Halo: The Fall of Reach

Well, now that the Halo series is finally around the corner and only 2 months away, I've decided to watch Halo: the Fall of Reach. The first thing I should mention is that this is a low-budget mini-movie and is only 65 minutes. The story goes deep into project Spartan-II and where are they originally from, especially Spartan 117 or the great master chief. CG and animations are weak and terrible for a movie in 2015. However, since it is a low-budget movie maybe you could ignore it. Music except the famous Halo soundtrack has nothing to offer.

Overall, there is nothing much to say about this movie if you are a real fan of the halo it can be recommended. Other than that don't waste your time because you probably won't make it through the first 10 minutes.

I have read the Halo: The Fall of Reach book a few times and was actually reading it around the time I saw this movie.

Basically the movie follows the outline of book fairly well, but...

Somehow they managed remove the parts of the book that made it so good.

In the movie: John is kind of a dick, there isn't really any relationship between John and Chief Mendez (John is supposed to really look up to him and respect him), Captain Keyes is kind of a dick, the relationship between John and his fellow spartans is hollow. Everybody felt very 1-Dimensional. I think these problems are because of the lack of detail in the movie and the bland animation, the sometimes very off-key voice acting.

Honestly, if the people who made this movie would have just payed attention to why the characters in the book were so good and why the relationships were compelling we might have gotten something much better. That's too bad.

The book has great potential for a movie, but it was wasted with this attempt.

If you want some quick general backstory on Halo, watch this. If you want entertainment and a compelling story with compelling characters - read the book.

my only real gripe is that it's not long enough. it has great story telling. i just hated the fact that i was aware of it wrapping itself up. i would've appreciated another hour or so. it does say "series" so if there are more to come, then awesome.

as for as the visual quality, it's not AAA quality production. do you love Halo just for the graphics? or the lore.

i read the book years and years ago. i don't read books for AAA graphics. there are none. if it WAS done through AAA production, sure it'd be nice. there are two general paths to 3D, photoreal or stylized. this was chosen to be done in a stylized manner. and i actually like how they executed the style and atmosphere.

if you're in it for the visual effects, don't watch this. if you appreciate halo for the lore, if you appreciate some storytelling of a once great franchise, then i'd recommend watching this.

it helps shed some light as to why 117 is the way he is.

Halo has been a flagship title for Xbox consoles for more than a decade, it has spawned numerous titles and spin-offs, but apparently animation movie is not a priority. The CGI is incredibly stiff and design is equally lackluster, there is barely any shred of production value of the game here. This will no doubt disappoint the fans while probably won't attract any casual movie viewers.

It tells the story of John / Master Chief, the main protagonist as he goes through his training and childhood. He is not the easiest character to transition to cinema as he's a silent protagonist on the game. The animation delivers his story by narrations from other characters, while Joh himself is pretty one dimensional. His interactions are mostly military oriented, leaving little room to expand.

To make matter worse, it utilizes the same formulaic sequences like those in Universal Soldier films. Also, characters' facial expressions are extremely bland. Animation can barely produce any quality equivalent to today's game cutscenes. It's just plain rigid motion and uninteresting setting for one hour, and that short runtime will not amount much in term of narrative anyway.

The low quality visual will most likely upset gamers, and it's certainly not the introduction story Halo would like to represent the franchise on animation genre.

It all felt like someone strung up all the scenes from a game to make a story. I asked myself if it were fan made. The animation wasn't only weak, it was slow. The whole thing's an hour long, but at what I consider normal speed, it's probably more like 45 minutes. I watched at 2x and it was OK. Also there were some scenes that were perfect candidates for eye candy, like the explosions of ships and the fights. They had no budget for those.

Now, about the story, it's an origin story of this character in a game called Halo that I have never played or seen played, so I can only comment on it as an independent thing. Young children are abducted and turned into supersoldiers just in time to fight an aggressive alien species. I don't know why they called it The Fall or Reach, since nothing fell. Just as I was getting invested in the story the film ended.

Bottom line: nothing spectacular, not in terms of production or storyline, but it is an animation probably made using a game engine for a novel written for that game. What did you expect?