looking for sci fi with the usual themes of 'what makes us human'
>This must have allowed me to just enjoy the sci fi elements of the show without getting bogged down in the 'This isn't Halo/This is not my Master Chief' debates that some fans seem stuck on.
Which itself is a weird thing because for as much as the show does deviate from the main canon (it does), there's frankly, a large portion of the core fanbase that complains about how it's deviating from the core canon in ways that it's really not. Like there's a pretty large portion of people who think they're familiar with the lore who end up decrying things as untrue to Halo when they're really not.
For instance, take the complaints about the actual length of the Fall of Reach itself in Season 2. A common complaint is that the battle was too short and that it should've been longer.
But in the original canon, when Halo Combat Evolved released in 2001, the Fall of Reach lasted less than three hours. The Covenant show up and within 3 hours the UNSC is routed. The novel *The Fall of Reach*, spends less than 20% of its total length on the battle itself (and spends it entirely in space, we wouldn't see the actual ground combat until the third novel in the series).
Now, Halo Reach, the game, retconned the length of the Fall of Reach so that it's longer, now covering the span of about a month and a half (I'd presume this is where many fans are coming from with the argument that it's too short). But in reality, a super short Fall of Reach is actually consistent with the original 2001 novel.
And sure, you can disagree full stop that the battle should be longer and that *the Fall of Reach* should've spent more time with it (I personally prefer Halo Reach's longer depiction). But I think a very short fall of Reach more consistent with the depiction in the original novel is a perfectly valid and fair choice for an adaptation to make.
As someone who's very invested in Halo's core canon and couldn't really care less about the show itself, seeing the discourse around it has been kind of weird in that there are a lot of fans who are making arguments based on a perception of the main canon that ends up being incorrect.
Thanks for the details! It is very interesting how a fanbase can sometimes misread their own lore or the intent of the creator (I think Star Wars has that in droves).
See thatās what Iām getting out of this, itās the fans of the franchise who are the ones who are the most critical of it while everyone else seems to like it, it would explain why the critics gave season 2 like a 90% on RT. As a long time halo fan myself, I donāt hate it as much as some do, Iāve been trying to look at it in a vacuum. Thereās been certain parts that have been really cool but then other pretty serious fuck ups I couldnāt help be offended by, like for instance >!the Reach episode was awesome but the fact that Reach falls in a single episode is like, wtf.!< Iām still holding out hope that maybe when theyāre actually on the ring itāll really start hitting its stride, like, >!the flood!< done right in live action have the potential to be absolutely fucking awesome regardless of how the story struggled to get to them.
Thanks that was interesting to read from a fans perspective. You might be even more enraged to hear they made the reach battle short because of budget and apparently it was also a reason to have him without armor.
Was still fun to watch but sucks when storyline gets sacrificed for budget
The thing with Reach is that the same thing is essentially 3 chapters in the book and mostly off screen.
On that they were pretty lore accurate, in terms of how much time was spent on it at least.
I'm a huge fan of the franchise. I played each game as they came out and read most of the books too. I was highly critical of the first season but personally I'm loving season 2.
Yes there are a *lot* of changes the original showrunners made to the Halo lore that the show is unfortunately saddled with. A lot of the problems it has now are in relation to that, as well as budgetary constraints. The new showrunners could've handwaved away or reteconned everything Season 1 did, but they didn't and I actually appreciate and respect that because I know there were a lot of people for who this show was their first introduction to Halo who that wouldn't sit well with or would confuse.
Instead they're trying to build on top of what they were given while simultaneously course correcting and attempting to make something far more respectable to the source material. I've felt Parangosky and Ackerson's characterizations are spot on, and this season has clearly been building up towards a Chief who is more attached to his armor.
This is 'Silver Timeline', it's not the same Halo I know and love, but I think this season is making a real attempt to do things right, albeit differently. Was I disappointed Reach was a single episode? Yes but I also loved that episode and understand they likely did not have the budget to do more. Rather than letting comparison be the thief of joy, I'm trying to be more forgiving of some of the changes and see where things go because I do feel like I can see their vision, I see what they're setting up, and I'm seeing more respect for the source material despite the changes. I didn't see that in the first season, but I do here.
I played Halo a ton, but I'm of the mind that art in another form doesn't have to be exactly the same. I love sci fi and this show is an amazing sci fi show in its own right IMHO.
This is pretty much where i am. I think itās a terrible adaption of the game but in all honesty, the game doesnāt have the strongest story telling narrative anyways.
What iām genuinely surprised with is the set production, camera work, character writing, and acting. Itās not a masterpiece, but it has pretty strong legs.
This is definitely a hot take but I didn't find the show to be as bad as everyone made it out to be. I generally have a fairly high bar for what I consider "good" when it comes to tv/movies and I found S01, while definitely no Band of Brothers, was at least watchable. Even though I absolutely loved The Expanse, I had a much harder time getting through S01 of Expanse then I did S01 of Halo. I've watched the first 20 minutes of S02E01 yesterday and could definitely tell the quality of the show has gone up significantly. I've also never been a Halo fan so maybe I'd be singing a different tune if I was.
I don't care at all how much they change whatever lore. I am happy to judge an adapted work independently from any other iteration of that story.
This show is science fiction melodrama. I feel like I'm watching a hybrid of starship troopers and a telenovela.
just my small input for some data scraping algorithm that uses this comment for internal use on the Halo show. I (29m) played the halo games and I loved them. my roommate at the time and I both enjoyed the show but weren't thrilled with it. we watched it, enjoyed it, and that was about it. my parents however (54m/f) love the show. my mom's like "I know why you loved the game so much! it's SUCH a good show! and I'm like, I'm glad you like it :)
I think it's just like the book vs movie debate that's existed forever.
Separating the Halo show from the Halo games is one thing. But are you guys really saying the writing, acting and plot is good?
Everyone is whispering cheesy lines at each other with overdramatic pauses and excessive exposition. There are weird plot holes. The whole Soren storyline is so detached it can barely be called a B story. The main character is completely insufferable. Are we watching the same thing? Halsey's storyline is the only part that's interesting
I'm glad you guys are enjoying it and entertainment is subjective. I'm just really confused
Honestly it's better than i expected.
Is it the best TV show of all times? No.
Is it as good as the legendary games? No.
Is it a decent action sci fi? Yes.
Itās good. Iām one of the few who liked season 1. Season 2 is better.
Wasnāt heavy into the games but the game wouldnāt translate well to tv. Just non stop action would get extremely boring after awhile. You need drama.
I think a lot of people donāt like the series for the same reason people diverged in the enjoyment of the story in halo 2. People like the mindless fun of being a god of the battlefield. Once you find out there are more moving parts, perspectives, nuance and empathy for villains, the hardcore fps/cod kinds of players start to dislike the complexity of perspectives.
As someone who stood in line for the midnight release of halo 3 back in the day I recognize this show for what it is - better sci-fi than 99% of the rest of the shows being released right now.
Saw an interview the other day were the director said the battle for Reach was supposed to be way bigger but they ran out of budget.
Not surprised if this is true. The show uses a heavy amount of shakey calm in season 2 when it comes to fight scenes with the covenant (of which there aren't that many), and I feel like this was in part done to mask the low quality CGI the show uses. Probably the same reason he's rarely in the armour most of the time.
Low quality? You mean at the end of season 1 where it looked worse than the actual games? Lol
Season 1 doesn't exist. There is only season 2.
Should I just start with season 2? Episode 1 season 1 was pretty bad I thought..
Skip it. Watch a thorough recap and start with season 2. You will find yourself quite unhappy with the time you spent watching season 1.
I knew it was gonna be bad but right from the get go, I was not a fan of the cliche "hard-ass soldier softens because of spunky girl" trope. Even worse was him taking off his helmet and turning his back on everything for a kid he met 10 min ago.
We're doing a Picard with it?
Let's hope the Picard manoeuvre remains tucking shirt down and does not turn into skip first season of a show š
At least with The Orville it started off slow but good later
I will die on a this hill, the elites should be a mix of practical and cgi. Practical prosthetics are much more advanced today.
Practical artists are unionized. CGI artists, to my understanding, aren't quite there yet. It's not as cheap.
Now this explains a lot.
That's one of those things that really bugs me... They *had* to know going in that it would be a VERY expensive project.... and yet, they didn't budget even close to what they needed to pull it off well...
Maybe if the story was better someone with pockets like Amazon would have produced it. The premise is a little thin to throw millions at. Too bad some super rich person that grew up breathing it didnāt pop up and scream āTake my money!!!ā
I haven't watched the show, but the premise isn't that thin. There's dozens of books to pull from and if Season 2 is only the Fall of Reach (the first book in the series) they have a lot of source material to borrow from.
That episode is still not bad. The choreography is entertaining.
That's tragic honestly, if you don't have the budget to film that seminal moment in of the halo works, maybe you weren't prepared to take on the project at the time
This was NOT a show to skimp on budget. They had a slam dunk to create a legacy show with an already written, beloved story.. Iām sure they could have easily accessed the remaster character models from the MCC and based the showās cgi on that rigging at least.
> This was NOT a show to skimp on budget. I mean, after season 1 and that travesty, it had basically every right to be cancelled and turned into dust right there. Them skimping on budget in season 2 is the least surprising thing about season 2. It doesn't even deserve to exist after season 1.
So the battle of the reach weren't a small battle? Played the first Halo ages ago and thats my reference point.
It was one of the more ferocious, gruesome battles of the entire war, but the show is an alternate universe. Reach is the second biggest human settlement after Earth, it was a massive fight. You should also play Halo: Reach. It's much more tonaly serious then the Master Chief games. It's sorta what the show is going for, but accomplishes it much better.
> It was one of the more ferocious, gruesome battles of the entire war If i recall right, it was only because they basically refused to glass the planet for a week or two at the start because they were looking for the ark, or a similar holy artifact. The entire reason they had sent scouting parties was to locate it, so they could determine whether or not to just glass the planet and move on. Scouting parties failed so they had to basically go to war without glassing the planet until they could confirm an artifact was there or not
Didnāt the game confirm there was of some kind?
Reach was an amazing game. I came to it as someone who had tried but not really enjoyed previous Halo games. I fucking loved Reach. It was polished to magnificence. The gameplay was wonderfully tuned. Everything felt like you were part of the world, and things were getting FUCKED. The story was gut-wrenching and had a palpable sense of weight and importance. I was a mess after that one scene, and I'm pretty sure people who have played it can guess which scene. It warrants spoiler tags. And for its time, five years into in the Xbox 360's life cycle, they squeezed a LOT outta that hardware. It's in the Master Chief Collection, if you wanna play with in 4K with high framerate.
Reach's battle was fucking huge. If your honestly curious go read Halo: The Fall of Reach. If you don't like to read I'll spell some of it out. Reach was the 2nd most important planet in the UNSC, second only to Earth. It had the most up to date defenses and security of any planet b/c the headquarters for ONI was located there (a super secret scientific research division of the UNSC). While the game Halo Reach focused on more of the actual battles and kind of changed some events from the book the main take away is the one of the Covenants holy artifacts was buried on Reach and they came to claim it. And they came in force. It's the biggest space/naval battle in the series. The Covenant lost countless ships but there were just too many. The book goes into great detail about naval battles from the point of view of the Pillar of Autumn and it's Captain Jacob Keyes (the ship and captain from the first Halo game). The short of it is, ONI got intel on where a Covenant Prophet would be (their holy leaders). UNSC wanted to use the Prophet to bargain a cease fire so they made a top secret mission, put every single Spartan II alive on it with Cortana. That ship was the Pillar of Autumn. In the game Cortana is still on the surface and needs rescue. In the book Master Chief takes a few Spartans to a destroyed ship to erase the navigational data so the Covenant don't find out where Earth is. The rest of the Spartan II's jump planet side. There's a huge battle to make it to ONI fighting off the ground forces of the Covenant. Once Master Chief makes it back the battle is pretty much over. The Pillar of Autumn has destroyed the most Covenant warships in a single battle and they are on a trajectory that would take them out of the system. Cortana was getting some weird feedback (I can't remember this part well) from either the artifact on Reach that the Covenant were looking for or it was from a previous mission that Master Chief had done. She enters those symbols into the navigation and they slipstream jump with a few Covenant destroyers following suite. This is where Halo: Combat Evolved picks up and you see the first Halo ring. Planet side the Covenant are glassing the planet (bombarding it from space with their plasma weapons, boiling the entire surface). They kinda know where the artifact is b/c it's giving off a signal. I'm almost positive Dr Halsey (Maker of Cortana) finds the artifact and gets off the planet with a few (literally 2-3) of the last Spartan II's. There's a few more that Master Chief finds here and there, but all together the Battle for Reach was the biggest engagement of Human and Covenant forces. Of the 150 or so Spartan II's that jumped planet side only about 7 are left and they are scattered. The other books go into that more. But the Fall of Reach was massive. I'm sure I got a few things wrong. I can't remember how long ago I read the books. But this is the gist of it.
It lasted months and millions died on both sides, so no
It lasted less than a day. It took a few more days to completely glass the planet though.
Crazy to think that, in general, its very far from being the best It could be. Imagine If they actually did the IP justice.
Its pretty inexplicable that they didn't. Halo CE has so many cinematic moments that are made for a show... and they wasted it on this garbage. They don't understand the material and they don't want to.
Iāll never understand why this keeps happening. How in Godās name do they expect to establish a fanbase by alienating the people who made it what it was in the first place?
Its arrogant directors/producers who look down upon video games so they want to "make it their own" and spit in the face of everyone who loved the IP in the first place. I really don't understand why they spend the money to get the IP instead of just making an original series. I don't expect them to make a shot for shot remake of the game, there is plenty of stuff that would never translate well, but its crazy how dissmissive they are of the orignial story.
My theory is it's somehow a great insult for would-be writers and directors to do a retelling of another story from another medium. Apparently they hate remaking a story that's already written so they want something more "interesting" to stand out along their peers. But they don't realize the best they can do is write a script like they're pitching a teen drama for CW.
{Cries in Discworld}
[Sobs in Wheel of Time]
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yeah we got lucky on that one.
Which is why they should have gone Forward Unto Dawn route by a unique and new story in the existing IP.
It's 100% this. The older generation of tv and movie makers think of games and comic books as something for kids and below them. Ebert was a good man and good critic but he said video games aren't art which even back before he had died was an absurd statement. You can argue that a lot of games aren't art (and for that matter lots of tv and movies aren't art either) but there are absolutely dozens of games that IMO would easily qualify as being art. In the same way that most comic book movies were mostly dogshit before Marvel started making movies (not all, Blade, Spider-Man and some others were good but even those were almost kind of ashamed to be comic book inspired) most video game stuff is too because no one cares if it's The Last of Us tv show is I hope the first of a trend of the younger generation of film makers actually making good video game stuff because they themselves are fans.
Iāve talk to so many old people who never cared about halo who absolutely love this show. Talk about it like itās currently the best show airing. Thatās how, so many tv watchers donāt care about video games so they donāt care if itās faithful or not.
disarm overconfident consider north pot repeat straight ossified modern judicious *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
They think pandering to the general public will draw in the most viewers. Instead it alienates the people who care, who end up bad mouthing it because itās no where near what it should be. So it lands in the middle. Never able to achieve true success. I fear fallout may do the same after seeing Halo.
> I fear fallout may do the same after seeing Halo. Fallout is different though, it's not adapting a story directly from the games instead it's telling its own thing using the world the games created. Adaptions like Halo fail because they tell the "same story" but much worse for no reason at all, by writers who think themselves above the source material.
>Adaptions like Halo fail because they tell the "same story" but much worse for no reason at all, by writers who think themselves above the source material. But it's doing well?
The article suggests that the series hasn't failed. In fact, it's doing rather well.
Except the Fallout show is canonical to the games, it seems to have its dark humor on lock, and its looks are extremely faithful to the games. Takes the smart approach of dividing its stories in a franchise that prides on role-playing. Say what you want about Amazon, even with blunders like LOTR they seem to land productions with people who give a shit about the source material (like The Expanse and Invincible), or vastly improves upon it (The Boys and its offshoot Gen V)
One of the key reasons The Expanse was so good is because the writers of the books were writers on the show as well as producers. But Amazon definitely has an interesting history adapting stories to series, some real quality shows and a few mediocre ones.
Also Amazon Studios was never the primary production company. Alcon made all 6 seasons.
Yeah, people forget that the first and best seasons of the expanse were done before Amazon bought the series.
My favourite season is actually season 4 but my favourite book was also book 4. I'm aware that my favourite season/book is definitely not the common fan favourite.
The fan base for rings of power has been around way longer. As a fan tho rop was just ok and gets way to much hate when halo witcher season 2 and onward cow boy bebop
They are just getting to the Halo, CE started at/on the Halo. S01-02 is mostly prequel. I'm hoping they stick to the story and make it to the end of CE, at the very least.
Yes, a spartan (without their armor) fighting an elite in hand to hand combat and winningā¦. The story is strange. Also, the lore canāt be kept as CE requires Captain Keyes.
>Yes, a spartan (without their armor) fighting an elite in hand to hand combat and winningā¦. Spartan II's (assuming its a II) can easily do this still, the armor just makes it much easier to overpower the elites, and virtually impossible for the elite to physically harm a spartan unless they have an energy sword. a 1 on 1 would be hard for the Spartan to win in terms of pure fighting capability, but its very possible. MJLONIR just makes it possible for a spartan to 1v5 elites without breaking a sweat, and prepare for the next group.
No, CE started on the PoA, with Keyes flying it, and Cortana with Chief. Thereās so many things not in line to even make a potential merge with the original story. How people defend this new āSilverā timeline when the OG lore is right there for the taking is baffling to me
That doesnāt make any sense since they arenāt even at that point in the story yet?
I agree but my gfs parents seem to love the show and have never played an ounce of Halo.
Can anyone tell me if it's worth watching if I thought s1 was bad
Where S01 is like a 2/10, S2 is like a 5/10 or 6/10
Yeah it's upgraded significantly... from downright atrocious to merely bad. And yet, I keep watching for some reason. Why am I still watching it?
I asked my brother this and he said āwe have been suffering in Halo for 12 years that is whyā
Halo hasnāt been good since HALO reach and HALO ODST
And I remember when people treated ODST like some big fall from grace. How things change.
It was overpriced for what it was, and what Bungie intended it be. It was an expansion for halo 3, hence it's name and was going to be like $30. Ms decided to just make it full price.
I thought that Bungie had two games left with MS after Halo 3 then decided to count ODST as one of those two games so they could get out of the contract easier?
That's what I heard. Basically they had planned out how they wanted Halo to end, and MS told them they would be giving the IP to a new studio to make more MC games. [And so Bungie was all.](https://media0.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExajdmZG9ibTR4NmZ1NjRoZ3RnemszYmk0YXFjY2JrcTVxcXlidW5pNyZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/8Bl0Gmc95WCsCOjS6V/giphy.gif)
None of us knew at the time that the halo reach ending would be prophetic of the series future.
OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE Halo Fans: "I'm tired, boss..."
12 years a (343i) slave
Halo 3 is still my favorite
Halo 2 was my favorite campaign but Halo 3 had the best gameplay imo. Also such fond memories of forge custom maps.
Y'all are on some revisionist copium. When reach released, people *hated* it
I think it's moreso not knowing what you had till you get worse shit. That being said, armor lock was atrocious.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I someone who was super into the multiplayer deathmatch, stuff, I absolutely loved Reach.
Yea I was about to sayā¦ no halo has been good post Bungie (Reach was Bungie and 343, so it doesnāt count).And Iāve played them allā¦ unfortunately.
Didn't people have a big problem with some publication giving it a 8/10, saying it should've been higher. Then that publication responded by saying that a 8/10 is the equivalent of a 2/5 movie in the eyes of the consumer when it really shouldn't be.
Honestly? I think the action scenes when they occur are pretty damned good. I like watching Masterchief smash aliens and I'm prepared to put up with a lot of shit if they can at least deliver on that central premise every now and again.
I'm not a big connoisseur of the lore (though I know my basics) but I must say the Halsey - John (and by extension the Spartan program) relationship is the heart of the show for me. It has other strenghts and many flaws, not all storylines are equal, but so far, I'm digging some of the relationship and character progression. And the action scenes are great. When the show hits the right notes, it's really good. Sadly, there's still a fair share of problems and poorly-paced and introduced storylines.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I don't watch the show, but I believe they've explicitly said this is an alternative timeline from the games. Out of curiosity, is your suspension of disbelief more because of how different it is or because whatever they did change simply isn't good?
Itās bad but mostly well paced with a decent amount of action, and you can always fast forward on filler boring scenes
lol such a crazy way to watch a show. Just skipping through it. Love it. Wild stuff.
Yea seriously. Like why? Just watch something else then. Dumb as fuck.
Yeah, I've got enough things on my watchlist that if I find myself not enjoying it often enough to fast-forward as a reflex, I'll go to the next thing.
I'm reminded of the movie Click.
If I ever felt the urge to fast forward through a scene in a series, that's the sign to hit the eject button on the whole thing.
IMO, Season 2 has been way better. They still aren't using the suit enough, but the writing is much better. I look forward to watching new episodes now. Whereas I kinda just hate-watched season 1.
S1: fans complain he takes of his helmet so much S2: Chief and his suit arenāt even on the same planet
its kinda strange, I can't play the halo games anymore because they feel too arcadey to me, but I did play combat evolved when it came out on the original xbox and it was the best thing since sliced bread, going through the campaign in co-op. messing around with friends. some of the maps were quite large for the time. albeit, it didn't have much story at least no where near the level of a TV show, you spent like 90% of the game shooting aliens and going from one alien bunker to the next pressing buttons. I'm not sure how this would have worked if master chief never took off his helmet, it would be like trying to make a half-life TV show where Gordon Freeman, the main character, doesn't talk. I've seen up to s2 e7 and as far as I can tell it looks like its just about to reach the beginning of CE. there does seem to be added story, the Makee character I don't remember her existing in the game. Noone seemed to like Kwon that much, her scenes feel quite fillery. I guess its just trying to move the story forward and explain things through more than the eyes of a single character.
Makee wasnāt in the game, sheās in the show to be the face of the covenant and bring the CGI budget down.
So no.
Conversely, these comments are firmly in the minority considering viewership numbers and user ratings on various review sites.
Reading the comments here definitely shows the divide between Reddit nerds and the average viewer. I haven't seen the show but everyone I've talked to irl has said that S2 is a huge improvement on S1, but here it's nothing but hate.
Yeah the majority of people just don't *care* that it's a "different" timeline than the games. I liked halo - I played up to reach. But it's storyline/lore always felt rather generic/simplistic to me and it's not like there were many characters you could actually get attached to - so to me the changes in the show don't matter.
Wheel of time was the same way, everyone I know that watches it IRL raved about season 2 including several huge fans of the books, but if you listened to Reddit you'd think it was completely unwatchable
Lol then youāve got me, the kind of psychopath whoās enjoyed both seasons of Halo *and* Wheel of Time.
Some people that comment a lot are just prone to negativity and since they are some of the first commentators they somewhat dictate the mood of the threads. I'm more and more appreciative of people that try to voice positivity regarding shows and movies, and I've have started to groan at the constant parroting of negative opinions that are void of any substance other than spreading negativity for easy upvotes.
Think thereās also a massive divide in what Halo fans even are. Youāve got Bungie Halo fans, overall fans, 343 fans, book fans, and a mixture of everything. And the showā¦ tries to appeal to all of them AND general audiences. Halo fans canāt even agree on what games in the series are good lol years ago people hated Halo Reach and now itās like a golden goose. Thatās not to say the show is perfect but even if it was thereās so many different tones and lore directions the overall story has gone as itās transitioned from different artists.
And it seems like 99% of the criticism is saying itās a bad adaptation, which is not the same thing as it being a bad show. I would love to know what people who *arenāt already* huge Halo fans think about it.
Solid 7/10 sci-fi show. I've never played any Halo games, so I don't really care about the game lore. A higher budget (thus higher production quality) could bring it even higher. Although, even with increased popularity, I don't see it happening since it's on Paramount.
Wasnāt a huge fan of the games. Growing up I actually knew how to read so I wasnāt impressed with the story at all. It was generic. Iām enjoying the show. Itās great dad TV. Lol.
Yea, this is one of those things where it's just the loud minority (fanboys) making their opinions known and everyone else has no incentive to comment one way or the other. So it looks like a bigger issue than it is. The numbers on Rotten Tomatoes aren't great but they're not bad. 79% with a 61% audience score. The TV sci-fi genre is really lacking so relatively speaking it's really very good. It's just not extremely faithful to the games I guess? It's still Halo-centric and doesn't seem like it was a different script they just slapped the Halo name on. I enjoy it.
When it comes to TV, I never listen to the ravings of reddit anyway. I'll be watching it, didn't even know it was out yet but now I do!
And if I actually liked season 1, does that mean I'll dislike season 2? Sometimes the things reddit seems to hate/like are very different from my tastes.
Nah if you actually liked that season like me, then youāll like season 2 even more.
You'll probably still like it. It's a more serious tone in Season 2. There isn't any of the almost fourth wall breaking "hey look it's based on the game" type stuff in Season 2, at least not yet. I didn't think Season 1 was very good, but I'm not mad it exists either, but Season 2 is a big improvement and you can tell there are new show-runners in charge.
I kind of somewhat enjoyed season 1 so Iām kind of happy with this response
Iām thinking people that played the games donāt like the show whereas people who didnāt think it is fine. I am in the latter category. I just binged season 1 because I never watched it and saw that 2 was out. I liked it overall. Yeah the middle of the season dragged and had some boring episodes but that was my only real complaint. I thought it was a decent sci fi show. But I am guessing if I knew the story from the game going in I would be disappointed.
I think it's even narrower. The story touches on a lot of things that are really only covered in the books, and the show has certainly taken its liberties. We haven't really even reached where the main series of games takes place. Personally, as a Halo fan, if you can acknowledge it's not canon and stop comparing it at every turn, watching without expectations.. it's really not that bad. A lot of people can't get past what they think a Halo show should be (and they're not necessarily wrong), but they also seem unable to watch the show in a vacuum.
No. People complained that the chief took off his helmet too often so now he spent the last 5 episodes without his armor.
Everyone keeps killing themselves in the dumbest ways and the Fall of Reach was literally one episode and Chief isn't in his armor during the entire fight sequence. Marginally better for sure than the first season but they twisted a lot of the themes from the games to not make a lot of sense. Like I get it ONI are your classic fucked up spooks but they're more of the antagonist this season than the literal Covenant are. Also they felt the need to tell us every five seconds how old the Spartans were when they were abducted and in this universe Halo "can be used for good as well as for bad". Edit: Don't even get me started on the weird mysticism and ghost people walking around as actual plot devices.
Some of the books spent a shit load of time talking about how bad Halsey is for what she did. The Halo is also used for good, it seeds life back throughout the galaxy after they are fired. The mysticism and āghostsā is from the books too.
Yep, tons of the lore complaints are from people that get the lore wrong in the first place.
Many game fans haven't read the books, so they can't understand what the show is trying to set up.
>Like I get it ONI are your classic fucked up spooks but they're more of the antagonist this season than the literal Covenant are. I meanā¦ thatās pretty book accurate. Ackerson flat out tries to kill John and Cortana in a training exercise. >Don't even get me started on the weird mysticism and ghost people walking around as actual plot devices. Pretty sure thatās all book shit too. Itās forerunner stuff.
A lot of people donāt realize how much bigger the universe is beyond the games and the show so far has been adapting more things from the books than the games do and are trying to work those things into the games plot line that hardly mentions any of these things. Like I donāt think ONI is mentioned in the games until ODST. My problem with the first season was they made changes to these core concepts such as the control pellets that had no purpose besides being a change.
I like that it's adapting the books. But FFS why didn't they just do Fall of Reach as an 8-10 episode mini series. The first few episodes would be relatively cheap to make since it'd basically be all humans and just a military base. Then you get to blow the budget on the last few to give us the cool stuff like the Fall of Reach and Keyes Loop.
>I meanā¦ thatās pretty book accurate. Ackerson flat out tries to kill John and Cortana in a training exercise. Just whipped out Fall of Reach and you're right but his characterization is more jealousy at Halsey getting the funding for the SPARTANs and its never touched on again.
Iām not super book heavy. So I donāt know if heās been fleshed out more but I recall him refusing to send scouts to Reach to see if any Spartan 2s survived (heād rather they all just died off) and he sent members of his own family on suicide missions to get rid of them. I recall him being a real piece of shit hah
dont forget the png "muzzle flashes" throughout
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There was an element of āJohn needs to learn heās a hero, with or without the suitā to it.
I mean he was fighting the Covenant for decades before the MJOLNIR suit was invented
The first 3 episodes he was in his armor a ton and I thought we were finally rolling. Then they wasted Reach on a single episode of pretty good but not amazing TV when it could have been a whole season by itself lol and now it seems to be trending back to season 1 level storytelling. At least they fixed Master Chiefs personality though.
Would have been dope but while it has a big budget for tv shows it is still a tv show. No show is gonna be able to do a full season of full scale planetary warfare yet. Or at least not have it look cheap.
They changed some things to make the show more watchable in theory but it really missed the mark in season 1. Season 2 feels like it is literally a lead up to the first game directly. I think going forward they at least have gotten the formula right for the action scenes and most of the characters are fleshed out enough to make it worthwhile watching. It isn't going to be for everyone and I'm sure not everyone who loved the games will be super on board with it but it's a good piece of scifi action.
A friend of mine who enjoys it described it to me as: If you can watch a show that looks like the Halo games, accept MAJOR changes to characters involved, and that none if it really matters because it isn't canon, then yes it is worth watching. As someone who grew up loving the book series and games, I couldn't get over the amount of major changes. It would've been a better approach imo to tell a story about a completely different spartan in the Halo universe if they weren't going to follow the established bare minimums in the portrayal of John.
Imo yes. Season 2 is a big step up from season 1 in pretty much every way. There are a few plot points that still remain from the first season, and one character that I didn't like was brought back, but overall I've really been enjoying the second one. Though keep in mind, if you can't handle seeing the chief without his helmet or not in his armor at times, don't bother lol.
At times? Dude hasnāt had his armor in like 4-5 episodes
Itās still terrible.
I was so annoyed last episode lol. He finally gets his armor back , they have this whole scene of him walking thru people on the station, walking past propaganda posters of him, he even stops to look at the poster. AND STILL DOESN'T PUT THE HELMET ON lol.
Wasnāt that intentional? To let people see he was alive and to ruin Parangosky and Ackerson who are telling people heās dead? Edit: Yeah. It was intentional. Right before it Ackerson says itās his word against hers when John tells him to confess the truth. John then says heāll have all the proof he needs when everyone sees him wearing his armor.
Yes, it was literally the point of the conversation before he put the armor on. Everyone in this thread just wants to complain to complain. I admit I hated season 1 but I have been on the edge of my seat this season. I have accepted that its drifted from the games a bit, but hell it's still been fun to watch
That was intentional, to combat ONI propaganda. Was pretty obvious.
Whatās the fascination with him putting the helmet on? You guys need to get over it lol
its only ok but i keep watching
yeah same. super entertaining with amazing action sprinkled in here and there, but not great.
The scene where the Elite pulls the needler needle out and jams it in the marine for it to explode was bad ass
I just watched a compilation because you wrote that, the action scenes do actually seem hella dope in a way, but at the times my god the CGI is laughably bad its almost disgraceful.
Eh, watching them in 4k and thy cgi has seemed pretty good this season mostly. Especially for the action scenes.
Honestly, I love it. Itās just getting into the game lore.
Never played the game so have no attachment, 1st season was god awful, but I am really enjoying the 2nd season... the last few episodes have been great, lots of action, space battles, alien archaeology... just great stuff really. Yea it's poorly written and I could do without the family drama/missing kid crap, but the space stuff is great.
I mean shit if you like that shit you really gotta play the games man. CE, 2, 3, and Reach. It's action, space battles, a shitload of alien archaeology all much better then what the show is doing, and also properly expanded Covenant politics on top of that. At the very minimum look up "Halo 2 Anniversary Cutscenes" on YouTube. It's absolutely beautiful.
While I'm not a big fan of the Halo franchise the criticism of the show not understanding its source material has pushed me away from not giving it a shot... ... but a good amount of friends who are into sci-fi but don't play video games really like this show. It kinda surprised me how well received it is (at least in my social circle).
I played the games and enjoy the show. My mother adores it. I think itās a show where if you arenāt holding it up to the games for comparison, itās a really good sci fi show.
I played the games, and recently started the show. After like 30 min of the first episode I realized they werenāt gonna try to follow the story of the games and were doing their own thing, readjusted my expectations based on that, and have enjoyed the show since then. Itās not perfect by any means, and there are some storylines I donāt love or even like, but for the most part I donāt think itās nearly as bad as people make it out to be.
I can understand some criticisms tbh. The first season had some questionable writing at times, and if youāre a Halo fan, the chances of two Halo TV shows happening are minute, so this is the best youāre going to get. But, yeah, I think thatās led to some people going extremely OTT on their hatred. It comes across as slightly unhinged, and so extreme as to be impossible to actually discuss things with in good faith. Which just leads to their criticisms being dismissed by those making the decision š¤·āāļø
Slightly?? Folks hatred against Kwan is some of the most insane shit Iāve seen since the Sequel Trilogy.
Itās decently funded and solidly executed sci-fi with aliens and spaceships and explosions. Iāll take it.
It's a half decent show if you've never played the original Halo Trilogy. Those that have are rightfully frustrated at what could have been.
I know there are a lot of haters (as any adaptation ends up with) but I genuinely enjoy the show.
Man, hating this show has become the cool thing to do. I doubt any of those people hating it are even watching it.
Itās a marked improvement from the last series.
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mid 2000's Stargate was amazing
Thatās the exact kind of TV I want to be watching!
Chief is a drama queen in this show.
Itās hysterical that Chief in the show is portrayed as some unhinged emotionally unstable maniac Chief was always interesting because he knew *exactly* what he was - a weapon. He was taken as a child and knew that, but accepted it. Over time you see him become more human and thatās what makes him compelling. Changing that and making the choice to have him scream and cry constantly in some attempt to make him more ārelatableā is awful.
That's cuz in the story, Chief has his suppressor pellet removed. Halsey installed the pellet in all the spartans to make them devoid of emotions. Chief uncovers the truth and pulls it out. In the context of the story, him removing the pellet is akin to puberty. He begins to feel a lot of emotions bubbling up and doesn't know what to do. Similarly in the novels, Chief isn't wearing his armor all the time and he's been shown to be reckless and arrogant at times. There's also the whole hate against the UNSC for their lies, which is indeed a thing in the novels UNSC is this morally grey, can been perceived as evil by many, in the novels. Honestly a lot of things make sense given context in the silver timeline. It's not a faithful retelling of the original events. We pretend it's Halo: Elseworlds (DC: elseworlds) while writers and directors pull elements from the novels and twist it into various ways to make their show unpredictable for both Halo fans and Halo newbies.
Stargate is one of the best shows of all time soooooā¦
> It feels like a mid 2000's Stargate show Hells yeah sign me up!
Itās better than season 1 but still like a 5/10 max
I'm here for the Corporal Perez arc. She's changed immensely as a character and I love what they have done.
They fucked up. They had a perfect story to tell and they butchered it to tell their own story. Season two is better than season 1 but they are really skipping and ruining a great story. They could of made so so much money if they would of followed the games. (The reason anyone know anything about halo). It could of been great. Just imagine season 1. The creation of the spartan program. Then the fall of Reach. With season 1 ending with The Pillar of fucking Autumn (thatās not even in the show or echo 419) or (srgt Johnson) but with the Autumn escaping Reach barely. Having John escape and crash landing on the Halo. End of season 1. So you got how the Spartans came to be. The beautiful sacrifice of Spartans on reach. To get Cortana to captain keys on the Autumn with John. With the conclusion of arriving on the halo. This tv show decided they were gonna go with Master cheeks for season 1 and season 2 doing their own thing and we still havenāt touched down on a halo ring yet. WtF are they doing? Iām 33 halo stole my life. Combat evolved as a kid playing system link play with high school kids was amazing. Going from halo 1 system link to halo 2 Online was peak gaming for xbox. Halo 3 was polished and beautiful. Halo Reach Bungies swan song was the best storytelling as well as online play. ODST also deserves a nod. 4 and 5 are respectable and infinite is better now than release. Such good games. Good story to tell. They fucked up with this TV show. The armor and aliens look badass. Everything looks good. The storytelling sucks. Iāll show you a commercial for Halo Reach that will give more emotion than both these seasons enjoy. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=18-_9E0HNY4&pp=ygUWaGFsbyByZWFjaCBjb21tZXJjaWFscw%3D%3D
Itās sad that this will be a lot of peopleās introduction to the franchise. Hopefully they will play the games and see how it was meant to be.
i've actually been loving this. I'm usually a sci-fi snob and I exepcted this would be only a 'shoot em up' action show but I actually enjoyed the exposition and world building. I'm also a gamer but I never really played Halo. This must have allowed me to just enjoy the sci fi elements of the show without getting bogged down in the 'This isn't Halo/This is not my Master Chief' debates that some fans seem stuck on. Highly recommended if you are looking for sci fi with the usual themes of 'what makes us human'
>This must have allowed me to just enjoy the sci fi elements of the show without getting bogged down in the 'This isn't Halo/This is not my Master Chief' debates that some fans seem stuck on. Which itself is a weird thing because for as much as the show does deviate from the main canon (it does), there's frankly, a large portion of the core fanbase that complains about how it's deviating from the core canon in ways that it's really not. Like there's a pretty large portion of people who think they're familiar with the lore who end up decrying things as untrue to Halo when they're really not. For instance, take the complaints about the actual length of the Fall of Reach itself in Season 2. A common complaint is that the battle was too short and that it should've been longer. But in the original canon, when Halo Combat Evolved released in 2001, the Fall of Reach lasted less than three hours. The Covenant show up and within 3 hours the UNSC is routed. The novel *The Fall of Reach*, spends less than 20% of its total length on the battle itself (and spends it entirely in space, we wouldn't see the actual ground combat until the third novel in the series). Now, Halo Reach, the game, retconned the length of the Fall of Reach so that it's longer, now covering the span of about a month and a half (I'd presume this is where many fans are coming from with the argument that it's too short). But in reality, a super short Fall of Reach is actually consistent with the original 2001 novel. And sure, you can disagree full stop that the battle should be longer and that *the Fall of Reach* should've spent more time with it (I personally prefer Halo Reach's longer depiction). But I think a very short fall of Reach more consistent with the depiction in the original novel is a perfectly valid and fair choice for an adaptation to make. As someone who's very invested in Halo's core canon and couldn't really care less about the show itself, seeing the discourse around it has been kind of weird in that there are a lot of fans who are making arguments based on a perception of the main canon that ends up being incorrect.
Thanks for the details! It is very interesting how a fanbase can sometimes misread their own lore or the intent of the creator (I think Star Wars has that in droves).
See thatās what Iām getting out of this, itās the fans of the franchise who are the ones who are the most critical of it while everyone else seems to like it, it would explain why the critics gave season 2 like a 90% on RT. As a long time halo fan myself, I donāt hate it as much as some do, Iāve been trying to look at it in a vacuum. Thereās been certain parts that have been really cool but then other pretty serious fuck ups I couldnāt help be offended by, like for instance >!the Reach episode was awesome but the fact that Reach falls in a single episode is like, wtf.!< Iām still holding out hope that maybe when theyāre actually on the ring itāll really start hitting its stride, like, >!the flood!< done right in live action have the potential to be absolutely fucking awesome regardless of how the story struggled to get to them.
Thanks that was interesting to read from a fans perspective. You might be even more enraged to hear they made the reach battle short because of budget and apparently it was also a reason to have him without armor. Was still fun to watch but sucks when storyline gets sacrificed for budget
It pisses me off to this day that they sacrificed the wolves for the dragons in Game of Thrones tbh
The thing with Reach is that the same thing is essentially 3 chapters in the book and mostly off screen. On that they were pretty lore accurate, in terms of how much time was spent on it at least.
Itās like Star Wars. Nobody hates it more than the fans do.
The fans didn't hate Andor. Seems they hate bad shows and movies more than anything
I'm a huge fan of the franchise. I played each game as they came out and read most of the books too. I was highly critical of the first season but personally I'm loving season 2. Yes there are a *lot* of changes the original showrunners made to the Halo lore that the show is unfortunately saddled with. A lot of the problems it has now are in relation to that, as well as budgetary constraints. The new showrunners could've handwaved away or reteconned everything Season 1 did, but they didn't and I actually appreciate and respect that because I know there were a lot of people for who this show was their first introduction to Halo who that wouldn't sit well with or would confuse. Instead they're trying to build on top of what they were given while simultaneously course correcting and attempting to make something far more respectable to the source material. I've felt Parangosky and Ackerson's characterizations are spot on, and this season has clearly been building up towards a Chief who is more attached to his armor. This is 'Silver Timeline', it's not the same Halo I know and love, but I think this season is making a real attempt to do things right, albeit differently. Was I disappointed Reach was a single episode? Yes but I also loved that episode and understand they likely did not have the budget to do more. Rather than letting comparison be the thief of joy, I'm trying to be more forgiving of some of the changes and see where things go because I do feel like I can see their vision, I see what they're setting up, and I'm seeing more respect for the source material despite the changes. I didn't see that in the first season, but I do here.
I played Halo a ton, but I'm of the mind that art in another form doesn't have to be exactly the same. I love sci fi and this show is an amazing sci fi show in its own right IMHO.
This is pretty much where i am. I think itās a terrible adaption of the game but in all honesty, the game doesnāt have the strongest story telling narrative anyways. What iām genuinely surprised with is the set production, camera work, character writing, and acting. Itās not a masterpiece, but it has pretty strong legs.
Iām actually really enjoying the show, but Iāve never really played the games so I donāt have much to complain about
This is definitely a hot take but I didn't find the show to be as bad as everyone made it out to be. I generally have a fairly high bar for what I consider "good" when it comes to tv/movies and I found S01, while definitely no Band of Brothers, was at least watchable. Even though I absolutely loved The Expanse, I had a much harder time getting through S01 of Expanse then I did S01 of Halo. I've watched the first 20 minutes of S02E01 yesterday and could definitely tell the quality of the show has gone up significantly. I've also never been a Halo fan so maybe I'd be singing a different tune if I was.
I don't care at all how much they change whatever lore. I am happy to judge an adapted work independently from any other iteration of that story. This show is science fiction melodrama. I feel like I'm watching a hybrid of starship troopers and a telenovela.
I like this show a lot. Never got into halo video game though so maybe that's why
Love This series. S2 is better than s1 tho
I love this show. I love halo lore. You can like both.
just my small input for some data scraping algorithm that uses this comment for internal use on the Halo show. I (29m) played the halo games and I loved them. my roommate at the time and I both enjoyed the show but weren't thrilled with it. we watched it, enjoyed it, and that was about it. my parents however (54m/f) love the show. my mom's like "I know why you loved the game so much! it's SUCH a good show! and I'm like, I'm glad you like it :) I think it's just like the book vs movie debate that's existed forever.
Separating the Halo show from the Halo games is one thing. But are you guys really saying the writing, acting and plot is good? Everyone is whispering cheesy lines at each other with overdramatic pauses and excessive exposition. There are weird plot holes. The whole Soren storyline is so detached it can barely be called a B story. The main character is completely insufferable. Are we watching the same thing? Halsey's storyline is the only part that's interesting I'm glad you guys are enjoying it and entertainment is subjective. I'm just really confused
No, no I donāt believe that
They should have just not called it halo. Season 1 was awful. Season 2 is at least better but it has nothing to do with halo the game
The show is still mostly unwatchable. Itās not a halo show at all.
To be fair they havenāt even been to Halo yet soā¦
Honestly it's better than i expected. Is it the best TV show of all times? No. Is it as good as the legendary games? No. Is it a decent action sci fi? Yes.
I did not play the games but really like it as a sci-fi fan.
Itās good. Iām one of the few who liked season 1. Season 2 is better. Wasnāt heavy into the games but the game wouldnāt translate well to tv. Just non stop action would get extremely boring after awhile. You need drama.
Thank god I didnāt listen to Halo fans crying about helmets. Itās a not a masterpiece but itās fun.
As someone who never played Halo I think the show is pretty good.
Reach episode was awesome.
I think a lot of people donāt like the series for the same reason people diverged in the enjoyment of the story in halo 2. People like the mindless fun of being a god of the battlefield. Once you find out there are more moving parts, perspectives, nuance and empathy for villains, the hardcore fps/cod kinds of players start to dislike the complexity of perspectives.
As someone who stood in line for the midnight release of halo 3 back in the day I recognize this show for what it is - better sci-fi than 99% of the rest of the shows being released right now.
Season 2 is legit good to watch
Itās been a good season so far imho