It would have been a bold move if the Master Chief of Paramount Plus’ new Halo series had never removed his helmet, and we have to wonder just what sort of person the hulking Spartan in his signature Mjolnir armor really is, as seen in the Case in point is Halo video games. Repeatedly unmasking the Master Chief and highlighting the difficulties he has in processing basic emotions is one of the main ways Halo tries to humanize him as he embarks on an adventure in a universe that is familiar , but is slightly different in terms of continuity. But instead of using Master Chief as a lens to view his war-torn worlds, Halo instead seeks to mythologize him with a story that makes him your default chosen one who doesn’t know he’s anything special.
Although Paramount Plus’ Halo doesn’t immediately attempt to bombard you with dense world-building information, it’s evident from the two episodes made available to the press that co-creators Kyle Killen and Steven Kane both have great respect for the have source material. With a civil war between the United Nations Space Command and groups of insurgents from the off-planet colonies, humanity’s future was uncertain even before the events of Halo’s first season. But things got much more complicated when alien beings known as the Covenant unexpectedly appeared for the first time and established themselves as a powerful, deadly force from beyond the stars.
While the Spartan super-soldiers of the UNSC such as Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 (Pablo Schreiber) were led by Dr. Catherine Halsey (Natascha McElhone) were created to deal with the rebels, their enhanced physical abilities and combat training make them one of humanity’s most effective weapons against the Alliance – a race of two-legged giants armed with weapons and power swords are.
Pablo Schreiber as Master Chief, Kate Kennedy as Kai, Bentley Kalu as Vannak and Natasha Culzac as Riz Paramount Plus
Halo opens amid a Spartan-led assault on a group of insurgents heading left as the Alliance suddenly emerges in a sequence that reveals just how tense the balance of power in the galaxy has become in our day and age. Master Chief and the rest of his Silver Team of Spartans already have orders when we are first introduced to them on the planet Madrigal, where they have been sent to kill freedom fighters like Kwan Ha (Yerin Ha). But when the Covenant arrives in a barrage, Master Chief, Kai-125 (Kate Kennedy), Riz-028 (Natasha Culzac), and Vannak-134 (Bentley Kalu) take it upon themselves to push back the invaders in a combat sequence that establishes , how cruel Halos is ready to become.
People don’t just get shot in Halo – their bodies are ravaged by a hail of bullets, which the camera ensures you never lose sight of in the chaos of battle. Carefully placed spatters of blood remind you all of how vulnerable the people of Halo are to their well-armed enemies, and the brutality with which the Spartans and Alliance fight each other is the show’s way of reminding you, as do both Groups can be seen as monstrous, depending on your perspective.
It doesn’t become clear until later, but the way Halo glorifies and heroically frames its Spartans in the heat of battle is actually one of the most effective ways it telegraphs its larger purpose to get audiences thinking about what it actually is means rooting for or wants to be a character like master chief. Halo wants you to think the Spartans are cool, and the show frequently switches to a first-person view reminiscent of the games to make you feel like you’re part of the battle.
But Halo also wants you to understand how Halsey’s Spartan program robbed the Master Chief of important aspects of his identity in order to mold him into a callous killing machine incapable of truly living for himself or understanding himself. What he does understand, however, is that he’s quite adept at killing horribly rendered CGI aliens, and that he has some sort of connection to a powerful Covenant relic in MacGuffin form, which becomes a larger one as the season progresses in Halo’s story Role play.
A member of the Covenant race. Outstanding plus
Master Chief is initially only very limitedly aware of the depth of the UNSC’s betrayal and Halsey’s willingness to break the law to pursue illegal science, but Halo again displays a significant amount of it to show you how the story is being told becoming is not quite as easy as good versus evil. Although Halsey and John’s unsettling mother-son dynamic is central to their nuanced relationship in the Halo games, it plays out much more two-dimensionally here, in part because Halo is often so zoomed in on the couple. With only so much being told about the history of Halo’s world, it’s hard to understand how much debate there is about the ethics of Halsey’s work and the impact it is having on the Spartans. It’s one of the reasons Cortana’s (aka McElhone’s) introduction feels less like Halo translating one of the franchise’s most iconic characters across media and more like trying to make the character work for television , by removing an important video game context from it .
As Master Chief, a character known for his stoicism and general taciturnity, Schreiber is serviceable—well, actually—at moments when he’s just supposed to stand there and exude intimidating energy. In more emotional moments, however, Halos John suffers from being portrayed as sluggish and somewhat shallow in a way that has little to do with his canonical conditioning. This Master Chief is portrayed as a brainwashed man who gradually remembers the life he led before he and the other future Spartans like Soren-066 (Bokeem Woodbine) were kidnapped by the UNSC as children. Watching someone figure out who they are or were can be interesting when that persona is more than just a souped-up cipher, but that’s what Halo’s Master Chief often feels like: a supercipher whose membership depends on the ability to seeing himself as hypermasculine Space Marines who shoot first and mostly don’t ask questions.
Though Halo is working hard to put Master Chief on a pedestal, a number of narrative choices like introducing foil character Makee (Charlie Murphy), a human who’s been kidnapped and radicalized by the Alliance, feel like Paramount Plus didn’t quite so was sold to him as a concept. That in and of itself wouldn’t be such a big problem if Halo doesn’t tend to feel like yet another episodic epic about humans fighting aliens, rather than a strong, vision-focused adaptation of one of the most beloved Xbox franchises of all time .
Halo will premiere on March 24th on Paramount Plus.