Halo: Season 2 - Discussion Thread
- Thread starter Lordcommanderdarkwolf
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It sounds like original score to me, the way it turns at the end. There hasn't been a soundtrack release for season 1 yet, but they switched composers, and Bear McCreary and his house team at Sparks & Shadows are usually pretty good about releasing soundtrack albums, so there will probably be a season 2 release, at least, but nothing has been announced yet.
She clearly wanted to destroy the Halo since she thought there was no way the UNSC fleet could defeat the Covenant Fleet, but as the tide turned (and just in case her plan to destroy the Halo didn't succeed), she wanted to be certain someone from the USNC was ON the Halo to either take control or find/keep any dangerous Forerunner Weapons and Tech from the Covenant.
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Yea. My understanding from watching the show is that the Spartan III's are stop-gaps. The Spartan II program took long because it needed to start when they were children so their bodies could be modified and enhanced as they grew naturally. It didn't seem like they could do the same level of augmentation to someone who was already an adult.
I think the children were the restarting of the Spartan II program or something like a Spartan IV. III's are nowhere near as lethal as II's, do not have the same augmentations and enhanced baseline physical strength, speed, stamina, height, etc... They also don't have the very expensive suits.
Hardly. It was a cliche after a cliche.
Probably back on Earth.
Why did no one shoot Makee. Or why did she stroll through the corridor leaving herself open to being shot ?
She knew the UNSC hadn't recruited Will Smith. Otherwise they'd know that, when surrounded by a swarm of man-eating space-worms, the obvious target is the little blonde girl.
Framing shot and unwillingness of people to shoot other people.
It's a horrible scene.
The spirit of the universe.
https://beforewegoblog.com/television-review-halo-season-two/
This is a big improvement. I'm not the kind of guy who gets caught up in trivialities. There's plenty of people who would only want a Halo TV show if the Master Chief never removed his helmet, and it only depicted a straight ten-episode adaptation of the first video game with most of it being using Needlers on Grunts. I mean, I'd watch the hell out of that, but it doesn't get into the deeper lore of the Halo universe. Halo does have a pretty deep lore too despite being the Expanded Universe for a bunch of third person shooters. I've read dozens of books in the setting, and they mostly hold up.
Unfortunately, Season One wasn't good despite the fact it got into things like the recruitment of child soldiers, unethical medical experimentation, the Insurrectionists, and the fact ONI is full of a bunch of incompetent man children. The Halo games were made at the height of the War on Terror and were influenced by the geopolitical situation of the time. There was the seemingly all-powerful Covenant and humanity's own authoritarian government as the two choices for the setting but Master Chief just trying to save everyone. We're in a post-War on Terror environment, sort of, and the story is much more muddled in the idea anyone can save anyone. Plus, no one really wanted Master Chief to have sex. Not unless it was a virtual reality simulation with Cortana. Ahem.
Season Two realizes that most viewers want to watch the Master Chief versus aliens and the Covenant finally shows up to start glassing planets. The fact the season opens with the glassing of the planet Madrigal and the elimination of every single plot from that world kind of says what the developers think of it too. Season Two has the Covenant as a threat humanity is on the backfoot fighting and that instantly raises the stakes as well as provides the season some well-deserved focus. Indeed, we finally get the goddamn Halo as a focus for the season with its discovery a central theme. I feel like the fact the Halo WASN'T the focus of a show called Halo until this point as one of the bigger issues of the adaptation. Sort of like The Legend of Zelda without Zelda (or Triforce or Ganon).
The premise for this season is that humanity is being pushed back by the Covenant in every engagement with Master Chief considered unreliable after briefly being possessed by Cortana during their confrontation with the Prophets. Doctor Hasley is under house arrest for her role in the SPARTAN-II insurrection and Admiral Ackerson (Joseph Morgan) is now in charge of the project with Parangosky (Shabana Azmi) seemingly removed from her position as ONI's chief. Unfortunately, any Halo fan knows this precedes the Fall of Reach where humanity is opened to full-scale invasion by the Covenant. Makee (Charlie Murphy), the human raised by the Covenant, also has some of the keys necessary to find the Halo and has been assigned an Arbiter (not the one from Halo 2) to help find it.
There's a lot more going on with the season and the show seems more interested in redeeming character's plotlines than ditching them. Kwan Ha (Yerin Ha), Soren (Bokeem Woodbine), and others are still all in the show, but they are more closely tied together. We also get some casualties among the SPARTAN-IIS that I feel was badly needed to establish the threat of the Covenant after their poor showing in the first season. SPARTANS never die but there's a reason the Master Chief was the last of them for a long time.
Overall, Season Two is just a huge improvement to the series by incorporating a lot more of what people loved about Halo. Unfortunately, it's not an unqualified success as the show is still weighed down by cramming too many extraneous plots into eight episodes. The Fall of Reach lasts all of one episode when it could have been three episodes of fighting for survival. Hell, it could have been an entire season. For a show based on an action video game, Halo suffers from not that much action. Still, there is some action and most of it is pretty good. I'll never look down on Master Chief versus an Elite using plasma swords.
In conclusion, Halo Season Two is a success and I am glad that they listened to fan feedback to modify what they were doing. They also manage to finally get the story to where it probably needed to be by the end of Season One. I'm not going to spoil the ending of the season but a lot of buildup for fan favorite elements are realized and they leave me excited for Season Three. Would I have done things differently? Yes. However, it's no longer a series that I feel fails to represent the franchise that I love. Halo: Infinite on the other hand...
This is a big improvement. I'm not the kind of guy who gets caught up in trivialities. There's plenty of people who would only want a Halo TV show if the Master Chief never removed his helmet, and it only depicted a straight ten-episode adaptation of the first video game with most of it being using Needlers on Grunts. I mean, I'd watch the hell out of that, but it doesn't get into the deeper lore of the Halo universe. Halo does have a pretty deep lore too despite being the Expanded Universe for a bunch of third person shooters. I've read dozens of books in the setting, and they mostly hold up.
Unfortunately, Season One wasn't good despite the fact it got into things like the recruitment of child soldiers, unethical medical experimentation, the Insurrectionists, and the fact ONI is full of a bunch of incompetent man children. The Halo games were made at the height of the War on Terror and were influenced by the geopolitical situation of the time. There was the seemingly all-powerful Covenant and humanity's own authoritarian government as the two choices for the setting but Master Chief just trying to save everyone. We're in a post-War on Terror environment, sort of, and the story is much more muddled in the idea anyone can save anyone. Plus, no one really wanted Master Chief to have sex. Not unless it was a virtual reality simulation with Cortana. Ahem.
Season Two realizes that most viewers want to watch the Master Chief versus aliens and the Covenant finally shows up to start glassing planets. The fact the season opens with the glassing of the planet Madrigal and the elimination of every single plot from that world kind of says what the developers think of it too. Season Two has the Covenant as a threat humanity is on the backfoot fighting and that instantly raises the stakes as well as provides the season some well-deserved focus. Indeed, we finally get the goddamn Halo as a focus for the season with its discovery a central theme. I feel like the fact the Halo WASN'T the focus of a show called Halo until this point as one of the bigger issues of the adaptation. Sort of like The Legend of Zelda without Zelda (or Triforce or Ganon).
The premise for this season is that humanity is being pushed back by the Covenant in every engagement with Master Chief considered unreliable after briefly being possessed by Cortana during their confrontation with the Prophets. Doctor Hasley is under house arrest for her role in the SPARTAN-II insurrection and Admiral Ackerson (Joseph Morgan) is now in charge of the project with Parangosky (Shabana Azmi) seemingly removed from her position as ONI's chief. Unfortunately, any Halo fan knows this precedes the Fall of Reach where humanity is opened to full-scale invasion by the Covenant. Makee (Charlie Murphy), the human raised by the Covenant, also has some of the keys necessary to find the Halo and has been assigned an Arbiter (not the one from Halo 2) to help find it.
There's a lot more going on with the season and the show seems more interested in redeeming character's plotlines than ditching them. Kwan Ha (Yerin Ha), Soren (Bokeem Woodbine), and others are still all in the show, but they are more closely tied together. We also get some casualties among the SPARTAN-IIS that I feel was badly needed to establish the threat of the Covenant after their poor showing in the first season. SPARTANS never die but there's a reason the Master Chief was the last of them for a long time.
Overall, Season Two is just a huge improvement to the series by incorporating a lot more of what people loved about Halo. Unfortunately, it's not an unqualified success as the show is still weighed down by cramming too many extraneous plots into eight episodes. The Fall of Reach lasts all of one episode when it could have been three episodes of fighting for survival. Hell, it could have been an entire season. For a show based on an action video game, Halo suffers from not that much action. Still, there is some action and most of it is pretty good. I'll never look down on Master Chief versus an Elite using plasma swords.
In conclusion, Halo Season Two is a success and I am glad that they listened to fan feedback to modify what they were doing. They also manage to finally get the story to where it probably needed to be by the end of Season One. I'm not going to spoil the ending of the season but a lot of buildup for fan favorite elements are realized and they leave me excited for Season Three. Would I have done things differently? Yes. However, it's no longer a series that I feel fails to represent the franchise that I love. Halo: Infinite on the other hand...
I think it is a sharp push against the games. The games glorify violence at every level. The show shows the development of Master Chief as the man to step in to the role to save humanity, in contrast to the Covenant and Makee, but also not wasteful, like UNSC Command. John 117 is actually a fascinating character, embodying closer to Aristotle's ideas of virtues, a balance between extremes.
I think it represents Halo differently and I welcome it's inclusion to the franchise. It's not a video game and damn sure needs to stop trying to be.
To be fair most action games, especially the shooters, glorify violence because it's in their nature to provide "cool" action in the form of shooting aliens/robots/people. It is what it is and i've played a ton of them until i got to the age where i couldn't compete with teenagers anymore
TV and movies thankfully need to be something else because nobody wants to see 35 minutes non stop action interrupted by a few story scenes that combine the rest of the 42 minute episode. It might work once or twice within a story but won't work permanently as well as a game because you are a passive participant. I was a bit unsure about the different or rather expanded character Master Chief has gotten in this one because if we're frank game Master Chief is kind of a blank and boring slate because he always does the heroic thing and leaps in to either save friends or humanity.
What i wonder now is how far behind the show is lagging on the actual story front what the Halo is, what it is for and what it can do. Given how season 1 dragged its feet we should have gotten at least a few answers in season 2 if they had gotten to Halo in the season 1 finale but it's beating a dead horse at this point. I hope the show has enough power to give us enough seasons to answer these questions within the show storyline. It is expensive and less expensive shows have been cancelled before they could resolve their main storylines so i'm hoping for the best.
Oh, I get that and have enjoyed many of them. But, the adaptation process is one that has to go deeper than cool. Master Chief needs to be a character or else he will not be engaging.To be fair most action games, especially the shooters, glorify violence because it's in their nature to provide "cool" action in the form of shooting aliens/robots/people. It is what it is and i've played a ton of them until i got to the age where i couldn't compete with teenagers anymore
The simple fact is that the Master Chief of this series could not be the Cypher character from the games. That's nearly impossible because most players are not going to think deeply on why we fight; it's just a game.
But, in universe, the why is a pressing question for John 117 as he has to move from external motivation to internal, value based, motivation to fight.
He reminds me a bit of my uncle, who served in the US military, including during Vietnam. He was one of the principle influences on my coming to b enjoy science fiction and also how to think. He always questions everything, inviting discussions and debate, even from a military perspective. He introduced me to the book "Starship Troopers, " which goes in to philosophy of fighting not just blind obedience. John 117 encapsulates a lot of that exploration, but against a tenser backdrop.
The Halo show invites a much different perspective on war. It isn't looking at it with hero shaped glasses. It's presenting war as a very ugly thing.
I agree and especially in the characters of Ackerson and Parangosky. I am probably in the minority here and i've said it multiple times here but i understand both of them because they have a much higher, strategic level, decision to make as opposed to Master Chief who's "just" an elite grunt on the tactical level. I find this fascinating and probably not what the show runners intended when they wrote Ackerson and Parangosky because for most of the audience i believe they'll be regarded as villains but i don't.
I also like how Master Chief and Silver Team in general broke free of their conditioning (Vannack may be the exception) and found some kind of life outside of their sole purpose and focus of being a soldier. Prior to that they were basically programmed biological robots, now they are people with their own character.
I also like how Master Chief and Silver Team in general broke free of their conditioning (Vannack may be the exception) and found some kind of life outside of their sole purpose and focus of being a soldier. Prior to that they were basically programmed biological robots, now they are people with their own character.
I regard them as villains but not in the traditional sense. They are not as empathic and are looking for a means to an end. They're cold because their decisions require it. See the Director from the Red vs. Blue series too.
But, it also illustrates how non black and white the study of conflict is throughout history. It's never as simple as we first think or studied initially in history class.
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