Halo (TV Series)

Showtime has ordered 10 episodes of a live action TV series based on acclaimed first person shooter Halo described as their most ambitious series to date.

This is being done in conjunction with Amblin Entertainment, the production company of Steven Spielberg.

If it's anything like the other Halo-based stuff on netflix, not having big hopes.

...I cannot figure out for the life of me, what corporate president sits down one morning, stirs his or her cereal, turns on the TV and think, "dang, you know that 10-year old video game franchise everybody liked back in 2006? I should order a 10-episode live-action version of that!"

I truly hope I am one day successful enough to sit down at breakfast and haphazardly order a 10-20 episode series based on Splatter House or Streets Of Rage.

What part of Halo even needs a live-action adaption? They should should just stick to CG films like Resident Evil.

To be fair, Halo has more material to draw from than what we see in the games. I have little faith in regard to projects like this, but there's always a chance it could be good.

At the very least Showtime tends to have great production values like Penny Dreadful and American Gods so it should still feel like Halo.

FYI, Starz is the one that broadcasts and finances American Gods, not Showtime.

Edited by Buzzinator on Jul 27th 2018 at 7:39:08 AM

How soon before we get a trailer where one of the Spartans says, "Fuck Master Chief!"

Edited by Eagal on Jul 28th 2018 at 12:41:47 PM

Master Chief has been cast, and it’s Pablo Schreiber from American Gods.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/showtimes-halo-casts-pablo-schreiber-as-master-chief-1202661

Tons of COVID delays and restructuring later, the show is now Paramount Plus bound with a Q1 2022 targeted release date.

So the first reviews have come in and they're kinda... ehh

(Maybe get a title change?)

Wow awful. Yikes.

I wonder if the Chevy Tahoe is still there.

Yeah skimming those 16 reviews so far it seems to be a whole lot of "6/10 it's nothing special" and "7/10 it's nice I guess" across the board, which could go either way tbqh but doesn't bode well.

IGN released a video review that got mocked pretty hard because the reviewer complained about how the Master Chief never removes his helmet in any of the episodes he saw and made a disparaging comment about how The Mandalorian should show its title character's face more.

He also said that the series fails to "capture the frantic energy of a Halo multiplayer match" which left a lot of players scratching their heads, wondering if the guy knows the games have a story mode.

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Mar 16th 2022 at 9:40:17 AM

Oh. One of those reviewers, like those two fuckwits from Entertainment Weekly that reviewed The Witcher.

From what I've seen. Its agreed it could be improved later with some adjustments.

Hey who knows plenty of shows start off not great in the first season and get better. Expanse and Star trek next generation are but two examples.

Hopefully, it'll be good enough to get people to come back for more. Which is the million dollar question.

The thing I felt up front was that they were looking to make this show beginner friendly, which is not a bad thing but often results in an exposition slog. It's not the worst thing but shows like The Mandalorian or The Witcher manage to succeed because they spread the exposition in a more natural manner and let individual episodes tell an individual story instead of being part 2 of 10.

The reviews sound like Pablo Schreiber is acclimated well as Master Chief, which is promising.

Naturally we can't have the show launch without at least one major PR disaster for it: Halo TV Show generates backlash ahead of premiere after its showrunner and actors admit they "didn't look at the game".

The direct quotes from the Variety article that sparked this:

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Mar 21st 2022 at 1:58:08 AM

Boy, that'll blow up on their heads. And wonder why people are wary with game adaptations?

So…the show runners and actors weren’t interested in just replicating the games and were more focused on the lore and worldbuilding. AKA: the stuff a TV show would need to focus on anyway.

This is a nothing of a controversy.

Like…they had access to all of 343’s archives and material, they just…didn’t play the original Halo? Why is that a bad thing? Doing a straight lift of a gameplay sequence from the game would be boring as hell in a TV show, so them not feeling constrained by what the game did is probably not that bad an idea? Obviously, reserving judgement, but “we focused on the setting and not the fact that it was a game first” is not really something to care about.

Edited by Zendervai on Mar 21st 2022 at 5:26:20 AM

Ah yes, one of those screen adaptations done by people who not only are unfamiliar with the premise, but didn't even bother to look.

I mean, I can understand wanting to tell your own story but YOU DIDN'T EVEN LOOK AT THE FUCKING GAMES?!

The hiccup here is how much do the games actually matter? I don't mean the game stories or visual designs or whatever (that would be covered by that visit to 343), I mean the actual gameplay. Because that's the thing they're missing and to be frank, I don't think they should be paying much attention to that in general.

Again, I'm reserving judgement until I actually see it, but this is not nearly as much of a red flag as people are making it out to be. Especially since it's already been clearly established as not a direct adaptation of anything and is instead a sort of spinoff timeline.

Edited by Zendervai on Mar 21st 2022 at 7:54:17 AM

My opinion is pretty much this. They straight up said they were actively cooperating with 343 prior to showrunner Steven Kane even saying that line, but everyone had decided to zero in on that instead. I can understand, from my impression of the line, that they don't want to slavishly adapt game mechanics and what not for a non-interactive television series.

In the original Variety article, Master Chief's lead actor even started the article by claiming he started playing the games as a result of being hired for the job.

This situation really screams like the all-too-common manufactured outrage machine pop culture pundits love to spin.

Edited by XMenMutant22 on Mar 21st 2022 at 8:15:31 AM

Yeah, I'm aware of that. I'm at least glad that John's actor played the games so he could know how the Chief is.

I know Halo Legends had a few shots replicating the games HUD as an actual POV of the characters and in a non-interactive environment such an image was immersion breaking rather than immersive. It's a problem with video game adaptations where it becomes a mechanical emulation of the gameplay at the expense of story and cinematic language.

It is admittedly a poor choice of words "We didn't play the game" but the full context is the exact opposite of that. Admittedly, the story of Halo 2 and 3 suffers from Two-Part Trilogy where a lot happens inside of a couple weeks at most. Pacing it out a little further is not a bad idea. My guess is that the show is planning on building up to finding Alpha Halo at the end, where the broad first game story can take place next season.