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I enjoyed it. Feels like a sequel series to the Expanse. I assume that was Forerunner tech that he found?
I don’t mind that they showed his face. That was always just a game thing to make it feel like you were the character. Doesn’t really make much sense here to hide it.
I only watched the first scene with the Covenant Elites attacking that outpost and the Spartans including Master Chief defeating them, i actually may have squealed a bit when i saw the 117 designator on his armor.
Man - it's been a while since i got so excited and nearly jumped up from my seat. Seeing Spartans in live action is so awesome for someone who loves the games and the lore. It was incredibly well done, a little more gore than i expected but it was ok.
Will watch the rest of the episode later and give my full thoughts.
Edit:
So i now watched the rest of the episode and it was really good with few gripes.
Obviously the design and production values are top, the CGI is good and serves its purpose to immerse ourselves in the world ( loved the pullback shot of Silver Team marching through the Reach Base and we see how gigantic it is).
It's also good that they're not retelling the game story scene by scene and trying to do their own thing which leaves some mystery for fans of the games, who know the story already ( or spent the countless hours watching the story videos on Youtube).
I really want to know who that bald woman was in the pod in Halsey's lab and who that human woman is on High Charity.
I am definitely sticking with this series so on to my few gripes.
Big one first - the face reveal. I'm a bit torn on the issue - Mandalorian has proven that hiding the face works because of the storytelling and the 3 times he took off his helmet so far have been amazing scenes.
This one came a bit too early if you ask me but i also get the possible reasoning, i.e. we empathize better if we see an actual actor/face rather than a mask/helmet.
It was also a bit odd that Master Chief would make a joke with someone he just met, it's a bit out of character for a Spartan. This is why i actually loved the scene after the assault on the Madrigal outpost where they just calmly walk out of it despite all those dead humans and the single survivor, seemingly not caring because that part of their mission was done but the entire mission was not complete yet.
The other part that bothered me slightly was why Master Chief would suffocate in his Mjolnir armor - that thing was made to fight in a vacuum in outer space. The second it detected the lowering of oxygen it should immediately switch to internal air supply but i guess the writers needed some drama and ignored that plot/logic hole ( as all writers do when the logic of the show conflicts with something they want to do).
I can't believe this has actually finally aired. We have been hearing about live action Halo for so long.
Hopefully I can find it streaming somewhere tonight.
I'm not a gamer and I'm not steeped in Halo lore. Beforehand I heard they were doing a different timeline which I thought was a great move because that didn't tie them down to all the prior lore and ignite a bunch of internet griping about disrespecting or not following canon. I was judging this as a new science fiction/action-adventure series on its own merits, and I liked what I saw for the most part.
I thought the production values, cinematography for the Madrigal scenes started a little shaky, but the production values got better as the episode went on. That said, I don't think the special effects or cinematography is on the level of Discovery, Picard, Mandalorian, Foundation, or even Raised By Wolves yet. I liked the Spartan suits, weapons, and starships.
I thought the first episode did a good job of introducing a lot of the characters, establishing the character dynamics, as well as worldbuilding. Like the original poster, I did get an Expanse vibe, but also the Bad Batch (particularly the Madrigal scenes). I had read a review before the episode premiered which likened it to Mandalorian and I could see that as well.
I was iffy on Master Chief showing his face-even though I knew it was going to happen. I wasn't expecting it to happen in the first episode. I thought it might have been better to shoot that scene where we only see the back of his head and hold off the face reveal for later.
The weakest part of the first episode for me was the human working with the Covenant. I'm sure that will all be explained, but I thought it might have been better to keep her face hidden for a while. Actually, I don't think they even needed her or that scene in the first episode. High Charity looked cool and the Mercy guy I thought was better rendered than the Covenant warriors that attacked Madrigal. He brought to mind the Trade Federation Neimoidians.
Even the video games were not as bloody and you were carving your way through tons of Covenant and Flood creatures so blown off limbs and blood splattering everywhwere was a bit of surprise for a non-HBO show.
I'm not complaining, it did its job and showed realistic injuries when hit by weapons, you just don't see it often in entertainment.
I'm sure we'll see more Covenant races as the story progresses, especially if and when they reach Halo ( i hope they don't keep that for the last scene of the season finale).
I was interested in the second half than the first half of the episode, but I see what you mean about not looking at it weekly. I will be looking at it until my subscription runs out I suppose, but this series does feel like one that would work as a nice binge.
I also think you could be on to something with the human in the Covenant being a cost saving measure. While looking at the first episode I even wondered what if they had just radically changed the Covenant or created a new alien enemy because I have doubts they can pull off the effects for all of the Covenant species and it could be less expensive, but then I realized if I was a hardcore Halo fan that would be going way too far, and it could then be a legitimate gripe about just making something new or different instead.
I'm really interested in how the series is finally really grappling with the fundamental dichotomy of the Halo lore (or, if I'm feeling less kind, the original sin of the Halo lore), what was intended to be a fairly straightforward "humans are the good guys" video game having a "humans are fascist monsters" backstory grafted on to it by a tie-in novel. Also, it's mostly uncomfortable looks and sly grins by Halsey and J. Keyes, but I'm glad they hit on the fact that Paragonsky is the character who's really into fascism and doesn't just have the misfortune of living and working in a fascist system.
I'd say the biggest contributor to the "Expanse" vibe for me was Burn Gorman talking about the restive outer planets at the beginning of the episode. Guess those Elites should've waited until he built them a post office.
...Cortana. Or, rather, a clone of Halsey that's going to be euthanized and have her brain scanned to create Cortana.
Big one first - the face reveal. I'm a bit torn on the issue - Mandalorian has proven that hiding the face works because of the storytelling and the 3 times he took off his helmet so far have been amazing scenes.
This one came a bit too early if you ask me but i also get the possible reasoning, i.e. we empathize better if we see an actual actor/face rather than a mask/helmet.
In The Mandalorian, Din had a reason to avoid taking off his helmet. In Halo, it's always just been a matter of the Chief's mystique out-of-universe. While it's been said he doesn't feel fully dressed without his quarter-ton of power armor, it's not unusual for Spartans to take their helmets off, or even for the Chief himself to do it in non-visual media, or when his face is out-of-frame in a video game. The fact that the games have ended up being committed to the bit even after the Chief stopped being a blank-slate self-insert protagonist (see "original sin," above) is a weird artifact, and I'm glad the show isn't letting itself be bound by that.
It was also a bit odd that Master Chief would make a joke with someone he just met, it's a bit out of character for a Spartan. This is why i actually loved the scene after the assault on the Madrigal outpost where they just calmly walk out of it despite all those dead humans and the single survivor, seemingly not caring because that part of their mission was done but the entire mission was not complete yet.
Again, I think they're splitting the difference between wise-cracking, one-liner video game Chief and all-business, barely-human child-soldier Chief from the earlier books. So he makes a joke, but he's kind of crap at it.
The other part that bothered me slightly was why Master Chief would suffocate in his Mjolnir armor - that thing was made to fight in a vacuum in outer space. The second it detected the lowering of oxygen it should immediately switch to internal air supply but i guess the writers needed some drama and ignored that plot/logic hole ( as all writers do when the logic of the show conflicts with something they want to do).
I looked to me like they were cutting the oxygen to his suit separately from the oxygen in the main cabin of the Condor (Halsey mentioned keeping enough air in the Chief's suit to let him live, even though she expected it to kill Kwan).
What would be the point of doing that? Revealing Master Chief's face is only a big deal in a metatextual sense, and unless there's something about the internal narrative of the Halo universe from either the games, novels, or this adaptation that would necessitate or justify incorporating metatextual influences, I'm confused as to what would be gained by metatextually emphasizing Master Chief taking off his helmet.
The Prophet mentioned that Master Chief was able to use the artifact just like her, so I assume that they're only using her to activate Forerunner technology since only humans can operate it.
What would be the point of doing that? Revealing Master Chief's face is only a big deal in a metatextual sense, and unless there's something about the internal narrative of the Halo universe from either the games, novels, or this adaptation that would necessitate or justify incorporating metatextual influences, I'm confused as to what would be gained by metatextually emphasizing Master Chief taking off his helmet.
As I wrote before I'm not well steeped in Halo lore, but the fact that the gamers never see Master Chief's face, him taking off his helmet is a big deal. For the story, only Kwan needed to see his face, we didn't. So, you could still have a scene where he did that to help Kwan see he was human but leave the mystery for the audience and a nod to the Halo game/lore fans.
At the very least I wasn't expecting a full-face reveal in the first episode. It's not a big deal for me personally-and the moment they filmed worked-but since this is a Halo show, it's sort of like when Stallone takes off his Judge Dredd helmet, even though Halo's was a better than that.
He takes his helmet off and you can somewhat see his face in the legendary ending of Halo 4, a lot of the story focused on humanizing Master Chief too.
All I knew of Halo prior to this show: OG Xbox Launch game and fan favorite phenomenon which I never cared for one bit, other than the ship and Spartan armor (especially the helmet) look kinda cool and the car/vehicle not. (Forza Horizon 4)
Liked the goofy-gorey-blasting-action from the larger-than-human-life creatures-vs-Spartans.
Would have liked NOT to see dude 117's face just yet, could have filmed the guy from behind, so only the survivor girl actually saw it. (Keeping a bit of mystique and wait for a bigger reveal down the line ala Mando)
Hope the evil "UNC" military lady bites the dust in a bombastic and funny way.
genius/evil scientist who clearly has her own dubious agenda
book reading weird lady from the creatures which they probably kidnapped or brainwashed as well...
= puny normal humans used as tools/canon fodder for both sides....
actually intrigued by the light up memory/flashback inducing artifact,
Fingers crossed the daughter scientist/holo video girl who still actually has some morals, joins the 117 and the survivor's side.
I'm just gonna take in the next couple of episodes to see whether I pull the ejection seat or stick with it.
I watched it this morning, and I really enjoyed it. I've played the first time games, and read a bit about some of the lore from after those two, so I went in with a basic idea of what they're taking things from.
The whole attack on Madrigal sequence was great.
The Spartans, and Master Chief especially look great.
Some pretty good CGI, the Elites and Hierarch Mercy looked pretty good.
I was a little surprised we saw High Charity and got stuff from Covenant characters' perspectives. I expected them to leave them a bit more mysterious for at least a few more episodes.
I knew we were going to see Master Chief take off his helmet, but I didn't expect it so soon. I wasn't bothered by it since it made perfect sense in context.
I'm assuming the woman in the tube that Halsey was looking at is connected to the creation of Cortana in some way.
Is Cortana that much of a controversial, unique thing in the original lore? I had always assumed there were AI like her all over the place in the Halo universe.
Is Cortana that much of a controversial, unique thing in the original lore? I had always assumed there were AI like her all over the place in the Halo universe.
Her creation was illegal. AIs are made by scanning a human brain, traditionally from a deceased donor since it destroys the brain in the process. Halsey created a clone of herself and killed her in order to create Cortana. Cloning is generally only used to clone organs and age them to point where they could used as a replacement for operations. Cloning a full human and aging them is possible but there are enough complications that they usually die within a year. They're usually used in identity fraud or to help cover up the UNSC kidnapping children for medical experimentation.
I'm really interested in how close the show will stick to the game's timeline. It's currently 2552 and Reach hasn't been glassed yet, I'm wondering if we'll see the Fall of Reach.
