Halo TV series early review: 2 premiere episodes are an intriguing mess

Steven Spielberg, a Microsoft employee announced at E3 2013, that they were going to convert Halo into an animated TV series. Nineteen games, nine years and many memes later. HaloIt is now premiering. Paramount Plus aired two episodes Monday at SXSW, just in time for its wider streaming debut on March 24,

Since the very beginning, it was not called an exact adaptation. The talents involved prefer to view it as a world that is built on the foundation of the Halo Games: an interstellar conflict between religious aliens (known as Covenant) and humans under the United Nations Space Command. The war waging about them puts Master Chief Spartan soldier (Pablo Schreiber), and Kwan Ha (Yerin ha) in conflict.

With just two episodes screened to critics it’s hard to know just what HaloThe franchise is currently undergoing an internal assessment and hopes to reach this stage. There are many threads that can be pulled together in these first two episodes of the series. Here are some examples:

Are you unsure if it is Halo or not Halo

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HaloIt’s like a videogame series adaptation, as it was handled once he had played through a couple of levels. Or maybe he just watched his friend play, he can’t quite remember. There’s definitely a guy in recognizable green armor, and he definitely fights some aliens, but beyond that it’s a bit of a blur. There’s some kind of relic, it may or may not have something to do with a ring world, which might also be a weapon. It’s really hard to say.

It is intended for someone who has a basic understanding of the games. There’s little to no actual explanation of who or what is going on, so you better know the Master Chief and the Covenant. But it’s also not a show for people to know too much, because otherwise you might get confused why none of this seems to match up with the story of the games that have been released over the last 20 years. It’s a very tight window.

Also, your idea of HaloIs this a man in green armour doing space shit? Congratulations, it’s your turn! Halo show. —Austen Goslin

Please, more aliens

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Like my colleagues have already suggested, it’s quite hard to take in these first two episodes of HaloFind a reason for you to continue. Even for those who, like myself, are more than willing to sign up for 40 minutes to an hour of anything as long as there’s some cool-looking space shit involved. The space is shit in Halo? Sub-par. It’s not very legendary. You can see the overheated plasma gun.

What’s particularly amusing, though, is how dedicated they are to making Halo’s armor and aliens look as game-accurate as possible in environments that take none of the imagination on display in Bungie’s games. It’s all gunmetal and concrete corridors, alongside a few crowded space station sets that look like they were cribbed together from The Expanse’s leftovers. Juxtaposed against this, the Master Chief’s impeccably recreated armor looks extremely funny, and the Prophet Mercy looks outlandishly cartoonish, like the Annoying Orange himself just appeared on an otherwise normal TV show. Also, Elites are now bulkier than before and look more like mandibled linebackers rather than as gaunt fighters. All of this could appear on any sci-fi series. —Joshua Rivera

It’s possible that the CBS is a feature and not a bug.

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Trailers Halo made one thing very clear to fans: Paramount Plus’ way into the material would be distinct from Game of Thrones, The WitcherThese and many other series are the definition of the television tentpole era. HaloLooks like NCIS, Criminal Minds, and other CBS content littering the platform — which is going to rub people who wanted to see the epically scaled franchise get a $300-million-a-season treatment.

I am open to making the decision. In an era where direct-to-video action movies can pull off smarter stunts than Hollywood’s spectacle-driven blockbusters, and where digestible post-hard-day-at-work shows are drying up, the decision to make HaloAn actual CBS program could be of great benefit in the long term. While the plot is still a bit unclear, it’s easy to imagine Halo transforming into something. SWAT mold, or even becoming truly deranged in the mode of Paramount Plus’ The evil. Neither show has been held back by budget or the traditional one-hour-drama aesthetic that’s come to define network TV.

If anything, it’s helped the character sides of those stories become more relatable, and genre-twisting, elements pop. However, this isn’t the only way. HaloShow me what I was expecting, but it could be the HaloThe show that I continue to watch, hoping I can latch onto the characters and low-key drama of the week. There’s also room for it to be utter trash and still entertain; shows like Babylon 5, Jack of All Trades, XenaThese post-Next GenerationIn basic TV mode, Trek series thrived. Halo might be able to do so too. There’s enough character-driven plot babble and adequate production design to think it’s possible. —Matt Patches

Bad writing is most often at the feet of Master Chief

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Master Chief is a slim character. His whole existence has been designed. He’s taciturn, lethal, and he gets down to business. There might be a joke in there, but mostly he’s there to be our viewpoint, so he doesn’t risk much by way of personality. Pilot of Halo he does what he’s never done before: defy an order. But without the larger Halo lore, it’s hard to get a sense of who we’re supposed to think he is up to this point. He is a loyal soldier. But, everything we learn about him and his journey (and the emotions that he experiences) are told directly to us rather than through his actions. Almost as quickly as he’s introduced to the audience, he’s shaken by a vision of an ordinary life, and then rebelling against a system he’s (maybe?) His entire life has been a slave to him.

Nowhere in there do we get a sense of who he is enough to care, and the sci-fi story he’s helming feels as generic as he does. There’s little urgency or color to the world that counterbalances Master Chief’s wooden mannerisms. When he takes off his helmet he’s not a mutated child soldier, he’s just a guy. Halo’s Master Chief is all stiff dialogue and tortured stares, but the pain behind it gets lost in translation. —Zosha Millman

Episode 2 shows promise

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I’m of the mind that HaloIt is best to use the series. because the show isn’t adapted exactly to the games. I don’t want a shot for shot retelling of what I’ve already seen or read. Love is what I long for. Halo in a new way, and to live in parts that I hadn’t had a chance to before. The first episode had a lot of problems, but the second one was much better. It seems that Master Chief might be the least intriguing character on TV. HaloIt was a pleasure to work with. I am a Halo veteran and avid book-reader. a lotAbout the Master Chief. The newer characters are most interesting to me — I want to know more about the politics on Madrigal and the chaos in The Rubble.

The world of The Rubble, a renegade society that’s built from asteroids, is more lively and dark than anything in the pilot. I appreciate seeing a part of the Halo world I hadn’t before, and Bokeem Woodbine (Ghostbusters: AfterlifeAs Soren-066, an ex-Spartan, he is amazing. The other thing is that episode 2, if I recall correctly, doesn’t have any scenes through the Spartan vision. There’s a lot of that first-person video game viewpoint in the first episode, and that’s a baffling decision. —Nicole Carpenter

They chose the wrong Halo theme music

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Anyone who’s ever been anywhere near Halo knows how the soundtrack sounds. That theme song and its muted, angelic choir of “ohs” instantly puts you right back in the loading screen. The iconic tune plays at minimum once in each of the episodes. Halo, it’s fighting an uphill battle not just playing it over the credits to really get us in the mood. —ZM