Seriously? Nothing on Murderville?
Philistines.
HALO:
Uh. Honestly not sure what to think here. Part of it is that whole Leo DiCaprio meme seeing stuff like the Marathon logo, hearing the word Pelican, seeing the warthogs, hearing "Wart wart" by the Elites (and calling them Elites, not Sangheli or whatever) thing which is cool.
But - and I dont care about spoilers for this show here because I know most everyone here is gonna hate it by default because Halo is so popular - Some of the changes are odd.
1. Pornstache as the MC. What the fuck is this. Who went into the first table reading and saw this guy and didn't immediately question this decision.
- The voice is off.
- He has a really tall head.
- He takes his helmet off.
- Hes not pale white.
- He has hair and a beard.
- That voice is bullshit.
- That voice is not Steve Downes.
And also the voice sucks. Did I mention the voice? Because it sucks. Also he takes his helmet off.
2. They made Halsey Miranda Keys' mom. Why. Maybe I missed this somewhere in the Halo games? But I dont remember that being the case.
3. Cortana is gonna be an actual living breathing clone of Halsey, instead of an AI? But... thats the whole point of her existence.
4. Scenes where the Spartans run in full gear looks... terribly computer animated.
5. The elites look cool... sometimes. Other times, see #4.
6. They are making the UNSC sort of like an evil government. Again, Im not super versed in the lore other than the games and the Reach book which was great, so I dont remember if this is the case. The UNSC opts to take the MC down using other Spartans and an entire company of marines who are just cannon fodder for Chief.
7. Miranda Keyes looks like shes 15.
8. The obligatory first person view segments. Did we not learn anything from the Doom movie? There aren't many but they are obviously meant as fan service and as usual it comes off really hokey and stupid.
9. The film/video quality seems... cheap. I mean they have Microsoft/343 behind this and they can throw buckets of money at it, but I guess they didnt.
10. There's a human 'traitor' in the Covenant. Not much is shown, but its kinda seems like she was kidnapped as a baby or lab grown so the Covies can 'understand the enemy.'
Stuff that's not so bad:
They made Captain Keys black. The actor they got for him is rad as fuck though I dont know his name. (IMDb says
Danny Sapani.) But every time I've seen him hes been a cool character. Hes way more commanding than some shrimpy white dude.
Its way gory. I dont think thats necessarily anything that makes a show good, but it does show the horrors of war, and battle.
The plasma swords look kinda cool, but still too 'animated.'
Prophets look ok, but also lame.
Analysis:
I will watch the rest of the season because I'm getting em on Sonarr, but I wouldn't get a subscription to Paramount Plus for this after this first episode. If you don't give a shit about Halo, you can skip this. If you like Halo like me, you can probably skip this. If you love Halo up the asshole, you can probably skip it.