[HATED] Adaptations done intentionally without help from the source

[u/Chill0000]

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

[u/The_Enigmatica]

what's even crazier is there already existed a pretty decent Halo movie from like 10 years earlier. they weren't even treading new ground

[u/Cheyguy1211 → u/The_Enigmatica]

I love Forward Unto Dawn. It's not perfect, but imo it's one of the most underrated videogame movie adaptations ever made. I re-watch it all the time.

It's weird because you can tell it was made with a lot of love and passion for Halo. Even things that conflicted with lore (like Master Chief not actually having that rank yet so he wouldn't be calling himself Master Chief) you can excuse because it's fanservice FOR the fans.

But with the Halo show, it's like their motto was "screw the fans" the entire time.

[u/Nashvillepreds46 → u/Cheyguy1211]

Forward Unto Dawn was so good. I have an Axios tattoo lol

[u/Cheyguy1211 → u/Nashvillepreds46]

That's awesome 🔥🔥

[u/dianthus-magenta → u/Cheyguy1211]

I love that movie.

[u/guthmund → u/The_Enigmatica]

And a pretty solid set of short films for Halo 3 to help set the tone.

[u/CallMeChristopher → u/guthmund]

Blomkamp would’ve done it justice, and that’s a hill I’ll die on.

[u/RechargedFrenchman → u/guthmund]

The marketing campaigns for Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, and Halo Reach were a bunch of basically standalone short films set in that universe which have no real connection to each other beyond that shared universe, and are way more cohesive and true to the source than anything in the official TV series. The "Remember Reach" ad is one of my favourite video game marketing pieces ever, the "Believe" short film and surrounding campaign for Halo 3 is phenomenal, as is "The Life" for ODST. Blompkamp even directed some of the shortfilms. There are fan films that are comparable in production quality to the old game marketing and enormously better adaptations than the show ended up being.

It's so incredibly frustrating they not only bungled so hard but seemingly just didn't care enough to even try and do it "right".

[u/The_Enigmatica → u/RechargedFrenchman]

ohhh you just brought back a tidal wave of memories talking about that stuff. honestly a classic case of the early stuff just being a bunch of nerds making a cool thing, and now it's a disney marketing team paying the cheapest new grads they can find to make a product.

tragic that it happened to halo, but hey, at least we got the see the culmination of the original story. some games dont even get that much lol, we even got a damn good prequel before it started sucking

[u/RechargedFrenchman → u/The_Enigmatica]

It's kind of a miracle we even got a trilogy as good as it is, considering the Microsoft acquisition during the first game's development (and a couple pivots in how/what they were developing) and then restarting Halo 2 less than two years before it released. IIRC the first third or so of Halo 3 was supposed to be in 2 already and it would end with the reveal of the Ark and/or High Charity arriving at Earth, but they just didn't have time to do it the way they wanted to and that's also why it was such an abrupt cliffhanger. But they stuck the landing and it all kinda worked out.

343 / "Halo Studios" have dropped the ball so hard. Bungie were already always not the best curators of the franchise but at least they were the first so they set the bar and established the legacy. The follow up has repeatedly not cleared the bar and not been equal to that legacy, and it's a real shame.

[u/cacotto → u/The_Enigmatica]

Really? I was so excited to watch Forward Unto Dawn and was so disappointed with how boring and generic the whole bootcamp highschool thing was. I honestly think the series is unadaptible. The lore just isnt that interesting for anything except a videogame. You dont really have characters so theres little drama to mine, and the background lore is interesting but nobody is going to produce a show where they read halopedia articles on screen. Last thought, i think RvB was the pinnacle for Halo media as it just used the visuals to make its own cool little story.

[u/Foehammer_33 → u/cacotto]

Unadaptable? I can maybe understand that idea if you're talking about directly adapting the story from any of the games specifically, as you're left with a lot of gap that is filled by having the player move through the game themselves.

But Halo as a whole? There's like two dozen full length novels. Adapt Contact: Harvest into a movie and I guarantee it would be loved by fans and the unfamiliar alike. Halo has some of the deepest and richest video game lore out there, at least before the 343 retcons.

[u/The_Enigmatica → u/Foehammer_33]

Frankly i'd say Halo 4 did the movie an injustice by ruining the actually great tie-in they tried to pull off for commander Lasky. then you meet the guy that survived that massacre, lost his brother, and watched half his squad die to the covenant. Adult him at the end of the movie barely says a word, and has the aura of a freaking 40K space marine. Then in halo 4 hes just a golden retriever for some reason lmao. I think the movie did its characters better than the game it was meant to set up quite honestly.

Also halo 2 is practically a movie, and it's a not-insignificant portion of the community's favorite game. not to mention it's by far the most character driven. the juxtaposition between the chief and the arbiter is what made the series. the first major cut-scene in 2 is so iconic, it made the first game's story better by extension lol

[u/WaterWitch5031 → u/cacotto]

No... characters??

Youre aware how many very well loved Halo novels there are?

[u/The_Enigmatica → u/cacotto]

look im not gonna try and argue that forward unto dawn is some masterpiece. it's definitely not lol, but saying the halo lore is unadaptable in particular from a perspective of lacking real characters is an insane take. is halo 2 your least favorite story from the originals or something? that game is just shy of being a movie, itself lol

For me the best part of forward unto dawn IS the lore aspect. we're watching a pre-covenant UNSC. The one guy cracking into classified footage of what might well be first contact with the covenant, and all the students reacting to it is top shelf lore IMO. Not liking the dram of a bunch of ROTC cadets i totally get. but saying the lore is no good for a movie adaptation? crazy talk.