Posted on Mar 26, 2022
In a new streaming series, the familiar world of 'HALO' needs a little space
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https://www.npr.org/2022/03/24/ [login to see] /halo-video-game-paramount-tv-show-review
Here's what can be confidently said about the new Paramount+ series HALO after viewing the two episodes made available to the press for review: Not much.
At first glance, the central plotline, involving a piece of alien tech that unlocks the main character's memories, is a bit too redolent of hoary science-fiction tropes that have been trotted out many times (RoboCop, Blade Runner, Total Recall, etc.). And if that weren't enough, the retrieved-memory stuff seems to tie into a Chosen One narrative; it's tough to fathom that we're still making those in the 21st century, much less the 26th, when the show takes place.
But there is an an attempt, as there was in the video game franchise on which the series is based, to build a science-fiction universe rife with factions — disparate cultures advancing different goals in a manner that creates uneasy alliances and shifting allegiances. And in the fleshing out of all of that ostensibly chewy conflict, an attempt to create rich, satisfying television.
Rich, satisfying television like say ... The Expanse.
Here's what can be confidently said about the new Paramount+ series HALO after viewing the two episodes made available to the press for review: Not much.
At first glance, the central plotline, involving a piece of alien tech that unlocks the main character's memories, is a bit too redolent of hoary science-fiction tropes that have been trotted out many times (RoboCop, Blade Runner, Total Recall, etc.). And if that weren't enough, the retrieved-memory stuff seems to tie into a Chosen One narrative; it's tough to fathom that we're still making those in the 21st century, much less the 26th, when the show takes place.
But there is an an attempt, as there was in the video game franchise on which the series is based, to build a science-fiction universe rife with factions — disparate cultures advancing different goals in a manner that creates uneasy alliances and shifting allegiances. And in the fleshing out of all of that ostensibly chewy conflict, an attempt to create rich, satisfying television.
Rich, satisfying television like say ... The Expanse.
In a new streaming series, the familiar world of 'HALO' needs a little space
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."But there is an an attempt, as there was in the video game franchise on which the series is based, to build a science-fiction universe rife with factions — disparate cultures advancing different goals in a manner that creates uneasy alliances and shifting allegiances. And in the fleshing out of all of that ostensibly chewy conflict, an attempt to create rich, satisfying television.
Rich, satisfying television like say ... The Expanse.
And that's the problem: The series seems determined to ignore the more than two decades that have passed since the launch of the game HALO: Combat Evolved, and the many science-fiction properties that have, in that time, incorporated many of the game's once-innovative story elements.
The Expanse, for example, burst out of the gate in 2015 by confidently setting a slew of competing interplanetary interests against each other and letting each group evince moral failings, such that we constantly found ourselves rooting for, and against, the same characters at different times. That Syfy (and later, Amazon) series also harbors a pitched distrust of both government and the military, and has featured several plotlines involving the sacrifice of human lives in the interest of political expediency."...
..."But there is an an attempt, as there was in the video game franchise on which the series is based, to build a science-fiction universe rife with factions — disparate cultures advancing different goals in a manner that creates uneasy alliances and shifting allegiances. And in the fleshing out of all of that ostensibly chewy conflict, an attempt to create rich, satisfying television.
Rich, satisfying television like say ... The Expanse.
And that's the problem: The series seems determined to ignore the more than two decades that have passed since the launch of the game HALO: Combat Evolved, and the many science-fiction properties that have, in that time, incorporated many of the game's once-innovative story elements.
The Expanse, for example, burst out of the gate in 2015 by confidently setting a slew of competing interplanetary interests against each other and letting each group evince moral failings, such that we constantly found ourselves rooting for, and against, the same characters at different times. That Syfy (and later, Amazon) series also harbors a pitched distrust of both government and the military, and has featured several plotlines involving the sacrifice of human lives in the interest of political expediency."...
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