After years of development, Halo finally arrived at Paramount+, premiering on March 24, 2022. Based on the popular video game series of the same name that began in 2001, Halo follows Master Chief (Pablo Schreiber) as a spartan super soldier in an interplanetary war set in the 26th century between humanity and an alien hive known as the Covenant. Given the popularity of the games, with Halo: Infinite hitting shelves in November 2021 just six months before the series release, Halo was a major show for fans of the games and for Paramount+, which is looking to build its subscriber base. The streaming service had such faith in the series that it was renewed for season two before the first episode even premiered.
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Following the series premiere, it has received mixed reviews from critics and fans of the game alike. Some have praised the series for attempting to be a standalone story not reliant on the game’s material, while others have claimed the series relies less on the games and more on the extra lore from various other forms of Halo media. The series has opted to tell its own story, apart from the main series canon in its own timeline, called The Silver Timeline. The series currently is in the middle of its season one run, and there are some positive elements to the series while there are some points where it has missed the mark. Here is everything that does and does not work about the original Paramount+ show, Halo.
What Halo Gets Right: The Feeling Of The Game
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While Halo does not attempt to adapt the video game storyline, what the series does do is adapt the feeling of playing the game. The series premiere episode’s opening action sequence finds creative ways to integrate many beloved elements of the games into the visual language of the series, most notably when the camera switches to a POV shot inside the spartan helmets almost perfectly recreating the first person point of view of the video games.
The TV show has the violence and gore one would expect from an adaptation of an M-rated video game series, and even the sounds from the games, from the weapons to the sound of a critical low health bar on the shields, makes their way into the series. This attention to detail really helps the series feel less like just any science fiction series and like a uniquely Halo story.
What Halo Gets Wrong: Unmasking Master Chief
It is common knowledge that masks make it hard to emote on film, hence why many superhero characters with full masks like Spider-Man end up taking them off in their films. That inability to emphasize and connect with a character is normally used to great effect in horror films with the mask of characters like Jason or Michael Myers making them seem less human. One thing that was always going to be difficult about a Halo series was the fact that the series’ central character, Master Chief, wears a full mask and is known to never take it off. The TV show’s creatives have had Chief remove his mask, showcasing the man named John-117 underneath it. While this decision makes a certain amount of sense on paper, it feels unnecessary and not just because of the video games.
The Mandalorian is one of the most popular series currently running, and the main character is known for always wearing his helmet; the character’s true face was not seen until the season one finale. Since then, the character has remained mostly masked, with a few brief moments of unmasking to show the seriousness of the situation. Removing Chief’s mask in the pilot episode feels rushed because, for an audience that is unfamiliar with the games, there is no significance behind him removing his helmet, and players of the games will immediately be taken out by seeing the iconic masked character performing so many scenes without his signature helmet. It feels like the series’ creatives are working from a pre-Mandalorian rule book and do not trust that the audiences will be able to emphasize and connect with the character unless they can see his face, and does not trust the actor’s ability to convey emotion through the physical and vocal performance.
What Halo Gets Right: Interrogating The Franchise Spartan Lore
The Spartans are a military outfit, named after the Spartan armies, engineered and augmented to be faceless living weapons. Just like the Spartan armies of real life, children are inscribed into being trained to be warriors, and it is an entire culture based around the glory of battle. The series truly kicks into gear when Master Chief is given a direct order to kill an innocent civilian who refuses to cooperate with a propaganda campaign, and instead of just doing what he is told makes a choice for himself based on a gut feeling that goes against years of programming and training.
There have been many cultural readings that link the connection in ideology to the real-life Spartans and fascist or militaristic organizations, and the Halo series rightfully digs into that subtext to inform its characters. The series does interrogate the lore of the Halo franchise, positioning the human forces of UNSC as people so caught up in their war they are willing to do anything, even kill children if it means a greater hold for humanity. The series showcases human characters that are just as cruel and violent as the alien forces of the Covenant. While the games often ignore this due to the primary focus of putting the player in an experience of living combat, a series being a more passive viewing experience allows for a deeper examination of the franchise’s core principles and can rework them in exciting ways.
What Halo Gets Wrong: Does Not Stand Out On Television
At the height of Halo’s popularity, there were plans for making a big-budget film based on Halo. Alex Garland (28 Days Later) penned a script that was set to be produced by Peter Jackson and directed by Neil Blomkamp before the director would move on to his feature film District 9. Guillermo Del Toro at one point was considered to direct, but the film never panned out, and the idea was eventually reworked into a television series, first announced back in 2013 with Steven Spielberg producing.
When the series was first announced, Netflix had just premiered season four of Arrested Development, and the streaming series was still a brand-new concept. Then, a Halo series seemed like a big deal, but in the years between the series’ announcement to finally making it to the screen, the specialness of a Halo series is nothing new and seems almost a given now. Despite the series being the biggest premiere on Paramount+ (although no actual data or numbers have been revealed) the series feels to just exist without making as much of a cultural footprint as it would have had it been made back in 2013 or if it was made today as a film.
The awe of a Halo series with high production value seems less special with science fiction series like The Mandalorian and Star Trek: Discovery on the air, or big-budget series like WandaVision, Stranger Things, and The Boys. Halo seems to be too little too late and looks like just another show on television. Despite video game movies often being disappointing, there has been a slight resurgence lately in theaters, with films like Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, Uncharted, and both Sonic the Hedgehog movies earning big box office numbers. A Halo film may have allowed for a more focused story and made the whole enterprise feel a little more important than being just another streaming series.
