The Halo TV Show Embraces Everything Wrong with Hollywood Adaptations · 9:18pm Apr 6th, 2022
Or, how I got my site canceled by CBS (that, if you’ve not heard, is a jab at CBS issuing takedown demands at Youtube reviews for their new show that were, shall we say, less than glowing).
Hollywood has a long, and shall we say, storied reputation when it comes to adaptive works. Particularly when it comes to adapting properties from the medium of video games. While there have been success stories they’ve both been few and far between as well as confined to the last few years (and often outside of Hollywood’s clutching grasp), leading to … Well, let’s just say I’ve had theories on how Hollywood has managed to take again and again something that seems like a sure bet and screw it up in a way that seems too inept to be anything but deliberate.
Now, with Paramount+’s (already a real fount of originality there) new Halo series, I must once again note that my theory seems more accurate than ever.
I’ll be open up front: This show is a mess.
Actually, let me start with something before that, simply to stave off CBS’s most common current defense, which has been ‘people just don’t like it because they’re desperate fanboys who can’t handle something not being 100% faithful to the original.’
Yes, I grew up playing video games (parents attempts otherwise notwithstanding). Halo came out when I was in high school, and I thoroughly enjoyed it in college and to date still have the Master Chief Collection installed on my PC. I put a ton of time into Halo 5, put my thoughts on Halo Inifinite right here on the site, and so yes, I’ve been a fan of the series for a long time.
However, I am also an author, and no stranger to the rule that yes, you do need to make some concessions when adapting things from one medium to another. I have no “demand” that video game adaptations in film or shows be one-to-one with their counterparts. For example, one of my favorite video game movies to date is Sonic the Hedgehog, which admittedly did have to roll back their utterly horrifying design, but after they did so delivered a great, fun film that was full of heart and laughs while also still being true to the series elements that spawned it. Where there changes? Yes. But those changes worked and we designed in conjunction with the elements that were kept in order to make both come together to a harmonious whole.
Detective Pikachu is another movie that handled this well, staying very true to the elements of Pokemon that could be put on the big screen, while telling a slightly different—but no less fun—plot from most of the games.
Point being, I know sometimes you need to change things to make a story work in a new medium. I also know that there are plenty of time people get their hands on something and change it just to try and make it their own, without regard for whether or not those changes enhance or detract from the final product.
In other words, I’m more than willing to set aside devotion to a “core” setting and embrace changes for a new medium provided those changes are for the betterment of what the audience recieve.
And the Halo show? Hoo boy … This … This is not that. The Halo show is full of changes, and none of them are good. In fact, they’re more on par with “narrative disaster” than anything else. These wholly feel about “change for the sake of change” with no thought or regard to even the show’s own setting and the impact the changes have on it. The end result is a mess of show full of poor direction, plot holes, narrative inconsistency, and changes to the plot that are frankly boggling in their foolishness.
Buckle up and hit the jump, because this is going to be rough.
But at least it won’t be as rough as actually watching an episode of this show.
There's a screenwriting book called 'Save the Cat' which details out just exactly what parts of the movie/tv episode have what sections, how tension is supposed to build, when the reveals go in, etc... Depending on who you listen to, it is either the greatest thing that Hollywood has ever come up with or a soulless abomination unto Nuggan. There is for lack of a better word, an unwritten 'woke' set of points that goes along with it, many of which are on display on the new Lord of the Rings series to pick one example. Or for another, how Starship Troopers just happens to have a sex scene in the middle. (Well, we have this movie about shooting giant terrifying bugs on an alien planet. How do we get the main character laid?)
Sigh.
I was originally interested, but then avoided it like a plague when I learn more about it.
I would also like to thank you for your sacrifice, watching this at least multiple times to learn more and then put it into words so that people like me were interested who have the full, probably has some bias but entirely trustworthy as a whole, picture.