I will admit, I was not the biggest fan of Season 1. My primary issue was not them showing Chief’s face, or the rest of his body. Logically, In Universe, John would not have his helmet on literally all of the time, even in the novels the SPARTANs often have their helmets off quite frequently especially in the barracks amongst themselves, and Major Silva has John take off his helmet to give him his attempted dressing down about the superiority of the ODSTs and the alleged failures of the SPARTAN program during The Flood. So that didn’t bug me. Nor did a more conversational and fleshed out John. Again, in the Novels he can be much more verbose than the games and expresses much more personality.
No, what bugged me the most was the show leaned into so many Tropes that the original novels and games avoided.
I read The Fall of Reach back in 2001 before even playing CE, and just enjoyed it is as a great piece of Military Science Fiction. To me, it was a breath of fresh air, especially considering that I was coming from the Star Wars fandom, where despite the now rose colored glasses, revisionist history of the Old EU, it was a Universe that was full of retreads of the same story beats and it never strayed from the basic Sci Fi clichés and Tropes.
So, to have this Universe with these Soldiers who were just consummate professionals, who were dedicated to their cause through loyalty to each, their commanders, their beliefs, it was great. In like virtually every other Sci Fi world, whenever you had a story of super professional soldiers, they almost always had to be brainwashed, or had fake memories implanted, or their minds wiped, had been lied to, manipulated, or misled, and they almost always rebelled, defected, turned on their military, lashed out from anger for their “Stolen lives” or whatever cliché, and those that did not defect, rebel, or turn on their leaders were the "Bad guys."
Sure, you could say in a sense the SPARTANs were “brainwashed" because they entered Training at the age of six, and so, the military was all they knew by the time reached maturity, but, there are martial cultures in our own History, the historical Spartans as the most obvious example, who begin their training at the same age or only a little older. But, regardless, this was different than most other Sci Fi I had read. It felt more real. Like, yeah, of course if you take a kid from his parents at age 6 and raise him to be a soldier, he’s going to be good at it, and dedicated and loyal. Sure, there were some, like Soren, who rebelled and wanted out, but that was the extreme minority, not the majority, like how it goes in pretty much every other franchise. It was even acknowledged that the SPARTANs knew they were taken from their families. No attempt was made to hide that from them or alter their minds or memories to make them “more loyal” it was just the camaraderie and training took the place of their family and they stayed for that and because they grew to believe in each other and their duty.
So I was disappointed that the show felt like it had to go down that well trod path of erased memories, emotional suppression pellets, and rebellion and hatred of Dr. Halsey, but that is what people expect from a story like this. There's a reason it is the trope and the cliché.
Of course, even 343i could not help themselves from retconning the initial version of the SPARTANs feelings towards their training and Halsey and her relationship with them. Original Halsey cared about the SPARTANs, too much, much more than she initially wanted to or expected to as a scientist. Back in the original story when the SPARTANs all wore identical armor with no external markings, only Halsey could tell them apart without a HUD enabled FoF tag, and always called them by their first name, never their number. Halsey tried to kidnap Kelly to save her from the war, because Halsey had become afraid that there was no victory against the Covenant and she did not want her remaining SPARTANs dying in what was beginning to feel like a lost cause. Now 343I depicts Halsey as more interested in Scientific advancements and obsessed with Forerunner artifacts, caring more about her advancements than even the SPARTANs, and the majority of the remaining SPARTAN II and IIIs as bitter and resentful toward Halsey (which side note, Karen Traviss having Lucy hate Halsey so much it breaks her traumatic muteness to scream and rage at Halsey on the Shield World is just, nonsensical, as Hasley had nothing to do with the IIIs and Lucy. The IIIs were all Akerson and Halsey did not even really know about them, depending on what stage of the Retcon we are in.) It’s also funny to me that 343 now also makes everyone in the UNSC and ONI disgusted and angry at Halsey for her methods with the IIs, primarily for the abduction and replacement with Flash Clones and the experimental medical procedures that crippled or killed anywhere from half to 2/3s again dependent on which phase of the retcon, when ONI was directly involved, supportive, and complicit with every step of the program. It’s not like Halsey abducted 150 kids and grew 150 flash clones all on her own without any sort of support staff or UNSC scientific facilities.
Long way to say, that everything I disliked about the show, story wise, has now pretty much already been done by 343 or is in the process of being done by 343, I guess except for John having canonical intercourse.
I also have to wonder about why do we accept some Franchises and Universes being constantly rebooted, reimagined, retold, sometimes with two or more versions going at the same time, like GI Joe, Transformers, Gundam, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Terminator, but is it such an issue when some other Franchises get remakes, reboots, or new versions. Considering even before Bungie left and 343 took over, the Halo Universe was in a constant state of retcon and story corrections, things like the time line for the Fall of Reach up to big things like the intended endings of Halo 2 and 3 explicitly saying Humans were descendants of Forerunners, not a sperate species, and even the nature, actions, and ideology of the Forerunners changing constantly, I honestly do not have an issue with a new version of Halo. Even Bungie couldn’t keep their story straight.
So, are there story beats or characterizations I would change? Sure, but even in some of my favorite movies and shows, media I really enjoy, I could still nit pick and have a different opinion on how it should have been done, or how some dialogue here or there could have made the story better, but that is just in my opinion.
I’m interested to see where the story goes, how they handle the fall of Reach, if we see other SPARTAN IIs, if Akerson’s appearance means we’ll get IIIs and if they will be MIRAGE/SPI or maybe even Silver’s Version of Noble Team, and if we end with a cliff hanger of the Pillar of Autumn’s jump that lands them at Threshold and Alpha Halo.
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