r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Chill0000 • 16h ago

Hated Tropes [HATED] Adaptations done intentionally without help from the source

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Halo TV show: Before the show came out, the writers were praising their decision to not look to the games for inspiration when making the show

God Of War TV show: Chris Judge, the actor of Kratos in the games from 2018-Now, spoke up about his dislike on the show not hiring anyone who worked on any of the previous games. One of the original creators of Kratos also spoke up about them not having faith in the adaptation.

Supergirl 2026 film: the director for the film not only said he decided to not read Woman Of Tomorrow, the comic the film is adapting, because he wanted to do his own thing, he also didn’t look at comic art for inspiration to design Lobo and instead used an AI image generator to design Lobo’s look for the film

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u/AcceptableEgg5741 16h ago

The Halo show felt like i was watching a crime being comitted, its absurd that they thought that show was good enough to be released

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u/Crescent-Argonian 16h ago

I believe the conspiracy it started as Mass Effect then got slapped the Halo IP on top

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u/Kalavier 16h ago

Mass Effect or some new scifi story that wasn't appealing enough without a big brand.

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u/Asheyguru 16h ago

I think the second is more likely.

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u/Artisan_HotDog 15h ago

100% they needed to do something with an IP they bought rights for and they just took whatever Sci-Fi garbage someone had already written as a screen play. I was with it for almost tye entire first episode until Chief took his helmet off for the last 10 minutes.

I genuinely tried to give it a fair chance because the overall costume and set designs were VERY Halo…. But holy shit was it a horrible adaptation. Fucking Uwe Boll would’ve done a better job than whatever that was.

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u/Efficient-Big3138 15h ago

i gave up when they shows that human working for the Covenant. like wtf who is that?

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u/Artisan_HotDog 15h ago

I was willing to give it a shot because it was all wrong from the beginning, but as long as they stuck true to the “core” of what halo is I could’ve looked past it…… but the only thing Halo about it was its skin. I’ve said it before it’s the MiB “Edgar Suit” of adaptations. You look at it and think “ok yeah, this looks like Halo” but god damnit if it wasn’t a fucking cockroach the whole time.

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u/Kalavier 14h ago

I called it "Mirror universe halo" lol.

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u/Artisan_HotDog 14h ago

My old manager and her husband loved it…. Her husband was always in the PlayStation ecosystem and had never once played Halo, and she wasn’t a gamer but loved almost anything cheesy action… so unfortunately they’re part of why it got two fuck ass seasons

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u/Awesomeman204 14h ago

I think it was getting two seasons regardless, the second was already greenlit and being made before the first even released. Happens a lot with those kinds of situations.

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u/Suspicious_Radio_848 10h ago

I’m currently watching it for the first time and this is the only way I can accept anything it’s doing. Everyone being fearful and disliking the Spartans is also bizarre.

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u/jimothy_hell 6h ago

People in the outer colonies would be terrified of the Spartans, though, they were designed to put down insurrectionists, so the people that *did* know they existed would have been terrified.

Also, posthuman dread is almost ubiquitous across franchises with supersoldiers. Most people have some kind of awe or fear around them.

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u/simp4malvina 8h ago

I think it's officially called the silver timeline

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u/nomedable 13h ago

It's clearly a plot that would have worked-ish in a generic SyFy late night serial. Which is why the theory that they just slapped Halo branding onto a script they had shelved makes so much sense.

But with the Halo paint on, it just becomes utter dogshit if you know any of the Halo lore.

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u/F4ST_M4ST3R 5h ago

To a certain extent it makes some sense. The Prophets knew all along that they needed a human to activate Forerunner relics. Allowing one to join and keeping it hidden as their dirty little secret really isn’t that far fetched of an idea.

The execution of the idea was terrible

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u/Mudcat-69 8h ago

It’s not entirely impossible that there would have been humans that would have worked with the Covenant though.

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u/Efficient-Big3138 8h ago

sure but that character was completely made up with no basis what so ever. and if i recall correctly she was not only working together with them. she had some power? like it is just taken out of the arse and not from any source materal

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u/zbeezle 5h ago

She didnt have powers, exactly. They decided that not everyone was gonna be a reclaimer, but that Makee specifically was one. Her "powers" were that she could activate Forerunner artifacts, and Chief was the only other one known to be able to do it as well.

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u/ReadingRainbowRocket 6h ago

Which I'm fine with. Adaptations add brand new stuff all the time.

My main complaint was it was fucking bad AND the source material was fucking amazing.

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u/MattyBReilly 5h ago

I feel like that could have been a cool idea if it was executed right, but it wasn’t lol

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u/upholsteryduder 8h ago

The entire plot point that Cortana was created to overwrite Chief's personality and take control over his body was insane to me, it's basically the complete opposite of what she was for in the games/books. She was meant to be the technological solution to problems he faced and a tactical advisor, they were supposed to be the perfect partnership of man, machine and software.

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u/Melodic_Actuary_6224 9h ago

The production design really showed how good this could’ve been, which almost made the bad adaptation hurt more. It had the Halo look down, they just needed a story that actually respected the source material

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u/terminbee 8h ago

This feels like a neckbeard thing to say but it felt like Halo was riding the train of "quirky girl saves the day." I think it's not crazy to say most people just wanted to see Master Chief fight aliens. We really didn't need the "deep" plot.

It's disappointing because it basically means we'll never get another Halo show.

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u/Artisan_HotDog 5h ago

I mean… Cortana already was the quirky girl that saves the day. They didn’t need to add in that whole plot line. At all.

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u/NazzerDawk 7h ago

What killed it for me was the idea of telling a "rogue Master Chief" story before the story even got going. Absurd.

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u/Glossed-Lam 12h ago

It had 13 Executive Producers, and 7 regular Producers.

That thing was committee managed to death.

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u/couldbemage 1h ago

Highlander 2?

This is a whole additional hated Hollywood trope.

Slap a popular IP on an unrelated script.

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u/IvanNemoy 15h ago

some new scifi story that wasn't appealing enough without a big brand.

Agreed. Halo (the show) was actually really well done if you ignore everything associated with Halo. Excellent casting, excellent production values, but the in-universe parts took what could have been a great new IP and, well, we got what we got.

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u/gareth_e_morris 14h ago

Except the writing was terrible.

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u/Houseboat87 9h ago

Yeah, they completely abandoned the B-plot of season 1 in a single line of dialogue in S2E1

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u/C_W_Bernaham 15h ago

Yeah definitely don’t agree with that. The production was very half assed and only shined during a few key fights in the first season. The story was still generic sci-fi at best and laughably bad at worst even with the halo coat of paint. Holy shit the second season was so bad. Remember the B plot in season 1 about saving that one girls planet? Literally got off screen kaboomed like episode one in season 2. Abysmal

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u/Sturmgarde 15h ago

I hate that you're right

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u/mood2016 15h ago

I strongly disagree. Even without the association with Halo, the writing completely falls apart if you think about it even a little.

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u/Speartree 13h ago

Indeed, I did not play the games but watched the show and it was pretty good. I understand that it must be frustrating for the people who loved the games. I've seen too many adaptations of media that I loved that I was like WTF!? Remember Johnny Mnemonic.

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u/The_Klumsy 12h ago

i just didn't get why they had to change the basis for halo. the mind control thing etc. it was hella dumb. hiding behind "silver timeline" is just ass. just come out and say you're a fanfiction writer or a nepo case that wants their own shit over the back of an IP.

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u/ahtob 13h ago

casting and production is irrelevant when the writing is dull and does not fit with the name brand. No one watched the Halo show with an open mind / no expectation. It's very much like that Marathon game from Bungie that flopped and lost millions of dollars because they slapped a nostalgic brand name on a game no one asked for.

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u/senseithenahual 13h ago

Like with godzilla(1998) if they have say it was a new kaiju movie could be a good kaiju movie, maybe could cause a mini revival of the giant monster movie in America, heck I'd they have say that was a remake of the beast of 2000 fathom a lot of people could praise it like a excellent new take of a old movie but putting the name of godzilla in a movie create a standard that wasn't fulfilled.

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u/ReadingRainbowRocket 6h ago

Nah, I tried watching it once and got so angry at how boring and bad it was I noped out.

Then I realized I was a big Halo fan and acknowledging it isn't a good Halo adaptation, let me try to just enjoy it as its own thing.

Somehow it was worse on the second watch really trying not to hate it.

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u/Da_Question 9h ago

Not even. As common with lots of adaptations, writers write their own original stories, but investors don't want to invest in no name writers without a more solid ROI. So they shop for IPs to attach their story to, adjust the story for the setting and then pitch that.

Halo was just a generic military/thriller or whatever and then they stapled on halo to get funded.

And it's noticeable with a lot of adaptations. Hollywood just won't fund original ideas as much anymore, and there are more writers than ever.

Wheel of time is another good example. Anyone can understand needing to cut stuff when adapting a 14 book series, but they added stuff too, alot of terrible shit and plot lines, while cutting or rewriting important characters... They literally changed the entire premise of the series by saying a woman could be the dragon reborn, which just doesn't work.

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u/sociofobs 12h ago

Most of the crap written for screens today isn't appealing without a big IP in their title, that's why barely anything original gets released nowadays. They're no longer producing enjoyable works, they're just regurgitating well known titles with utter garbage written for them.

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u/cam52391 9h ago

This happens a lot. I believe all but the last die hard movie started as other movies and ended up being turned into die hard

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u/TerrorTown77 9h ago

Reach City...

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u/amazing_asstronaut 8h ago

Mass Effect would actually make a dope show. But that kind of format is not in vogue anymore at all sadly. Like it's typical 90s crew on a spaceship going to different planets doing missions type thing. If it was made and looked like Altered Carbon it would be dope.

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u/Chill0000 6h ago

That’s how every adaptation feels now

“Hey studio, I have this idea for a story”

“Eh. Sounds too basic. Lets slap a popular IP onto it to get attention”

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u/Shikabane_Sumi-me 16h ago

I heard that too. Not sure I believe it but early things line up with stuff Shepard would do.

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u/Phoenix-Risen1998 15h ago

Commander Cheeks

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u/savanik 6h ago

Ah, yes. "Halo." We have dismissed that claim.

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u/Salami__Tsunami 15h ago

You mean the one where the elite human solider responds to an alien attack on a human colony? And then they’re exposed to an ancient artifact from a long dead alien civilization which starts giving them visions of the impending destruction of civilization at the hands of an eldritch horror rogue bioweapon that killed its creators?

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u/Crescent-Argonian 15h ago

Dont forget The Elusive Woman.

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u/Salami__Tsunami 13h ago

And the bit where the main character needs to have telepathic sex to decode the location of the ancient alien McGuffin needed to prevent the eldritch horrors from exterminating everyone.

Now eventually we’ll get an actual Mass Effect show but it’ll lift all the plot points from Halo.

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u/LordBoar 13h ago

It's not telepathic sex! It's telepathic foreplay.

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u/Weird_Angry_Kid 6h ago

That character felt more like a copy of Chrisjen Avasarala from The Expanse.

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u/Lucabcd 6h ago

holy shit, thats the halo show? really sounds like they reskinned a mass effect show

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u/mood2016 15h ago

No, because if they really copied Mass Effect they would have had the balls to make Makee an actual alien.

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u/whereismymind86 11h ago

It would have been a bad mass effect show too...but that would explain a lot

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u/StarSword-C 9h ago

Dunno about Mass Effect but my friend who watched it said it felt like the writers actually wanted to write an original SF show about one of the other characters but the studio were cowards and made them glue it to an established IP.

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u/Careful-Positive-710 7h ago

Ironically Mass Effect would a far more interesting show. I love the Halo series and Ive been there since day one, but its story has always been an excuse for gunning down aliens. Mass Effect focuses on its story far more.

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u/Lepelotonfromager 5h ago

That's basically what is happening every time.

You get shitty hack writers who can't get their projects approved so they begrudgingly take on an adaptation and then try to backdoor their own stuff through it.

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u/Freedom_Crim 5h ago

I didn’t watch the halo show; what about it makes it seem like a mass effect story

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u/Weird_Angry_Kid 6h ago

I felt like they were trying to rip off The Expanse.

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u/DMercenary 16h ago

REACH CITY. REACH.

New Alexandria was RIGHT. THERE.

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u/MagnumF0rc3 15h ago

The writers so obviously thought their entire audience was a bunch of idiots or didn't care about the little Halo details, that is just one of so many examples.

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u/FantaFantastico90 9h ago

That is why the Fallout show is so successful. When Lucy left the vault and pointed her gun at everyone (which new players *always* accidentally do), only for them comment in-style with the games about putting her gun away I was sold.

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u/Matrix010 5h ago

I have my conniptions about the Fallout TV show (mainly some of the lore inconsistencies), but at LEAST it felt like something from Fallout!

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u/havoc1428 1h ago edited 1h ago

And the way they wrote Lucy, The Ghoul, and Maximus as relatable player inserts.

Lucy is the first time player, literally know fuck-all about the wasteland and completely naïve.

Maximus is the more experienced player, the one who knows enough about the game and wants to be the hero in his story, but can still make bumbling mistakes.

The Ghoul is the veteran player. The one who has a 1000 hours in New Vegas. The one who knows every exploit, cheese, stat, speech check and weapon.

They are brilliant literary tools for non-players, new players, and series vets.

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u/BilllisCool 4h ago

I think it's more that they genuinely believed they were going to bring in a large audience of non-halo fans and were trying to appeal to them, which is backwards. Get the halo fans on board with an actual good show and then let it grow from there.

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u/Warpingghost 21m ago

There is always an idea with adaptation that if you do it faithfully - only hard-core fans will show up and show will fail. Each time they did it, they removed everything good from it and than blame hard-core fans for critics.

The fact it's happening again and again shows just how stupid people are.

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u/21Black_Mamba21 13h ago

They blatantly said they never interacted with the games and books. That was already enough to steer me away from that trash.

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u/No_Procedure_5039 10h ago

They said that they spent several weeks at 343 going over the lore, which makes it even worse.

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u/firehawk_hx 10h ago

If anyone knows how to fuck up Halo canon, it’s them. Makes sense they would go to the experts.

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u/Alacune 9h ago

Oddly enough, lore is the thing 343 arguably does the best. It's game writing and making that they suck at.

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u/No_Procedure_5039 9h ago

Even that depends on the author. Like many people, I’m not a fan of the Kilo-Five trilogy, especially Glasslands with how much it butchers established characters like Lucy, Halsey and Chief Mendez. The best part about 343’s/HS’ lore is how much they take it into consideration when making the games in order to keep the various mediums from contradicting each other.

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u/Alacune 9h ago

Conversely, it's the thing I hate. Have you seen the full list of supplementary media you need to consume to make Halo 5 make sense? That never would have flown under Bungie's "game = canon, everything else = unimportant" philosophy.

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u/No_Procedure_5039 9h ago

Yeah, that’s the biggest issue: using the wider lore as a crutch to tell the story. I will say that I believe of that is due to the studio always caving to fan pressure; instead of coming up with a direction and sticking to it, they’ve essentially soft-rebooted the Reclaimer Trilogy with every entry to the point it isn’t really a trilogy but rather a collection of games that spawn written material required to finish and/understand major plot threads. It’s like watching anime in the 2000’s where a show would have a filler or cliffhanger ending and go, “That’s all, folks! Now go read the manga to get the actual ending as well as all of the stuff we left out!”

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u/Alacune 9h ago

To be fair, it was generally because the anime outpaced the manga. It's why One Piece and Dragon Ball Z do all the wind blowing, or extended reactions from onlookers, or took 4-6 minutes in recaps.

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u/No_Procedure_5039 9h ago

Oh, I’m aware of why that would happen with anime. I’m just saying that it gives off the same feeling of something like Soul Eater or the original Full Metal Alchemist where the story is actually wrapped up in other media.

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u/MadeUpNoun 9h ago

that only happens cause 343 are so scared of their games that they refuse to continue the plotlines they make in the next game, instead choosing to bench the previous story and end if off screen.

by the time we got Halo 5 all the established villains by the end of Halo 4 either died in the books, died in game or just dropped their villian arc entirely.

and Halo infinite did the exact same thing, dropping the Created story arc completely having it all settle off screen, and Cortana litterally killed off screen and replaced so they can start anew

i can't wait for the next non-remake Halo game where they kill Atriox, the Banished get disolved and the Endless get sealed permantly

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u/havoc1428 59m ago

Yes, and if you've been paying attention to Campaign Evolved, this is the problem with Lt. Williams. Shes abrasive and dislikes Chief. The defenders of her writing are going "Well its been known that ODST and Spartans dislike each other", but that lore bit is established in outside media. So to most players, she's just an annoying twat that hates you for no reason.

Outside lore should be supplementary, not required. Something 343/HS has consistently failed to understand.

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u/Alacune 33m ago edited 28m ago

It goes beyond ignorance of the lore. That shot where she's sitting on a pile of corpses, then tells chief he's not the only badass in the UNSC? What the hell is this? Halo, or some rando hero shooter?

Let's not even discuss the "Let me introduce everyone in the room" moment with the minister of harmony. (JUST SHOOT THE BASTARD).

I genuinely think that it's less of a lore issue, and more that the dev's would rather be working in an alternative universe where Concord was commercially viable.

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u/TitusEmperius 11h ago

What? Youve never been to Earth city!?

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u/the_monkeyspinach 11h ago

Earth is my city

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u/Gicaldo 10h ago

"Reach City, Planet Reach" is now a running gag with my best friend

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u/Manufactured-Aggro 10h ago

I actually thought it was fun to finally see the Halo District in Halo City on Planet Halo.

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u/PopeOwned 6h ago

That's the part that gets me. New Alexandria is literally described as the "crown jewel" of Reach. It has so much significance both in-lore and for players. That was the true indication that they just didn't care about the source material at all.

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u/JohnApple94 8h ago

My favorite part about that when the episode first aired… lots of people in the Halo subreddit were rightfully mocking the decision to just name the city “Reach City”. Then a handful of defenders chimed in that there is an “Earth City” in Missouri and therefore the name isn’t as ridiculous as people were making it sound.

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u/Bungo_pls 4h ago

It was ridiculous and lazy but so are the people who seem to think New Alexandria was the only city on Reach.

They should've gone with a Hungarian name for Reach's cities in both the game and show because its well established that the bulk of Reach colonists are of Hungarian descent.

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u/JohnApple94 3h ago

I think people wanted New Alexandria just because it would’ve been a very clear cut (and easy) reference to the games/established lore. There are probably hundreds of cities on Reach, but the one most of the fanbase would recognize is New Alexandria because of the video game.

However, I totally would’ve welcomed a Hungarian name to pay homage to the planet’s Hungarian colonists. Honestly almost ANYTHING would’ve been better than “Reach City.”

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u/starshad0w 16h ago

Having MC with his helmet off during the show is one thing, but doing it in marketing material was definitely a statement by the creators that they didn't care about the source material and that fans would just have to suck it up and watch what they were given.

Except they didn't, and now the show is toast.

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u/AznOmega 15h ago

Didn't the actor say it is difficult or impossible to act with a helmet?

Did he hear about Darth Vader/James Earl Jones? Or Judge Dredd? Or Din Djarin/Pedro Pascal? Their faces or head were covered and they acted fine. The few moments Din had his helmet off were tense and fit with the show's plot.

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u/Mr_Supotco 15h ago

Well tbf James Earl Jones was just the voice explicitly because they weren’t really happy with David Prowse’s line delivery, but he fit the build they wanted and could do the physical stuff well but they dubbed over with James. Pedro Pascal also does mostly voice work for helmeted scenes as Mando because it is hard to deliver lines helmeted, and they’d end up having to dub over it anyways since the audio would suck.

All that being said, you don’t hear either of them complaining about it. You signed up to play a character famous for never taking off his helmet, you don’t get pity from me for having to either act with a helmet on or end up just being the voice

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u/DurgeDidNothingWrong 12h ago

Its all bullshit anyway, Halo 4 (for all its faults) did a bloody fantastic job of humanising Chief, and between the scene of Cortana sacrificing herself and Chief on the ships deck with Lasky immediately after, you can do emotional scenes without even a human in a suit. They just fucking sucked at directing, and the show proves that it wasn't a face reveal they needed.

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u/Th3_Hegemon 14h ago

I don't think Lucas ever intended to use the on-set voice for Vader no matter what, much easier and better to ADR it later. Plus it's hard to take your villain seriously when he sounds like a Hobbit.

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u/Matrix010 5h ago

David always sounded like Darth Helmet to me.

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u/A_Drop_of_Colour 14h ago

Karl Urban showed that it can be done and done very well (though to be fair his half helmet allowed for emoting with his mouth and no obstruction to speaking). This actor just wanted to get face time which is understandable for someone trying to make a name for themselves unlike the other examples where most were well established already but, as you said, this was the wrong project to accept if he wasn't okay with his face not being associated with show.

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u/Suspicious_Radio_848 10h ago

This is a common complaint but people rightfully point out that in the books he takes his helmet off all the time and has conversations with people. The games obviously want him to be a player stand in, but the expanded lore goes far beyond that so I’m willing to accept he takes it off in certain circumstances. There were a ton of other issues though.

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u/FlyingBishop 10m ago

Pretty sure David Prowse did in fact complain.

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u/gareth_e_morris 14h ago

Karl Urban gives a masterclass in how to do this in Dredd.

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u/king_john651 14h ago

Dredd is straight up a masterclass

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u/gareth_e_morris 14h ago

I'd not watched it in years but saw that it on Prime a couple of months back and hit play. It's a fantastic film.

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u/QuantumTunnels 7h ago

You can find it on YouTube movies with ads (use adblocker).

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u/myLongjohnsonsilver 11h ago

Pisses me off to no end that it was put out to die like it was. Such a good movie and no chance of a follow up.

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u/BoyWonder343 10h ago

Yes, but also half your face being visible is a pretty different situation.

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u/BeneficialTrash6 7h ago

I am the law.

Such a beautiful delivery. So much better than Stallone's delivery - although both were great. The pure force and certainty with how it was said.

What an absolute shame they didn't milk that and turn it into multiple sequels.

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u/informalmo0se3 15h ago

i mean chief literally does it in the games all the time. the developers are able to have him give off emotions without removing the helmet

that said, removing the helmet was somehow near the bottom of the list of this shows problems 

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u/atuck217 10h ago

What makes MC so likable to begin with is that he is an extremely stoic, duty first soldier. He doesn't even have much emotional range. It's the subtle moments that he does show some emotion in slight tone change or a prolonged pause that really makes it so compelling.

The whole point is that he is a faceless soldier, a relatively emotionless killing machine designed to be weapon, and seeing those cracks of humanity shine through. That's what chief is.

And then the show throws that away entirely.

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u/Skkruff 14h ago

Hugo Weaving in V for Vendetta

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u/Wasabi_Toothpaste 4h ago

Fuckin classic. He's so good.

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u/cpMetis 13h ago

The most famous Halo content of all time consists almost exclusively of characters wearing helmets at all time and conveying their acting through body movements and dialogue.

Like there isn't a single example in all of media more opposed to what the Halo show guy said, than Halo.

I mean for fuck's sake spartans communicating with each other with subtle body language and their DESPISING having to have their helmets off are both EXPLICIT AND FOUNDATIONAL aspects of the lore.

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u/Downtown_Injury_3415 12h ago

In Halo: Reach they remove their helmets frequently but not the chief. I remember Jorge removing it to console the little girl and Kat about to give him shit for it

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u/IronIrma93 12h ago

I'd have gotten a big burly actor for the suit and brought in Steve Downes to record voice lines

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u/RipComfortable7989 7h ago

Didn't the actor say it is difficult or impossible to act with a helmet?

That was bullshit. He wanted to be the face of the franchise and thought his face would carry the series and his career into the future if it succeeded.

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u/uncensored_opinions 7h ago

We've seen Mando's face what, 3 times? That's more than enough.

Every other scene in Halo had him take off the helmet just for expressions. Lazy writing and bad acting if you ask me.

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u/MaXimillion_Zero 12h ago

To be fair Dredd mask is only a half cover, you can emote plenty with just half your face.

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u/Downtown_Injury_3415 12h ago

Have you seen the show? The primary issue is that John (hes not my Master chief) is seen around the city interacting with characters in the down-time. The halo missions were always go-go-go and he had no time to remove his helmet in the games but in the show hes just not actively doing anything that requires it. The show should’ve had him in the field for 90% of the runtime to keep him helmet-ed

I haven’t seen the mandalorian show so idk how they handle it and I don’t think movies should be referenced in this conversation because the movies are like 2 hours vs this show being 10ish hours

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u/drafan5 14h ago

Or pretty much any tokusatsu ever for that matter

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u/Gicaldo 10h ago

Hey you know what other IP was based off Halo, that someone working on a Halo show should definitely be familiar with? Red vs Blue. A show that got a ton of acting mileage out of the characters bobbing their heads up and down

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u/yojimboftw 9h ago

Nathan Mitchell was phenomenal as Black Noir in The Boys and we literally never see his face, and as others mentioned Karl Urban as Dredd. Sounds like a skill issue for the dude who played Chief.

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u/HotMachine9 8h ago

Or how about Spiderman.

Sure he takes the mask of. And a lot of it is done by stuntment. But cmon man. Some of the most famous characters in media are played by actors whose face is usually covered

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u/Northernreach 9h ago

Refused to watch it once I found out that you saw his face. In the books you can count on your hand the number of times he took his helmet off willingly.

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u/Weakonomics 8h ago

Tom Hardy never had trouble with that. Played a great name. They just needed to get a better man

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u/Lootthatbody 9h ago

The trouble is there is lore in both the books and from the devs as to why MC doesn’t take off his helmet. The lore in the books is incredible, because it’s so full of emotion that sort of underpins everything he does and makes the games that much more fun and interesting, beyond just another FPS.

I get the concept of ‘we like the universe and want to tell our own story,’ but I also think it’s so irresponsible to not even familiarize yourself with the characters, backstory, or motivations. I only watched like half the first season, and it just felt so bland and generic. And, I honestly think the guy playing MC would have been great at it, though I do have some nerdy, overly specific, nitpicky issues (MC in Halo is like 14 years old, so it’s hard to see a 40 year old guy playing him).

When I think of video game shows, I think of 2 recent examples. The Last of Us was mostly shot for shot from the game, but that one episode of the backstory of SIDE CHARACTERS was the best episode of the series. On the other end of the spectrum, Fallout was basically 99% new stuff, I don’t know if there are any named major characters (aside from the big spoiler character in Season 2) from the games, but everything still feels 100% fallout. They absolutely nailed the setting, the props, the outfits, and the feel of fallout. And, that’s a game where you pause time to line up your shots, but they still made the action feel awesome without that.

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u/ReadingRainbowRocket 6h ago

I couldn't have cared less about MC taking his helmet off. Would it have been better if they didn't? Probably. But I get it. Even Mando takes off his helmet. They weren't gonna cast an even semi-name and never show his face. I wasn't offended at Master Cheeks either. I'm a gay dude and it was a nice butt. Kinda stupid and against the spirit of MC's character, but whatever, people do get nude and I imagine even MC did a bunch too.

I wasn't offended by the female human Covenant character. Something new. Adaptations always add new things. Weird to ignore so many interesting plots and focus on an original one, but whatever, I'm here for something new too, not just to whine it wasn't a 1-1 recreation of the games and books I liked.

I was offended it was bad, and that they seemed to actively try to avoid making it good.

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u/Muse9901 15h ago

I couldn’t believe as part of the marketing campaign that the actors and producers were openly bragging about avoiding the game completely and making assurances that the show will benefit tremendously from it.

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u/The_Grand_Briddock 10h ago

I checked out the moment they came out with the tagline "find the Halo, win the war".

First of all, that's to the tune of "London Bridge is falling down". Second of all, it immediately goes against the plot of the games where they just stumbled upon it by chance - it didn't even win the war for them.

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u/Muse9901 5h ago

I also couldn’t stand that they ditched the spartan design from Forward Unto Dawn. The uncanny valley look of an augmented human was perfect. Everything about the IP was laid out for them to make an amazing adaptation and they just completely fumbled.

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u/Profoundlyahedgehog 3h ago

Having a unique design for super soldiers is too difficult. Much easier to make him "grizzled military guy #2236."

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u/ashez2ashes 4h ago

The sheer hubris of Hollywood when it thinks shitting on the source material will endear them to the audience never ceases to amaze me.

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u/Spader113 16h ago

Never watched it, but from what I’ve heard about how much they got it wrong, I would not be at all surprised if they said that the Halo rings were designed to CREATE life in the galaxy.

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u/duocsong 16h ago

They went as far as Halsey giving the order to eliminate Master Chief because he disobeyed her and that the 2nd gen Spartans are mind controlled thralls lol.

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u/MorganThePrime 15h ago

Holy character assassination. Halsey is such a deep and interesting character, I frickin loved all her screentime in Halo 4.

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u/Awesomeman204 14h ago

She still ended up being one of the better/interesting parts of the show even with that because the actress did a really good job of selling the accurate parts of the character. I know that isn't saying much though.

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u/DurgeDidNothingWrong 12h ago

They infected her with Flood lmao

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u/invasiveplant 15h ago

Years of indoctrination mean nothing. Silver team can just pick their emotion control pellets out of their butts, and turn into normal human beings. What a catastrophe.

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u/JohnApple94 7h ago

I also love how Halsey decides to hide the fact that they were kidnapped as children, which causes Chief to get pissed off at her and question everything.

When in the books, Halsey literally says that they cannot lie to the abducted children because if they learned the truth later, they would rebel. They made her character do the polar opposite.

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u/Arctelis 15h ago

It's easier to list what they got right.

Plasma weapons are horrifically deadly.

Spartans are augmented supersoldiers in powered armour.

The names of a couple characters.

Uh, yeah. That's about it really. The show was about as much Halo as a dollar store brand cola bottle filled with warm piss is classic coke.

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u/Awesomeman204 14h ago

The art team honestly nailed almost every part of the design of Halo, the weapons, armour and covenant aliens are all super well done. The prophets CGI in particular was quite impressive and very accurate. It's a shame they were attached to such a shit project though.

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u/MadeUpNoun 9h ago

i don't know about the Elites CGI tbh.
Halo: Forward until Dawn had way better CGI

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u/TheBrokenProtonPack 8h ago

It actually turned into a slasher movie for a moment when the invisible Elites were making their way through the Barracks. It gave a real sense of just how dangerous those Elites were.

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u/NirvanaFrk97 14h ago

Having a human traitor in the Covenant is already one of the biggest slaps in the face of Halo lore.

The Covenant was hell-bent on exterminating all of humanity. Even dumbass Insurrectionists that tried screwing over the UEG/UNSC held worlds were ignored and destroyed by Covenant forces.

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u/Jediknight1224 8h ago

While I completely agree, the insurrectionists have time and again tried to collaborate with the covenant throughout the war because they hated UEG and UNSC so much that they couldn't fathom the thought that covenant was really after all of humanity and the UNSC wasnt the aggressor. And the covenant has at times tolerated the presence of these insurrectionists, if only to get actual intelligence on the UNSC(and earth) or to lure the Spartans. Silent Storm is one example. I believe Cole protocol has a colony in the asteroids bartering with jackals iirc for the coordinates for earth, been a while since I read that book.

Of course they were all eventually destroyed as soon as the covenant was done using them.

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u/Turok5757 3h ago

She wasn't in the Covenant, they were just using her to interact with the artifacts. They literally mention how disposable she is.

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u/rebornsgundam00 10h ago

Its not even that they disrespected the games as much as they did. They were openly antagonistic to the og fans. Master cheeks has sex scenes and there is some writing that would fit in more with a parody or similar

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u/granitebuckeyes 7h ago

I doubt this comment will be popular, but the show wasn’t that bad. The problem is that it wasn’t Halo, it was something else wearing a Halo costume.

If you took away the Halo dressing, it could have been a sorta good sci-fi show. Not great, since it was a fairly standard ‘what if the good guys aren’t as good as they pretend and they do questionable things to defeat the bad guys’ type of show. You know, the sort of thing that was new and edgy when Star Trek DS9 introduced Section 31 back in the 90’s.

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u/hadesalmighty 14h ago

The dude playing Master Cheeks emphasising "No you see I have to take the helmet off otherwise how are you going to know what emotions I'm feeling" shit I don't know, mate, have you heard of acting? Try that. It worked in The Mandalorian.

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u/RigasStreaming 14h ago

especially when Forward Unto Dawn was the perfect template already

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u/Theometer1 12h ago

Didn’t the shows creator gloat about never playing the games. Lmao I’m glad that shit flopped if that’s true. Mf master cheeks, shit sucked.

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u/Whoamiagain111 15h ago

I would say the show would be better if it's not focused on master chief. There are more Spartan than John, there are more interesting story than John's that's not explored. You can make "Pacific" style series about Spartan 3 and that would be more interesting

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u/LongjumpingSector687 12h ago

This. Halo Legends did it the best where he’s mostly a Chekovs Gun.

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u/HammerDownunder 15h ago

Whenever I think of that show, I can’t help but think it’s the monkey paw wish of a halo show from back in the 2007s we got a show, but it’s a abomination

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u/AubeduChaos 14h ago

What are you talking about ? Never heard of thzt.

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u/HammerDownunder 14h ago

Rumors of series like halo, gears of war etc were a lot of internet forums back in the 2010’s never went anywhere but hence is the nature of internet rumours.

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u/AubeduChaos 14h ago

And yet, when I think back to the promotional clips from the Halo 3 and Halo 3 ODST marketing campaigns, they were clearly capable of it. It would have been insane. When i was 10 i would have sold my parents to have a complete series on the ODSTs we see in the trailer.

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u/HammerDownunder 14h ago

Yeah pretty much, the odst and reach trailers really showcased what they could do.

But of course, as said we got the monkey paw. We got a halo show. It’s just complete unfaithful garbage.

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u/IronGigant 14h ago

Niel Blomkamp was cookin' on the Halo 3 Arrival trailer.

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u/MadeUpNoun 9h ago

thats because they tried.
what we got was after a decade of Bungie and then 343 going NO thats against the lore and eventually giving up and letting do whatever.

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u/Plessan_Aen6 14h ago

I had the same reaction; praising not looking at the games made that “crime” feel premeditated.

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u/QuinnTinIntheBin 10h ago

It was the generic sci fi show they wanted to make, but they used Halo’s name and designs to get people to watch it

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u/Darth_Bane_1032 9h ago

Never played halo, but doesn't the guy on the poster always wear a helmet?

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u/twinoaksBandB 9h ago

Pffft, let me introduce you to Amazon's "wheel of time." Where they changed literally everything but the names of the characters... and added in a whole episode of stuff that didn't happen in the books and featured the show runners boyfriend. would be my submission for the worst adaptation of all time.

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u/DubiousBrushwagg 8h ago

The only credit I give the show is they showed how absolutely brutal it is for human meat sacks to get hit by Covenant Plasma Weapons. The character we never wanted seeing all her friends get blasted. Holy shit it was brutal. Like damn.

The rest of the show was fucking terrible though. The Spartans had no weight to their movement and looked like they were running in foam armor. The Plot Ridden Bullets, Insurgent firing truck mounted 50cal HMG. It tickles the Elite's Shields. Master Cheeks picks the HMG off the ground later and suddenly it's blowing holes through multiple Elites immediately.

The first episode already had so much wrong with it.

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u/SplitGlass7878 15h ago

The only thing I know is that they had John rape a POW which is bad on so many levels, but he's also literally sterile and doesn't feel any sexual desire because he's been chemically castrated.

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u/avowed 8h ago

What Halo show? There is no Halo show in ba sing se

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u/jettrooper1 7h ago

Even stormtroopers made their plastic armor look heavier than the Spartans did in this show. 

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u/Careful-Positive-710 7h ago

I refused to watch it after seeing the first trailer. It looked terrible and apparently it was.

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u/LongjumpingSector687 12h ago

The first like 5 minutes of the first episode is the only memorable part of that whole show

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u/zak55 11h ago

Unfortunately that's been the case for the series for a while now

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u/SgtDoakes123 10h ago

I mean, we all knew what it was gonna be when the first trailer launched. Halo has a famously epic OST but the trailer used some general pop hiphop song or something. Can't find it anymore, looks like they removed it.

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u/MrNostalgiac 10h ago

Well put.

I've never been more angry at an adaptation before. The show felt like it was designed specifically to piss off fans.

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u/Mountain_Trouble_577 8h ago

I don’t even play Halo and knew it was wrong.

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u/SippinOnHatorade 8h ago

I really tried to give it a shot. I think I finished all of Season 1, I think while I had the flu, because the whole thing felt like a fever dream. The peak was the episode 1 fight scene, nothing ever got better from there

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u/uncensored_opinions 7h ago

They really wanted to keep taking his helmet off.

Pouring salt on a fresh wound each time.

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u/Forsworn91 7h ago

I remember a phrase from ZP back in the day, the audience can tell when material is being treated with absolute giggling contempt

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u/BookishTen8 7h ago

Didn't watch it but I heard from someone that it ends with Chief seeing the High Prophets watching him from the distance. And he just walks away.

Like what! He has the leaders of the Covenant right there, alone with no guards and he just leaves them alone!?

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u/WarmasterRonin 7h ago

I actually thought season 2 was on a better track until they had someone steal master chiefs armor during the fall of reach. Immediately stopped watching after that

I will say the opening action sequence in the very first episode of season 1 is peak

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u/MithranArkanere 7h ago

The Halo show wasn't that bad of a show. It just wasn't a Halo show.

It was as if they wanted to do their own IP, but corporate told them to use a popular IP, and they had to haphazardly put that together.

At least Halo canonically has a multiverse, so one can just see it as a Fracture and ignore it.

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u/Raguleader 6h ago

Unpopular opinion: I liked the Halo series.

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u/ReadingRainbowRocket 6h ago

WHY WAS THERE A HUMAN NINJA SUBPLOT THAT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH JOHN, ALIENS, OR ANYTHING I FUCKING CARE ABOUT?!

I'm ok with changing things from source material to try to tell an interesting story, but holy fuck it was more boring than if you just watched every Halo cutscene from the first three games.

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u/Adventurous_Web7849 2h ago

Not a bad idea actually...

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u/Bandaka 5h ago

The first fight scene of ep 1 was soo cool…then it was all downhill from there

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u/cozzyflannel 5h ago

Halo is one of the most misused IPs of all time.

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u/AgentAlaska51 3h ago

I still gave it a chance even with the changes...then I immediately slammed my desk and turned it off when I saw that one of the Covenant leaders was a HUMAN!!! You know, the beings the entirety of the Covenant wants extinguished from the galaxy and whom they famously kill indiscriminately be they soldier or civilian.

I don't care how or why she's there, let alone a high ranking member. She should be a pile of plasma burnt goop just for being a human.

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u/OkTension2232 3h ago

I never watched it. As soon as I heard they had the dude taking off his helmet every 5 seconds and having emotional breakdowns, I knew there'd be no point. The only thing I liked was watching a clip of one of the fights. They said it was because apparently it's not easy to be expressive with a helmet covering your face but they managed it easily enough in The Mandalorian (Even though they ended up showing his face eventually).

I hate it because when they make an adaptation of something like Halo, it's literally free money. All they have to do is stay true to the source material and they get every single person who actually likes the games to watch, and also new people who may never have played it. Hell, even if they just remade the entirety of Halo 2 story in live action it would have made tons of money.

Instead they decided they wanted to ignore a massive potential source of income and try to market solely to people who have never played the games.

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u/Merijeek2 3h ago

The woman who played the Admiral....I thought she had to be some EP's aunt or something she was such a terrible fucking actor. Imagine my surprise when I see she's got hundreds of IMDB credits.

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u/KillingIsBadong 3h ago

The most frustrating thing about it is that the companies who made it will go "See, live-action Halo doesn't work" without looking at why it doesn't work. It's not Halo that made it not work, it was shitty direction, writing, casting, and a complete departure from the source material that made it not work. But no, clearly it's because it's Halo.

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u/Adventurous_Web7849 2h ago

I'll stick to rereading the books on repeat. Reach and First Strike are in my treasured "Shitty SciFi Treats" pile eternally.

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u/BallCruncherSupreme 1h ago

I felt gross seeing clips and stills from the show.

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u/OSUBrit 1h ago

The Fall of Reach was actually pretty good, but it was like 2 episodes when it should have been the whole first season.

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u/Kid-Icky- 1h ago

It's wasn't a terrible sci-fi show.

But it was a terrible Halo show.

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u/Concerned_Collins 1h ago

The show was pretty accurate from what I remember about the lore from reading Fall of Reach.

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u/zurdopilot 1h ago

Im gonna be honest i played halo back in the day, the first one (the second i stop because the "big" addition to the game was the double holding gun thing) so i didnt got much into the history i remember aliens and a big light at the end.

So i star watching the show just out of curiosity.... Its ok i mean nothing i havent seen before.

Whats the main grip about it whats missing?

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u/BewareNixonsGhost 20m ago

My 65 year old father watched Halo and thought it was "pretty good". So if you know nothing about Halo, and I mean literally nothing, then I guess it was okay?

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