Officially not going to watch the tv series

Community General Discussion
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This post is being created to share my thoughts and displeasures regarding the new halo TV series. I for one firmly believe in giving feedback via the proper channels such as the forums. I’m not looking to spark debate nor do I care to comment on opposing opinions. I simply want 343 to know why fan(s) are refusing to support this project.
I can’t take full credit for what’s to follow as these frustrations are not just my own but that of my 10 closest halo fans.

  1. Alternative universe.
    The complaint with the most weight is the alternate universe (“timeline”). At its core it was a terrible design choice. In fact it makes me wonder how this even came up as an option. I’ve heard it’s because of creative differences. It’s just hard to imagine Microsoft couldn’t find a director with the passion for Halo. Star Wars has Jon Favreau, Marvel has Kevin Feige. These guys know their audience and they listen to what fans want. How is listening at 343 and Microsoft? We needed a director with the passion for the lore that has been growing for over 20 years and simply explore new avenues. I personally wouldn’t mind a retelling of existing stories as long as they kept to what’s real for the Halo universe but I recognize that’s hard to do. So just tell something new! But never knock off a lore that inspired a generation.
  2. Chiefs voice
    This honestly is a complete flop of an opportunity. Chief should keep his helmet on thus the person in the suit design even need lines nor do they need to be an actor. A stunt double could have worked and they could have use Steve Downs’ voice. But now we have to deal will a Master Chief knock off aka “variant”.
  3. Cortana
    I’m all for using the original actor but why not animated? She’s a hologram, hello?! They could have alternatively used the Mackenzie Mason again for mocap. But no they chose to have her with skin pigment? Another design choice I’m not a fan of.
  4. Keys
    Again, all ties back to the alternate universe. They chose to “change” the race of Captain Keys and Miranda Keys. How the new Hollywood generation handles inclusion is so cringe.
  5. An AK47…seriously. Do I even have to comment on this?
  6. I was so excited to see a live action halo TV series. I was imagining it would be like the Halo deliver hope trailer, or the Halo 3 landfall trailer, or the ODST we are ODST trailer. But no we get an alternate universe and nothing matters. If they wanted to tell a new story they should have focused on other characters in the halo universe and if they were worried about the flop from Nightfall then they should have listened to the fans who wanted an animated movie. Imagine a Halo movie done by Blur or Axis Animations. Halo fans love the photorealistic cutscenes from halo wars, Halo 2 anniversary and Halo 4. They were epic and most of all they were Halo.

I know a lot of these comments all steam from the “alternate timeline” decision. And if that’s your excuse and are ok with it, good for you. I’m happy you’ll have a show you’re interested in. But this isn’t for me. I refuse to support this. And it pains me to say but I hope it flops and becomes a wake up call for future projects. It’s possible for them to recover! Just look at star wars episode 8 and 9, now we have baby Yoda :wink:

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You may be interested in one of these existing threads on this topic:

https://forums.halowaypoint.com/t/new-tv-show-trailer/497628
https://forums.halowaypoint.com/t/wait-what-s-the-new-halo-show-about/497647
https://forums.halowaypoint.com/t/trailer-spoilers-thoughts-on-halo-show-trailer/497633
https://forums.halowaypoint.com/t/your-thoughts-on-the-tv-series-trailer/497851

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Already been there. But thanks.

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Ah, given a new thread I’d assumed you hadn’t seen them.

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I honestly don’t mind the “alternate timeline” angle. The truth is Halo’s lore isn’t as rock-solid as one thinks it is; it has been retconned to the point that determining what is or isn’t canon is a mind-screw (it’s well known that Halo: Reach contradicted much of what was established in the first three Halo novels). Going the alternate universe route helps avoid the baggage twenty years of lore change brings.

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  1. Alternate Universe - Sure. We were all a little upset initially, but time has passed and logic prevails. Halo was never going to be Star Wars or the MCU. It simply wasn’t going to get that kind of budget. Compromises have to be made, and once you accept they can’t simply include all the stuff we, as diehard Halo fans, would want from a canon story, they have to go the alternate route. A lower budget forces people to be creative. We might just get something new that we really like. And if not, so what? Anyone who has ever read a book before a movie adaptation was made has gone through this before. Happens every day.

  2. Chief’s Voice - Honestly couldn’t care less. Steve Downes has the perfect voice for the Master Chief. I doubt there could ever be anyone better. But this isn’t one of the video games. Even in the wider canon universe the Master Chief takes his helmet off constantly. In the games, the Master Chief was designed to be a ‘husk’. Whatever the player is feeling, he is feeling. That’s no longer the case in a live-action television show, and to say otherwise is such a strange hill to die on. They need to create the character that is best for the television show, not just a voice built to ride on player nostalgia.

  3. Cortana - She needs some fixing. I’m not going to lie.

  4. Keyes - Again, adaptation. This isn’t the Halo Universe. It’s an adaptation of the Halo Universe. Consider Harry Potter. There are the books and the movies. The books are canon. The movies are the adaptation. Consider Game of Thrones. The A Song of Ice and Fire books are the canon. The show is the adaptation. The adaptations are a representation of canon and their own separate universe. The sooner you wrap your head around that, the easier it’ll be. Shut your brain off for a bit and remember the show is something else. It’s allowed to be.

  5. AK47 - Literally couldn’t care less. Even without the TV budget, Halo has always had a retro approach to its military. I could see Innies in actual Halo canon using AKs. Why not in the show?

  6. I have zero interest in a Blur or Axis movie. That’s the same deal as the FF films, but Halo isn’t FF. It doesn’t have the level of support needed for that kind of thing as FF has in Asia. There’s no way they’d earn back the money spent on the CGI if they did that. Besides, people would be wondering why waste all that money on a CG film when they could just make a game. The Halo show is at least a different group of people from a different media industry trying their hand at Halo. Even if it fails, I see nothing wrong with attempting such a feat.

I’d bet money that you’ll watch the Halo show one day. It can’t negatively affect Halo canon because it exists outside of it. If anything, it might bring in more general sci-fi fans from outside. Unless the show is The Rise of Skywalker level of bad, you’ll be curious enough to give it a go one day. Nothing is official.

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Wholeheartedly agree with everything op has said. It is really a sad day for hardcore fans of the lore. A non canon tv show feels like 343i giving my 20+ halo book shelf a huge middle finger.

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Im sorry but it being lower budget is not the reason they are making it non canon. Forward Unto Dawn and Nightfall were low budget but they stayed inside the canon.

They simply didn’t care to work within the established lore that’s all.

And Im sorry but I disagree. An alternate timeline is not something Im willing to overlook.

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but why use your 20 years of lore to make a tv show when 343 can come with super crazy amazing ideas like uh… human covenant members? or aks and 2001 cars 500 years in the future? or the plot of mass effect?

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Dont forget race swapping for woke points! instead of creating new characters of color
and career swapping miranda so she has the same career as her mom that she totally doesn’t hate!

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I will be watching, as long as its a good well written and produced show I will be rooting for it.

Kinda al Witcher, loved the books the show was “ok” but still fun

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It’s not anything new. Hollywood has a history of changing stuff from the source material.

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I was hoping keeping it out of the traditional Hollywood crowd they would have had more control. Halo infinite had double the budget of the top box office hits like Spider-Man no way home. Microsoft is funding halo like no other. As I said in my post, they needed to find a passionate halo director and not take any compromises. Halo’s lore is cross platform. Books, comics, anime, movies, series, games and more. It’s NOT like walking dead. Sure the lore has had its fair share of plot holes, overlaps and corrections. Doesn’t mean they should just say F it all.
Again, I won’t be watching this. I’m not supporting this project and not giving them a metric. Simply created this post so 343 can read what fans are saying about this alternative timeline.

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Yeah I don’t know about all the lore and that. I just think the show looks stupid. Super low budget and cheesy acting make it hard to watch even the trailer. I couldn’t imagine how painful a full episode would be.

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This was the right choice honestly.
The TV show would thus not make the Halo fans angry if they make a mistake with the lore or history, or if contradictory actions happen that defy the events of the games or books.

We don’t know how old Chief is in this TV show. The Steve Downs voice comes in with Chief’s latter years. He could be a more fresh Spartan in the TV show, and thus he could have a different voice simply for being younger.

I agree with you on this one.
Where is our Indigo cortana? I wouldn’t mind for her to be still portrayed by the same actress but this really disappointed us all to see Cortana is just a person with a filter and cartoonish contact lenses on her eyes.

This could’ve been a conscious choice, but it could also have been an event of an over-the-phone interview.
You know the backlash that Disney’s re-imagining of The Little Mermaid got when Ariel was not european but instead african?
The casting recruiters heard her singing voice and brought her in before knowing what the actress looked like.
Could be something similar with Halo the TV show?
If not, then at least they got a great actor to play Keys’ role and not just some nobody.

If I recall correctly, the Insurrectionists in the Halo Novels actually made use of AK-47s. And I mean the early novels.
But to be fair, it really doesn’t fit in with the setting of Halo.
What the props department SHOULD’VE done is do what a lot of other Sci-Fi shows have been doing - make use of SRU-Precision.

SRU is a 3D printing company that makes attachments, alt-parts, and even conversion-kits for Airsoft guns. Heck, even low-sci-fi movies use their guns. You know Army of the Dead on Netflix? They use one of SRUs guns.

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKxQE0rIWNI
  • Skip to 0:39 to see one of the three bullpup conversion options for the FN SCAR model.

My point is, if they wanted to use AK-47s, they could’ve used the “Tactical Advanced Design” models that SRU Precision offers.

  • AK-47 Models - https://www.sru-precision.com/sru-ak-series

  • FN SCAR Models - https://www.sru-precision.com/sru-scar-series

  • Glock-18c PDW Kits - https://www.sru-precision.com/advanced-glock-kit-for-aep-gbb

And as for the Chevrolet Tahoe truck in the background? They honestly should’ve stripped it down to the frame and then added some metal parts to make it resemble The Spade trucks used by the farmers on Reach during the mission “The Winter Contingency”. It wouldn’t be too hard.

Sadly, this might be due to a budgeting issue.

The company wants to make money and they also want to produce a show.
You have to be cost-effective with this option however.
The sad truth is that a full-fledged TV show done by Blur Studios would be VERY expensive to produce, when compared to using live-action stuff and some CGI here and there when necessary.

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I just hope that this series turns into a lot of useful vacuum energy to run the forerunner installations that we know :sweat_smile:

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I live in the U.K. and have been prohibited to watch it- until Summer.

Personally I don’t care about the alternative timeline/actors/ and other issues people have.

I’ll watch it and if it doesn’t capture my attention …. I’ll probably just watch for the sake of watching them never talk about it again.

But if I like it… I’ll recommend it to others who may like it.

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Ahhhhh, and so called “Master Chief” just touch that woman’s face (no offence). This story is just disgusting.