Master Chief taking off his helmet in this show is the equivalent of dude dropping his trunks before jumping into a public pool, taking a poop in it, and then splashing about. Everyone else is scrambling to get out at that point.
OG Chief is explicitly the most reserved and tactical of all the Spartans. Part of the charm is that he’s robotic, ironically less human-like than his AI companion. He always keeps his helmet on in the slightest danger, because he’s mission first.
Not only that, the rest of the Spartans can get very chatty and personal. They could have resold the story with some changes. Have a team find Halo instead of just him. Show Reach. Cover UNSC Circumference. Have Chief be Chief.
Also he physically can’t take it off. It doesn’t come off. The things that were done to him – biologically and psychologically – created a vast gulf between those he fights for.
He’s not supposed to be relatable because he’s not relatable, that’s the entire point of his character. John’s arc in the games: “coming to terms with your humanity after war has changed you into something unrecognizable”
John’s arc in the show: “lol. lmao.”He can take it off, actually. He does so at the very end of Halo Combat Evolved. And he gets a new set of armor in Halo 2. I think at the end of 5 you even see his eyes.
But he doesn’t take it off for the entirety of the events on Halo. None of the downtime. Because the mission is still active until his escape. It makes uncomfortable to be out of his armor.
Compare that with most of Noble 6, in some cases to their detriment.
Huh, I was sure that it had to be surgically removed. An area that they had improved in future models.
I’m not aware of any models like that. At the end of CE, Chief takes it off himself. It might be because in some of the later games they show them using a machine to remove the armor. But I think that’s more for convenience since the armor is heavy AF.
What’s the worst, he takes off the helmet and then IMMEDIATELY gets beaned in the head
This is my guff with video game shows. Halo is a great example of a lame ass remake of the actual game, but then twisted everything. My problem isn’t just that they shit on the canon, but that now people will never try the game because they think they know the story.
Compare that to Fallout, which did a great job coming up with a new story that fit the canon in universe. Very fun to watch, and I hope people left wanting to try the games.
All of the direct duplicate of the games annoy me for that reason. I want people to try the games, not see a shitty replacement.
Because the script didn’t start life as a Halo show. It probably started life as an original show that the producers/show runners couldn’t get funding for. Then some had Halo dropped on their lap and adjusted the script to be aesthetically Halo.
The fact thay Halo is well known for taking common tropes and subverting them subtly makes this plan work on a superficial level, but fall apart on a deeper level. In the books Halsey specifically stated that she wouldn’t brainwash the Spartans because if the brainwashing broke, they would be more dangerous than the insurgents they were trained to fight. Something the tv series missed.
I don’t mind changes to fit the medium. The Last of Us Season 1 did a great job of making changes that made sense. Season 2 fundamentally changed a character from the game and was widely considered a bad move.
Just, they need to quit making changes to the reason these characters are popular.
Who changed in The Last of Us season 2? I haven’t played the games but the show was watchable
Besides a lot of unnecessary changes that got rid of iconic moments from the game (or changed them to be less impactful or awkward), they diluted Ellie down heavily. In the game she’s cold, calculated, and ruthless. In the show she’s emotional. I think they tried to keep more of the old Ellie’s personality.
Aside from that, Tommy’s role from the game is completely erased, which was a massive eye-opening context for pre-TLOU Joel, especially for Dina. Not that it’s new information as much as witnessing it.
It’s just disappointing because they did such a good job with season 1. And Bella Ramsey has gotten a lot of flak for bad writing.
Meh watched the first series, it was ok. Personally I couldn’t get over the no helmet thing, I think it would have been better to make him a random Spartan Instead of master chief.
That’s what we all wanted too, they could have followed roughly the same events just with other spartans, but they insisted that they had to shit all over the canon
I’m good. I won’t be watching more John Halo episodes. They should have made it a non Halo story instead of shoehorning a non-Halo story into the Halo universe.
All they had to do was adapt Halo: Reach. that’s it. You want someone the audience can relate to? easy, Noble Six. Coulda literally made that character be anyone because that’s who they are when we play, anyone. you can make it a season or two and gradually one after one the Noble Team kicks the bucket until the end where you can have your nice little reveal of the Master Chief.
For people who played it’ll be neat for them because they know what’s coming and have to relive that emotional roller coaster. For people who didn’t? it’ll be shocking and again an emotional roller coaster. You even have the history with Halsey and all that thrown in.
I mean the mainline Halo story goes off the rails eventually anyways but they literally had an easy layup with just adapting Halo: Reach. Hell coulda just done an ODST show.
This is the most frustrating thing. The halo games and novels have so many spin off stories and niches to fill. They could’ve told their own story in the halo universe, but no.
Or just by not been Master Chief the main character. If the protagonist was another member of the team and MC was there but as a side character the show would be much better.
Yeah.
…But then, where would the marketing appeal be, I guess? Most people probably watched it because of the Halo brand.
HALO in name only
Paramount, as a streaming service, is abysmal.
Assuming it is actually popular on Netflix at the moment (the article is pretty vague and almost reads like an ad), I suppose this is an example of how differently an adaptation can be received depending on who is watching it. This show was panned by most Halo fans (or people familiar with the Halo games) when it aired on Paramount+, but to the casual viewers on Netflix maybe it’s just another decent sci-fi series. I would guess that Netflix has been pushing it quite hard in their algorithms though, since it’s a show that does have the potential to make money for them if it does well enough to stop subscription cancellations between other big shows or even justify a new season. I’m always pretty sceptical of how natural the hype around these trending shows is.
A funny series… if you forget there a game.
Did they fix the problem of alien subtitles not working? Was broken on paramount and I just bailed after all the attempted fixes failed. Shit ton of people had the same problem.
Did they fix the problem of it being an abomination upon the name of John Halo who died for our sins?
Still the best Halo video: https://youtu.be/SyOAdrxlPVs
