The sci-fi Drama of the beginning of the year is really a big ups and downs...
Before there was "Alien Cataclysm" the speed of light fell into family ethics, carrying away the next one.
After the "Westworld" and "Mandalorian" knocking bowls and other final files, there is no end in sight. At the end of March, I finally looked forward to a seed player with the potential to reverse the decline.
$90 million to build, national best-selling game adaptation, lifetime series plus one.
The first episode exploded, refreshing paramount + new drama ratings records within 24 hours.
The much-anticipated epic sci-fi blockbuster is here!
Halo
HALO
2022.3.24
>>>> national IP, the flow of years is unfavorable
Halo (also called Halo), a game that players may not have played, and may not have heard of. After Microsoft launched the first generation of games in 2001, the series released a total of 6 core games and dozens of spin-offs.
With global sales of more than 81 million copies and nearly $5 billion in revenue, it is one of the highest-grossing game IPs in history.
The card face of the game industry, the super popular national god work, microsoft games as the top card.
The influence of halo series of games Halo doesn't stop at games.
For more than 20 years, the game has spawned more than 30 novels, comics...
20 years to build a grand epic "halo" worldview, pop subculture influence or no less than "Star Wars".
Entertainment Media Deadline: "Halo redefined the way people think about gaming and developed into a global entertainment phenomenon. ”
As the IP of the king bomb game saved by Microsoft, the road to film and television of "Halo" has been full of twists and turns, and there are countless pits.
Countless famous directors have tried to take over the adaptation, but they are always ruthlessly tricked by the takeover, leaving a pile of film history regrets.
Alex Garland (screenwriter of Annihilation) wrote the first screenplay for the film.
Garland's script is centered on the game, and perhaps it has joined no less than the sci-fi ethics of "Mechanical Ji".
After Mecha, Peter Jackson took over the project, inviting Gilmour del Toro to direct and D. B. Weiss (Game of Thrones) to adapt it.
The heavy otaku Toro made a drastic adaptation of the script, perhaps adding many prototypes of the mecha brain hole of "Pacific Rim".
Fan production Unfortunately, the schedule conflicted, and the director was changed to Neil Blomkamp, who was still unknown at that time.
Neil and Weta Studios collaborated to create a complete set of Halo special effects models in the preparation of half a year. Unfortunately, the capital withdrew and the project went bankrupt. Neil had to take a simple transformation of props and shoot a future famous work - "District 9".
The Halo mech (left) and The Ninth Zone alien (right) shared a set of model matrix adaptations for ten years, costing thousands of adaptations to achieve nothing.
Microsoft realized that Halo's vast worldview could not be fully presented in the film and decided to shoot episodes instead.
So in 2011, Microsoft announced the restart of "Halo" film and television, and Steven Spielberg took the initiative to take over the project.
Halo in Ready Player One
Lao Si was named as a producer, led the team to do everything himself, and rewrote 265 drafts of the script.
Experienced platform changes, director resignation, new crown epidemic...
The episode "Halo", thousands of calls began to come out.
>>>> interstellar epic, original story
Although "Halo" is well known in the game industry, it is still relatively unfamiliar to the audience.
The background setting of 10,000 words is that anyone who looks at it will have increased blood pressure and numbness in the scalp.
How is the battle situation of Zhiyuan Star?
The creators have tried to adapt the voluminous game plot directly into a script. However, either the game settings cannot be presented in film and television, or the film and television are constrained by the game settings.
Simply not broken, the original is a part of the game setting, the main line and the game has nothing to do with the "silver timeline".
In other words, the series "Halo" is a parallel universe that players are familiar with and unfamiliar, and it is also an original story with no threshold for the audience.
For the episode "Halo", you only need to understand the most basic settings.
The story takes place in the 26th century, when an interstellar war broke out between humans and the alien civilization "Star Alliance".
Star Alliance.
A theocratic political-military alliance of a group of virtual alien races.
They believe that the extermination of humanity is the will of God and are the main villains of the Halo series.
Humanity forms the Political, Military, and Scientific United Nations Space Command (UNSC).
UnSC is stationed on the near-Earth colonized planet Zhiyuan Star, responsible for exploring interstellar diplomacy in the universe and organizing armed defenses for humanity.
In order to fight against alien invaders who were far more physically powerful than humans, UNSC developed Spartan warriors.
Spartan warriors, equipped with all-metal exoskeleton mechs, genetically modified elite human soldiers. They are unschief's secret weapon, a war machine with one enemy and a hundred.
The protagonist of Halo is John 117, the leader of the Spartan warriors.
The iconic shape is the green Thor Hammer powered assault armor and gold visor. Because of its rank as a Navy first-class non-commissioned officer, it is often called "non-commissioned officer".
Master Sergeant, the superhero in Halo that is almost comparable to Batman and Iron Man.
He is the strongest single soldier who kills without blinking, the hope to defend mankind at all costs, and the banner of not abandoning and not giving up.
Tough, brave, cold, powerful, the ideal embodiment of the player.
The official CP of the Sergeant Major is the artificial intelligence Cortana.
It is played by game voice actor Jane Taylor.
Understanding the basic setting, Halo unfolds - a pastoral star in the distant colonies of humanity, with a group of anti-colonial rebels. One day, the Star Alliance's "elite" army invaded the Pastoral Star and launched an indiscriminate massacre of local humans.
At the end of the great disaster, the sergeant major led his "Spartan Silver Team" to rush to the horse. Four Spartan warriors chopped melons and chopped vegetables to wipe out the Star Alliance invaders in one fell swoop.
It's just a pity that it's one step too late. There was only one survivor left on the battlefield, Guan Ha, the daughter of the rebel leader.
At the end of the battle, the non-commissioned officer who tracked the remnants of the Star Alliance inadvertently discovered an excavated remnant.
He found the target of the Star Alliance, some kind of mysterious crystal. When he touched the crystal, the brainwashed childhood memories suddenly sprung up...
On the way back, UNSC learned that the remnants of the rebel army had survived, and ordered the non-commissioned officer to obliterate Kwan Ha and never have any trouble.
For the first time, however, the always loyal sergeant major wavered.
Childhood memories awaken human nature, he no longer wants to be a cold-blooded and ruthless killing machine, and hesitantly flees from Zhiyuanxing with the girl. The UNSC dispatched a Spartan silver team to arrest the renegade generals; the Star Alliance, which was already targeting the crystal, was eyeing the tiger and secretly calculating.
Sandwiched between the two forces, the sergeant major took the baby to start a space escape...
>>>> the audience applauds and the players scold
As a sci-fi drama, Halo is by no means disappointing. The level of "hardware" is first-class in the industry, and the special effects and art are not perfunctory.
At a cost of $10 million per episode, the vast majority of cass are not familiar faces, and the money is spent on the blade.
From desert planets in the wilderness, alien cities with clean skies, space teams with guns and bullets...
Down to every mech vehicle, every fusion coil, and every ammo box you can find the game prototype.
The visual effects of a penny and a penny are smashed out, and the naked eye can see the burning of funds.
As an audience, the most satisfying thing is definitely the action scene of the hormone rush.
The sergeant major led the Spartan silver team, and the battlefield killing action was smooth and crisp.
Whether it's flashing around, melee gun fights...
Or assassin raids, long-range sniping...
Spartan warriors "tear" the alien devils by hand, never disappointing the audience.
Occasionally, it will switch to the first-person shooter perspective in the game, restoring the core charm of "game reform".
In addition to the dazzling showmanship, there is also restrictive violence such as headshot aliens, slaughtering passers-by, and blowing up teenagers.
Unbridled violence is more like desperately trying to draw a line with cartoon games.
Compared with the "hardware" that lives up to expectations, "software" can only be said in a word.
Talk about the plot on the facts, the plot is compact, the elements are retro, and there is often a sense of "I have seen this episode": the pastoral star with arid land and rich mineral deposits has the shadow of "Dune";
The colonial alien, military-political combination of UNSC is similar to the setting of "Galactic Team";
The masked killer, the core plot of the escape with the baby, can't help but think of "The Mandalorian".
Fortunately, several main lines are connected in a reasonable way, ranging from the magnificent cosmic war to the self-awakening of independent individuals. Outdated but not vulgar, conservative still in suspense. Even if you see that "the bullets fired by the sergeant major are higher than the damage of ordinary people", it is difficult to compare the small bugs purely for the sake of coolness and coolness.
Simple and exciting popcorn dramas are not hated at all.
For players, Halo brings more disappointment.
In the comment area, you can always see the angry brush screen of "Li Collapse Happy Bad" and "Happy Point In, Scolding and Grinning Go Out". Fans are attracted by emotions, find familiar game elements, and see the original story that is almost "magically changed".
In the interview, the director revealed that he had never played the "Halo" game and did not care about restoring the original work.
No wonder, surprises turned into fright.
Player and audience word of mouth controversy Non-players may not be able to understand where anger comes from, to give you an example.
At the end of the first episode, the sergeant major easily removes his helmet in order to appease the girl.
Hot Knowledge: In all halo games in the previous 20 years, the Sergeant Major has never taken off his helmet.
The helmet is to the sergeant major what the principle of no-kill is to Batman.
The player is conventional, and the character cannot be shaken.
The Sergeant Major never takes off his helmet, partly because it is so cool that it gives the player unlimited room for imagination; it also represents the character's determination: he is always in a state of readiness before the end of the war, and there is no time or reason to take off the helmet.
Previously, the official production of the commercial "Halo 4: Sailing to dawn" had a related plot: the Spartan warriors returned triumphantly, took off their helmets one by one, and looked forward to the sergeant major. The sergeant major simply raised his gun in a gesture and continued to silently warn his companions, hinting at the hero's responsibility and perseverance.
The Sergeant Major in Halo takes off his helmet, and you can certainly find a reason for it:
Perhaps to give the Sergeant Major actor Pablo Schreiber ("The Gods of America") a chance to appear;
Perhaps in order to distinguish human nature with a helmet, the identities of the commander and John were distinguished.
But no matter how to find a remedy, it cannot be denied that such a treatment is too hasty, leaving fans with a great sense of disillusionment.
Also "the masked killer takes off his mask", "The Mandalorian" is clearly better.
After all, halo's word-of-mouth controversy of "the audience applauding, the player scolding" is not uncommon. The same controversy has arisen in almost all game adaptations, and even in all adaptations.
Is it necessary to restore the original work in its entirety? Is eating a book a betrayal of a fan? The same is the "restoration of the classic", "Renaissance Crisis" cut out the small Easter egg tribute, is not still a mess? The same is the "magic reform classic", "Journey to the West" jokes that Sun Wukong is in love, is not still famous in the history of film?
Adaptations should not respect the original work, but the audience.
Audiences can only carry the greatest tolerance and avoid sticking to the rules and missing the opportunity to innovate.
The first season of Halo has a total of 9 episodes, and has been renewed for a second season.
It is not a first-class masterpiece, but it is still a popcorn cool drama above the standard, which is worth letting go of the preconceived killing time in the near future.
Halo isn't the first game, and it won't be the last.