Because it’s not Halo… It’s a show using the likeliness of Halo. It won’t relate to the games or books or anything… So yeah it’s going to get hate from the fans of Halo… Now that is not to say it won’t be good. Red Vs Blue was outside lore of Halo and it is great. I wish the show was cannon but odds are it’s probably better it’s not as surely they would screw that up so it is best they do their own thing. I do like who they chose to be Master Chief, he was awesome in Den of Thieves. Not sure if I will subscribe to Paramount+ for it though. Maybe it will come on regular tv sooner or later.
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The writing in this TV show really can’t be any worse than the crap 343 has already came up with.
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If you don’t like this there going to attack you and call you a bad person. A fan play the games thay love thay don’t worship tham.
I was initially heartbroken when I found out the series would be non-canon. Personally, I’ve been following Halo since I was 9, and over 20 years the story has managed to remain mostly constant across games, books, comics, etc, that to finally have a live action show that didn’t fit into the rest of it, just felt stupid.
That said, I made my peace with it. With things like the Witcher, and Game of Thrones, I enjoy those shows for what they are, but I also separately enjoy the games/books they are based on. I figure I can go into this series with the same mindset, and enjoy it for what it is.
However, I can foresee some potential future issues for the show and games.
For the show, given the nature of the changes they are making, like a Human raised by the Covies, this throws into question a lot of the background ‘canon’ the show is meant to be relying on as a setting.
I fear that changes like this could have a butterfly effect throughout its own canon to the point that if the show ever wanted to reference events, such as the origins of the HvC conflict, they would have to come up with something entirely different.
Essentially, they could end up getting caught in the very problem they tried to avoid, by going non-canon.
And the same applies moving forward. We know that instead of stumbling upon Alpha Halo (aside from Cortana), Chief and the UNSC are actively looking for it. Everything that implies, like the prior knowledge they would have learnt, with have major ripple effects on major cornerstones of the Halo Story moving forward. Things like Thel being shamed into Arbiterhood, the Great Schism, The Ark, all have the potential to not happen because of events that unfolded differently in Season 1. By Season 3, the show could devolve into some weird sci-fi flick with the only reference to Halo left is a handful of characters, who even then don’t relate to their game counterparts.
Obviously they could be planning to hit all the major storybeats of the games along the way, but they could end up being needlessly convoluted in their execution. Like if the ring isn’t destroyed, but they still want the Arbiter, they decided to have Thel do something stupidly out of character in order to get him shamed.
As for the games, I wonder if 343 might get tempted to retcon the game canon to accomodate favourable elements from the show. For instance, if characters like Silver Team are received really well in the show, 343 might decide to try and throw them into the games for the sake of appeasing show fans. Obviously they would need to be retconed into the lore somehow, but it could result in something like Blue Team getting pushed aside in future stories to make way for Chief’s new besties.
TL;DR I’m fine with the show being non-canon, but I’m worried about the ramifications of this decision for the future of both the games and the show.
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My only problem is it looks to fake, I mean check out the commercials of Halo then go back to seeing the trailer, you can tell the difference, it doesn’t matter if it’s in another timeline, they need to not just rush tv series to look like cheap boot legged movies, especially since we have to pay a subscription on paramount, I want my moneys worth 
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I expect someone on the show read the “Aliens vs Predator War” comic where a human female is accepted into the Predators’ society, and within three years is besting these lifelong warriors that are physically far superior to her in combat, and the writer decided they wanted this same character in their version of “Halo”.
I thought it was a thoroughly unbelievable character in the “Aliens vs Predator War” comic, and it’s no better here. I believe this is a representative example of the quality of writing we can expect from the show.
If they want strong, female characters, they should take inspiration from Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor, Leia Organa (episodes 4-6), Ofilia (Pan’s Labyrinth), Dorothy Gale, Margaery Tyrell, etc. Notice that the strength of these characters isn’t raw power, it’s a consequence of the character’s personality, goals, and decisions when faced with adversity. In fact, their strongest moments are frequently non-combat moments.
There is no call for more Mary Sue characters with absurd levels of combat ability that’s not justified by their backstory.
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To be honest, I think this has more to do with a budgeting reason than anything else.
Looking at the trailers, it’s quite obvious that they want to at least touch on the Covenant side of the story, ala Halo 2.
But in order to do this they need Covenant characters to tell the story, and as they are CGI, it would be quite expensive to have them on screen for a large period of time.
The solution to this is having a Human actor on screen to fill in the roll of ‘Covenant presence’ in order to give exposition and propel the story.
This is seen across a lot of TV shows, and is generally not to bad.
The issue with Halo is that it undermines the origins of the HC War, and the nuance and political gaslighting of the Prophets in the book Contact Harvest. Truth and the others realised that Humans were the inheritors of the beings they believed to be gods, so decided on galactic genocide in order to maintain their religious dominance and propel themselves into leadership roles.
And all of that is called into question by having a Human raised by the Covenant, and given a fair amount of freedom and power within it.
Personally, I would have approached the show the same way the games did, by focusing on Humanity first, then looking into the Covenant later. That way, if the show built up steam over its first couple of seasons and was in a position to command a higher budget, they could then delve into telling a more Covenant centric plot line and use actual Covenant characters.
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girl power and being non canon
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I’ve watched it. High hopes but turned out to be Steaming Pile of Poo.
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Iv been watching each episode as it comes out and I enjoyed the first episode and the fifth. But the show has been boring so far.
I’m still going to finish the whole season. But so far it’s starting to become very stale and boring.
I think to answer your initial question, is that we largely saw this writing on the wall. The previews and interviews beforehand reminded many of us of other dull mediocre if not fan insulting shows that have appeared on Paramount+ and other services.
When you hear a good adaptation happening, you can see it in its promotional material. You can see the passion for the source material by those who work on it. Whereas the halo show was pretty up and front in that it didn’t want to be the games or books, and seemed to regard the former (the main base of the franchise) in a negative light.
This show is all caught up trying to be ‘deep’, ‘spiritual’, and ‘about emotions’, when it should be telling us the epic story of survival against an overwhelming alien threat. It didn’t need to be a ‘shot per shot’ adaptation as defenders like to claim, but it did need to be good and captured what brought fans to this franchise.
I know the phrase ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ is popular, but when you have thousands to millions of dollars being pumped into promotion, you can generally bet they’re putting what they think is their best foot forward. So if the promotional material feels off…then theres a good chance something has gone wrong.
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Turns out it was mostly justified,
People said they where, “taking creative liberties”.
Turns out that was a Lie. The Writers completely spit on the source material.
The Books and the games have a Thematic through line,
The Chief, The Arbiter, Cortana, Halsy, The Flood;
Their all representative of a grander thematic concept.
Humanity, Religion, Faith, Indoctrination, The Loss of Faith in the Case of the Arbiter, The Retelling of Dantes Inferno in ODST.
The Show has none of these things,
Its a Shallow mirror of current events; Its very clearly a thinly vailed political posturing.
UNSC Bad, Female empowerment good, Sassy Female AI no help no Greenman, Male Fragility born of Toxic masculinity.
It’s very much a bog standard Hollywood “current year” Show.
It has no redeeming quality or reverence for the humanities.
I have never heard a single person seriously argue that this matters in any significant way.
I don’t think people actually care.
Again, I don’t think most people actually care.
Everything else was painfully botched by the writers,
The face Reveal was thee most sacrilegious thing they could have done.
Made very clear that none of them have stepped foot into the game, or are writing from a place of reverence for the games. If they were, they would have understood the significance of the Chief being an Unknown.
We know… now we know.
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Sad but true. I was hoping the same, and now i just going to finish watching it just to see how they’re destroying my beloved halo.
There was youtube videos and hate comments about it during the early trailers. I actually know one of the people who worked on Cortana, and she was pretty torn up about the back lash about cortana not looking quite right.
Of course there was soon plenty to distract us from this, and tbh I think show cortana looks fine.
Obviously I made the post before the series was released.
I have been giving it a chance and so far I only enjoyed 2 and a half episodes.
Im still going to finish off the series but its not looking great.
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