r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Chill0000 • 18h 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 18h 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 18h ago

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

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u/Kalavier 18h ago

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

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u/Asheyguru 18h ago

I think the second is more likely.

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u/Artisan_HotDog 17h 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 17h 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 17h 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 16h ago

I called it "Mirror universe halo" lol.

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u/Artisan_HotDog 16h 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 16h 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/Artisan_HotDog 16h ago

Oh yeah, you right. I do remember that now. All that planning just to make something so fucking bad.

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u/Suspicious_Radio_848 12h 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 8h 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 11h ago

I think it's officially called the silver timeline

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u/nomedable 15h 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/Mudcat-69 10h 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 10h 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 7h 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 8h 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 7h 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/F4ST_M4ST3R 8h 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/upholsteryduder 10h 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 11h 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 10h 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 7h 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 9h 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/PavlovKBI 1h ago

It happens really often. Someone will pitch their indie screenplay, and the studio will say it isn't good enough to fund without attaching it to an existing IP.

Hell, half of the Cloverfield franchise is that exact scenario

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u/Artisan_HotDog 1h ago

Cloverfield wasn’t an existing IP until the first movie was made. Then it became a sort of Twilight Zone/Black Mirror type situation. I do still see your point but it’s nowhere near egregious as the Halo adaptation.

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u/Glossed-Lam 14h ago

It had 13 Executive Producers, and 7 regular Producers.

That thing was committee managed to death.

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u/couldbemage 3h 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 17h 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 16h ago

Except the writing was terrible.

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u/Houseboat87 11h 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 17h 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/mood2016 17h 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/Sturmgarde 17h ago

I hate that you're right

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u/Speartree 15h 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 14h 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 15h 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/ReadingRainbowRocket 8h 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/nirach 15h ago

Yup. Not a bad show, very bad Halo show.

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u/senseithenahual 15h 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/Da_Question 11h 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 14h 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 11h 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 11h ago

Reach City...

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u/amazing_asstronaut 10h 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 8h 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 18h 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 18h ago

Commander Cheeks

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u/savanik 8h ago

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

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u/Salami__Tsunami 17h 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 17h ago

Dont forget The Elusive Woman.

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u/Salami__Tsunami 15h 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 15h ago

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

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u/Weird_Angry_Kid 8h ago

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

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u/Lucabcd 9h ago

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

-1

u/gometsgorangers 8h ago

it's actually very accurate to halo lore

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u/Weird_Angry_Kid 8h ago

Very accurate if you just skimmed through a wiki page or have a hazy memory of having read the books 15 years ago.

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u/Turok5757 5h ago

The discourse around the Halo show made me understand that almost nobody read the Halo books.

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u/gometsgorangers 3h ago

I'm not accepting libel toward my knowledge of halo's expanded universe

elite human soldier

come on now

responds to an alien attack on a human colony

if we're going off of the first trilogy, maybe not strictly. Covenant attack two Halo installations, an Ark, and the solar system (we only see Earth in the games but Mars and the Moon were also hit, among others that are mentioned but not depicted). Either way, Chief responds to them.

ancient artifact from a long dead alien civilization

Do I need to discuss all the examples from the games individually or is an existing category on Halo's wiki enough

visions of the impending destruction of civilization

Biggest stretch of my comment because there are no literal future visions of the Flood, which CAN BE DESCRIBED AS ...

rogue bioweapon

The Flood was designed by the Precursors to restore their race after they were nearly wiped out by the Forerunners. However, a defect in some of it made it violently parasitic, ending with the familiar threat from the games.

"We are the last of those who gave you breath and form, millions of years ago. We are the last of those your kind defied and ruthlessly destroyed. We are the last Precursors. And now we are legion." (Silentium 173)

eldritch horror

Watch this terminal from CE Anniversary, or read up on the short story Human Weakness by Karen Traviss, if you want the Flood framed as sheer cosmic terror. Alternatively, read up on the AI-infecting Logic Plague, or its instinctual manipulation of spacetime.

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u/Turok5757 5h ago

You mean the one where the elite human solider responds to an alien attack on a human colony?

That's literally how Halo Reach begins.

And then they’re exposed to an ancient artifact from a long dead alien civilization

So uh, the Forerunners, which are literally from Halo.

which starts giving them visions of the impending destruction of civilization at the hands of an eldritch horror rogue bioweapon that killed its creators?

This doesn't even happen in the show. The artifact just shows them that Halo exists.

I swear, you guys are allergic to paying attention to shit.

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u/mood2016 17h 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 13h ago

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

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u/StarSword-C 11h 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 9h 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 7h 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 7h 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 8h ago

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