So, in anticipation of HW2 being official unveiled today, I was sitting there last night re-watching all the cutscenes from HW1. Including THE scene - you know the one, we all love it - the bridge scene between Red Team and the small army of Elites. I also watched Halo Canon’s collaboration vid with Haruspis where they discuss HW1 and 2; that scene was one of the first things they talked about, and they too loved the fact that it was really the first time in a game where we saw a canonically accurate depiction of how Spartans should really move.
A thought popped into my head, though: the community seems to have overwhelmingly loved that scene. But, I struggle to understand the difference between that scene and the opening cutscene for Osiris in Halo 5. And we all recall how not that long ago, reaction was much more mixed to that scene.
Is there a big difference I’m missing? I feel personally they look about the same to me. I think they’re both canonically accurate depictions of how Spartans should really look in combat. I know it’s been said that the choreography in the H5 scene is laughable, where the Covenant appear drunk and to be moving in slow motion while Osiris beats the hell out of them - but I feel like the same thing could be said about the HW scene as well. To me, I kind of assumed that was done semi-intentionally where, the world should be moving in slow motion from the Spartans’ perspective. It’s the only way visually to depict their speed properly.
Is it possible a little bit of anti-343 or anti-Spartan IV hate subtly influenced people with their judgment of the H5 depiction?
TL;DR - if you LIKED the HW bridge scene but DIDN’T like the H5 Osiris opening cutscene, why? I’m just curious.
the difference in those scenes were that the red-team were fighting honor guards who had melee weapons at their disposal and the spartans had their weapons and they additionally used cqc that looked like it could be possible for a superhuman supersoldier. It was a mix of cqc with weapon handling and distraction by movement though a bit theatrical.
now the scene in H5g depicted them dropping from extremely high altitude that normally could require at least armor lock or something similar. They ran downhill while killing armed covenant troops while running in the open and it just depicted covenant as typical extremely bad aim goons that usually belong to the movies. It started to seem more like a superhero movie where ironman wannabes just running through armed forces in their shining armors that seem to avoid getting dirty even on combat situations “new SPARTAN-IV armors, now with blood repellent!”.
now the difference is that the others had opponents with melee weapons against them and others had forces armed with plasma-weaponry against them. And that they were running in the open without getting shot even once by these formidable opponents that humanity had strugled with decades. It just seemed absurd.
The Red Team clip seemed a little more down to earth, like what Mika95 said. Little more realistic, better choreography, etc. then what Osiris had.
Osiris’ opening was fine, especially if you account for the Covenant’s apparent sluggishness by interpreting the scene as being depicted in “Spartan-time” rather than real-time. What we’re seeing over the course of a couple seconds may actually be little more than the blink of an eye. Personally, I’m happy to see more lore-accurate depictions of Spartans in close combat.
That said, I do wish the fight between Master Chief and Locke looked like a clash between master martial artists, rather than the slow, telegraphed movements we got in that scene. I liked that Master Chief breaks Locke’s rifle across his face, but this fight lacked any of the fluidity we had in either Red Team’s bridge fight, or Osiris’ opening.
To be honest the covenant in the halo wars cutscene were also brainless, throw the damn staves! Where are your guns?! What if the enemy is trying to snipe the prophet?! For -Yoinks!- sakes haha.
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> To be honest the covenant in the halo wars cutscene were also brainless, throw the damn staves! Where are your guns?! What if the enemy is trying to snipe the prophet?! For -Yoinks!- sakes haha.
and after throwing the weapon and then it misses, then what? About the guns is that the honor guards that are near places where prophets usually are (like in high charity) seem to only carry these ceremonial weapons for whatever reasons. Maybe to prevent assassination attempts from inside but give the prophet enough time to escape or it could be traditional. And the bridge seemed to be on pretty high point and the way leading up gives the time for the prophet to escape before enemy forces reach it and the sniping is pretty hard if you dont have visual to the target for they were so high up.the problem could be aerial vehicles but i guess they could have heavy AA defence and air-support nearby. The prophets arent exactly lightly guarded and its rare that anyone reaches even their guards which seem to usually favor the melee-weapons. Maybe even to make it more personal. Even the zealots carry swords in the midst of battle and those are more likely to encounter enemies than the honor-guards. There is many likely reasons but its probably about the sangheili culture. About honor or something similar. To make battle more even since the prophet had already fled since there were more of them than the spartans. Much like the arbiter fighting forge with sword even though forge had guns with him. Though in case of arbiter it was more of a arrogance.
I just watched both scenes. The difference is that in the HW cutscene, the Sangheili had their full attention on Red Team They were the only resistance the Elites could spot. In the H5 cutscene on the other hand, (if you actually were paying attention to the battle) the Covenant were already fighting Promethean forces alongside the mountain. The Covenant were caught offguard by the sudden appearance of fully armed S-IVs. I believe this is why they seem a bit off compared to the HW cutscene. They had their eyes towards the Promies, which were infront of them. They never checked their rear.
I think halo 5 opening scene is fine and pretty accurate depiction. They use the element of suprise, the environment and their superior speed to tear trough Covenant forces.
I don’ think Halo legends: The Package isn’t that bad either. It has elements from both halo 5’s and Halo Wars scenes.
It is tough to exactly showcase how Spartans fight because of how unbelievably fast they are.
They got a nice looking cutscene in HW2 where Jerome -Yoinks!- up some elites and brutes with a more realistic fight than HW1. Though it’s done in flashes so you don’t get to see everything which is a shame, but the flashes make it more believable in a sense of how fast Spartans move
I don’t like the Spartans being able to perform such outlandish stunts because it’s not compelling. If they can do THAT, then why should I care? There’s no stakes there. It’s like worrying if Superman can defeat an entire class of five year olds.
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> It is tough to exactly showcase how Spartans fight because of how unbelievably fast they are.
> They got a nice looking cutscene in HW2 where Jerome -Yoinks!- up some elites and brutes with a more realistic fight than HW1. Though it’s done in flashes so you don’t get to see everything which is a shame, but the flashes make it more believable in a sense of how fast Spartans move
If you watch the scene in slow motion you see how fast Jerome moves compared to the brutes and brutes aren’t slow creatures either. I love how he grabs one by the jaw.
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> I don’t like the Spartans being able to perform such outlandish stunts because it’s not compelling. If they can do THAT, then why should I care? There’s no stakes there. It’s like worrying if Superman can defeat an entire class of five year olds.
Well the challenge comes from big numbers of enemies, war machines, elite foes like Atriox, giving the Covenant their bomb back… I don’t think all S4s should be able to do such feats because there are so many of them.
Thanks for the replies folks! I was just curious how some of y’all felt they compared and contrasted.
One significant factor that is fair to say is that Red Team did not face any plasma weapons while Osiris did, I’ll admit that’s true. I think it’s still fair to think Spartans ought to be fast enough to avoid that without getting hit even once though, I’m thinking of the scene in Forward Unto Dawn where the Chief is getting the cadets from the barracks to the Warthog, and he’s under fire by a gauntlet of Covenant waiting outside and he runs past all of it without being hit.
I will grant that Osiris’ feat was more impressive, I don’t believe impossible, but more difficult, for sure.
At least we can pretty much all agree we love the HW scene. 
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> > > To be honest the covenant in the halo wars cutscene were also brainless, throw the damn staves! Where are your guns?! What if the enemy is trying to snipe the prophet?! For -Yoinks!- sakes haha.
> >
> > and after throwing the weapon and then it misses, then what? About the guns is that the honor guards that are near places where prophets usually are (like in high charity) seem to only carry these ceremonial weapons for whatever reasons. Maybe to prevent assassination attempts from inside but give the prophet enough time to escape or it could be traditional. And the bridge seemed to be on pretty high point and the way leading up gives the time for the prophet to escape before enemy forces reach it and the sniping is pretty hard if you dont have visual to the target for they were so high up.the problem could be aerial vehicles but i guess they could have heavy AA defence and air-support nearby. The prophets arent exactly lightly guarded and its rare that anyone reaches even their guards which seem to usually favor the melee-weapons. Maybe even to make it more personal. Even the zealots carry swords in the midst of battle and those are more likely to encounter enemies than the honor-guards. There is many likely reasons but its probably about the sangheili culture. About honor or something similar. To make battle more even since the prophet had already fled since there were more of them than the spartans. Much like the arbiter fighting forge with sword even though forge had guns with him. Though in case of arbiter it was more of a arrogance.
>
> It’s a little hard to miss when you are fighting on a linear bridge. And if you miss, just pull out the projectile weapon you should have had as a back up. A lot of things about that cutscene didn’t make much sense, from the tactics Red team used up to the brainless Elites charging them on the bridge. For example, why didn’t the Elites just stay camouflaged when they were trying to take the bridge? And don’t say it was because of “honor”, because Elites usually have no problem killing anything when camouflaged. Basically, that entire cutscene was made just to look entertaining, trying to justify the actions in the cutscene only hurts the experience.
>
> Also, i’m going to clear up a giant misconception right now by saying those were stealth Sangheili, not honor guards. Which is another reason for why that cutscene made those Elites brainless.
okay, lets not say its their honor but their armor was closer to elite minors and i havent heard anywhere that those could be stealth elites but i have heard from multiple sources that those are honor guards. In addition they were the ones guarding the prophet earlier and they used the ceremonial staves that only honor guards have been using. And yes it could be hard to miss if it was about normal immobile humans but these are superhuman spartans who were shooting directly at them. And the shooting could be mildly distracting when trying to throw. And as far as we saw in the scene, they didnt have sidearms for whatever reasons but to understand that reason we would need to understand some fictional sangheili culture that might not even exist yet as a sci-fi. And yes, elites usually dont have problems killing while camouflaged but the elites holding a rank of zealot or honor guard dont really use the camouflage. And about the throwing again. It could be pretty hard hitting between the titanium armor-plates to kill or injure the spartan and the ceremonial stave isnt exactly meant for throwing. It looks unbalanced for that which makes it even harder to hit accurately. But sure, they seemed a bit brainless like many troops charging to the enemy like in the napoleonic wars or in colonial america. Sometimes its just more useful to hold onto your weapon rather than throwing the only thing that you could use when you get to your enemy.
I don’t think Red team even broke the sweat in that scene. The same with plasma weapons would have been a lot more difficult because mark IV does not even have shields and they were on even ground without anything to be used as a cover.
Also I think those must have been some kind of ceremonial honor guards instead of those we saw in halo 2.
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> I don’t think Red team even broke the sweat in that scene. The same with plasma weapons would have been a lot more difficult because mark IV does not even have shields and they were on even ground without anything to be used as a cover.
>
> Also I think those must have been some kind of ceremonial honor guards instead of those we saw in halo 2.
Actually, it would have been easier had the Sangheili used plasma weapons. It burns through armor quite quickly, as Samuel-034 discovered aboard the Unrelenting.
Also, Red Team’s Mark IV sets are said to be equipped with prototype shield generators.
I would say neither one “realistically shows” how a true Spartan would fight. Flashy and fun to watch, yes, but realistic for a disciplined super soldier? Not at all.
Both groups take numerous unnecessary risks and honestly it doesn’t really seem like they are using realistic combat techniques. I realize they are Spartans wearing Mjolnir armor but one of the points drilled home in Spartan training is to use the armor but never rely on the armor to save you.
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> I don’t think Red team even broke the sweat in that scene. The same with plasma weapons would have been a lot more difficult because mark IV does not even have shields and they were on even ground without anything to be used as a cover.
>
> Also I think those must have been some kind of ceremonial honor guards instead of those we saw in halo 2.
It’s even said in the Fall of Reach that a direct battle between an assault rifle and a plasma rifle, Spartan vs Elite with no cover for either of them that the plasma weapon would win out and this was John in a Mark V suit with energy shields.