Television Halo (Paramount+, March 24) - series renewed for second season, will show Master Chief's face

[TwinIon]

The first episode is fine, and I’m hopeful it could get better as it goes on. The first episode spends a lot of time establishing the setting and all the players, arguably too much. I’m also not a fan how this show establishes Master Chief.

 

Spoilers for episode 1: (also for Star Trek Discovery Episode 1+2)

Spoiler

This first episode of Halo did the same thing that the opening episodes of Star Trek Discovery (a show I like) did that I hated. Disco introduces Micheal Burnham as basically Vulcan and an excellent Starfleet officer. Those are tropes they play off of to make her mutiny all the more surprising, but I always felt like it was a poor introduction. You’re given barely an episode to understand who you think she is, and then try and flip it on it’s head immediately and expect the audience to care because of the smallest bit of time spent with them.

 

 

In Halo they talk a lot about the Spartans being killing machines, then we see them in action, and then 40min into the episode he has a complete change of character and decides to ignore orders and desert the USNC. Again, I feel like the writers are really playing off expectations and very little else to make that sudden change of heart feel impactful, but really it’s almost the first character beat the character has had.

 

In both cases it feels to me like an inversion way too soon. Even though we’re meant to understand that both of them are doing the right thing it doesn’t feel like the stakes had been properly set for me to care. Arcane (spoilers for first few episodes) is a great example of spending time to establish things before trying to upend them.  Vi leaving her sister felt so much more impactful after the first few episodes. 

 

I get that these shows are already expensive, and they don’t want to make even more episodes, but sometimes they suffer from rushing through these opening episodes.

 

[Keyser_Soze]

7 hours ago, johnny said:

they dropped them all at the same time? big mistake. gamers would keep convos about this show going for weeks. 

 

No, they are dropping them one week at a time.

[Jason]

23 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

If any of you are Game Pass subscribers (Best Deal in Gaming™) then this month's perks are a free month of Paramount+

So you can essentially watch this show for free if you have Game Pass.

 

There have been consistent free month codes available since at least November 2019.

 

https://www.doctorofcredit.com/free-month-of-cbs-all-access-with-promo-code-giving-works-for-new-existing-previous-users/

[brucoe]

I just watched it, and I'm sort of on the fence with it right now. The biggest beef I have is

 

Spoiler

They seem to go way out of their way to make the USNC out to be horrible people, yet they're there to save the galaxy, world, universe, or whatever. The story starts out by making a pretty good narrative spin where the USNC and Spartans are feared and believed to be evil, only to turn out to be the good guys, and then they turn around and show us that they're under control of horrible good guys. Right now, I kind of have a hard time caring for any specific side or anyone in the cast so far. And that scares me going forward.

 

[Keyser_Soze]

There are no good guys in the galaxy unless it's Master Chief and

 

Spoiler

he's malfunctioned

 

[PaladinSolo]

They've definitely made some uhhhh interesting changes.

[Greatoneshere]

Well they're calling it the Silver timeline, so like a lot of anime, it takes place in an alternate universe and has its own canon, thus it is unconnected to the prime Halo universe. I can see why they did that, but at the same time, I can't imagine fans caring nearly as much then, and they are presumably who the show is for. 

[BloodyHell]

I honestly can't see me continuing to watch this beyond next week. Ill give it one more chance, but I really, really didn't like episode one.

 

Ill never understand the choices of Hollywood showrunners. They take a property that they know is beloved, and then they have to put their stink all over it, destroying the franchise. I've seen it so many times, most recently with the moron Rafe Judkins ruining Wheel of Time. No you fool, you can't do a better job than the creator already did. And now this.

 

Fans want a faithful recreation, not a Hollywood interpretation by someone who obviously doesn't doesn't care about the property, and wants to stick their unwanted creative vision in every area of it.

 

 

[Greatoneshere]

12 minutes ago, BloodyHell said:

I honestly can't see me continuing to watch this beyond next week. Ill give it one more chance, but I really, really didn't like episode one.

 

Ill never understand the choices of Hollywood showrunners. They take a property that they know is beloved, and then they have to put their stink all over it, destroying the franchise. I've seen it so many times, most recently with the moron Rafe Judkins ruining Wheel of Time. No you fool, you can't do a better job than the creator already did. And now this.

 

Fans want a faithful recreation, not a Hollywood interpretation by someone who obviously doesn't doesn't care about the property, and wants to stick their unwanted creative vision in every area of it.

 

I mostly agree with you. I'm comfortable with changes within reason. For instance, Master Chief taking his helmet off and that's going to be a regular thing makes sense narratively for a TV show. You can do it for movie length with something like Dredd and at least there you get a lower jaw showing. But changes for the sake of changes baffles me.

 

On the flipside however, people complained about Zack Snyder's Watchmen being, for the most part, too faithful, too beholden to the original work. So audiences aren't happy either way, suggesting it's a delicate balance. Game of Thrones did it well for the first 4.5 or so seasons, as one example. Personally, I'll always take too faithful to the original work than not enough when trying to strike a balance and Hollywood seems to err on the other side of that equation generally, unfortunately.

[Keyser_Soze]

47 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

I mostly agree with you. I'm comfortable with changes within reason. For instance, Master Chief taking his helmet off and that's going to be a regular thing makes sense narratively for a TV show. You can do it for movie length with something like Dredd and at least there you get a lower jaw showing. But changes for the sake of changes baffles me.

 

I think I'm mostly fine with the changes if they manage to make an ok show out of it, I can overlook the nitpicky things. So far it's ok but it certainly hasn't turned me off from watching it. But like I said earlier I'm sure a lot of people are not going to like a lot of things they see if they want a recreation of Halo.

 

Supposedly a second season is already greenlit and that's probably too soon to incorporate any type of fan feedback (if they were willing to listen to it in the first place)

[Spork3245]

I’m like 10 minutes in… so, when non-UNSC/Spartans shoot an elite, the shield never breaks and they’re practically invincible, but when a Spartan shoots them the shield breaks in a few shots and the elite gets slaughtered…? Initially I was wondering if they were trying to angle that the Spartans had better weapons or something, but then MC uses the same chain/mounted gun that base of rebels/whatever was using when the Elites first attacked. Like… the F?

[BloodyHell]

5 hours ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

I mostly agree with you. I'm comfortable with changes within reason. For instance, Master Chief taking his helmet off and that's going to be a regular thing makes sense narratively for a TV show. You can do it for movie length with something like Dredd and at least there you get a lower jaw showing. But changes for the sake of changes baffles me.

 

On the flipside however, people complained about Zack Snyder's Watchmen being, for the most part, too faithful, too beholden to the original work. So audiences aren't happy either way, suggesting it's a delicate balance. Game of Thrones did it well for the first 4.5 or so seasons, as one example. Personally, I'll always take too faithful to the original work than not enough when trying to strike a balance and Hollywood seems to err on the other side of that equation generally, unfortunately.

The people complaining about Watchmen are wrong.

[Greatoneshere]

4 hours ago, BloodyHell said:

The people complaining about Watchmen are wrong.

 

I completely agree, I'm a huge fan of the director's cut in particular. But artists often make blockbusters with all audiences in mind to appease them and make money, not who is right or wrong, per se. So they take that calculus in to account.

[Keyser_Soze]

Halo TV premiere broke Paramount+ record for number of viewers | PC Gamer

WWW.PCGAMER.COM

---

The streaming service has 32.8 million subscribers, which is more than I expected.

 

[Kal-El814]

17 hours ago, BloodyHell said:

The people complaining about Watchmen are wrong.

 

Snyder's Watchmen is not great because he thinks Rorschach is a cool guy, he feels like Ozymandias needs to get his comeuppance from Nite Owl of all people, because Bubastis is there for no reason, because he got rid of the squid and replaced it with something dramatically less likely to unite humanity in anything other than the complete destruction of the United States, etc. Parts of it are really awesome but it's like a tracing of a Jack Kirby drawing by someone who doesn't know enough about what made Kirby great to know what parts to punch up and what parts to leave alone.

[PaladinSolo]

10 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Halo TV premiere broke Paramount+ record for number of viewers | PC Gamer

WWW.PCGAMER.COM

---

The streaming service has 32.8 million subscribers, which is more than I expected.

 

"Our own Nat Clayton watched the first episode and wasn't sure who this show and its new canon were for, observing that the Halo TV series has absolutely no vibes."

 

 

That just about sums up how i feel about it so far, lol.  

[GeneticBlueprint]

I was finally able to watch this last night. Unfortunately all my other comments in this thread are spot on. This shit sucks, yo. It's not even the pointless alternate universe. It's everything else. The production value just isn't there. The acting isn't there. The effects aren't there. It feels very much like a weekday CBS serial with a Halo-adjecent paint job.

 

Can't wait for episode 2.

[GeneticBlueprint]

Side note: I get the commercials-subsidized version of Paramount+ free through T-Mobile. If I were paying anything above a cent for that version I would be livid. The frequency and quantity of commercials are just outrageous.

[GeneticBlueprint]

On 3/24/2022 at 7:33 PM, TwinIon said:

The first episode is fine, and I’m hopeful it could get better as it goes on. The first episode spends a lot of time establishing the setting and all the players, arguably too much. I’m also not a fan how this show establishes Master Chief.

 

Spoilers for episode 1: (also for Star Trek Discovery Episode 1+2)

  Reveal hidden contents

This first episode of Halo did the same thing that the opening episodes of Star Trek Discovery (a show I like) did that I hated. Disco introduces Micheal Burnham as basically Vulcan and an excellent Starfleet officer. Those are tropes they play off of to make her mutiny all the more surprising, but I always felt like it was a poor introduction. You’re given barely an episode to understand who you think she is, and then try and flip it on it’s head immediately and expect the audience to care because of the smallest bit of time spent with them.

 

 

In Halo they talk a lot about the Spartans being killing machines, then we see them in action, and then 40min into the episode he has a complete change of character and decides to ignore orders and desert the USNC. Again, I feel like the writers are really playing off expectations and very little else to make that sudden change of heart feel impactful, but really it’s almost the first character beat the character has had.

 

In both cases it feels to me like an inversion way too soon. Even though we’re meant to understand that both of them are doing the right thing it doesn’t feel like the stakes had been properly set for me to care. Arcane (spoilers for first few episodes) is a great example of spending time to establish things before trying to upend them.  Vi leaving her sister felt so much more impactful after the first few episodes. 

 

I get that these shows are already expensive, and they don’t want to make even more episodes, but sometimes they suffer from rushing through these opening episodes.

 

 

Dude, yes. Regarding your spoiler marked stuff that I didn't read until now: I wrote something in my first draft along the lines of it's weird and dumb how the first episode has a handful of character moments that are supposed to feel like reveals... But the very nature of it being the first episode makes that impossible and feel forced. So dumb. The boards took a crap when I tried to post and I lost everything I wrote before posting what I did. But that was part of it.

[Keyser_Soze]

Well onto the second episode. I think they got Mass Effect and Halo mixed up.

 

Also, something that had been bothering me about that girl since the first episode.

 

1. Can someone get her a rag to clean the blood off her cot damn face?

 

2. I was wondering if they would ever address her being responsible for the slaughter of all the kids / her friends by leaving them in the shed. But I don't think that incident is going to haunt her.

[PaladinSolo]

I'm really surprised this got a 2nd season already, lol.

[GeneticBlueprint]

Oddly enough, when there is no action in this Halo show it's a lot better. Weird.

[Mercury33]

On 3/27/2022 at 10:11 AM, Kal-El814 said:

 

Snyder's Watchmen is not great because he thinks Rorschach is a cool guy, he feels like Ozymandias needs to get his comeuppance from Nite Owl of all people, because Bubastis is there for no reason, because he got rid of the squid and replaced it with something dramatically less likely to unite humanity in anything other than the complete destruction of the United States, etc. Parts of it are really awesome but it's like a tracing of a Jack Kirby drawing by someone who doesn't know enough about what made Kirby great to know what parts to punch up and what parts to leave alone.

1000% this. The Watchmen movie is cool to look at and see comic panels come to life. But it misses the point at nearly every single opportunity. 

[Keyser_Soze]

So far I'm finding the non-master chief stuff more compelling than the master chief stuff.

 

Also, Cortana looks better on the show than she did from the brief glimpse in the trailer.

[Keyser_Soze]

Feel the same after this week's episode but that girl gets more on my nerves this time.

[PaladinSolo]

I'm not really understanding how this show gets made, "Lets make Halo, but instead of the MC fighting aliens he wanders the galaxy looking for artifacts and remembering his past."

[Dre801]

Kwan Ha sucks.

[GeneticBlueprint]

3 hours ago, PaladinSolo said:

I'm not really understanding how this show gets made, "Lets make Halo, but instead of the MC fighting aliens he wanders the galaxy looking for artifacts and remembering his past."

 

For reals. The show's namesake has only been hinted at. Good lord it's taking forever to get going. I think all this Master Chief spiritual journey stuff would be more interesting if we had spent almost any amount of time with him where he's the robot everybody thinks he is.

[Keyser_Soze]

36 minutes ago, GeneticBlueprint said:

 

For reals. The show's namesake has only been hinted at. Good lord it's taking forever to get going. I think all this Master Chief spiritual journey stuff would be more interesting if we had spent almost any amount of time with him where he's the robot everybody thinks he is.

 

That's why I said it feels more like Mass Effect. The show is more about discovering planets and lore and all this other stuff, not on Master Chief. Once he took off the helmet he's just another guy.

[Jason]

On 3/30/2022 at 7:46 PM, GeneticBlueprint said:

Side note: I get the commercials-subsidized version of Paramount+ free through T-Mobile. If I were paying anything above a cent for that version I would be livid. The frequency and quantity of commercials are just outrageous.

 

bro you can get a free month of the ad free version every month

 

Free 1 Months of Paramount+ (Previously CBS All Access) with promo Code TARGET30 (Works For New & Previous Users) - Doctor Of Credit

WWW.DOCTOROFCREDIT.COM

---

Paramount+ frequently offers free months when you use a promo code. New codes are added frequently.

 

 

[PaladinSolo]

2 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

That's why I said it feels more like Mass Effect. The show is more about discovering planets and lore and all this other stuff, not on Master Chief. Once he took off the helmet he's just another guy.

The worst part about it is that its all wrong, they made a conscious decision to ignore the actual lore and back stories for this.

[Keyser_Soze]

This seemed like the Haloest episode so far.

 

Unfortunately that dumb girl subplot is still ongoing. If they don't kill her off soon I'm going to riot! Why the hell would Master Chief come back for this stupid bitch?

[skillzdadirecta]

Just staring this... how is this show more violent than the game it's based on 

[PaladinSolo]

1 hour ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Just staring this... how is this show more violent than the game it's based on 

Cause it was made by people that have zero interest in Halo, this will become evident fast, Cortana is like the only character thats even remotely accurate, maybe its cause the actor that plays her is still doing her voice.

[skillzdadirecta]

13 minutes ago, PaladinSolo said:

Cause it was made by people that have zero interest in Halo, this will become evident fast, Cortana is like the only character thats even remotely accurate, maybe its cause the actor that plays her is still doing her voice.

I just finsihed the first two episodes and besides the surprising amount of violence (I'm still shocked by that considering the source material) I've enjoyed what I've seen so far. @JPDunks4 has filled me in on some of the criticisms leveled at the show and all i can say is  Gonna get caught up in the show before I really pass any judgements but I'm digging it so far. Does it fall off a cliff or something at some point?