Halo series review is off to an unspectacular and boring start

In the year 2001, the world of video games had an evolution, nobody imagined that the developers of Bungie (2001-2010) would bring to the consoles a project that, although it is not new, has been very successful.

The HALO multimedia franchise has had good games and great moments, its protagonist Master Chief Sierra-117 “John”, an imposing super-soldier known as “Spartan”, who was raised and trained since childhood for combat, is very rarely seen. seen without his armor and helmet, he is commonly referred to by his naval rank rather than his birth name.

The story of its original trilogy focuses on a futuristic interstellar war between humanity and a race of aliens known as The Covenant, in this 2022 Paramount plus premieres a live-action series based on this popular game.

What is the series about?

In the 26th century, humanity is under an alien threat known as the Covenant, a group of Spartans led by Master Chief will have to face them while personal stories, adventures, and a vision of the future are revealed as we have not seen it before. and it will be this group that will put an order and preserves what remains of our civilization.

It is very interesting to know that this series is an independent story inspired by the video game franchise instead of a continuation, adaptation, or prequel, years they have tried to bring this to the big screen without much success, we understand that the planning for something like this It is extremely difficult because recreating digital graphics is not the same as doing it with real actors and scenarios.

Over the years the idea faded and lost interest among its followers, video games and spin-offs of the same, action figures, novels, comics, animated films, posters, t-shirts, and endless allusive products have been in the market. the market for many years and in part this has served to keep the franchise current because the idea itself no longer goes far or has not been in the right hands.

In this series as well as in the graphics the Spartans like Master Chief are surgically enhanced soldiers wearing high tech armor but, unlike what we see and know from the games, these elite soldiers are not treated as heroes but as a threat, relentless assassins whose only mission is to leave nothing alive and this is because, after the post-war era, the UNSC (The United Nations Space Command) created a new generation of Spartans, which caused the discontent of the rebellious colonies.

The most recent Halo Infinite game was well received by its fans, but here there is no longer that unconditional enthusiasm that the franchise reached in its best days with the original Xbox and Xbox 360, and here we have to ask ourselves, has the franchise already given everything it had? What to give and is this television series a reboot that positions it again as one of the favorites? The immediate answer that can be given after seeing the first episode is a resounding “no”, what they offer us here is a work of science fiction that must be polished and shined so that it has its own identity and personality outside of the video game and of everything we know.

What we see is not canon to the games at all, it is an alternate timeline set solely for this show and works under its own rules, allowing creators to mix or match known concepts in the games, in the novels and comics, and in anything they consider appropriate to present in this new medium and above all, to attract those who do not know or know about these characters and this peculiar world.

In the first minutes, they establish the tone that the series is going have, we meet the character of Kwan Ah (Yerin Ha) the daughter of a general who leads a settlement on the planet Madrigal that is dedicated to the extraction of heavy waters and that seeks its independence from a government that she considers unjust and tyrannical, she is a girl who has the problems and joys of any teenager but it will not take long to discover some beings that she has never seen and that is extremely agile and dangerous, and oversight costs her the life of 2 of her friends and the entire colony including her father, this fact will put her next to the Master Chief, Spartan John-117 (Pablo Schreiber).

The Covenant are implacable beings, born killers who search this planet for an ancient artifact that will give them the advantage over humans to conquer the universe and enslave or kill anyone who opposes it, the fight for regions in space is an of their great motivations since they believe they are a superior race to any, their technology is advanced which allows them to become invisible if required, the use of their energy weapons are precise at the time of action and combat, little is known He knows about these beings and more in colonies so far away that they live as nomads with vestiges of a civilization that has evolved from past ages.

To give strength to all this, the series has to comply with the rules and that is, put a bit of drama into the action, in this case, it is a girl who is the only survivor of the colony who by some strange chance what will be the rest of his life will be conveniently linked to this Spartan and the means to do it is very simple, in the cave where they found the Covenant we see that strange ancestral artifact and I emphasize ancestral because that is how it must be, why the hell? We still don’t know, when Master Chief touches him to take him away he begins to remember things that the UNSC forced him to suppress, among what he sees as a flashback is his childhood and his family whom he lost a long time ago what it means and what does it mean? why not? a problem for the UNSC scientist Catherine Halsey (Natascha McElhone) the creator of the Spartan program and her superior Admiral Margaret Paragonsky (Shabana Azmi) while one worries about not being able to control her best living weapon, the other is doing experiments not authorized to further improve this elite of soldiers, when they try to force the Master Chief and Kwan to return to the base for an interrogation in which one of the 2 could be fatal and as expected the attempt fails and the two escape and they go to a point unknown by their pursuers in the galaxy to presumably discover who they are and in turn stop this alien threat.

In this first episode many things happen very quickly, and let’s go to that, we have already seen the secondary characters who will die, the future co-star, death, and more death in which they have not cut a hair in putting people exploding or being mutilated, the presentation of Master Chief is nothing spectacular because we already saw it coming, the Covenant, although imposing, do not look so believable, there is an ancient artifact that will make some powerful blow and that will be linked in some casual way to the protagonist, there is a cloning project that will presumably have something to do with Cortana who we have not yet seen and I do not know if we want to see Makee (Charlie Murphy) a human raised among the Covenant who will surely be a kind of chosen by the strength to give balance to some bullshit that they justify with nothing but that has to be important.

The planet Madrigal series 4 that belongs to the outer colonies of the unified government of the earth and that is where Kwan lives is not only dedicated to the extraction of heavy water but is also the source of an energy source that is used for everything, from propelling starships to as a drug (I mean, very useful shit) with all these elements the first episode entitled Contact is a smorgasbord and without form of easter eggs and references for fans of the franchise, from action sequences to those who like this genre, a space science fiction for those who also like this, because we have the hero and the monsters that kill good people and establish them as the bad bastards and above all, we see in live-action and that is not a novelty because we had already seen it before in Halo: Landfall (2007), Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn (2012) and the web series Halo: Nightfall (2014).

As fans of these characters we have to be objective and recognize the following, the series pretends to be impeccable but it is not, this is not a good job, what makes the Halo franchise attractive in its video games is that it has the ability to put the player in the place and be the protagonist, this action is in a first person perspective and that mystery that is under the helmet and here no time is wasted in taking it off and seeing the actor Pablo Schreiber, something that The Mandalorian knew how to do very well because although we knew it was Pedro Pascal and that secret was justifiably kept, here Master Chief does not need to be a sad man wearing a high-tech suit but of course, he had to give him that dramatic / family element to empathize with him and that we think as an audience, poor Master Chief, he didn’t want to but they forced him and he is a victim of circumstances, oh we’re going to continue to see what happens to him because again, poor thing, as if taking him away and putting on the helmet every time was a key and important element for us to care, gentlemen of Paramount, that does not matter to us at all, what we want to see is this bastard with a helmet doing what he knows how to do better than in an absurd drama that we can see better carried out in other series or movies or in any other medium, what we want here is to see action.

We cannot deny that the action sequences are well done, and I say well done for any basic standard of the genre that it occupies, but that they are not even close to up to what has been seen in video games, this is a big problem that has this series, that it is inevitable not to make the slightest comparisons and if we add to that that one must know the basics of the most basic to understand what it is that we are seeing then things have already started badly, what we see does not have absolutely that feeling of the game or that emotion and it is not because it is not played in the first person, it is because this wants to be as ambitious or more than its original and wants to quickly capture the attention of whoever is watching it and say , “hey this isn’t the video game but the characters are, hey this action isn’t from the video game nor are you the main character, hey what you see is an adaptation and don’t expect to see something like what you already know because there won’t be and if you don’t know him and So it’s what it is and you’re screwed, hey we’re not trying to create a fanservice but yes but no but let’s see if it works out and if it doesn’t work out then sorry but we’re not complacent”

It is supposed that seeing this iconic character already inaction should be its greatest attraction and move us to the point of applauding that after so many years of waiting we can finally see it in all its splendor and that does not happen, unfortunately it does not happen and once again They have elements that they don’t know how to use because, as I said at the beginning, it’s not in the right hands and so this series goes in a very different direction from what we know and that doesn’t mean the approach has to be good, the stories of the novels cite to an important political drama that complements and justifies the story that is presented, this Halo aims to reach a different audience on the small screen although apparently this does not satisfy anyone if the showrunners were looking to impress the unconditional fans of the franchise by making clear and precise references to planets, sounds and characters that is fine but you have to respect its rules and adapt them in favor of it and not the other way around.

Visually I cannot explain to myself why if we are in the year 2552 in this colony there are vehicles from 2018, or why they live as if they came from the world of Mad Max, the recreation of the future that we see is not even remotely similar to what is already He did, however, the armor that should look spectacularly real looks more like cosplay than like those feared and reckless Spartan soldiers on their missions, the Covenant who have a good distance but their CGI is the most brazen and poor for a production of this level, the ships are there and we see them little, the special effects are far below what would be expected, so far there is nothing that we can say that is outstanding in terms of recreating this world.

The cast we see features Pablo Schreiber, Shabana Azmi, Natasha Culzac, Olive Gray, Yerin Ha, Bentley Kalu, Kate Kennedy, Charlie Murphy, Danny Sapani, Jen Taylor, Bokeem Woodbine, and Natascha McElhone who are doing what they can with what they have, the director of this first episode Otto Bathurst along with the writers and creators Kyle Killen and Steven Kane are not very clear that it is not much you can change these characters without losing their identity, as a script it is very good for any other series but not for this one and it’s simple, you have to have respect and be very careful with what you do or Halo stops being Halo to be anything else with the elements of Halo which is playing dirty with the franchise and its followers.

The executive producers are noteworthy Justin Falvey, Darryl Frank, Steven Kane, Kyle Killen, Otto Bathurst, Kiki Wolfkill, Frank O’Connor, Bonnie Ross, Karen Richards, Toby Leslie, Scott Pennington, and Steven Spielberg, the latter being the who has been interested in this project for years and it is not surprising, the man has done great things in the cinema and little else on television but here we see that he is far outside the medium he knows and although his last name weighs in the industry entertainment that is not enough to attract viewers.

The music composed by Sean Callery is based on what the video game composers did before, although this is an imitation and not a tribute, it seems that it is the only moderately redeemable and that it has to do with its original.

In conclusion, Halo as a series must present its elements very well so that it can be an independent product and not just an attempt to bring a product with apparent quality, it must have that soul that has made it popular for decades and that it be something outstanding and worth to watch.

Halo is now available on the Paramount + platform