Halo: UPDATE and SCRIPT REVIEW

P.T. Anderson, Uwe Boll, crap: all words that come to mind when one thinks of video game adapations. For some reason, nobody has found the way to do a good one yet, even though some will argue Silent Hill (which I still have not seen). So when PETER JACKSON said he would be producing a Halo movie with WETA technology and a script by Alex Garland (28 Days Later) back in 2004, the worlds first good video game movie looked as if it would be GREAT.

Jackson went on to hire a first time director: Neill Blomkamp was when problems first arrived. Well, it wasn't that he was a first time director, it was that Jackson asked for too much money for either studio that was making it to produce it. Thus Halo seemed to never be made... but Jackson kept plugging on and developing the film until they found a new distributor.

Well, with Halo 3 coming out very soon, Blomkamp was given the chance to make live action short films showing his vision for Halo...

And it is incredible. It reminds me of Terminator 2, and that is a very good thing. He has made two, and in the 2nd... well... you just have to check them out.

Arm's Race: Blomkamp's first Halo short.


Blomkamp's 2nd Halo short:


Well, I have got my hands on the first draft of the script, which, while much have been changed supposedly, there are plot points taken from it. The draft is dated 2005, so yes, it is pretty old. I will review this though in its full form, since I have no idea how much has been changed. SPOILERS:

The film opens with a flash back of Master Chief's. It is Reach and there is a large battle between Spartans (super soliders for Earth) and Elites (super soliders for the Covenant). Spartans are being killed in mass amounts. We then cut back to the modern day. The covenant has taken over a space ship called "The Pillar of Autumn." Well, they are taking it over fast. Captain Keyes, the commander of The Pillar of Autumn, unlocks Chief from the cryogenic sleep he is in. They do this so Chief can take Cortana (the ships computer) away from danger because if the covenant find it they would have directions to Earth... which is 360 degrees of bad.

So Chief breaks his way out of the Pillar of Autumn, with a bunch of other soldiers. They land on an alien world. There they are tracked down and action scene after action scene happens. In between one of the action scenes above ground, they find out that the planet is called HALO and it is religious to the Covenant. It was built by "the Forerunners" aka their gods. Halo is highly religious because well... it is the biggest baddest weapon ever created. So they get a grand idea, to go underground to find the control room of Halo and find out some information that really doesn't matter.

Once they get underground, they fight a bunch of Covenant warriors. Then they split up. While they split up, something terrible attacks the troops. Leaving them all dead.

Meanwhile, Master Chief and Cortana make their way to the controll room while kidding baddies. They get there and for some, unexplained reason, it sucks Cortana in and makes her "drunk with power." Chief sees the same world from the beginning except that there is a strange vegetation everywhere. This is the flood. It is a virus thing that swarms in numbers and digs into people, taking over their body.

Chief snaps back to reality, and now Cortana is seemingly dead, but he still takes the chip with him again. Chief then makes his way out while killing covenant and the flood.

Out of no where, Cortana returns and tells him that nothing short of apocalypse will get rid of the Flood. Chief meets the one person who is still alive on the surface, a pilot, who says that if you blow up the crashed Pillar of Autumn it will destroy Halo. Well, they do it and the only people left is Master Chief and Cortana...

BUT WAIT! They see a covenant ship and talking about going back to Earth. SEQUEL!

Not to mention there is a little thing at the end involving a "sentinal." Which are these things that are underground that is like HAL but they are more evil and fly around.

This script, if you couldn't tell by now, is VERY disappointing. Especially coming from the guy who wrote 28 Days Later. You would figure that theyere would be great character development, story and dialouge. But nope! The dialouge in this is cringe worthy with everyline. One such bit that sticks out to me is when a character that serves no purpose to the plot but to be an asshole named Captain Silva is blaming Chief for the deaths on Reach.

Cortana: Don't listen to him. He can't blame those deaths on you.

Chief: Why not? I do.

That is a lot like much of the dialouge. Really terrible dialouge that one expects to find in... well... a video game. In fact, it takes the exact same twists and turns of the video game (as I understand. I've never played it in story mode). It at least feels like it. Since I would say a good, two-thirds of the script is action sequences.

Which is the scripts redeeming quality. The action is awesome and everything a Halo fan wants to see. What is your favorite weapon and or vehicle? Well, I garuntee you it is in it. There are a lot of great set pieces in this that just... well... rock. My favorite being a fight with Ghosts involved. The problem though, is that once they get underground, which takes up a good third of the script, the action is not as exciting as in the first half until what SHOULD be the climax. The last sequence involves blood, guns, a warthog and a lot of explosions (but the way they find the warthog is stupid). But after that we have another 10 pages of action and the resolution of the film is about 2 pages, one of which being the set up for the sequel.

This entire movie actually reads as if it is one giant action sequence with horrible dialouge and story that unfolds terribly. I wish we could have seen a Halo movie of the critically hailed "Fall of Reach" but what we have is a very shallow movie that, if made in its current state, will be about as entertaining as the first Resident Evil film. Which isn't a terrible thing, that movie is simply entertaining but there are extremely stupid parts of the story and dialouge.

This script, if used in its state, would have demolished the hope for a finally great video game movie. Luckily, they have had 2 re-writes which hopefully take some good things about this and added a lot of better dialouge and story elements.