The Halo TV show is way better than you might expect.
Paramount
You might argue that Halo, the upcoming Paramount Plus TV show based on the popular video game, is coming out 15 years too late.
Halo airs March 24th. Although it followed Halo Infinite, arguably the best Halo video game in over a decade, the franchise’s cultural significance has waned since 2007, with the release of Halo 3 and an entire generation of gamers. sat spellbound in front of their consoles to “Finish The Fight”.
Get the CNET Culture Newsletter
Explore movies, games, superheroes and more with CNET Culture. Delivered on Tuesdays and Fridays.
We have since ended this fight. In subsequent years, we finished a few more fights. In fact, most of us, even the most die-hard fans of the Halo series, overact a bit.
Kwang Ha, played by Yerin Ha.
Paramount
The original Halo game, released in 2001, was a vaguely jingoistic tale of heroic UNSC soldiers fighting against a hyper-religious (read: Muslim) alien race known as the Covenant. A race obsessed with activating a universe-destroying ring world, also known as Halo. Even non-gamers will recognize the Halo, a huge ancient weapon designed to destroy all living beings. The game was a fairly simple, well-crafted good vs. evil story designed to effectively lead players to the good part: throwing grenades and firing weapons at an endless onslaught of aliens intent on killing you and the entire human race.
But in 2022, thanks to high-profile TV, a pandemic, and a society much less trusting of authority, this story certainly doesn’t pass the vibe test. Especially jingoistic patriotism and soft space racism. It’s for this reason that the TV show Halo, starring Pablo Schreiber as the Master Chief and Natasha McElhone as its creator, Dr. Katherine Elizabeth Halsey, wisely deviates from video games in several clever ways.
In the series, the Halo soldiers are far from being nice guys. Instead, they are part of a fascist army hell-bent on suppressing human colonies off the planet. The Master Chief is their wrecking ball: a one-man overwhelming army capable of ruthlessly killing aliens and their fellows at the behest of their superiors.
But after touching an alien artifact that unlocks long-suppressed memories, the Master Chief begins to slowly unlock his humanity, pitting him against not only Covenant aliens, but the army that helped create him.
Despite the tropes and some awkward explanatory dialogue, Halo is a perfectly usable sci-fi that borrows generously from other influential series. Its extraterrestrial rebel groups are reminiscent of the Belters from The Expanse, while its central emotional core, the growing relationship between Master Chief and Kwang Ha – the only human survivor of the show’s opening battle – borrows beats from The Mandalorian.
The Master Chief and his fellow Spartans are humanity’s only effective weapon against the Covenant.
Paramount Plus
It’s not necessarily bad. Halo is compelling and moves forward at a friendly pace, clearly battling the source material in fundamental ways in an attempt to make the video game elements work in a new format. Not everyone will like the choice made. After the show’s latest trailer was released, fans were furious to discover that Cortana – the video game AI character – wasn’t blue and transparent like the original.
If this upsets you, then brace yourself. Waiting for the Master Chief to take off his helmet is probably the best example of a show literally and figuratively escaping from the confines of a video game.
But the show is true where it makes sense. Its action sequences are dynamic and incredibly intuitive – even over-violent. Legs torn off, bodies torn in half. At the beginning of the first episode, an alien ruthlessly kills a group of small children who have hidden in a hidden bunker. Fans of the game may remember that Neil Blomkamp was set to direct the Halo movie back in the mid-2000s. District 9 was born from the bones of that failed project, and ironically, the Halo TV show is heavily influenced by Blomkamp and his work.
In the series, the Covenant forces are utterly terrifying and utterly unstoppable until the Master Chief and his squad of Spartans arrive. These meetings do a great job of conveying what makes the game special. Fans complaining that Cortana is the wrong color will forgive it all when they see the Master Chief hiding behind cover, waiting for his shields to recharge.
But ultimately, whether fans like it or not, Halo is at its best when it fights back. Die-hard fans may be outraged by some of his more daring decisions, but it’s undoubtedly for the best. Dialogue aside, Halo is a well-produced TV show with great acting and brilliantly executed sets. Given the history of video game adaptations, I consider this a win.
Halo may be 15 years too late, but better late than never.
Movies coming out in 2022 from Marvel, Netflix, DC and more
View all photos