The full trailer for the TV show released during the Game Awards last night. What’d you think of what was show?
In terms of the quality of the design and the CGI, it looks incredible. Everything looks like you’d expect it too, which I’m pleased about.
As for the story, it doesn’t really give much to go on, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see ok that part.
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The opening line of the trailer was, “You’re special”, a cliche among cliches. It also appeared to focus on the cast more than the setting in the Halo universe. In under a minute, we were given lingering closeups of eight characters, which didn’t look like reactions to hype us up for what they were seeing, rather these appear to be there just to check the boxes for diversity.
Others may feel differently, but those are red flags for me, especially in the context of the other news we received about the show regarding deviations from established canon. The coherency of Halo lore is one of the things I love about the franchise, so I very much dislike needless deviations.
Given other franchises I’ve loved that got sub-par (to put it mildly) movies or TV adaptations, I’m “once bitten, twice shy” many times over.
Maybe I’m being unfair, and this show could surprise me. The effects do look good, but they can’t carry the show if the writing doesn’t measure up.
I withhold final judgement until I see the final product, but I’m not particularly hopeful going in.
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I had heard that the show was supposedly playing a little fast and loose with established lore.
I have my fingers crossed that wherever that information originated, was simply a case of poor reporting by someone who doesn’t really know the lore, and it slipped though the proof reading before it was sent out.
I guess we’ll find out next year.
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A lot of the stuff leans toward it being non-canon. Canon Fodder 117 over the summer called the show an adaptation, further indicating that the show isn’t canon. Hope I can enjoy it as it’s own thing.
Ooof, and that’s from the horses mouth…
To be fair, it would be tough to get a complete narrative cohesion between a television production company and all of the moving parts, with the games and all the expanded media.
Unless 343 or someone like Frankie had complete narrative control, there’s always going to be inconsistencies.
If it’s good I guess I can look past it.
I think anyone expecting the TV show to follow existing canon are going to be very disappointed.
Maybe I’m just a bit artsy and like how adaptations change stories, but I feel it’s a bit silly to expect the show to follow existing canon. The Master Chief has been covered extensively throughout Halo universe and he is kind of an essential character to have in a mainstream sci-fi show called ‘Halo’. If it sticks strictly to existing stories, then it’s going to be a pretty boring re-telling of the Fall of Reach.
The trailer looked nice, but based on what I’m seeing of how they are playing with the lore I am greatly worried. Will reserve judgment with tentative but not expected hope.
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It looks interesting. Not sure how I would get access to Paramount TV. Is that via Amazon?
There are big issues with adapting the Canon. The main one is that the Chief only gets Cortana around Reach just before the games. They didn’t have loads of adventures before the games proper. Which you need and has been implied in the TV show.
So having a plot focused on Keys, Halsey, Miranda whilst also wanting the Chief/Cortana thing has to break canon.
Other issue would be the Halo Wars issue of wanting the Flood and Forerunners in the story before those reveals are meant to happen in game.
I am hoping they don’t try to muddy the waters and make the UNSC somehow to blame for the war. It would have to be something like that before I’d get red flag vibes. At the end of the day it is a clear cut story where the Covenant are attacking humanity; the shades of grey should be internalised within humanity.
I think visually, it looks promising. But, seeing how it isn’t canon, and at that, has made unnecessary changes to established canon, including to characters…I hold no interest in watching it, unfortunately.
Despite good visuals, from what we have seen so far, I would prefer an animated series. I don’t quite get the need for live action, it will never do justice to what Halo has to offer.
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You understand the show isn’t canon right? It’s non-canon unfortunately but does help with easing worries of possible timeline issues and inconsistencies.
I mean the show COULD’VE followed existing canon, I mean Master Chief’s life for the most part has a lot of gaps between 2526-2540, possibly even further but I’m going off of the top of my head. I mean it’d also be cool to see some of these engagements he was apart of in that time frame also, but indeed the show is non-canon, and I’d assume that’s for more creative freedom over the story
I agree with you on that with Halo: Evolutions and Halo: Legends being prime examples. I mean to list a few from those animated series, Headhunters, The Mona Lisa, The Prototyoe, the Babysitter and The Package being my favourites from those mediums
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I thought the CGI was only ok it looked less like a big name show and more like an indie project. Also some of the scenes looked odd i thought. Slightly too sci Fi channel-ish
I also thought chiefs suit was too dark.
I’m very excited and i hope it gets to be continued on for a while. I’m ok with small contained stories but i want this to be very big.
I’m excited.
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Since it’s not canon, I really don’t care much, TBH. I’m going to give it a fair shake, but the moment it breaks the currently established VG lore, I’m going to tune out. If that’s right at the beginning, it’s going to save me a lot of time, so I’m keeping my expectations ultra low.
The visuals look awesome, but that isn’t enough, IMO. The story needs to be compelling too, but given the degenerating state of current entertainment, I won’t hold my breath. I expect it to go off the rails quite fast and then they’ll blame the fans for their own failures. The shadow that breeds can only mock, it cannot make real new things of its own.
IMO, if MS really wanted to tell the story of Halo for non-players, they should have just gone the CGI route, instead of live action. Just make it all in at least the quality of the H2A cutscenes with the original voice actors. Nothing will come close to that to give non-players the same experience as the people who do play Halo and the same applies to Gears of War.
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I figured things wouldn’t look exactly as they do in game, just for the pure factor that it was translated to photorealistic, rather than the slightly comicbooky nature of the games.
It would be really janky to see brightly coloured grunts running around.
To be honest, I thought the better way to go would have been smaller contained stories, sort of like a Band of Brothers in space.
I personally would have adapted The Flood, basically following the marines during the events of CE. The first episode could be the tail end of TFoR and arriving at Alpha Halo, and the last being Johnson and his crew making it of in the off the ring.
But that’s just me.
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That would’ve been a cool story but I’m interested in something new.
I would counter by saying that Blur cinematics are near live action and still very bright but it isn’t disorienting. A show by them would’ve been cool but i imagine costly.
Live action was a good call and maybe you are right.
Honestly I think going the photorealistic route with Halo is very doable (we’ve seen in in H2A and other photoreal CG cutscenes), even with the vibrant colors. They just have to have the money to make it look impressive. Honestly, I think I would’ve preferred what others have said in the thread, that they went with a CG show instead. Could’ve had Blur, Axis, or the like to handle the CG series. Could’ve worked so well. While the CG in the trailer we saw looks fine, it very much looks like CG on a TV show, nothing to ride home about. The fact they didn’t show any of the Covenant species is telling IMO, as I think they’ll be in it a minimum to save money or their CG isn’t impressive. Aside from this yeah it’s a shame that you hey had to make this non-canon. I wish they could’ve stuck to the canon and made some awesome new addition to the canon, but for likely marketing reasons, they decided not to. I’ll reserve judgement until it releases, but so far it’s not looking promising.
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@GDTaco
@TRUe_REDEMPTI0N
I do agree, a show made by Blur or a similar style of near-photoreal animation would have been nice, and would probably look better in a sense that there would be less of a divide between what’s clearly live action, and what’s obviously CG.
I do think though, that theirs a certain milestone sort of thing when it comes to Halo making it to full live action. I know we’ve had FuD and NF, but they didn’t exactly go mainstream.
I can see the non-canon/loose-adaptation aspect of it going terribly sideways, unfortunately. It’s not like they’re adapting a long finished book series or other form of media. Halo is story that is not only still expanding, but just got a new lease of life with Infinite.
And Halo fans can be vocally displeased enough to get their subreddit shutdown!
We’re going to be the first ‘demographic’ flocking to this show, and if the initial episode or 2 highlight how in-canon it is, and the overall response is negative, that could be goodbye season 2, and potentially other major studios from investing in future media.
But who knows.
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Interestingly, Kiki just recently confirmed outright that it’s non-canon.
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