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This post contains Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker spoilers.
If you have watched the sequel trilogy of the new Star Wars, liked it or not it’s arguably divisive and the three movies felt kinda disjointed somehow, specially story wise. It shares some similarities with the recent Halo games and I would like to discuss, having Star Wars as an example of what Halo should avoid in order to make a cohesive Halo trilogy.
- Avoid changing the story halfway through: So what happened in Halo 4 and Halo 5 are canon now and it should it keep that way. Most of the things that happened in Halo 5 I don’t like, but the damage is done now and I think retconning it would be even worse and make the overall story completely incoherent. - Don’t bring old characters back to life: That’s probably something divisive, but having characters like the gravemind or 343 guilty spark brought back wouldn’t fix anything. First because their cycle has ended and they have already been defeated. Having them back destroys the significance and importance of the the previous events and make them less powerful. That is the case in The Rise of Skywalker imo. Palpatine inexplicably back ruined the sacrifice of Anakin and breaks the canon prophecy that he would bring balance to the force. Cortana is the main villain now and it should keep it that way. - Avoid character redemptions: Kylo Ren made too many bad things to get a forced and undeserved redemption in Rise of Skywalker, specially considering he is evil the whole movie, but the writers decided he would get a redemption and change sides out of nowhere. The same we can apply to Cortana, she is a space dictator now and killed too many people to be rewarded with a redemption at the end. Doing this would make her actions completely inconsequential. - If a character has to die, make it worth it: Many character deaths in this new Star Wars saga lacked emotion and reason in my opinion. Considering Halo Infinite as the last chapter of the saga, we expect someone to die. If they absolutely have to make a special moment we can feel the death, being it a protagonist or antagonist. - Don’t abandon characters: Finn is one of the most interesting characters in this new Star Wars. However, his importance in the saga slowly starts to fade as in the latest film he is just there, he learned nothing, he had nothing to do, nothing to challenge his beliefs. We ended up with an empty character who had lots of potential wasted. Locke, Atriox, Lasky, Chief, Blue Team, Osiris are all amazing characters with a lot of potential that cannot be wasted again. Chief had an arc to complete by the end of Halo 4 but it’s never addressed in Halo 5, no dilemma to face. Locke and Atriox, awesome backstory never exploited in the games. Palmer was tossed aside in Halo 5, so I expect to see them doing things in Halo Infinite. - Avoid try to please the crazy fan theories: This is controversial, but I think what harmed the Rise of Skywalker was the backlash from the Last Jedi. Sure there are many things that movie did that are kinda disrespectful to the Star Wars franchise, however, undoing or retconning some answers like Rey’s parenting felt it was only made to calm down the anger of the internet. I’d rather have Halo Infinite embracing the sufferable decisions from Halo 5 than having a scene where a character tells to the other “but I didn’t tell you the whooole thing yet”. “But she’s not real, I’ve been pulling the strings offscreen the whole time”. - Absolutely avoid story breaking devices: In the Rise of Skywalker, the writers decided to introduce “force heal” from the expanded universe to the movie. It serve the same purpose as the “time travel” plot device bs: it cowardly undo events supposed to not be undone. It would be completely messed up to see Cortana at the end “don’t worry Chief the domain is mine and I’m so powerful that I can restore everything back to normal, I can backtrack the Halo ring from destroying the galaxy”. Imagine how disappointing this can be.Alright, I’ve talked too much now, here are my thoughts, I would like to see yours, please. Do you like the new Star Wars saga? What Halo can learn to do or not to do from Star Wars?