The Halo Series doesn't understand Master Chief 

I meant ELLIE and Joel. I don't think Abby and Joel's relationship was very good lmao

Master Chief is meant to embody the collective will of humanity which fights and resists the Covenant. He's also the legacy of the Spartans, a weapon meant to strike fear into the enemy. In a more meta sense, he embodies the player going through the campaigns.

Didn't these show writers admit they purposefully never played the games or read the books?

Honestly the novels "The Flood" and "Fall of Reach" could have been combined into a good television series. We see Master Chief on Halo cut with flashbacks to his upbringing on Reach and the loss of nearly his entire unit of Spartans at the doomed defense of Reach

I really hate seeing this moody Master Chief. The best part about the relationship with him and Cortana is even though he is human, and she is an AI, he is more of a machine than she is.

They may not understand master chief, but they understand master cheeks

Master Chief's character became very interesting. His thinking was almost at all times totally rational, he expressed gratitude towards Mendez after graduating the Spartan program for helping him achieve his purpose. During the human covenant war he comes to grips with the necessity of the existence of the spartan program. It's laid bare before him time and time again that Halsey's actions were a necessary evil. It wasn't that he had no personality, but he had a very up close and personal understanding of what was at stake in this war and he was very mission-driven. He looked out for marines, inwardly lamented at their losses, and kept moving forward. He and captain Keys both had this "If I just do this one more thing, I can help stave off human extinction. If I just save this one life, that's one more pair of hands fighting back against the enemy." Mentality. Every tiny, insignificant success might just add up and make a difference in some faraway battle in the future. I can't say it enough, he was grateful to have been chosen for the Spartan Program. Halsey told him and every single other Spartan II what the deal was their first day. They were loyal and committed because they knew, even before the Human Covenant war, that their existence could very well end up being what held the UNSC together.

I don't play or watch Halo, but when I think of Master Chief I think of his helmet, it IS his face.

You use other characters for the major emotional hits. Meanwhile Master Chief should, for the most part, be the emotional rock that the other characters draw their courage from (which makes it all the more impactful when he starts to question the state of his own humanity). Forward Unto Dawn showcased this well when Chief shows up.

Not just Mandalorian, I'd also include Deadpool, Dredd, dozens of horror characters.

This is what I've been saying. I don't think Chief - or any other SPARTAN for that matter - would remove their helmet in the field unless it was so badly damaged, it impaired vision, or if given a direct order from a superior officer. Sure, the helmet coming off COULD make sense if we see Chief in his Naval dress uniform, or in a rare moment of down time, but not in the cheap way that the first season of the show did it. Even with his helmet off in the aforementioned scenarios, there are ways of shooting that will keep his face out of view, to preserve that reveal for a single, emotional moment. Shoot the character from behind, put him next to shorter characters and keep them in frame so we can only see Chief from the neck down, hide him behind a glass wall that's glazed at his neck level, that sort of thing. I totally understand the actor wanting face time, but if you sacrifice a key aspect of the character in question, it's not worth it. Karl Urban did that brilliantly in Dredd, like the comic character he was playing, he never took his helmet off through the entire movie. Quality has to come over vanity.

Everyone who played Halo 1-3, went on the same journey as Master Chief. Even if he did not show it, we can emphasize because we went through the same pain and sacrifice. We understand the hardships he had to endure and why he needed to be the badass that he was, especially everyone who played the higher difficulties. He is the Master Chief, and he deserved every bit of respect from his allies and fear from his enemies.

Yep Honestly, the Halo show doesn't feel like Halo. It feels like generic sci fi with a halo skin They completely change the spartan two program and the master chief's origin story

Look at the witcher. Its a meme that the actor gets paid to grunt, really good main characters are built up by the other characters around them. In forward onto dawn, cheif says almost nothing but you get to understand him quite well. Even the stig from top gear has quite a bit of personality even though he literally just wears a helmet and drives cars

The Halo TV series in general reminds me of a quote from a workout channel, AtleanX "You're on the right track, but you're on the wrong train"

The ending of halo 4 was the PERFECT example of chiefs psyche. He just sees himself as a soldier. Nothing else

RvB does this very well as well. The whole 'expressionless faceless character' with more or less just headbobbing? And then eventually going into what would become the greatest seasons of RvB (I include the Chorus Trilogy, especially that ending freezeframe and speech from Church. That alone, gave more humanity to all of the characters, and this faulty and dying AI, who's going to be losing his life to protect his friends..)

The "Halo" show doesn't understand Halo I thought Resident Evil set the bar low for video game films/TV shows.

Genuinely the comparisons to Mando are spot on. Whether it’s the subtle emotes, or even little audio cues or things like that it was clear when emotion was going on. Not being able to see a character’s face is not an excuse

So brave. - Said the audience member of space doge

Ah yes, the evolving relationship between Abbie and Joel

It isn't they dont understand. It's that they don't WANT to understand because they do not care period.

Halo tv feels like an ill-thought-out therapy sessions..

You nailed it. Ultimately it's about Hollywood ego and not wanting to listen to fans or understand WHY Master Chief is so iconic and beloved to them. It's more than just a helmet. It's a symbol of hope and his ability to convey emotions through it and actions, and even fewer words is what makes the character and performance brilliant. They missed the mark so spectacularly, it's really a shame.

The Halo show is just a sub-par sci-fi using assets taken from the Halo universe. It's more akin to a crappy Machinima recorded in forge rather than an actual Halo show. (That being said they're immediately one-uped several times over by Red vs Blue.)

Imagine this scene opens on a lone Spartan fighting off a group of elites slowly zooms out revealing the pillar of autumn flying into the atmosphere halo theme starts playing

They should have used the Godzilla effect with master chief. Have him as a mythic type character who turns up at key moments kicking ass. Have it all seen through other characters

I rage quit the middle of episode six of the Halo TV series during season one and cancelled my subscription while I was at work. Lol

I know a lot of very bitter people have their ideas as top why Paramount Halo and Bungie Halo are so extremely different. But i have to ask if the writers actually wrote a Halo script or if they simply took pieces of the a script they already had for something they wanted and just try and copy paste it into Halo?

They already admitted that they ignored the source material, and have zero concern for canon.

Though a different medium, Alan Becker’s stick figures in his Animator Vs. Animation series is a great example of of just how much emotion you can convey with basically nothing to work with. Not only do they not have faces, but none of them speak either.

People should also recongize that a lot of these actors are also wannabe celebrities, and for their careers to amount to anything they essentially need to be a walking talking bilboard, by showing up at events, giving interviews, accepting awards and doing charity. They are very conscious of their public image so when they agree to do something they aren't always just doing it because they are truly passionate about the project but because they have a contractual agreement via their agency which helps negotiate things like screen time, appearances etc... all of which helps helps sell their public image so they can eventually move on to find bigger higher paying work in the future, the directors and the writers are usually no different as they are also competing for notoriety.

Dredd with Carl Urban showed only his mouth but effectively hides the identifiable portions of his face and he's still amazing in that movie.

Why why WHY didnt they go the route of an ODST team trying to survive when the world os going to hell? Or a bunch of unknown spartans going through training and then coming into contact with the covenant?! Why cant they read the books?!

Great video! Tons of commentary on lore and valid arguments regarding the show's deviations from the source material. Very well done!

The commercial titled "Believe." The miniature battle area with the marines and covenant that end on chief in the hands of a brute. He literally just looks up at the camera. The piano and that one little movement conveyed a lot of emotion. I miss when they cared.

At at even higher level than just the helmet stuff, its ridiculous and unbelievably arrogant that the writers/producers of the Halo TV show thought that the right thing to do was to create their own mostly original story rather than adapt the story that had already had huge success among millions of people.

1:05 yes, the relationship between Abby & Joel is truly heartwarming. Especially in the beginning of the second game

Pablo whatshisname might believe that removing his helmet in a combat situation is necessary to establish his chatacter as chief. He is an actor who wants to flaunt his face, i get it. He didnt learn from Hugo Weaving in V for Vendetta, og the much newer Mandalorian. But what escapes me in Pablos character work for Halo, is how he gets behind that Master Chief, a kid that was indoctrinated and drilled to be a supersoldier for the UNSC since the age of six, with massive body altering augumentations to boot, having fought a bloody war for the mere existence of his race for some 25 years, would at all find him self in the situation where he has sex with the enemy. He is dealt a bad script, and prolly some corporate medling «wannebe game of thrones» too, but still. Its bad. And its just wrong.

Noble 6 has some of the best moments to show emotion and make you feel without removing their helmet, cutscenes from Exodus alone carry so much weight and feeling, like at the start when 6 looks out over New Alexandria being ravaged, and then the camera focus in them holding on Jorge's tags, or at the very end during the pelican ride, 6 just sits there in silence looking over the smouldering ruins, just the amount of feeling in those two scenes alone is insane and thats without removing a helmet or even saying a thing.

One of the the most heartbreaking scenes in Halo 4 is the end when Master Chief is trying to process the loss of Cortana and Lasky tries to comfort him but Chief has been so dehumanized and separated from his own emotions that he doesn't even know how to feel his own grief, let alone express it to another human being, and it causes him to question whether he really was human or if he was just a machine. The whole point of his character is that it's not clear what his actual face is: the helmet or what's inside.

FYI most writers have NEVER PLAYED halo that is part of the problem, why because the do not have the time to delve into the character. Look at Brian Johnson director or star wars only saw a few movies and that was it he never read any of the books and you can see that in is movie.

I'm puzzled by these video game adaptation shows. They have universally acclaimed story content readily available that they essentially just need to copy and paste into the show, yet for some reason, they struggle to execute it effectively. There's this inclination to leave a personal imprint on the work or inject a narrative that's unrelated to the IP, and it never improves things; in fact, it consistently makes things worse. While watching the first season of Halo, I never once felt like I was watching Master Chief. It simply didn't capture his essence...not even close.

Abby and Joel💀 They definitely had a relationship

Totally agree with you about the atmosphere of CE, since that's what really sticks with me even after all this time. The same applies to Bungie's earlier games like Marathon 2, for example.

This show didn't deserve a second season. I'm so disappointed by what was produced.

Nice video. I’m in agreement with everything you said in this video. I would also like to add that beyond Darth Vader never taking his helmet off when visually seen by others until his death in Episode VI , there was Also the OG Mandolorian in Boba Fett, who like Vader never had any visual screen presence whatsoever without his trademark T-shaped Helmet on, he even had his trusty helmet on when he got knocked in the Sarlaac Pitt in the beginning of Episode VI . Then there were also the Storm Troopers in Star Wars followed up later by the Iconic Clone Troopers in Episodes II and III . So there are way to make a character stand out from others without removing certain elements of their character traits in the process.

Red vs blue is a prime candidate for proof of concept when it comes to being able to produce 7 seasons without anyone ever seeing a characters face and being attached to them

Oh funny just like how Disney doesn’t understand STAR WARS!

While we are on the "World tour of not listening to the source material" lets throw Rings of Power and The Witcher: Blood Origin in aswell.

I always think of that scene from Game of Thrones with Master Chief. "You're a strange man.." "I'm the simplest man you'll ever meet". They're overthinking him.

The way I see it, the guy isn't playing The Master Chief. He's playing a Sci-Fi Space Rambo.

You know the writer doesnt get it when he says he needs to show master chiefs emotions in the first place.

Can the uncf (2202) destroy unsc home fleet?

4:22 "punch it" '"Aye aye sir" (starts blasting free bird)

Chief’s actor whinging about how the audience couldn’t connect with a helmet completely forgot that The Mandalorian was able to do it with a brand new unestablished character that didn’t have a face reveal until the very end of season 1. Chief IS the helmet, that’s the Chief we know and it’s through that obstacle that the games have had to be clever with their displays of his character. It’s his subtle movement and Steve Downes iconic voice that give Chief his personality, not some random dude pouting for the camera.

The relationship between Abby and Joel 💀💀💀💀

I actually really enjoyed the halo show. Was it a masterpiece in my eyes, no, but I enjoyed what they did with it

I was hoping to see Johnson talking to the Rookie's and Chief walking up like a badass. Like the bridge scene from halo 2.

It sucks because Halo Infinite actually did a good job evoking a more minimalist Master Chief while still giving him a bit of character for other people to play off of

For anyone curious, The Actman did what amounts to a thought experiment of adapting Halo CE (and by extension Halo The Flood) into a 10 episode tv season, and its infinitely better than the actual Halo tv show.

They're trying really hard to turn Halo into Star Wars, and not in a good way. Though Halo is lucky to not having to submit to the show.

Halo’s story across all its games have always had an arc of Chief coming to grips with his humanity. He was emotionless at the beginning of halo CE. As humanity’s fight went on through the games (and peaking with the loss of Cortana) you see Chief become more and more in touch with his emotions and realize they are still necessary. Steve Downs did great conveying that emotion through the mask… be it with subtle delays in responses, or slight cracks in tone. Because of his stoic, robotic nature, it makes those scenes hit that much harder.

Forward Unto Dawn (the show) did spartan face reveals well. The entire battle the cadets (and before, when they find the recording) they are wondering if the Spartans are some sort of advanced robot/AI/drone thing, or a new suit of marine armor. They fight and survive, following the Chief and obeying him because it's clear he knows what he is doing. At the end, as the Pelican leaves the combat zone and the world burns, Fred and Kelly remove their helms, while Chief doesn't because he's watching for any incoming. The three surviving cadets are immediately flooded with questions as they notice the two Spartans look... young, unnaturally young for their size and skills. "How old are you?" "Classified" answers some questions and spawns more. The Spartans are maybe the same age as the cadets, maybe younger. If I was to do Chief face reveal in Season 1, I'd have the first several episodes be about marine/ODST/army squad vs insurrectionists, who team up to fight Covenant. They get saved by Spartans, and as the group travels to the condor, they wonder what the hell the Spartans are, as they never remove their helms during the mission. After escaping and returning to Reach, they see Chief pull off his helm along with the other Spartans to great an officer/Halsey and report in/hand off artifacts. This then plays off the build up of the other characters wondering what the Spartans are. And you can use those same human characters as supporting people for the Spartan team moving forward, deploying alongside them, etc.

I think the problem with many of these arguments is still that for something like Darth Vader or Mando - there are explicit story reason WHY they don't (or can't) take off their helmets. Master Chief is different in that the helmet staying on is NOT a storytelling mechanism, but a gameplay mechanism to provide immersion for the player making them feel like THEY are Master Chief. With MC you'd have to justify why (especially with the Reach story arc coming up) he can't/doesn't take his helmet off while other Spartans DO. The other issue here is that, until recently, Video Game stories were never really made in the same vein or depth as TV, Books, or Movies and every medium requires a different writing style. As good as The Last of Us is, it still made some significant deviations from the game. Then there are some games whose story is simply too long to adapt everything (not saying Halo is one of those). Finally, and this is key, as we've seen with Marvel and Star Wars and other existing IPs. You have to give the writers/directors/actors room to grow beyond what they are adapting otherwise you risk abandonment or half-assed productions as the experience of filming them was a nightmare due to the expectation that "X is Star Wars/Marvel/Halo/Alien/Star Trek/etc". Not only does it shut down creativity for the sake of pleasing fans, it also alienates anyone who may be interested that's NOT already a fan.

I haven’t play a single halo game and even I still didn’t like the show

Master Chief doesnt need to take off his helmet - because the surrounding characters provide plenty of context and emotion for him. The same goes for Darth Vadar. In the games, there are so many awesome characters, that explain everything about Chiefs background and emotions. The way he protects the marines. The way Sargeant Johnson explains that "the world needs heroes chief!", and that he is a reluctant icon. The way Cortana gives him abuse and their hilarious banter. The way the arbiter and other covenant speak to him and call him "the demon". They couldve just made the marines (and maybe 1 rookie Spartan) the main characters - with the main PoV being the rookie Spartan. Then whenever the Chief or any real Spartan is on screen, it would be x10 more engaging. The TV show has been totally inconsistent with the power level of Spartans.

Hell, not even just Mando. One of my favorite comic shows Doom Patrol has 2 main characters Robotman and Negative Man have their heads/faces covered up with a robot head or mummy like wrappings 90% of the time and they emoted so well with them on.

They understand the character. They also understand that the character would be a poor match for a show meant for mass consumption. They're making a TV show for an audience with several POV characters, including the Chief. If the Chief were to be this stoic hardly speaking character it would be a massive tonal shift when compared to all of the other characters we've been following. This isn't a game where the gamer can self insert into the role and feel the emotions they feel as dictated by the scene and author, this is a TV show where by and large we need to be TOLD what to feel. Would Chief work as originally intended in the TV show? Sure, yea, why not. Would it make for good TV? Not for the majority of the audience, especially those with little to no understanding of the character or a history with the games.

Remember, lore can change it’s not a static thing master chief now has a face you’re just gonna have to deal with that I guess -people who don’t understand internal consistency

Master Chief’s tone of voice, mannerisms, and body language conveyed his emotions with the helmet on. Not saying facial reactions aren’t a major contribution, but it’s not absolutely necessary. Batman wore a mask.

I don't think that its a matter of weather the original VG story is Good or Bad, its that its not the series Directors story. These are people whose entire careers are based on the ability to tell an original story, not retell someone else's. I believe that our only hope is that they create a story that maintains the Idea of the characters without pandering to studio or public opinion. In the case of Halo I believe they failed pathetically.

All it took for me to know I wouldn't watch it was finding out they took the helmet off at the very begining of the show. Doing that made it clear they had zero plans to try and be true to the source material.

frankly, the shows version of Chief would never even survive the first ring, because the fool would take his helmet of to 'emote' how horrified the flood is, and immediately get infected and die

I think you hit this right on the head, Bungie was telling us a grand opera about the UNSC, the Cov, and the flood and fore runners. In the bungie games you just happened to be the master chief but the story wasn’t about you. 343 made the halo series about Spartans and that cast away a lot of the UNSC, when was the last time you saw an ODST? I don’t want a story about me. I want a story about a world and bungie did so well with that that 343 struggles to even understand what makes halo halo. The show I think dives even further away from what makes Halo Halo. I think what we have been fed is someone’s bad writing that couldn’t stand on its own as an original work so they adapted it to halo to make it sell. This has hurt the halo community. This is reflected by Neil blomkempf work with the Halo 3 commercials. Rearm, Prepare to drop, Remember, these where all great commercials with sense of depth and scale to them. Yea they revolve around the chief (except we are odst) but it’s the marines doing the talking. These things all told a great story about a grand universe, we lost a lot of that with 343 and paramount and the company who did halo wars 2 (mostly just hate the UI but the story could use some work)

If I was the lead writer for the series since season 2 take place on reach why not have master cheif partner up with noble team to save reach in this timeline instead of having reach fall since it's a " different timeline"

I forgot how much I love the outro with doggo head pats 😂❤

What makes it really more sad is that they already had perfect depiction of the Master Chief in Live Action with the Forward Unto Dawn series, sure he's not the main character there but it does show that Master Chief works in Live Action.

I dont understand the logic of seeing an IP that's extremely popular and deciding to make a TV show out of it. But, rather than lean into the aspects that make the IP popular, they change it all from the ground up. ...and then they wonder why it flops? That's like telling someone that you're gonna make them their favorite meal but then you proceed to change all the ingredients in the recipe and then wonder why they don't like it.

They should have started it off like Dredd. In his movie, Dredd is the archetype, and Anderson is the character. Up until one of the last scenes Dredd remains unchanged (and shouldn't have changed for that scene imo) while Anderson struggles to emulate him. Her arc finishes when she fails her test and simply resorts to surviving, in the process becoming a Judge in her own right instead of following Dredd. Dredd only breaks archetypes when he says she passed (should've failed her only to be overruled). For Halo, you get Chief as the archetypal soldier with Cortana as the character. He's sticking with what he knows (unchanging war) while she's learning everything she can. Throw in other minor characters around them with small arcs and you've got a first season. Also, follow the first game. Plenty to flesh out there. Chief can go through a character arc in season 2. Or even 3.

The mandalorian season 1 disproves that point about needing to see an actor's face

The mask issue is similar in wrestling. In WCW Eric Bischoff made the controversial decision of unmasking Rey Mysterio Jr, saying since then that you need to see the wrestlers face for hum to "sell" the story, sell the match etc. But Mysterio has gone on to have an amazing career in WWE with some great and emotional stories while wearing a mask. It is slightly different to master chief because with Rey you could see his eyes and mouth but it's still an interesting comparison

3:33 I honestly loved the entirety of not only the campaign of *Halo 4,* but also I enjoyed the campaign of *Halo 5: Guardians* as well. They gave us a fresh new look on the game franchise. I loved the new weaponry, armor abilities and other notable changes in both games. Players need to understand that video games will change whether they like it or not.

The series is clearly an alternate reality. Especially with the latest episode. Keyes dies, which implies no Pillar Of Autum. That alone is a clearly alternate reality

I think you nailed it. One of the things I loved about Halo was that even the story really did embody military Sci Fi. Because of that I always felt the weight and importance of every character and not just the Chief himself. The story felt structured in a way where even though he was the Hero, the Chief (you, the player) were just a Soldier, just another piece on the chess board. Albeit a pretty important piece haha. It's like watching a military movie. Even though you may be following the journey of one soldier, in the end you care about every significant character. Ironically the only story 343 has put out to embody that feeling for me again had been Halo Wars 2.

One of the reasons I didn’t like the Halo show was that it felt like they wrote a different sci fy show but then realized they would have a more marketable product if they made it more halo-y, they get some of the broad strokes, master chief and Cortana, the art style, doctor Halsey. But they miss out on “obvious” halo lore and characters, like master chief being on a team of 4 Spartans, for some reason they changed those Spartans away from who we already knew. Or the exclusion of sergeant Johnson. Or having a human be a very central part of the covenant, there is minor conflict within the covenant in the lore where some elites are like “hey we’ve fought humans and they’re worthy combatants, we let the jackals and brutes join so why not the humans?” And the prophets had to essentially come up with a reason to justify the extinction of the humans that was more than the actual reason of humans are living proof our religion is wrong. I think they felt audiences wouldn’t be able to relate to a weird 4 jawed alien having a crisis of faith despite the fact that millions of peoples favorite character in halo is a weird 4 jawed alien who had a crisis of faith. I think the success of the mandalorian made the people making the show worried that audiences would just see master chief as a rip off of the mandalorian as a gruff tough guy in cool armor who has trouble being emotional available, despite the fact the strong silent type trope is a trope for a good reason. At the end of the day I understand that I’m not a writer and I’m not in charge of things but if in order for your story to work you have to change the backgrounds and character traits of many iconic characters then why not just make them new characters? It would be like if we heard they were doing an animated remake of the original trilogy and they made Luke skywalker the roguish prince of Endor who doesn’t care about people and plays by his own rules hunted by the evil republic headed by president Vader. Like the bones are there technically but it’s in a weird order and doesn’t work with the established lore and gets rid of important characters and has everyone acting different for some reason. On its own it’s a story worth telling but it wouldn’t make any sense as a New Hope remake. I don’t want a adaptation because I want to see the characters and plots I know act and be developed completely differently than how things actually go, I wouldn’t have wanted a the last of us adaptation to make Joel the head firefly doctor whose biological son Eli ran away and now they have to find him if they want to develop the cure. Adaptations have the opportunity to tell a concise story and even build on points that game/novel/comic/play couldn’t or didn’t. Adaptations don’t have to be 100% accurate I don’t want a one to one retelling, look at the walking dead, one of the most loved (and disliked) shows out there, it’s an adaptation of the comics but they take good steps to make the story feel fresh and innovative (Daryl Shane and Negan) but also do things that weren’t in the comics that cause the story to suffer as a result (killing Carl and Andrea) if the walking dead show had started Negan being a part of the Atlanta group and eliminating the character of Michone it wouldn’t make much sense as an adaptation. Adaptations are meant to build off the base story, not tell a different story.

If I recall I think bungie noted Master chief and this can apply to Noble 6 always kept their helmets on so the player could imagine themselves as Chief or 6 due to their masked body. Also halo games halo reach, 2/3, and 4 have emotional parts with Spartans helmet on you could feel the deaths in reach or cortana leaving chief, kinda makes me think the actor hasn’t played the games or hasn’t played the game in a long time

I think you're right in most of what you said, though I actually don't think the inherent problem with the show is that it attempts to focus more on Master Chief as a character. The Eric Nylund books managed to capture "Halo" pretty well in a different format, imo. And they did it while simultaneously expanding on who Chief is as a character. So it can be done. But in order to do it you have to first understand WHO Chief is. And it's not some raging, roided up, rebellious, emotional, teenager in an adult body and power armour. The Master Chief is a soldier doing his part despite the trauma and the loss. He's a kid indoctrinated and having his childhood and his parents taken away, but turned to a greater purpose. He is a symbol of hope and an unflappable fight against impossible odds. Chief is about self-sacrifice. If the Chief from the books and the games had found out that Halsey had been lying to him (which obviously she doesn't in the books), you know what he would've done? He would've said that it doesn't matter. Because he's there to protect humanity from the Covenant and that duty goes above everything else. Because THAT is who Chief is. He is a man burdened with being more than a man. Halsey, btw, is another example of the writers not understanding the source material. Halsey isn't some weird, insane person. She was a very intelligent woman who pragmatically looked at the state of humanity and decided that the Spartans were necessary. She took no joy whatsoever in what was done to the Spartans. She never thought it was "the next step in human evolution" or some other crazy stuff. She thought it was a necessary evil. And that's what the SPARTAN program was. A (supposedly) necessary evil that was absolutely awful but ended up saving humanity nonetheless. That duality between how horrible it is but how much it paid off is key to the program. It is key to the story. It is key to Halsey as a character. And it is key to CHIEF as a character. Because it affects how Chief is perceived and perceives himself. Yes, he was kidnapped and his parents put through hell. Yes, he was indoctrinated and put through procedures that could've killed him. Yes, he was made less "human" by what the UNSC did to him in a way. Chief is a traumatized man. But he is also that symbol of hope and the ultimate saviour of humanity BECAUSE of this. It's that dichotomy at the heart of the character that they needed to capture in order to make Chief work as a character. But they completely failed by having him rebel against Halsey and the UNSC (kind of), become this impertinent rage monster, constantly self-centred and banging a covenant POW. And then you can, AFTER that has been established, try to go back and see if Chief can heal from his trauma and become more human again as "Halo 4" attempted to do AFTER the main trilogy. But as you say, you need that other context first. The writers for the Halo TV series do not understand what Chief is meant to be at all.

It was a fucking tradgedy that Paramount Plus got Halo.

The series doesn't understand Halo at all.

Just wanted to say the fact that you upload every day is very impressive dont overwork yourself tho

We had Jimmy Rings, and he evolved into Jimmy Balls Out. Let's hope they give us the John-117 we have experienced the world of Halo through.

The obvious way to avoid this issue is to make another character for Pablo to play who can be a duteregeast to master chief

I think Pablo is wrong but I also think this take isn’t necessarily correct either. Mando keeps his helmet on because it is his creed, Vader, because he will die without it. In the Halo universe there isn’t actually ever any written explanation for why he is always seen with his helmet on. Heck in Halo 2 his first scene he doesn’t have it on. The only reason he doesn’t have a face is because as a video game character he was never given one simple as that. If this logic were to apply to the show and they did chose to limit Pablos face time then it would have been necessary to make up a reason for it. So yes, a character doesn’t have to have their face on screen to connect with them, but also, the chief doesn’t have to have his helmet on just because he did in the 10+ hours of screen time he has in the games.

I don't mind a few differences and adaptation. For example, chief being out the suit so much, it would be good character development if..spoiler alert... After Cheif and his team got abandoned on Reach without their suits, and he lost one of his team in that fight, once he gets the suits back, he decides to stop taking it off. The cortana and him not getting on also could be good character development if, with time they slowly get to how they were in the games. I have enjoyed seeing Chief out of the armour and seeing him take on other humans, and even elites without his armour was a really good display, of just how amazing the Spartans are, and it's not their suits that makes them special. Obviously in games, we aren't going to run around out of our suits fighting covenant or beating up humans, so it's actually good to see this side of things. But yeah they've flopped a few things, the qwan story just feels out of place and pointless right now.

Lol “Tear running down his cheek” hits different when you write it 😂

I think they should have filmed this most from the eyes of Master Chief, like how the movie Hardcore Henry was filmed

Blue team not being involved was a clear red flag from the start. Season 1 was another huge red flag. Chief is a capable man who doesn't have time to stop for feelings in a combat situation. Doesn't mean stories can't be told about him or the games and books wouldn't have done well.

6:19 So well said, its so driven by feeling of mixing the alien, ancient and familiar. I will never forgot my 10 year old mind realising I could drive the vehicles around this strange new world. Halo Infinite gave that back a little bit. I hope one day a film franchise can do the same.

Why oh why couldn’t we have gotten Niall Blomkamp’s Halo movie…