Halo: The Series Discussion Thread

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Cadet

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With the impending World Premier , please use this thread for discussion of Paramount+'s Halo: The Series.

Be mindful that not everyone has the ability to watch the episodes at the same time as you do and be respectful that they want to enjoy it as you did - spoiler free, so Please place all potentially Spoiler Content in Spoiler Tags.
 
Mixed feelings is also how I would describe myself.

The Covenant attack was great. Really captured the abject terror that would surround the Covenant. We are so used to playing from Chief or another SPARTAN's perspective in game that it is easy to forget how massive and terrifying the Elites would be in "rea life." They nailed that.

Chief defying orders and going AWOL, I felt was handled poorly and did the character a disservice. In Game and previous lore Chief was the Consummate Professional Soldier. Never cruel, never vain, never selfish, a professional who really believed in his job of protecting Humanity and stopping the Covenant. That was why his first disobeying of Orders in Halo 4, and then going AWOL in Halo 5 were such big deals, and why it took something as important as his relationship with Cortana which had been built up over the previous 3 games to do it. It was so out of character, such a drastic character shift that it had to be earned by a long standing, personal, close relationship. For him to throw it all away for a teenager he just met felt . . .weird. It's such a Trope, and the games avoided it until it was earned and Nylund's novels avoided but with a deft hand and clear understanding that for it to happen to Episode 1 felt like it was done for Shock Value and to broadcast that this is not the Halo you knew or were expecting.
 
Most of the reviews I've seen read like every critique of "The Mandalorian" after episode one. "It will never last", "the guy is a quiet bland loner"... etc.
I'm not a gamer. My last game was a quarter operated arcade game in the 80's. So I wasn't burdened with having a huge amount of game history and canon to compare it against. It was all new to me so judging solely on its own merits, or lack thereof.

The airplane physics in space with gravity at a right angle to direction of thrust, of Trek and Wars is something that sucks but i don't expect proper physics from any show after The Expanse. And again, they have to conform to the existing canon/mythos so they are stuck with this and can't really blame the show for it.
My issues with the show were its inconsistencies even within its self.
First battle example: The machine gun had no effect on the aliens when the rebels used them while truck mounted. But when Master Chief carries it Jesse Ventura style (Preditor movie), suddenly it mows them down. How does that work?


Then there is the "just doesn't make sense for 500 years in the future" stuff. come on... AK47's at that point are... 600 years old?
Its the year 2500 and the guard towers don't have radios or coms back to the buildings and generals: they have to send a little boy as a runner. WTF?


The Spartan throws down the enemy energy weapon that clearly does an effective 1 shot head-melt, in favor of her .45 sidearm that takes 6-10 rounds? Screw that, you keep that s.o.b., use it until it runs dry then let the lab geeks reverse engineer it.

Programmable super soldier starts to get his humanity back and goes rogue.
Okay. Soldier (Kurt Russel) meets Robocop. I have no issue with that really. I mean from Firefly to Mandalorian doing westerns in space works. I see no reason this proven formula can't work as well.


But if they want to overcome the inertia of their own history, win over a huge demographic of pissed off gamer fans and at the same time pick up new viewers - they need to at least do a better and more logical job of writing the scripts and maintaining consistency.

 
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Replying to some stuff:


I am OK with inconsistencies to the games. They announced ahead of time that it's not the same timeline, which to me, means they can take some liberties with how stuff works too.

That being said, similar to SgtSaint's observation about the mounted turret, there were some significant inconsistencies about the weaponry. I had a similar qualm with the head-exploding plasma pistol, but I can only assume that the shield was already depleted and that the Elite was already somewhat injured, in which case, a charged plasma pistol would be a 1 hit (I think). It would have been better tho if she had charged it and shot him and we saw his shield drop, then one-shot in the head with her pistol. Would have been a nice shoutout to the games. Also, are
we thinking these are magnums or sidekicks? I couldn't get a great look at it though I thought it looked more magnum. As I recall, the sidekick is a little less OP than the OG magnum right?



I thought they did a good job making insurrectionist guns that looked enough different from modern day guns without making them too fancy. I think the idea is that they are not as clean and pretty as the UNSC guns, but aren't painfully obvious as modern guns. They could have gone ahead and invented a bunch of future crappy guns to do this, but I get why they just did some simple visual modifications on modern ones. There's no reason to think that just because it looks similar to its contemporary AK grandpa, that its not got improved internals and materials equivalent with 500 years of development. On a similar note, the insurrectionist base is supposed to be low-tech and undersupplied. I mean not having any kind of comms seems a little extreme for the not-as-distant-as-you-think future, but I think they were trying to make it look like a rag-tag team of rebels fighting against the odds and overwhelming superiority of the UNSC. Also I think they were trying to emphasize the fact that there were families/kids on this base, not just soldiers to make it more humanizing. Also, you could think maybe they built that place themselves, with the little resources they had salvaged from other stuff and electronics weren't really abundant during that process?



Personally, I was disappointed with the Chief's decision to run away with the kid. I mean, how many stories do we need about an unfeeling male soldier type who unintentionally becomes an adopted Dad to some kid with a traumatic backstory? I get that its the thing right now, but it would have been better if the Spartans had made a scene and the marines wouldn't shoot at them (knowing it would be a very bad decision) and then escorted the kid to Halsey. I just hope this show doesn't go off to become Master Chief and the girl vs the world. I want more UNSC vs covenant action! I want more politics about the insurrectionists! I want more story about the Spartans and cortana project! I don't want The Mandalorian in Halo universe.



Although I LOVE the Mandalorian and The Bad Batch, I don't think every new show needs to follow that paradigm. Ooh, and the Witcher- same thing!



OH! also, when Chief is talking to the girl after taking his helmet off he's staring straight ahead and the girl is obviously like 4 feet shorter than him. Was he intentionally not looking at her bc he was really talking to the UNSC ppl who were spying on him? or was that just a filming oversight? Really made me mad when I saw it, but now thinking about it maybe it was on purpose...

Overall LOVED the first action sequence, LOVE that big dude in the EOD helmet, LOVE chief's armor, meh on how poorly he sinks his rifle into his shoulder but that's probably pretty hard with big bulky armor on (and he doesnt exactly need to for recoil management). I am hopeful for the show and enjoyed the first episode a lot!
 
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FalseShepherd
OH! also, when Chief is talking to the girl after taking his helmet off he's staring straight ahead and the girl is obviously like 4 feet shorter than him. Was he intentionally not looking at her bc he was really talking to the UNSC ppl who were spying on him? or was that just a filming oversight? Really made me mad when I saw it, but now thinking about it maybe it was on purpose...
Interesting you saw this. I noticed the same thing happening in a couple episodes of Star Trek Discovery. Tall guy standing on a ridge talking to short guy in a gully - but looking ahead not down - so would be looking right over the top of him. Because, to me, it gave that right photographic profile with the 1,000 yard stare and avoided a double chin on the actor. Here I got the impression it was just the director loosing track of the scene. You set up and do all your North facing shots meaning one side of the conversation. Then flip all the gear around and do all your South facing shots for the other side of the conversation. Then splice it post production. And in the process the director forgot about the ergonomics of the people and composition of the scene.

I don't want The Mandalorian in Halo universe.
I know, right? I cringed when they even went for the helmet aspect with "So do you ever take that off?" and MC replies "It routes all my {...}. I need it." I was just certain right there that we were getting another 'I never take off my helmet' leading man. The cowboy that never takes off his hat. It was good to see instead they used it to emphasize the gesture he was making by taking it off when he did.

I also think they're leading up to using that as a plot device and visual queue. Did you notice we never saw the faces of the other Spartans even when they were getting into the gimbals to get suited up? All the shots are crafted to hide the heads/faces. I think the intent here is to keep them de-humanized. As long as they are more machine than person and still under remote control they don't get a face. When they break free of their programming that's when the face will be revealed. Same thing as in the original Robocop until the face sheild comes off. Or in Soldier you never see Sgt. Todd {Kurt Russel} blink until its a pivotal transition in his emotional state: IE: Has an actual emotion for the first time. Or even Darth Vader gets a face once he is redeemed. Now they are a person.
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This Forum does feature "Spoiler Tags." All you have to do is click "More Options: and then Spoilers, or you can manually use the tags [*Spoiler] and then [/Spoiler*] (with out the asterisks *) to hide your content behind the tags, preventing someone from accidently seeing your spoiler content as they are scrolling.

Please utilize this feature to post Spoiler content in the future.
 
This Forum does feature "Spoiler Tags." All you have to do is click "More Options: and then Spoilers, or you can manually use the tags [*Spoiler] and then [/Spoiler*] (with out the asterisks *) to hide your content behind the tags, preventing someone from accidently seeing your spoiler content as they are scrolling.

Please utilize this feature to post Spoiler content in the future.
Roger that boss. I saw you did that and had no idea how ... I will try. Although I will say that the "Halo: The series discussion thread" should be a big enough spoiler warning.
 
Roger that boss. I saw you did that and had no idea how ... I will try. Although I will say that the "Halo: The series discussion thread" should be a big enough spoiler warning.
You can also click on the Spoiler Tag option, as shown below and it will do it for you automatically.
SpoilerTag.png


Not everyone can watch the show at the same time, and it isn't even available in some countries yet, and there are certain aspects that can be discussed, without Spoilers, such as armor, weapon, and Covenant creature deigns that are relevant to our interests as a Costume and Prop building community, that do not relate to Plot or Lore spoilers that ruin a surprise or a twist for those folks who haven't watched it yet. And that is what the Spoiler tags are for.
 
SgtSaint


I also was thinking that they were going to use the helmets as a symbol of their devotion to their programming but I never thought about Spartans as being programmed like that. I always thought they were maybe a bit brainwashed, but not programmed like clones in Clone Wars.

I also felt like they jumped to UNSC command making morally questionable choices a little too early. It set up that the UNSC is actually bad, and that's just such a different feel than the games. You kind of wonder that as you learn about the Spartan project and whatnot but generally the UNSC is portrayed like a real military just trying to protect humanity. Although admittedly I haven't read any of the books so I don't know if they portray things in a different light. And it could be really interesting if later in the show we see the reason for some of these choices and maybe can see the logic in them, thus creating that two sides of every conflict thing. Yeah we ordered you to kill the girl's mom, but the girls mom had the bomb and was planning to blow everyone up. Or something ya know?

Let's see if that worked... Hah! It did. Thanks Cadet
 
Cadet Thanks for the tip on the spoiler tags. I retconned my earlier posts in this thread.

FalseShepherd
I also was thinking that they were going to use the helmets as a symbol of their devotion to their programming but I never thought about Spartans as being programmed like that. I always thought they were maybe a bit brainwashed, but not programmed like clones in Clone Wars.
Symmantics. 6 of one, tomato of another. Programmed, brainwashed. Cult followers are brainwashed but you get 'de-programmers' to help bring them back to reality. I think we're both saying the same thing - keeping in mind 500 years of tech where they can actively erase/block memories then teach/raise you to the ethics they want. In this case the brainwashing includes actually bleaching out what you don't want first.
 
Cadet Thanks for the tip on the spoiler tags. I retconned my earlier posts in this thread.

FalseShepherd

Symmantics. 6 of one, tomato of another. Programmed, brainwashed. Cult followers are brainwashed but you get 'de-programmers' to help bring them back to reality. I think we're both saying the same thing - keeping in mind 500 years of tech where they can actively erase/block memories then teach/raise you to the ethics they want. In this case the brainwashing includes actually bleaching out what you don't want first.
I think there is a real difference. Like brainwashing is an extreme form of convincing. We def have some memory suppression and whatnot but I see it as keeping their free will in tact. It's ideological power albeit inflicted.

As opposed to programming like we see in Star Wars with the clones where they have no control over their actions when activated. Which is using force to make them do what they want. I mean there's def some up for discussion about the clones but that may be for a different thread. Point is free will vs lack of free will.

Like canonically, Spartans were kidnapped from a young age and then grew up in the Spartan program. That was their life and so they believe whole heatedly in the system and whatnot. Some memory supression def happened but it's not like they manipulated their brains in such a way that they can't disobey orders. They just choose not to because they believe in the system. At least that's my take. I am admittedly not too informed on the expanded universe for halo or any details contained therein.
 
Like canonically, Spartans were kidnapped from a young age and then grew up in the Spartan program. That was their life and so they believe whole heatedly in the system and whatnot. Some memory supression def happened but it's not like they manipulated their brains in such a way that they can't disobey orders. They just choose not to because they believe in the system. At least that's my take. I am admittedly not too informed on the expanded universe for halo or any details contained therein.
Correct, the SPARTAN-II candidates were taken at age 5/6 and then raised in the program on Reach. The only real memory suppression that occurred in the Game EU was the natural fact that most people don't have a lot of strong memories from that young. In the novels John has dreams where he thinks he remembers his mom, but it is just a shadowy figure that inevitably morphs into Dr. Halsey.

Of all the Modifications and enhancements done in the program, none were memory modification or even any kind of subliminal programming.

So, I would say it was more Indoctrination than anything else. Just being raised from a young age completely immersed in that World. Being raised from 6 to be soldiers. Just like there name sakes the Historical Spartans.

Now, we are dealing with a different time line and Universe here. It is fair to say we don't know if the Silver Timeline will be different from the previous shared Book/Game back story and maybe the Silver SPARTANs did undergo a more extensive memory and personality treatment than the Game ones who were simply raised to be soldiers. We will have to see if they explore that possible difference.
 
*in the context of this thread* for the series though...
Don't we get a hint of what happened to the 'candidates' with the phrase from Madam President (or whatever) to Halsey with
I thought you blocked those memories.
?
Maybe not game canon - but from a purely show perspective that seemed to indicate that some level of direct mental manipulation had taken place. And hints to the level of capability because those memories were blocked, not erased.

Afterthought: Kinda has the feel of Universal Soldier where they keep getting wiped after each mission then put on ice until needed again - otherwise you'd build up a level of interaction with people that the (TV) military doesn't want. Or at the very least kept segregated from the rest of the population-building a tight bond between their own kind but not 'norms'.
 
I really enjoyed it and can't wait for tomorrow's episode but some things that come up after the first time watching are pretty jarring. I won't go into detail since those things have already been mentioned.

There is one thing that I absolutely loved, though.

"Commander Shepard, you are requested at the Skillian Response Center."
 
Little late chiming in on episode one.

I'd seen a lot of clips prior to watching it in full. I had doubts based on what I had seen but now that I've seen it I actually quite liked it.

I was most surprised to see Miranda so soon. Seeing her and Jacob interacting was nice and I hope they take care when developing both their characters. I'd be down with both Keys kicking butt and taking names in space combat.

I was also surprised they opend with the attack on the innies. Thought the elites looked good and would have been okay with them staying out of sight just a bit longer to build suspense and stick with the idea that their enemies don't deserve to witness them. Same gripes as y'all mentioned above with the weapons not really doing anything to them. It almost seemed that the elites had super strong shields that didn't recharge. Even though John's shields dropped and recharged on cue. I saw that when papa Kwan made a stand against the red (major?) elite his AK rounds were impacting his armor. This is after he got lit up but the turret so maybe something broke and the UNSC just have hotter ammo?

High Charity and all the CAS carriers look freaking awesome. I love me some well done covie ships. I don't know where I heard this first but I feel the idea of a human among the Covenant was passed around ages ago. And I'm also ok with what this implies. What did the prophets do to turn her? What did humanity do to turn her?

I also agree with Master Chiefs decision to help Ha was too soon. The reason behind it is fine for me, remembering that he was torn away from his family and turned into a spartan would do that. Of course in OG cannon he never forgot, adopting the "our suffering in the spartan II program is the only reason humanity is still fighting. And that's fine" mentality. As it was mentioned there's there's reason the games took so long to show this idea. Seeing Halsey brush past mention of her daughter and focus on Chief was fitting. Curel, but fitting. I wasn't a fan of silver team at first. Even started calling them "not Fred, not Kelly, not Linda". At the end when Soren? The big guy in EOD, was like" that's our boy, none of these marines will touch him" I started appreciating them a whole lot. But christ is it hard to hear the spartans when they talk. It's like they stuck the mic in the helmet rather than recording the voices and adding a filter or something. That is actually my biggest gripe with the episode. The sound editing. I turned into my mother asking what everyone was saying. I watched the official YouTube release on my phone if that has anything to do with it. Ha also had a mic pop while on the condor too! [After restoring my audio settings and playing the sound through my phones speakers it would seem that something on my end is off. This could just be my ears going bad or some issues with my phone. The audio sounds clearer and more pronounced using the equalizer settings I usually do through headphones.] Some of the cg was also questionable. While I know not everything can be practical effects, there was a whole video on all the props and design effort on making weapons. Why was the AR cg'd sliding across the dirt if there are physical props available?!

But oh boy did those marines, warthogs and pelicans look clean. Pelicans are so cool man
 
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s01e02

John goes to The Rubble. Soren was not expecting him. But Soren is in his armor.
Its been 22 years. Has Soren been wearing the same body suit and armor every day for 22 years? His wife never once said "Hey Honey, how about a pair of jeans for every day. I thought you wanted to leave the UNSC behind you.

As a show-only viewer with no game history behind me maybe I'm missing something here about the armor.
When John pushes the loaded fork-lift he had no bracing. It doesn't matter how strong the suit is if the soles of his shoes are going to slide. Is there an implied level of magnetic boots going on here? Otherwise how is he overcoming the resistance of the pallets and forklift tires against the floor?
 
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S225
But christ is it hard to hear the spartans when they talk. It's like they stuck the mic in the helmet rather than recording the voices and adding a filter or something.
Huh. I'm not having that issue. Watching on nothing more than the built in speakers of a Visio 70" 4k with virtual surround turned on and it sounds really good. Spartans under helmets are very bass-y but I can understand them just fine and I'm 55. Do you have your entertainment system set to "bass boost" or something for when you're listening to music? Because if you're going for strong bass thump, then add that deep bass they're using it could be everything Spartan is coming purely from your subwoofer.


It almost seemed that the elites had super strong shields that didn't recharge.
I'm *choosing* to think this way as well. Otherwise you can't explain the one being impaled by a dull end of pipe.


there was a whole video on all the props and design effort on making weapons.
Do you have a link for that?
 
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