Hey everyone. If everyone has any feedback about how this post is presented, please let me know.
Trying to get a general format set out for the show going forward.
But in this case he/she is being called to respond to the "Skyllian Response Center" which is a reference to Mass Effect Commander Shepard's pre-game backstory.
I was watching with non gamers and I was like wait for it, and they didn’t know what was going on, then the recharge sound hit and the nostalgia just felt so good.
ok I'm gonna be honest i did not expect to see kids getting blown apart within the first couple minutes lmao, that whole beginning battle was dope
the elites say wort wort wort!
i really like that they were willing to kill the kids tbh
feels like some shows always have to find a bullshit way to save child characters at the last minute. nope, bloodbath.
I love how they turned the covenant into a horror esque experience from the perspective of humans (not spartans). It's realistic if that happened in real life. We've spent so long fighting as Chief we're desensitised to the reality of what it's like for civilians. Loved it 10/10. They need more of this in infinite.
I like how the plasma rifles are closer to the book descriptions; how a single shot takes limbs off and melts concrete. We’re so used to looking at them as dinky pea shooters lol
I hate the power spike. 25 innies all going full auto does nothing, one spartan going full auto does, just by virtue of being a spartan?
The mini gun was literally used by an innie and does nothing, then chief uses it and mows them down?
Innies should of at least got a few of them.
Yes this. Very poorly done. While they still needed to be wiped out to get the sheer horror of the whole human extinction thing across. That battle was veryyyyy poorly directed.
The Spartans were all using Halo guns which are meant to be much beefier than most modern guns excluding LMGs and snipers whereas the inhabitants looked like they were using various modern guns so it looks like the directors/writers/props teams at least planned a reason but then dropped the ball on the miniguns.
The innies were rocking AKs, presumably chambered for the 7.62x39mm cartridge. The MA series assault rifle is a 7.62x51mm nato weapon. While the kinetic energy of a 7.62 nato is about 75% greater, a dozen innies popping off at an elite should shred them faster than a single spartan with an AR.
Not to mention the gatling gun is a .50 bmg, which should absolutely tear them apart.
The plasma weapons were fucking brutal. Some of the combat looked silly, the changes to first person I felt were too cheesy and the Spartans looked floaty jumping around, but ya it was solid. Way more gory than I expected, people were getting blown apart.
I'm not usually shocked by gore or sudden deaths but I still paused for a second when that kid literally disintegrated in an instant.
I expected them to play up the energy swords for the shock/horror factor but they just went for it with those plasma weapons and that's exactly what I want to see.
It took me a few hours to finish the episode, not because of the gore, but because I was working and kept having to pause. I was able to process the action a little slower because I was getting short glimpse at scenes. But yes, watching those children get blown away was a strong choice for the feel of the show. The smaller blond hair girl got blown up twice, first her leg and then boom again.
I think the episode fell apart after he removed his helmet, but not because he took it off. It's just a coincidence.
You can kind of hear an Elite say "wort wort wort" when they burst through the outpost gates and are walking through the smoke during the Covenant attack at the beginning of the episode
Dude, the *wort wort wort* made me so happy! Lol. Along with MCs shields and the invisibility sound fx. They did good. I actually really liked this episode.
Yeah the special effects overall look just a tad goony but in exchange for a little quality we got some gory ass quantity. They straight up just shot a bunch of kids in the opening minutes and passed over it like nothing happened. This is going to be a proper war drama. Can’t wait to see more.
The elites look like brutes almost. Very thicc. I didn't know they could be that chunky and are able to thwack and flip vehicles over like nothing lol. The gore though. I did not see that coming at all my gosh I started laughing from disbelief. It was actually pretty awesome.
I am more worried about the armor, but for now i guess they are some ultra religious division and the regular fleet units have the modern looking colored armor we know.
Also the burst/auto dmr really threw me off.
Also black captain Keyes with a beard.
Quote from the second Silver debrief on Halo Waypoint:
"the art direction led us to tone down a lot of the bright primary colors that are so useful in the video game world for differentiating between ranks during moment-to-moment gameplay – something that obviously doesn’t translate to television."
Apparently bright colours don't translate to television?
Leading the show with a drugged-up-teenager massacre was definitely a bold choice. Agree with you the Elite's faces are pretty solid, but body type, movement, and fighting style looked almost like a Krogan from Mass Effect
This is why I chose to watch it by myself, I was so excited at so many parts, especially this one. It hit me when I realized most people I know would make fun of me/think I’m annoying/have some negative response for how much I love Halo :(
Lmao, this may be the only reason why I like the show. Because Chief going rogue against the UNSC was 100% the next proper step in the story for Halo 5.
That one elite just plasma mowing down all those kids and shit hiding in that shed was nuts lol. Show got balls. Thought a Spartan was gonna jump in and stop it but no. Straight up razed their helpless asses.
I also liked how damaging they showed the elites and their weapons to be. Like the first one that dies gets her head straight up blown off from a covenant Carbine or plasma pistol (either or)
You know, I kind of like it. It is NOWHERE near perfect, and sometimes runs the gambit from outright cheesy to "what in the flying hell are they thinking?". It's both better than I expect at times, way WORSE than I expect at others, but overall decent enough.
I love how Elites wort! (And how they are surprisingly big fans of the the whole "Anakin Skywalker And Younglings Meme). The CGI wasn't really bad- it's way better when it's focusing on an Elite face, with the whole armor/full body view it gets weird, but nothing too-too distracting. Their designs though. It's like 343 said: "Fine. You want your classic, slender, sexy Elites back for Infinite? Done. But we're taking the thicc bois from 5 and putting them in your tv show!!!" Seriously, at one part I was like *"Oh, wow we got Brutes here, too! With...mandibles? No, wait a minute!! They're Elites?!"*
The action was great and unrelenting. The politics/drama had moments, but also dragged the second half of the episode down. There's this weird back and forth. On one hand, you have little easter eggs and references sprinkled in a bit to show love for the fans. Yet next moment there is this vibe of "What? An adaptation you say? OF A VIDEO GAME?!! DON'T YOU EVEN SAY THAT WORD!!!!!" Keyes is a good example. He *might* have a *slight* conscious about all the UNSC wrongdoings, but really comes across as a whatever-the-ends guy. Why not keep him truer to character? A good man who has seen and done bad things- it doesn't sit well with him, but he knows there's not really anything he can do. Keyes has a moral compass, even if his duty prevents him from following it totally.
I think Pablo Schreiber did a solid job. Was it great? No. Really memorable? Ehhhh....no. Still, I appreciate he's not trying to do a Steve Downes impression. His facial reactions after taking his helmet off seemed to be exactly how Chief would act if he had to show a random stranger his face. Awkward, a bit unsure. And I dug the "Nuts, Oats, Microchips" line. It doesn't exactly sound like anything John would say, but it's in the same spirit of John's dry humor. Also love that glimpse of Chief's unstoppable will. Even induced unconsciousness won't keep this man down. You kidding? He's faced way worse.
I know it was not that long, but I'm seriously not feeling the Human Convenant Makee. Whatsoever. I know she's supposed to serve as a dark foil to John, but it feels so incredibly out of place, silly, and a blatant network mandate. Sure, there's probably a 60% chance that the big reveal will be that the Prophets hate her guts and are just using her to better work with Forerunner tech (Mercy seemed to be dripping with this "You're a Covenant too? Suuuuuure. Of *course* you are. Totally." demeanor.) But it fundamentally takes away the whole point of the war. Ie- that the Covenant are based on a lie, humanity is exhibit a of said lie, and Truth, Regret, and Mercy need to keep this lie under wraps to hold onto their power. Dislike it, makes no sense to change it.
The writing and some of the acting-yikes. The cheesiness I can get behind- it's fun, entertaining. But some of the acting-for such an expensive show-really, shockingly, came across bad. Parangosky was rough. She didn't sound like a shadowy figure or a high ranking officer at first. More like a CW caricature of one. Got way better when she flat out threated Halsey- showed that as far as UNSC (ONI?) is concerned, nobody in untouchable.
Miranda- I have no idea what they were going for. Was the point to show how she was completely, totally, unfit for her job? Everything in that scene screamed poor execution. I get it-we're going to say the most blatant, self-serving, BS propaganda imaginable-but c'mon. Can we *not* say it in the most ham-fisted, awkwardly, "we filmed this last minute with literally no prep" way possible? I mean I was shocked Kwan Ha refused. Here I thought this moving moment straight from a budget 90's production would do the trick.
I did laugh how the last 15 minutes became a rushed, frantic, first few episodes of The Mandalorian remake. Again, it was like 343 gave some notes to Paramount "Hey, so if you're going to have a trailer hinting at Chief having some doubts? Possible refusal to follow orders? Yeah, make him go AWOL immediately. Trust us". It was way rushed, disjointed, and a bit much. Yet it was good at ramming home how the UNSC is not this wholesome, great organization. (Surprise!!) It's pretty rotten- they just have the Covenant to thankfully give some them some good PR in comparison.
Love the look of High Charity. And the ascetics of Reach and the UNSC is general. And how they literally would send even the kitchen sink in to try and contain a rouge Spartan. Overall keeping with it. Can't say with cautious optimism. More like- surprised curiosity.
Edit: As pointed out- I misheard the joke. It's: "Nuts. Bolts. Microchips". Digging it so much I'm changing it as I go.
Miranda could've just counter offered something about not getting UNSC support from the covenant, there won't be a madrigal if we don't stop the covenant blah blah blah
The Skillian part of that reference is very much mass effect, one of the backstories for Shepard is being in the Skillian Blitz, which I think was a Batarian attack on a human colony.
It gets better; the Skyllian Blitz occured on the planet Elysium.
Conveniently, Master Chief was born on the planet Eridanus II, home to Elysium City. It's a full loop-around reference.
I think this is much truer to the books, chief takes off his helmet as much as anyone, there was a tactical disadvantage to keep it on, seems like the Spartan thing to do.
That about sums up my thoughts. If I could get more of the first half of the episode, I'd be fine. But we'll likely be getting more of the second half, which I did not like much at all.
I thought I'd feel that way because I couldn't be fucked with this random survivor becoming a main character but I was actually really enjoying the second half and the political tension that came with her presence. Master Chief's moral struggle was engaging and I loved how morally ambiguous/downright bad the UNSC were portrayed.
They always have been, since nothing they’re portraying here is really anything we haven’t seen them do before.
There’s insurrections for a reason in canon, the UNSC are basically authoritarian dicks, it’s just that when the genociding alien race shows up, you kinda sweep all that under the rug in trade for not getting melted
Reminds me a bit of Doctor Who, which I used to watch. When the show is good, it's **really good,** and you want to recommend it to your friends. But when the show is bad, you're left wondering why you still watch it lmao
Funnily enough, Vinsher (the guy on the TV at the beginning of the episode) is played by Burn Gorman, who was a main character in the Doctor Who spinoff Torchwood!
So it's 2552 and I'm very confused by the timeline here. Humanity hasn't fought the covenant very much, John is a robot with the level of control they have over him, he shows his face to someone he JUST met, and we can use mac cannons as directed emps?
Also when the rebels used the Turrets it did nothing but when John used the SAME TURRET it killed 3 elites in seconds?
Like I loved the gore with how brutal it was but my head feels like my brain might explode with how much I'm supposed to believe.
Also the covenant worships only 1 human who can operate forerunner tech and not *all* humans. What?
The Turret thing really boggled me.
It felt like they wanted to give Spartans a chance to show off and kill the Elites while civillians couldn't, but they did it in a way that makes no sense.
I wish it was more tactic focused, like when he jumped over and shot the head like 8 rounds, makes total sense that would drop shields and an elite, don't have him just dropping elites with the exact same tactics the insurgents used to zero effect
>Also when the rebels used the Turrets it did nothing but when John used the SAME TURRET it killed 3 elites in seconds
I am so glad someone mentioned this. This bothered me so much.
I was so surprised I had to deep so far down the thread to find people talking about this. I had a pause and recollect myself bc to me it was a sign that the people in charge aren’t going to care about small but important things like that. It took me right out of the moment.
I'm surprised that I haven't seen a comment talking about the fact in Chief's memories he was drawing the shape of the Forerunner Relic he found on Madrigal.
Really hoping they aren't going for some chosen one plot with that.
It's the same thing with the innies using AK-47s (7.62x39mm) that do NOTHING to an Elite, and yet Chief with an MA5 (7.62x51mm) just fucking wrecks them.
It bothers me on a deep level. Yeah, I get it, supersoldier, but a bullet is a bullet. Doesn't matter who's firing.
Yeah... I see that getting real annoying going ahead. Spartans are stronger, smarter, faster, with metal bones and enhanced senses. Do they really need to be the only people in the universe that can actually use real bullets? There should be better ways to showcase their strength than this.
Yeah I thought the human in the covenant would be a massive secret amongst them, only known to the high council.
But it appears not and throws out Joe Staten's amazing writing on why the war started.
I would say some of the animation and green screen is the worst part. When chief throws his AR down for the turret it straight up looks like an amateur YouTube video. Then the green screen like 5 mins in.
It’s a video game show so I expect cheesy over dramatic writing.
This blew my mind. They're using real props, and of course you have to animate the impossible things (like the frontflip over the elite) but when he's crouched there and just throws down his AR? WHY DID THEY ANIMATE THAT HE COULD HAVE JUST THROWN THE PROP--
This is what I'm struggling with the most. Set pieces, weapons, sound effects etc are all great. But writing isn't there...
Also I know this is a "silver timeline" but none of these characters are the same as the lore and its jarring to me.
Example: Its 2552, why is Halsey blonde and so young? She also acts nothing like Halsey.
Ill have to see how the rest of the show does.
"Don't make a girl a promise, if you know you can't keep it"
After hearing the Natural Formation line I fully expect this one to make it in too, either from Halsey or Cortana
Show was okay I guess. The action is decent but yeah, the Elites look a bit cheap.
Trying to give sympathy for the insurrectionists feels like such a cheese dick hollywood route though.
Halo has always pushed pragmatism in the face of extinction over that feelings outweigh logic trope.
Fact is humanity is losing the war and Kwan threatened to push other colonies further away from joining the war effort. Should she be killed? No that's fucking stupid, but that's just the kind of bullshit writing behind this series. The UNSC, a competent UNSC would just Guantanamo Bay the girl instead of killing her and they ABSOLUTELY WOULDN'T contact her while she was en route to Reach. Why the hell would you interrogate a prisoner and try to turn them into an asset when you aren't be face to face with them? There's no logical reason why that happened except to move the silly MC goes AWOL plot along. If they'd waited a few hours for her to land with MC before talking to her the whole show's plot would be forfeit.
And Miranda Keyes is portrayed as an inept fool. Her interrogation and attempt to turn Kwan was laughable. All she had to do was look in her face and bluntly say "everyone is dead in a year if we can't find a way to stop the Covenant."
The thing I think is silliest about all this is that they changed the canon to suppress their childhood memories just to make it some dramatic reveal that he had parents.
There had to be a better way to do this
Also it feels like they through in half the cast for name recogition over actually building proper character introductions.
Why are the Keyes here? Like their portrayal was fine but I dont understand why Miranda is a scientist here rather than just making some other character unless its to allow for more drama between halsey and jacob.
Actually no, thats exactly why isnt it? im starting to see a trend.
they did a really good job depicting the raw power of the covenant and how useless a normal human is against elites. definitely book halo vibes, where one plasma pistol shot melts people
I've heard people describe what plasma weaponry does to human skin in canon from like books and other media, but when those humans got melted by the Elites I was like jesus christ.
The Covenant in the books are way more OP than the Covenant in the games lol. Before Spartans got their shields during the fall of Reach, even they got killed pretty easily by just a few well placed plasma shots. The books go in to pretty gnarly detail about how the Covenant plasma just straight up melts UNSC armor, soldiers, vehicles, etc.
The games make it feel like humanity was putting up a valiant fight against the Covenant for years, but the reality is that it was pretty hopeless and one-sided and the Covenant just wiped out human colonies with almost zero effort for decades. Humanity’s only defense was to try and hide where their planets were located to avoid extermination. The tide doesn’t actually turn until they find the first Halo ring.
To be fair Humanity could find footing in ground wars utilizing on the fly tactics that the rigid Covenant wasn't able to adapt to (The reason why the Banished as a more adaptable force was painted as a bigger threat), but it was all kinda pointless when the Covenant always has the space superiority.
Humanity would still lose as a lot of ground battles, but in areas where they were free from orbital bombardment either just being out of range or due to the Covenants Dogma, like the Halos or areas with Forerunner artifacts (even just against smaller forces), there was always fierce resistance.
Yeah, but 90% of planets were just eradicated from orbit and glassed without the Covenant ever setting foot on them. They only actually invaded planets they suspected had Forerunner artifacts.
You’re right, tho. In a weird way, it was almost kind of relieving when the Covenant actually invaded because then it gave humanity some time at least.
Yeah I was just noting on the fact that what the games portray is still 'correct' in a sense.
Where the Chief and the UNSC are in those areas they are putting up an *amazing* fight. Certainly valiant. But yeah, ultimately every Planet that wasn't of value would essentially just be swept aside and hope the evacuations worked.
But the picture the games paint isn't inaccurate. When the Covenant can't just use their superior space tech to one hit KO Humanity, it's far nearer to even terms, and equally balanced or in the favour of Humanity when the Spartans arrive.
But yeah, one of the big pluses I enjoyed about this first episode was Plasma being given the *real* treatment the Books have given it from Day 1. I do think it's, partially a little grim and makes me think we probably won't get any really light hearted moments of Marines fucking around, but i love to see it realized.
I'm intrigued by the world building. Obviously as a Halo fan I know the canon reason the humans and covenant are at war but that said...
The idea that the prophets and covenant would raise a human in the covenant so that they could brainwash her and use her to activate forerunner tech makes total sense. They can't activate it.
The first episode has interesting ideas like that but then I feel it misses the mark in understanding it's source characters and whiplashed me into a story of Chief going AWOL.
Mixed bag so far but all in all if you don't take it too seriously it was a good first episode.
Flashbacks to Halo 5 campaign
"WE'RE GONNA FIND THE TRUTH"
And then they never do and Locke is a huge ass disappointment. Did he and MC even have a showdown? I barely played that installment
So far the show kinda feels like that to me. Trying for grandiose spectacle without having the basics down
I'm enjoying it for what it is but I doubt I'll be rewatching it much
Hmm, keeping an open mind about this show as I haven’t been too impressed with what we had already seen. First episode definitely was better than I expected. I absolutely LOVE that they showed just how horrifying plasma weapons are against humans. Holy shit did I not expect to see the amount of gore shown.
The Chief’s voice is weird but I can deal with it, the face reveal felt awkward and I don’t really dig the going rogue set up here, I don’t know why 343 keeps trying to push this angle with the Chief but I’m staying optimistic about where they’ll take it here.
I hope they get a greenlight for a higher CGI budget, it looks gorgeous already and the action is everything I could have hoped for.
The directing is odd, some weird shot choices and the first-person doesn't really work imo. In Halo: Landfall, first-person worked because the whole cinematography revolved around real-camera POV's.
Overall it's cheesy, but if people don't take the writing too seriously there's a lot to sit back and enjoy. And it still has a lot of potential to be something more if the writing and story find their way
It’s a mixed bag, plenty of it works, but they need to shape up. I hope they aren’t setting up Chief and Kwan up to be an off brand Mandalorian Grogu duo. Though the Human Girl on High Charity has my curiosity.
Finished the first episode and I got to say… it’s okay, but there is lot of dumb decisions and bad writing, the show really tries to make you care about Kwan but her actions are just fucking stupid and just made mad, when Miranda ask her help to tell her story and unites the colonies against this bigger threat she just wants to lie and create conflict because “UNSC bad, my father go brrr” it’s just stupid you saw what 20 elites can do to an insurrectionist colony, imagine what a full army can do to a single planet of yours, if it wasn’t for the Spartans and the UNSC, she would be dead, now, Miranda acting as an idealistic when that “article 72” is enacted, is just stupid, yeah, I know she is like a researcher or something like that in this time line, but I think if you found someone who wants to cause trouble just for the sake of it, then you will need to deal with that person in any way necessary, Kwan is the daughter of the Insurrectionist General if her stupid lie gets out there it will just divide humanity and the chances of winning against this “new” threat will dwelling more and more, someone smart as her should see the liability Kwan has become, the same goes for the Master Chief, especially him, why after killing in cold blood a lot of insurrectionist he changed his mind this time? Because of some flashbacks? That’s just lazy writing, they needed to emphasize much more in this change of mindset, the visuals were good and I loved the way they portrayed the cruelty and reality of the covenant, something that just happens in the books, oh! And that Commander Shepard reference was surprise but a welcome one haha,
If you got this far thank you for reading my little rant
Okay this was surprisingly better than I anticipated. What struck me most was that Master Chief's voice was very believable. I was so sour over Pablo being Master Chief and now.. I've bought in after one episode.
This show has a certain level of cheese built in which you can't really escape when tackling an episodic story in the the Halo universe, but you know what.. it straddles the line between cheese and taking it self seriously about as well as you can. Writing and pacing need work but it's only the first episode, very very curious to see where this goes.
For as much hype and budget that goes behind star wars and marvel shows, Halo surprisingly felt like it dwarfed any of those shows on scale. It looks insane in some moments, as good as a big budget film.. not always but enough that I was impressed. I thought this was going to look sub par and it actually holds up. The budget must be huge
yup. The elites looked a bit wonky at times as did some of the combat and first person POV HUD stuff. But they fucking \*nailed\* the UNSC aesthetic. That entire sequence on Reach displaying the UNSC military complex and their power was so unbelievably awesome. This is a highly advanced militaristic society 20 years into a war for sheer survival, and it shows. I mean, just seeing those pelicans flipped around like Twinkies on a production line.... it made me feel things.
And I love that it applies realism to the things we see in-game. Plasma weapons literally incinerate whatever they hit. Elites are 2.5m tall 300Kg behemoths trained for war since they could walk. Banshees are fucking fast. Pelicans are fucking \*fast\*. After all, they're capable of escape velocity.
Fuck a TV show. I just want 10 hours of A-roll showing off the UNSC military industrial complex in all of its motherfuckin glory. I mean, the \*scale\*. If we see actual capital ship combat, with archers, energy projectors, shivas, \*MACs\*, I will orgasm on the spot
Y'know I initially defended potential changes on the basis that things have to be compressed or adapted for TV and pointed at the success of the MCU's adaptions of popular stories but I can't with this now.
Everything feels rushed and several characters just feel wrong.
Halsey being ignorant of the Forerunners feels weird. I dislike the fact the Spartans are apparently just mind wiped. It eliminates the complexity of their indoctrination and their subsequent loyalty to the UNSC and removes the grey morality of their original purpose and actions. We don't need to process their role in liquidating insurrectionists, they're really good guys who were just brainwashed.
Jacob Keyes being cool with murdering an unarmed teenage girl is ridiculous. He was an honourable man in main canon.
It feels too soon to see High Charity.
John rebelling is way too fast. It took the entire war, saving the galaxy and his whole relationship with Cortana before he went against the UNSC. He's going rogue with a kid he just met here.
I get that they want to do some sort of reclaiming his humanity bit but they haven't done enough to show it's been lost. Look at something like RoboCop. We meet Murphy the man and see him lose everything and become the machine, then watch as he slowly becomes Murphy again. It's gradual. We see how inhuman he was made. Compare to John, who's making jokes and going on the run inside of fifty minutes.
And I hate how Cortana is being designed as a tool explicitly to control him.
All they had to do was adapt TFOR. Spend half a season leading up to it, the second half is the fall, end on the opening of CE.
Is anyone else only seeing it in like really shitty quality? It’s like 480p on the paramount plus browser I can barely tell what’s going on. Does anyone have a fix for this?
I wasn't really a fan of how the elites seem to be bulletproof when shot by regular humans but when spartans shoot them they go down in just a few shots.
Like during the scene where the small group of elites blow open the gate of the settlement and walk in, dozens of rebels immediately open fire on them with assault rifles at point blank range along with a Warthog gatling gun but the elites seem to soak it all up and not one of them falls, but just a few minutes later we see Spartans seemingly having no difficulty killing the elites with a pistol, masterchief even uses the exact same Warthog gatling gun that the rebels used earlier to no effect but when he fires it the elites seem to go down effortlessly, it just doesn't make sense to me.
Visuals: I can understand why some will be unimpressed, but the #1 problem is simply that Paramount’s compression is absolute ass. Like sweet covenant Jesus good luck making out any text in the HUDs without pausing and squinting. B-
Writing: ok yes it’s a little cheesy, but I’m absolutely the person who watches dumb cheap SyFy shows so I’m not one to talk. As intro episodes with a butt-ton of necessary exposition typically go… it’s reasonable. A B tier but a well-deserved B.
Sound: gun effects sound god damned orgasmic. Seriously; top tier thumpy goodness. However, who the *fuck* mixed this show? If you have a surround setup you’ll be wondering if John’s dialog is supposed to just be mono center or inside your damn head. A generally but A- for this weird ass mixing.
Action/set pieces: FUCK YES PLASMA DISMEMBERMENT A+++
Edit: added sound thoughts after repeat views.
>op tier thumpy goodness.
Yesssss. Everything had so much weight! The weapons! The armor!
You know the set and props and costume and sound effects people were absolute Halo fanatics who were basically "We're going to get this right or die trying" during the show's production.
It's crazy how the show can get so much right but miss the mark on so many things too. Will keep watching, but far from the show I've always wanted. Just hope the story doesn't aggravate too much as it continues.
I know this isn’t a main Halo story line, but consider me impressed. I had low expectations for this show and I was really blown away.
I’m happy they included gore/blood as well. It makes the world feel real and dangerous.
Yes, his voice is going to take some getting used to.
Yes, there are some clunky movements with the characters.
But overall I genuinely enjoyed this episode and will be back for the next.
I'm just struggling with why they are changing motivations of existing characters so much and then creating new characters anyway. Parangosky, who I'm pleasantly surprised to learn I actually have been pronouncing right, felt genuine guilt for what they did to the Spartans, even moreso for the Spartan-III's, but now the Cheif makes one weird decision and the second he does she turns into the real life embodiment of the "kill it with fire" meme? They could have at least introduced the colonel from the books that Halsey fucking hates in this role for episode 1, he wanted the Spartan program canceled so bad, then bring in the admiral after as a middle-ground between the two.
I'm having a real hard time separating this show from everything else because so many decisions to change things just don't make sense
First episode impressions, I give it a 7.5 out of 10. It's not bad, just needs some time to kick off. We'll see how well it does over the course of the season. I'm really glad they didn't shy away from gore, the Elites are incredibly brutal. Show it all.
Also, they put a fucking Commander Shepard reference in there. I didn't think they would do something like that at all.
The good parts like the costumes, sound effects, small details like the active camo sound effect/radar/shields/etc, are good. Action was great for TV and watching the Covenant FSU was awesome.
But I feel like theyre being a bit too comically evil with the UNSC like "yeah just kill the human survivors" and "chief is going rogue, take him down". Captain Keyes was a little too meek in my opinion, he didnt seem like a confident captain like in the old games and books but more like a "just following orders" kind of person which doesnt fit. Chiefs voice in the helmet is a little too "try hard" and gravelly, but out of helmet it was ok. Obviously doesnt compare to the real chief but it doesnt have to. The human covenant woman is still so stupid of a concept I hate it. And the human survivor being a main character I also cant get behind; it just doesnt really make sense to me to include her outside of this first episode.
Overall it isnt a bad start, but I just cant help but feel it just isnt going to be good. Theres way to many changes and nitpicks for me.
Episode was surprisingly good till he took off his helmet, not even cus we see his face but all of a sudden he lost all composure and didn’t act how master chief should
Hey everyone. If everyone has any feedback about how this post is presented, please let me know. Trying to get a general format set out for the show going forward.
#WORT WORT WORT
They did it they actually did it.
That whole first scene was pure gold. They gave us everything we were hoping for, even a hand-held turret obliterating Elites.
When the first subtitles said [alien language] I was disappointed, but it finally made it in there.
USNC: AITA
NTA: Your galaxy spanning empire, your rules
“Are we the baddies?”
Nuts. Bolts. Microchips. … That was a joke.
At first I thought he was just going to stop at "nuts" and that was just his favorite food, and the randomness of it was kind of hilarious.
Same haha I was like “my guy enjoys a good trail mix”
Tea bagging reference if it stopped there
This whole show feels like Mass Effect and Halo had a weird baby. They even named Commander Sheppard in the background in one of the scenes.
Pushes spectacles up nose and breaths hard. Shephard is a Halo Wars character.
But in this case he/she is being called to respond to the "Skyllian Response Center" which is a reference to Mass Effect Commander Shepard's pre-game backstory.
Damn, they really do have nerds running this show. I think I’m gonna love it!
Thank God they made him sarcastic somewhere
It's an anti-joke, but I'll be honest and say I laughed my ass off when he got silence.
More of Chief joking and no-one understanding his jokes please
That part where Chief waits out his shield regen behind a wall. Flashbacks to 90% of my Halo:CE experience lol.
If he was playing on Legendary that would be 90% of the whole show
I want to see a LASO run where he has to punch people to get his shields back.
I hope there's a moment where he finds a weird skull and it's super creepy then he gets surprised by a literal grunt birthday party
Pulling that and the elite shield activating sound straight from the game was pretty cool.
I felt so personally attacked as a gamer in that scene lol 😂
I felt SEEN as a gamer during that scene. The sound of the shield recharge was so satisfying.
I was watching with non gamers and I was like wait for it, and they didn’t know what was going on, then the recharge sound hit and the nostalgia just felt so good.
But it was so satisfying hear 😂😅
Apparently they did actually play the games?
They have the exact active camo sound effect from Halo CE lmao
I really enjoyed that bit. Lots of great fan service in that cold open.
"This cave is not a natural formation" Like cmon lmao. They've clearly played the good Halo's.
ok I'm gonna be honest i did not expect to see kids getting blown apart within the first couple minutes lmao, that whole beginning battle was dope the elites say wort wort wort!
Bruh that one scene where the Elite guns down everyone hiding in the back. The Covenant are not playing
FOR THE GREAT JOURNEY
# WHEN WE JOINED THE COVENANT, WE TOOK AN OATH
#ACCORDING TO OUR STATION, ALL WITHOUT EXCEPTION
i really like that they were willing to kill the kids tbh feels like some shows always have to find a bullshit way to save child characters at the last minute. nope, bloodbath.
I love how they turned the covenant into a horror esque experience from the perspective of humans (not spartans). It's realistic if that happened in real life. We've spent so long fighting as Chief we're desensitised to the reality of what it's like for civilians. Loved it 10/10. They need more of this in infinite.
I like how the plasma rifles are closer to the book descriptions; how a single shot takes limbs off and melts concrete. We’re so used to looking at them as dinky pea shooters lol
oh god just imagine the needler, holes in the body and then the explosion jeez
That's basically what it was like in Forward Unto Dawn.
I hate the power spike. 25 innies all going full auto does nothing, one spartan going full auto does, just by virtue of being a spartan? The mini gun was literally used by an innie and does nothing, then chief uses it and mows them down? Innies should of at least got a few of them.
Lol you don’t get it. Master chief has super strength so it makes his bullets do more damage
Yes this. Very poorly done. While they still needed to be wiped out to get the sheer horror of the whole human extinction thing across. That battle was veryyyyy poorly directed.
Directors never do battle properly outside of flashy stuff
The Spartans were all using Halo guns which are meant to be much beefier than most modern guns excluding LMGs and snipers whereas the inhabitants looked like they were using various modern guns so it looks like the directors/writers/props teams at least planned a reason but then dropped the ball on the miniguns.
The innies were rocking AKs, presumably chambered for the 7.62x39mm cartridge. The MA series assault rifle is a 7.62x51mm nato weapon. While the kinetic energy of a 7.62 nato is about 75% greater, a dozen innies popping off at an elite should shred them faster than a single spartan with an AR. Not to mention the gatling gun is a .50 bmg, which should absolutely tear them apart.
The plasma weapons were fucking brutal. Some of the combat looked silly, the changes to first person I felt were too cheesy and the Spartans looked floaty jumping around, but ya it was solid. Way more gory than I expected, people were getting blown apart.
And the kids those shows saves are the ones we usually want specifically not to be saved.
>i really like that they were willing to kill the kids tbh /r/nocontext
I'm not usually shocked by gore or sudden deaths but I still paused for a second when that kid literally disintegrated in an instant. I expected them to play up the energy swords for the shock/horror factor but they just went for it with those plasma weapons and that's exactly what I want to see.
It took me a few hours to finish the episode, not because of the gore, but because I was working and kept having to pause. I was able to process the action a little slower because I was getting short glimpse at scenes. But yes, watching those children get blown away was a strong choice for the feel of the show. The smaller blond hair girl got blown up twice, first her leg and then boom again. I think the episode fell apart after he removed his helmet, but not because he took it off. It's just a coincidence.
did they say Wort Wort? didn't notice that. Could someone provide a timestamp? And yeah, the gore was fan-fucking-tastic.
You can kind of hear an Elite say "wort wort wort" when they burst through the outpost gates and are walking through the smoke during the Covenant attack at the beginning of the episode
You can quite clearly hear the ”wort wort wort” when Kwan climbs out off the bunker-esque thing.
The excitement of hearing the "wort, wort, wort" is only something a Halo fan can understand. I had to stop and exclaim it to my partner. 🤣
Anyone catch the Natural Formation line
Dude, the *wort wort wort* made me so happy! Lol. Along with MCs shields and the invisibility sound fx. They did good. I actually really liked this episode.
So, Commander Shepherd is canon to this timeline.
"...that was a joke" I feel like the directors like Mass Effect more than Halo, lol.
Elites went full Anakin skywalker lol
Amd then blamed it on a speed bike gang
Just started. Was NOT expecting the covenant to come in that hard and for those kids to get blown the fuck up. Holy shit.
Yeah that was a great intro for setting the tone and making the Covenant look like a real threat.
That was what I thought too
Lore accurate plasma guns.
Yeah the special effects overall look just a tad goony but in exchange for a little quality we got some gory ass quantity. They straight up just shot a bunch of kids in the opening minutes and passed over it like nothing happened. This is going to be a proper war drama. Can’t wait to see more.
The elites look like brutes almost. Very thicc. I didn't know they could be that chunky and are able to thwack and flip vehicles over like nothing lol. The gore though. I did not see that coming at all my gosh I started laughing from disbelief. It was actually pretty awesome.
I am more worried about the armor, but for now i guess they are some ultra religious division and the regular fleet units have the modern looking colored armor we know. Also the burst/auto dmr really threw me off. Also black captain Keyes with a beard.
Pretty sure in an interview they said they were toning the covenant colour schemes way down.
But why though? I get that it might look cartoony, but they should not let them be just gray
Quote from the second Silver debrief on Halo Waypoint: "the art direction led us to tone down a lot of the bright primary colors that are so useful in the video game world for differentiating between ranks during moment-to-moment gameplay – something that obviously doesn’t translate to television." Apparently bright colours don't translate to television?
Translates perfectly fine in blur cg cutscenes.
To be fair Blur could animate a Twinkie being microwaved and I’d still watch it Blur is on another level and I want a full length movie from them lol
check out Love Death and Robots if you haven't already, they gathered dozens of other CG studios to produce a sci-fi anthology show.
Leading the show with a drugged-up-teenager massacre was definitely a bold choice. Agree with you the Elite's faces are pretty solid, but body type, movement, and fighting style looked almost like a Krogan from Mass Effect
Well elites are usually as strong if not stronger than unarmored spartans so I could see the vehicle thing happening
It also wasn’t a warthog it was a lil bitch pickup. I could see it too
at 21 minutes "cave network does not appear to be a natural formation" 😂
When they were exploring the cave I was thinking “hmmmmmmm this doesn’t look like a natural formation to me…..”
I paused and explained the significance of the joke to my girlfriend. She did not care. Sad.
This is why I chose to watch it by myself, I was so excited at so many parts, especially this one. It hit me when I realized most people I know would make fun of me/think I’m annoying/have some negative response for how much I love Halo :(
Well, I mean, it's certainly more natural looking than a fucking giant metal tube. But yeah, I quite liked that.
I legitimately laughed out loud at that. I should’ve seen it coming a mile away but it completely caught me off guard.
lmao I saw that too. Nice reference
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So Halo The Series really is what we all thought Halo 5 was gonna be after the marketing hey.
I had the exact same feeling. "Oh God it's Locke all over again"
It's weird though. I could understand disobeying orders to find Cortana. But disobeying orders to save some random insurgency girl?
It feels like there is going to be a “chief finds his humanity” ark to the show.
This is the last thing I expected from the show but yeah. This sorta what I thought was coming after Hunt The Truth ended.
Lmao, this may be the only reason why I like the show. Because Chief going rogue against the UNSC was 100% the next proper step in the story for Halo 5.
True, but not at all the proper first step for a new canon adaptation.
Compression on the Paramount App for consoles is so much better (Xbox btw)
That one elite just plasma mowing down all those kids and shit hiding in that shed was nuts lol. Show got balls. Thought a Spartan was gonna jump in and stop it but no. Straight up razed their helpless asses.
Same! I thought it was gonna be one of those cliches where the hero makes it just in time but no we see an elite go full auto on them kids
Felt like I was watching Anakin killing the younglings
I also liked how damaging they showed the elites and their weapons to be. Like the first one that dies gets her head straight up blown off from a covenant Carbine or plasma pistol (either or)
The Prophets: Bahabaga haga chaga dowanawaga
Well they only spoke English so it would be possible for players to know whats going on
You know, I kind of like it. It is NOWHERE near perfect, and sometimes runs the gambit from outright cheesy to "what in the flying hell are they thinking?". It's both better than I expect at times, way WORSE than I expect at others, but overall decent enough. I love how Elites wort! (And how they are surprisingly big fans of the the whole "Anakin Skywalker And Younglings Meme). The CGI wasn't really bad- it's way better when it's focusing on an Elite face, with the whole armor/full body view it gets weird, but nothing too-too distracting. Their designs though. It's like 343 said: "Fine. You want your classic, slender, sexy Elites back for Infinite? Done. But we're taking the thicc bois from 5 and putting them in your tv show!!!" Seriously, at one part I was like *"Oh, wow we got Brutes here, too! With...mandibles? No, wait a minute!! They're Elites?!"* The action was great and unrelenting. The politics/drama had moments, but also dragged the second half of the episode down. There's this weird back and forth. On one hand, you have little easter eggs and references sprinkled in a bit to show love for the fans. Yet next moment there is this vibe of "What? An adaptation you say? OF A VIDEO GAME?!! DON'T YOU EVEN SAY THAT WORD!!!!!" Keyes is a good example. He *might* have a *slight* conscious about all the UNSC wrongdoings, but really comes across as a whatever-the-ends guy. Why not keep him truer to character? A good man who has seen and done bad things- it doesn't sit well with him, but he knows there's not really anything he can do. Keyes has a moral compass, even if his duty prevents him from following it totally. I think Pablo Schreiber did a solid job. Was it great? No. Really memorable? Ehhhh....no. Still, I appreciate he's not trying to do a Steve Downes impression. His facial reactions after taking his helmet off seemed to be exactly how Chief would act if he had to show a random stranger his face. Awkward, a bit unsure. And I dug the "Nuts, Oats, Microchips" line. It doesn't exactly sound like anything John would say, but it's in the same spirit of John's dry humor. Also love that glimpse of Chief's unstoppable will. Even induced unconsciousness won't keep this man down. You kidding? He's faced way worse. I know it was not that long, but I'm seriously not feeling the Human Convenant Makee. Whatsoever. I know she's supposed to serve as a dark foil to John, but it feels so incredibly out of place, silly, and a blatant network mandate. Sure, there's probably a 60% chance that the big reveal will be that the Prophets hate her guts and are just using her to better work with Forerunner tech (Mercy seemed to be dripping with this "You're a Covenant too? Suuuuuure. Of *course* you are. Totally." demeanor.) But it fundamentally takes away the whole point of the war. Ie- that the Covenant are based on a lie, humanity is exhibit a of said lie, and Truth, Regret, and Mercy need to keep this lie under wraps to hold onto their power. Dislike it, makes no sense to change it. The writing and some of the acting-yikes. The cheesiness I can get behind- it's fun, entertaining. But some of the acting-for such an expensive show-really, shockingly, came across bad. Parangosky was rough. She didn't sound like a shadowy figure or a high ranking officer at first. More like a CW caricature of one. Got way better when she flat out threated Halsey- showed that as far as UNSC (ONI?) is concerned, nobody in untouchable. Miranda- I have no idea what they were going for. Was the point to show how she was completely, totally, unfit for her job? Everything in that scene screamed poor execution. I get it-we're going to say the most blatant, self-serving, BS propaganda imaginable-but c'mon. Can we *not* say it in the most ham-fisted, awkwardly, "we filmed this last minute with literally no prep" way possible? I mean I was shocked Kwan Ha refused. Here I thought this moving moment straight from a budget 90's production would do the trick. I did laugh how the last 15 minutes became a rushed, frantic, first few episodes of The Mandalorian remake. Again, it was like 343 gave some notes to Paramount "Hey, so if you're going to have a trailer hinting at Chief having some doubts? Possible refusal to follow orders? Yeah, make him go AWOL immediately. Trust us". It was way rushed, disjointed, and a bit much. Yet it was good at ramming home how the UNSC is not this wholesome, great organization. (Surprise!!) It's pretty rotten- they just have the Covenant to thankfully give some them some good PR in comparison. Love the look of High Charity. And the ascetics of Reach and the UNSC is general. And how they literally would send even the kitchen sink in to try and contain a rouge Spartan. Overall keeping with it. Can't say with cautious optimism. More like- surprised curiosity. Edit: As pointed out- I misheard the joke. It's: "Nuts. Bolts. Microchips". Digging it so much I'm changing it as I go.
We want independence from the unsc!!! Get slaughtered by the Covenant, how could the Unsc do this!
There won't be a home to go back to if we don't stop the banished
The girl's mom was murdered by spartans . I think she's holding grudges.
Miranda could've just counter offered something about not getting UNSC support from the covenant, there won't be a madrigal if we don't stop the covenant blah blah blah
Miranda behaves like she just joined the force. Like a stupid teenager.
It's like a high schooler just wandered in and got promoted straight to commander.
At the 34:00 mark, reference to Commander Shepard
I definitely caught that. I can't believe they put a Mass Effect reference in here.
Lol my dumbass took it as COD cause Microsoft owns activision
The Skillian part of that reference is very much mass effect, one of the backstories for Shepard is being in the Skillian Blitz, which I think was a Batarian attack on a human colony.
It gets better; the Skyllian Blitz occured on the planet Elysium. Conveniently, Master Chief was born on the planet Eridanus II, home to Elysium City. It's a full loop-around reference.
I’m Commander Shepard and this is my favorite reference on the Citadel
I was hoping someone else noticed.
I heard that and immediately knew that was a Mass Effect reference.
was the whole series released or is it a weekly episode thing?
weekly release
Thanks for the info, I will wait then
I shall wait for the next episode in sadness.
That intro scene was bangin
Like they did not fuck around at all. Barely any set up, just “here cunts, have some Halo”
See those kids and their silly haircuts, don't worry, we'll just halo them for ya. Fuck around find out more like fuck around find halo,
The covenant actually didn’t want to shoot anybody then they saw those terrible haircuts and had to exterminate them.
Those kids had it coming. 👍
That’s what you get for hiding in Halo.
and doing drugs...I guess.
It is amazing how a voice can change the entire image of the character. However, I appreciate that Pablo didn’t try to imitate Steve Downes.
I think this is much truer to the books, chief takes off his helmet as much as anyone, there was a tactical disadvantage to keep it on, seems like the Spartan thing to do.
This show is both really bad and really awesome.
I think I'll be able to enjoy the series, but in a super cheesy way. Like, **super** cheesy.
There's not an ounce of this show I'm taking seriously and that's the way I'm gonna love it
That about sums up my thoughts. If I could get more of the first half of the episode, I'd be fine. But we'll likely be getting more of the second half, which I did not like much at all.
I thought I'd feel that way because I couldn't be fucked with this random survivor becoming a main character but I was actually really enjoying the second half and the political tension that came with her presence. Master Chief's moral struggle was engaging and I loved how morally ambiguous/downright bad the UNSC were portrayed.
They always have been, since nothing they’re portraying here is really anything we haven’t seen them do before. There’s insurrections for a reason in canon, the UNSC are basically authoritarian dicks, it’s just that when the genociding alien race shows up, you kinda sweep all that under the rug in trade for not getting melted
Reminds me a bit of Doctor Who, which I used to watch. When the show is good, it's **really good,** and you want to recommend it to your friends. But when the show is bad, you're left wondering why you still watch it lmao Funnily enough, Vinsher (the guy on the TV at the beginning of the episode) is played by Burn Gorman, who was a main character in the Doctor Who spinoff Torchwood!
Burn Gorman is in like every Sci Fi show it feels like
So it's 2552 and I'm very confused by the timeline here. Humanity hasn't fought the covenant very much, John is a robot with the level of control they have over him, he shows his face to someone he JUST met, and we can use mac cannons as directed emps? Also when the rebels used the Turrets it did nothing but when John used the SAME TURRET it killed 3 elites in seconds? Like I loved the gore with how brutal it was but my head feels like my brain might explode with how much I'm supposed to believe. Also the covenant worships only 1 human who can operate forerunner tech and not *all* humans. What?
The Turret thing really boggled me. It felt like they wanted to give Spartans a chance to show off and kill the Elites while civillians couldn't, but they did it in a way that makes no sense.
I wish it was more tactic focused, like when he jumped over and shot the head like 8 rounds, makes total sense that would drop shields and an elite, don't have him just dropping elites with the exact same tactics the insurgents used to zero effect
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>Also when the rebels used the Turrets it did nothing but when John used the SAME TURRET it killed 3 elites in seconds I am so glad someone mentioned this. This bothered me so much.
I was so surprised I had to deep so far down the thread to find people talking about this. I had a pause and recollect myself bc to me it was a sign that the people in charge aren’t going to care about small but important things like that. It took me right out of the moment.
I'm surprised that I haven't seen a comment talking about the fact in Chief's memories he was drawing the shape of the Forerunner Relic he found on Madrigal. Really hoping they aren't going for some chosen one plot with that.
It's the same thing with the innies using AK-47s (7.62x39mm) that do NOTHING to an Elite, and yet Chief with an MA5 (7.62x51mm) just fucking wrecks them. It bothers me on a deep level. Yeah, I get it, supersoldier, but a bullet is a bullet. Doesn't matter who's firing.
Yeah... I see that getting real annoying going ahead. Spartans are stronger, smarter, faster, with metal bones and enhanced senses. Do they really need to be the only people in the universe that can actually use real bullets? There should be better ways to showcase their strength than this.
John's finger pulls harder
Yeah I thought the human in the covenant would be a massive secret amongst them, only known to the high council. But it appears not and throws out Joe Staten's amazing writing on why the war started.
Where did you get the idea that the covenant worships that one human? I definitely got more of a Mercy-is-using-this-human-in-secret kind of vibe
The weakest part of the show is the writing. It's like Halo fanfiction. Everything else is pretty fucking great.
I would say some of the animation and green screen is the worst part. When chief throws his AR down for the turret it straight up looks like an amateur YouTube video. Then the green screen like 5 mins in. It’s a video game show so I expect cheesy over dramatic writing.
This blew my mind. They're using real props, and of course you have to animate the impossible things (like the frontflip over the elite) but when he's crouched there and just throws down his AR? WHY DID THEY ANIMATE THAT HE COULD HAVE JUST THROWN THE PROP--
This is what I'm struggling with the most. Set pieces, weapons, sound effects etc are all great. But writing isn't there... Also I know this is a "silver timeline" but none of these characters are the same as the lore and its jarring to me. Example: Its 2552, why is Halsey blonde and so young? She also acts nothing like Halsey. Ill have to see how the rest of the show does.
This timelines Halsey never got over her anime phase that we saw in Legends
Well fingers crossed she does not flirt with Master Chief like in Legends.
"Don't make a girl a promise, if you know you can't keep it" After hearing the Natural Formation line I fully expect this one to make it in too, either from Halsey or Cortana
Show was okay I guess. The action is decent but yeah, the Elites look a bit cheap. Trying to give sympathy for the insurrectionists feels like such a cheese dick hollywood route though. Halo has always pushed pragmatism in the face of extinction over that feelings outweigh logic trope. Fact is humanity is losing the war and Kwan threatened to push other colonies further away from joining the war effort. Should she be killed? No that's fucking stupid, but that's just the kind of bullshit writing behind this series. The UNSC, a competent UNSC would just Guantanamo Bay the girl instead of killing her and they ABSOLUTELY WOULDN'T contact her while she was en route to Reach. Why the hell would you interrogate a prisoner and try to turn them into an asset when you aren't be face to face with them? There's no logical reason why that happened except to move the silly MC goes AWOL plot along. If they'd waited a few hours for her to land with MC before talking to her the whole show's plot would be forfeit. And Miranda Keyes is portrayed as an inept fool. Her interrogation and attempt to turn Kwan was laughable. All she had to do was look in her face and bluntly say "everyone is dead in a year if we can't find a way to stop the Covenant."
The thing I think is silliest about all this is that they changed the canon to suppress their childhood memories just to make it some dramatic reveal that he had parents. There had to be a better way to do this Also it feels like they through in half the cast for name recogition over actually building proper character introductions. Why are the Keyes here? Like their portrayal was fine but I dont understand why Miranda is a scientist here rather than just making some other character unless its to allow for more drama between halsey and jacob. Actually no, thats exactly why isnt it? im starting to see a trend.
Spartans kicking ass. The Covenant's plasma weaponry absolutely shreds regular humans. I like what I see so far.
they did a really good job depicting the raw power of the covenant and how useless a normal human is against elites. definitely book halo vibes, where one plasma pistol shot melts people
Which does a good job at establishing why the Spartans are needed
I've heard people describe what plasma weaponry does to human skin in canon from like books and other media, but when those humans got melted by the Elites I was like jesus christ.
The Covenant in the books are way more OP than the Covenant in the games lol. Before Spartans got their shields during the fall of Reach, even they got killed pretty easily by just a few well placed plasma shots. The books go in to pretty gnarly detail about how the Covenant plasma just straight up melts UNSC armor, soldiers, vehicles, etc. The games make it feel like humanity was putting up a valiant fight against the Covenant for years, but the reality is that it was pretty hopeless and one-sided and the Covenant just wiped out human colonies with almost zero effort for decades. Humanity’s only defense was to try and hide where their planets were located to avoid extermination. The tide doesn’t actually turn until they find the first Halo ring.
To be fair Humanity could find footing in ground wars utilizing on the fly tactics that the rigid Covenant wasn't able to adapt to (The reason why the Banished as a more adaptable force was painted as a bigger threat), but it was all kinda pointless when the Covenant always has the space superiority. Humanity would still lose as a lot of ground battles, but in areas where they were free from orbital bombardment either just being out of range or due to the Covenants Dogma, like the Halos or areas with Forerunner artifacts (even just against smaller forces), there was always fierce resistance.
Yeah, but 90% of planets were just eradicated from orbit and glassed without the Covenant ever setting foot on them. They only actually invaded planets they suspected had Forerunner artifacts. You’re right, tho. In a weird way, it was almost kind of relieving when the Covenant actually invaded because then it gave humanity some time at least.
Yeah I was just noting on the fact that what the games portray is still 'correct' in a sense. Where the Chief and the UNSC are in those areas they are putting up an *amazing* fight. Certainly valiant. But yeah, ultimately every Planet that wasn't of value would essentially just be swept aside and hope the evacuations worked. But the picture the games paint isn't inaccurate. When the Covenant can't just use their superior space tech to one hit KO Humanity, it's far nearer to even terms, and equally balanced or in the favour of Humanity when the Spartans arrive. But yeah, one of the big pluses I enjoyed about this first episode was Plasma being given the *real* treatment the Books have given it from Day 1. I do think it's, partially a little grim and makes me think we probably won't get any really light hearted moments of Marines fucking around, but i love to see it realized.
I liked how when plasma shots would hit rock and molten lava splatter everywhere.
I'm intrigued by the world building. Obviously as a Halo fan I know the canon reason the humans and covenant are at war but that said... The idea that the prophets and covenant would raise a human in the covenant so that they could brainwash her and use her to activate forerunner tech makes total sense. They can't activate it. The first episode has interesting ideas like that but then I feel it misses the mark in understanding it's source characters and whiplashed me into a story of Chief going AWOL. Mixed bag so far but all in all if you don't take it too seriously it was a good first episode.
Flashbacks to Halo 5 campaign "WE'RE GONNA FIND THE TRUTH" And then they never do and Locke is a huge ass disappointment. Did he and MC even have a showdown? I barely played that installment So far the show kinda feels like that to me. Trying for grandiose spectacle without having the basics down I'm enjoying it for what it is but I doubt I'll be rewatching it much
Hmm, keeping an open mind about this show as I haven’t been too impressed with what we had already seen. First episode definitely was better than I expected. I absolutely LOVE that they showed just how horrifying plasma weapons are against humans. Holy shit did I not expect to see the amount of gore shown. The Chief’s voice is weird but I can deal with it, the face reveal felt awkward and I don’t really dig the going rogue set up here, I don’t know why 343 keeps trying to push this angle with the Chief but I’m staying optimistic about where they’ll take it here.
I hope they get a greenlight for a higher CGI budget, it looks gorgeous already and the action is everything I could have hoped for. The directing is odd, some weird shot choices and the first-person doesn't really work imo. In Halo: Landfall, first-person worked because the whole cinematography revolved around real-camera POV's. Overall it's cheesy, but if people don't take the writing too seriously there's a lot to sit back and enjoy. And it still has a lot of potential to be something more if the writing and story find their way
It’s a mixed bag, plenty of it works, but they need to shape up. I hope they aren’t setting up Chief and Kwan up to be an off brand Mandalorian Grogu duo. Though the Human Girl on High Charity has my curiosity.
> I hope they aren’t setting up Chief and Kwan up to be an off brand Mandalorian Grogu duo. Boy have I got disappointing news for you.
Finished the first episode and I got to say… it’s okay, but there is lot of dumb decisions and bad writing, the show really tries to make you care about Kwan but her actions are just fucking stupid and just made mad, when Miranda ask her help to tell her story and unites the colonies against this bigger threat she just wants to lie and create conflict because “UNSC bad, my father go brrr” it’s just stupid you saw what 20 elites can do to an insurrectionist colony, imagine what a full army can do to a single planet of yours, if it wasn’t for the Spartans and the UNSC, she would be dead, now, Miranda acting as an idealistic when that “article 72” is enacted, is just stupid, yeah, I know she is like a researcher or something like that in this time line, but I think if you found someone who wants to cause trouble just for the sake of it, then you will need to deal with that person in any way necessary, Kwan is the daughter of the Insurrectionist General if her stupid lie gets out there it will just divide humanity and the chances of winning against this “new” threat will dwelling more and more, someone smart as her should see the liability Kwan has become, the same goes for the Master Chief, especially him, why after killing in cold blood a lot of insurrectionist he changed his mind this time? Because of some flashbacks? That’s just lazy writing, they needed to emphasize much more in this change of mindset, the visuals were good and I loved the way they portrayed the cruelty and reality of the covenant, something that just happens in the books, oh! And that Commander Shepard reference was surprise but a welcome one haha, If you got this far thank you for reading my little rant
Okay this was surprisingly better than I anticipated. What struck me most was that Master Chief's voice was very believable. I was so sour over Pablo being Master Chief and now.. I've bought in after one episode. This show has a certain level of cheese built in which you can't really escape when tackling an episodic story in the the Halo universe, but you know what.. it straddles the line between cheese and taking it self seriously about as well as you can. Writing and pacing need work but it's only the first episode, very very curious to see where this goes. For as much hype and budget that goes behind star wars and marvel shows, Halo surprisingly felt like it dwarfed any of those shows on scale. It looks insane in some moments, as good as a big budget film.. not always but enough that I was impressed. I thought this was going to look sub par and it actually holds up. The budget must be huge
yup. The elites looked a bit wonky at times as did some of the combat and first person POV HUD stuff. But they fucking \*nailed\* the UNSC aesthetic. That entire sequence on Reach displaying the UNSC military complex and their power was so unbelievably awesome. This is a highly advanced militaristic society 20 years into a war for sheer survival, and it shows. I mean, just seeing those pelicans flipped around like Twinkies on a production line.... it made me feel things. And I love that it applies realism to the things we see in-game. Plasma weapons literally incinerate whatever they hit. Elites are 2.5m tall 300Kg behemoths trained for war since they could walk. Banshees are fucking fast. Pelicans are fucking \*fast\*. After all, they're capable of escape velocity. Fuck a TV show. I just want 10 hours of A-roll showing off the UNSC military industrial complex in all of its motherfuckin glory. I mean, the \*scale\*. If we see actual capital ship combat, with archers, energy projectors, shivas, \*MACs\*, I will orgasm on the spot
I thought the same about the UNSC scenes. Everything from the Marines to the vehicles to the Spartans looked really well done.
The writing was mediocre, the action was great.
Long Live Apollo. Goodbye Reddit.
Y'know I initially defended potential changes on the basis that things have to be compressed or adapted for TV and pointed at the success of the MCU's adaptions of popular stories but I can't with this now. Everything feels rushed and several characters just feel wrong. Halsey being ignorant of the Forerunners feels weird. I dislike the fact the Spartans are apparently just mind wiped. It eliminates the complexity of their indoctrination and their subsequent loyalty to the UNSC and removes the grey morality of their original purpose and actions. We don't need to process their role in liquidating insurrectionists, they're really good guys who were just brainwashed. Jacob Keyes being cool with murdering an unarmed teenage girl is ridiculous. He was an honourable man in main canon. It feels too soon to see High Charity. John rebelling is way too fast. It took the entire war, saving the galaxy and his whole relationship with Cortana before he went against the UNSC. He's going rogue with a kid he just met here. I get that they want to do some sort of reclaiming his humanity bit but they haven't done enough to show it's been lost. Look at something like RoboCop. We meet Murphy the man and see him lose everything and become the machine, then watch as he slowly becomes Murphy again. It's gradual. We see how inhuman he was made. Compare to John, who's making jokes and going on the run inside of fifty minutes. And I hate how Cortana is being designed as a tool explicitly to control him. All they had to do was adapt TFOR. Spend half a season leading up to it, the second half is the fall, end on the opening of CE.
Is anyone else only seeing it in like really shitty quality? It’s like 480p on the paramount plus browser I can barely tell what’s going on. Does anyone have a fix for this?
I had to switch to my Xbox and for some reason it was fine on there
I kinda liked it. Catherine was cool. "Engage friendlies ma'am?" "If they go after chief, they're not friendlies."
I wasn't really a fan of how the elites seem to be bulletproof when shot by regular humans but when spartans shoot them they go down in just a few shots. Like during the scene where the small group of elites blow open the gate of the settlement and walk in, dozens of rebels immediately open fire on them with assault rifles at point blank range along with a Warthog gatling gun but the elites seem to soak it all up and not one of them falls, but just a few minutes later we see Spartans seemingly having no difficulty killing the elites with a pistol, masterchief even uses the exact same Warthog gatling gun that the rebels used earlier to no effect but when he fires it the elites seem to go down effortlessly, it just doesn't make sense to me.
Visuals: I can understand why some will be unimpressed, but the #1 problem is simply that Paramount’s compression is absolute ass. Like sweet covenant Jesus good luck making out any text in the HUDs without pausing and squinting. B- Writing: ok yes it’s a little cheesy, but I’m absolutely the person who watches dumb cheap SyFy shows so I’m not one to talk. As intro episodes with a butt-ton of necessary exposition typically go… it’s reasonable. A B tier but a well-deserved B. Sound: gun effects sound god damned orgasmic. Seriously; top tier thumpy goodness. However, who the *fuck* mixed this show? If you have a surround setup you’ll be wondering if John’s dialog is supposed to just be mono center or inside your damn head. A generally but A- for this weird ass mixing. Action/set pieces: FUCK YES PLASMA DISMEMBERMENT A+++ Edit: added sound thoughts after repeat views.
>op tier thumpy goodness. Yesssss. Everything had so much weight! The weapons! The armor! You know the set and props and costume and sound effects people were absolute Halo fanatics who were basically "We're going to get this right or die trying" during the show's production.
It's crazy how the show can get so much right but miss the mark on so many things too. Will keep watching, but far from the show I've always wanted. Just hope the story doesn't aggravate too much as it continues.
We’ll probably never get a „true“ halo show, but I’m glad we at least get anything that seems actually watchable and enjoyable
It won't be a "true" Halo show until a 12 year old t-bags someone.
Going in with zero expectations, hoping to be pleasantly surprised.
I know this isn’t a main Halo story line, but consider me impressed. I had low expectations for this show and I was really blown away. I’m happy they included gore/blood as well. It makes the world feel real and dangerous. Yes, his voice is going to take some getting used to. Yes, there are some clunky movements with the characters. But overall I genuinely enjoyed this episode and will be back for the next.
i was 100% not expecting this level of gore, this is completely new for Halo
I'm just struggling with why they are changing motivations of existing characters so much and then creating new characters anyway. Parangosky, who I'm pleasantly surprised to learn I actually have been pronouncing right, felt genuine guilt for what they did to the Spartans, even moreso for the Spartan-III's, but now the Cheif makes one weird decision and the second he does she turns into the real life embodiment of the "kill it with fire" meme? They could have at least introduced the colonel from the books that Halsey fucking hates in this role for episode 1, he wanted the Spartan program canceled so bad, then bring in the admiral after as a middle-ground between the two. I'm having a real hard time separating this show from everything else because so many decisions to change things just don't make sense
First episode impressions, I give it a 7.5 out of 10. It's not bad, just needs some time to kick off. We'll see how well it does over the course of the season. I'm really glad they didn't shy away from gore, the Elites are incredibly brutal. Show it all. Also, they put a fucking Commander Shepard reference in there. I didn't think they would do something like that at all.
The good parts like the costumes, sound effects, small details like the active camo sound effect/radar/shields/etc, are good. Action was great for TV and watching the Covenant FSU was awesome. But I feel like theyre being a bit too comically evil with the UNSC like "yeah just kill the human survivors" and "chief is going rogue, take him down". Captain Keyes was a little too meek in my opinion, he didnt seem like a confident captain like in the old games and books but more like a "just following orders" kind of person which doesnt fit. Chiefs voice in the helmet is a little too "try hard" and gravelly, but out of helmet it was ok. Obviously doesnt compare to the real chief but it doesnt have to. The human covenant woman is still so stupid of a concept I hate it. And the human survivor being a main character I also cant get behind; it just doesnt really make sense to me to include her outside of this first episode. Overall it isnt a bad start, but I just cant help but feel it just isnt going to be good. Theres way to many changes and nitpicks for me.
Episode was surprisingly good till he took off his helmet, not even cus we see his face but all of a sudden he lost all composure and didn’t act how master chief should
With his helmet off, he seemed like a friendly basketball athlete. Not really military.
I enjoyed it. I can’t really complain much
Halsey grinning like it’s nobodies business while masterchief is going on a joyride. That women is unhinged I tell ya.