So, much to my surprise, they've gone and made a television show based
on the Halo video games. Well, I say surprise, but it's not really
that. I knew they were making a Halo TV show... but I knew it much the
same way I know there are people working on cold fusion. It's a
project that's been in the making for years and years and, quite
honestly, it's not one I really expected ever to come to fruition.

Of course I had to watch it. I'm not really a big fan of the Halo
series, although neither do I have any significant negative feelings
about it. Despite the hype, I've always found the franchise to be
rather run of the mill, both in gameplay and setting. Nonetheless, I
have - usually to my disappointment - kept abreast with the franchise;
I've played the games, I've read (some) of the novels and comics; I
even own the direct-to-DVD Halo cartoons. Watching the TV show seemed
the natural next step.

I'm hesitant to render an opinion, partly because there's only been
one episode so far, but also because so little actually happened in
that episode. The best I can say is that the series is faithful to the
source material and seems to have been developed by fans of the
franchise. You know how you watch a movie based on a book or game or
whatever, and there's so many changes that you wonder why they
bothered with the license at all? This isn't that sort of thing; there
are notable difference, but the feel of the show feels very true to
the games.

Which is also, perhaps, the worst part of the show. Despite the rich
backstory of the franchise, the games themselves always had very
shallow plots and one-note characters... and the TV show isn't any
better (but see my aforementioned note about this being only the first
episode). Still, the show didn't help by using half its run-time (at
least!) to showcase a bombastic battle and overly-long VFX sequences
featuring all the future-tech for which the franchise is famous. That
left it precious little time to actually build up the setting,
characters and plot.

Very surprisingly, the visuals and sound were the weakest part of the
show. The episode itself begins with a VFX shot of some alien world
that looks so fake that I was sure it was intended to be some sort of
fake-out; that the camera would pull back and reveal that what we were
looking at was a zoomed in shot of an alien's face or something. But
nope, that cartoony landscape was supposed to be convincing.

None of the CGI looked particularly good and didn't meld well with the
live-action sequences; I've seen better efforts in amateur Youtube
videos. A lot of the stuff seemed off-model too (the alien Elites, in
particular, looked very poor, more like tubby men in poorly molded
armor than the fearsome warriors they were supposed to be). The
animations lacked convincing weight and realism; it very much looked
like the frenetic activities you'd find in a video-game. Sound was
likewise disappointing, especially with the Foley (the
thump-thump-thump of the Spartans walking about was so over the top it
became farcical).

Honestly, the whole thing was - even to somebody who wasn't expecting
very much - an oddly disappointing experience. It felt very much like
a fanboy's attempt at live-action, focused far too much on the
fighting rather than drama and character. That's fine for a five
minute Youtube video, but it fails completely if you're trying to
maintain interest over an hour (and want people to come back for more
later). That it looked like a sci-fi TV show produced ten years ago
didn't help either; shows like "The Mandalorean" and "The Witcher"
have greatly raised the bar and its qutie apparent that "Halo" hasn't
kept up.

Still, as I said, I'm not willing to declare the show a lost cause
yet. It could still be a show worth watching, but between its
uninteresting story, flat characters, and disappointing VFX, it
certainly hasn't put its best foot forward. Despite the faithfulness
to the material and the very apparent love for the franchise by the
showrunners, they haven't yet shown that Halo is a series worth
watching for any reason other than its name. We'll see if they can
turn things around.

I only briefly played the first Halo game during its free weekend on
Steam. It wasn't bad. I was curious about the TV shows after seeing its
trailers. It wasn't not bad even though not a Halo fan.

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

> So, much to my surprise, they've gone and made a television show based
> on the Halo video games. Well, I say surprise, but it's not really
> that. I knew they were making a Halo TV show... but I knew it much the
> same way I know there are people working on cold fusion. It's a
> project that's been in the making for years and years and, quite
> honestly, it's not one I really expected ever to come to fruition.

> Of course I had to watch it. I'm not really a big fan of the Halo
> series, although neither do I have any significant negative feelings
> about it. Despite the hype, I've always found the franchise to be
> rather run of the mill, both in gameplay and setting. Nonetheless, I
> have - usually to my disappointment - kept abreast with the franchise;
> I've played the games, I've read (some) of the novels and comics; I
> even own the direct-to-DVD Halo cartoons. Watching the TV show seemed
> the natural next step.

> I'm hesitant to render an opinion, partly because there's only been
> one episode so far, but also because so little actually happened in
> that episode. The best I can say is that the series is faithful to the
> source material and seems to have been developed by fans of the
> franchise. You know how you watch a movie based on a book or game or
> whatever, and there's so many changes that you wonder why they
> bothered with the license at all? This isn't that sort of thing; there
> are notable difference, but the feel of the show feels very true to
> the games.

> Which is also, perhaps, the worst part of the show. Despite the rich
> backstory of the franchise, the games themselves always had very
> shallow plots and one-note characters... and the TV show isn't any
> better (but see my aforementioned note about this being only the first
> episode). Still, the show didn't help by using half its run-time (at
> least!) to showcase a bombastic battle and overly-long VFX sequences
> featuring all the future-tech for which the franchise is famous. That
> left it precious little time to actually build up the setting,
> characters and plot.

> Very surprisingly, the visuals and sound were the weakest part of the
> show. The episode itself begins with a VFX shot of some alien world
> that looks so fake that I was sure it was intended to be some sort of
> fake-out; that the camera would pull back and reveal that what we were
> looking at was a zoomed in shot of an alien's face or something. But
> nope, that cartoony landscape was supposed to be convincing.

> None of the CGI looked particularly good and didn't meld well with the
> live-action sequences; I've seen better efforts in amateur Youtube
> videos. A lot of the stuff seemed off-model too (the alien Elites, in
> particular, looked very poor, more like tubby men in poorly molded
> armor than the fearsome warriors they were supposed to be). The
> animations lacked convincing weight and realism; it very much looked
> like the frenetic activities you'd find in a video-game. Sound was
> likewise disappointing, especially with the Foley (the
> thump-thump-thump of the Spartans walking about was so over the top it
> became farcical).

> Honestly, the whole thing was - even to somebody who wasn't expecting
> very much - an oddly disappointing experience. It felt very much like
> a fanboy's attempt at live-action, focused far too much on the
> fighting rather than drama and character. That's fine for a five
> minute Youtube video, but it fails completely if you're trying to
> maintain interest over an hour (and want people to come back for more
> later). That it looked like a sci-fi TV show produced ten years ago
> didn't help either; shows like "The Mandalorean" and "The Witcher"
> have greatly raised the bar and its qutie apparent that "Halo" hasn't
> kept up.

> Still, as I said, I'm not willing to declare the show a lost cause
> yet. It could still be a show worth watching, but between its
> uninteresting story, flat characters, and disappointing VFX, it
> certainly hasn't put its best foot forward. Despite the faithfulness
> to the material and the very apparent love for the franchise by the
> showrunners, they haven't yet shown that Halo is a series worth
> watching for any reason other than its name. We'll see if they can
> turn things around.
--
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On Mon, 28 Mar 2022 01:25:57 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>So, much to my surprise, they've gone and made a television show based
>on the Halo video games.

So, hey, there's a new season of the Halo television series that just
started.

The first season was... well, let's be polite and say it wasn't well
received. Personally, I did not think it was /too bad/ as a show, but
I can completely understand the complaints. It took such incredible
liberties with the source material that it was, in some respects,
completely unrecognizable. But the producers have had two years to
digest the complaints, so I'm sure the second season will be better,
right?

Well... so far, no, they haven't. It didn't help that the series
restarted without a recap; it's been 23 months since the last episode,
and I've mostly forgotten what went on in the first season. It isn't a
show I'm inclined to re-watch anytime soon anyway. So a review would
have been appreciated (I had to go online to get the highlights)...

The big cliff-hanger from season 1 - did Cortana take over Master
Chief's brain?- has been completely abandoned. That's probably for the
best; it was one of the least liked ideas in the series. Microsoft
probably wants to downplay the idea of "evil AI taking over
everything" anyway, what with their recent push into that market.

Instead, the big bad is apparently the new head of OSI - the
franchise's equivalent of the CIA - who is such an over-the-top ass
that its hard to take him seriously as a threat. Halo-man (sorry, he's
called "Master Chief", right?) has been sidelined from the action -
despite everyone insisting he's the 'best weapon we've got' - because
last season he pried the chip out of his brain that inhibited his
emotions. Meanwhile, Pirate-guy (an ex-Spartan) introduced last
season, remains as uninteresting this time around, and Halsey - the
maybe-evil scientist who created the Spartans - is trapped in the
matrix, being tortured for unknown reasons by evil CIA guy.

Except for the briefest of scenes at the start of episode one, and an
even shorter scene at the end of season two, the aliens (and, indeed,
any of the great galactic war that is supposedly raging in the
background) are completely absent.

For a TV show described as a "sci-fi military/war action show",
there's almost no sci-fi, military, war or action. Certainly there's a
conspicuous absence of the eponymous Halo.

No, the show is mostly Halo-man and his buds moping about wondering
why nobody trusts them, and how - now that their computer chips have
been removed - they are feeling the effects of a lifetime of battle.
Just the sort of thing that comes to mind when you think of "Halo",
right? But even this could have been interesting had any of the
dialogue, cinema or characters been the least bit interesting, but
everything is flat and boring. I've seen training videos with more
drama.

With the first season, I was willing to give the show a chance to
prove itself. While, sure, I would have liked a fresh take on the
game's original story, I wasn't tied to the idea. The Halo franchise
is large enough that the TV show could explore new corners of it.

But this second series indicates that the producers really don't
understand the appeal of the franchise, and instead just want to use
the brand to tell their own unrelated fan-fiction. Worse, the whole
thing feels cheap. When the idea of a Halo TV series was first
introduced, people I'm sure imagined expansive alien landscapes and
exciting battles and far-future sci-fi gizmos. "Halo TV", however,
could easily be mistaken for something filmed in a 'near future'
setting on Earth.

But, yeah, "what did you expect?" you tell me. After all, movies and
TV shows licensed from video games have too often followed this path,
so I shouldn't be surprised that Halo TV does the same, right? Still,
Halo is such a major brand to Microsoft, and there was such an adamant
insistence from the producers that they loved and respected the source
material, that I couldn't help but think that THIS TIME it would be
different. And after the first season was less successful, SURELY they
would have stepped back and re-evaluated their choices, right?

But no... we get more of this uninteresting, undramatic schlock that
shares none of the atmosphere or character of the underlying material.
Oh, sure, there are hints and clues aplenty; promises of how it will
all one day tie into the story we all know and love, leading up
(maybe) to the climatic action we all tuned in for... but even
assuming that will ever happen (I've my doubts), it's not worth the
journey to get there.

Halo TV season 1 was maybe worth watching for the novelty of it. But I
can't see any reason to keep watching Halo TV season 2.