Halo: The Fall of Reach

Plot synopsis:
=== Setting and characters ===
The Fall of Reach takes place in the Halo universe and spans several decades, beginning in 2517 describing events up to 2552. In the Halo universe, traveling faster than the speed of light is possible through slipspace, another dimension where special relativity does not apply. This has allowed humans to colonize hundreds of other planets which are controlled by the United Nations Space Command (UNSC). Feeling repressed by the UNSC's heavy-handed rule, some colonies revolt; fearing rebellion will tear the UNSC apart, military leaders approve the SPARTAN Project, a secret squad of super soldiers to quietly suppress rebellion.
The protagonist of The Fall of Reach is the Spartan soldier Master Chief. Dr. Catherine Halsey, the creator of the SPARTAN Project, is introduced alongside then-Lieutenant Jacob Keyes. Franklin Mendez is the trainer of the Spartan II and Spartan III programs, teaching them their physical combat skills while an AI named Déjà teaches them military history and strategy. Cortana, Master Chief's AI companion through much of the series, is also present as Dr. Halsey's aide in the lead-up to the Spartans' mission.
=== Plot ===
The novel opens with the civilian Dr. Catherine Halsey and Lieutenant Jacob Keyes traveling to meet John, a six-year-old boy. Dr. Halsey reveals to Keyes that John is one of 150 children who possess rare genetic markers making them suitable for conscription into the SPARTAN-II program, a secret experiment with the aim of creating super soldiers for the UNSC to quell rebellions. Seventy-five of the children are kidnapped by operatives of the Office of Naval Intelligence and replaced by clones engineered to die of natural causes shortly thereafter. From this point on, the recruits are known only by their first name and a three digit number. John-117 and the rest of the children are drilled and trained by Franklin Mendez; John demonstrates leadership of his fellow Spartans leading to his promotion to squad leader. In 2525, the Spartans undergo a series of surgical enhancements which turn them into highly efficient super soldiers at the cost of crippling or killing more than half of the original seventy-five. The Spartans are also equipped with powerful MJOLNIR battle armor, designed to respond as quickly as the soldier's thoughts. John-117 is given the rank of Master Chief Petty Officer. The Spartans are highly successful, but they experience a priority shift after a collective of alien races known as the Covenant begin obliterating human colonies, declaring humanity's destruction as the will of the gods. Mendez leaves the group to train the next generation of Spartans as John and his comrades first face the Covenant.
By 2552, the war against the Covenant is going poorly. The technological superiority of the Covenant means that space battles heavily favor the Covenant, and the UNSC can only win engagements by suffering tremendous losses. To prevent the discovery of Earth or other human colonies, Vice Admiral Cole creates the "Cole Protocol", which forbids direct slipspace jumps to Earth or any other population center and mandates the destruction of a ship before it can be captured by the Covenant. Jacob Keyes, now commander of the destroyer Iroquois, discovers four Covenant ships arriving at the Sigma Octanus System, and single-handedly destroys three of them; his heroics earn Keyes the rank of Captain. The Covenant proceed to overrun Sigma Octanus IV, searching for a mysterious ancient artifact. Despite a costly fight, the humans manage to repel the Covenant, and Keyes intercepts a coded Covenant transmission from the surface before the Covenant retreat. The Iroquois heads to Reach, unwittingly bringing a Covenant tracking device with it.
Soon after, Keyes is given the command of the UNSC cruiser Pillar of Autumn for a secret mission; the Spartans are to capture one of the Covenant's religious leaders and barter a truce. Dr. Halsey also introduces John to the artificial intelligence Cortana, who would assist the Spartans by residing in their MJOLNIR armor. Before the mission can begin, however, Reach is attacked by a massive Covenant fleet. John and Cortana reach the Pillar of Autumn, but most of the other Spartans are presumed killed as the Covenant vitrify the surface of Reach, turning the landmasses into glass. Cortana initiates a slipspace course based on the ancient glyphs intercepted by the Covenant at Sigma Octanus, the course takes them to a massive ringworld known as Halo, setting the stage for the events of Halo: Combat Evolved.

Tags: violence

Review:
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.
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.
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..
if you actually like halo for the story, it's worth a watch.
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.
i read the book years and years ago.
i don't read books for AAA graphics.
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..
Great adaptation, and excellent way to visualize the first book.
What the first reviewer obviously doesn't realize is that this episode was based on the novel, written by Eric Nylund, "Halo: The Fall of Reach" in 2001.
Excuse me when I say that this guy is flat out wrong saying "there is barely any shred of production value of the game here".
This wasn't meant to resemble the games but more what we read in the book and saw in Halo: Legends, However there are some cameos that relate back to the game.I love how Said reviewer goes on to say that most of the chiefs actions are military-oriented, Which is only part true since there are so many examples when he is not, in a military-oriented series...
Now lets talk about the visuals, I had no issue with them, but this is a different age where everything has to look like "quality equivalent to today's game cut scenes" as he says.He fails to realize yet again that the action sequences ("formulaic sequences like those in Universal Soldier films") are almost identical to the ones in the book and are nowhere near the cliché "Universal soldier films".
To me Halo has always been a, come for the awesome game play and stay for the lore.
Obviously I wouldn't expect some hardcore gamer who only cares about KDR to look at this.
However when you say that the "Low quality" will most-likely upset gamers, I will make an account for the first time on IMDb just to write a review explaining how wrong you are.In my own personal opinion this is as true to Halo as it gets and I would definitely recommend a viewing as I was brought back to when I read the book a few years ago.
In terms of visuals, like I said before, It reminded me of Halo: Legends and even a lot of the scenes in that looked worse than what people are making this out to be.
I feel like one thing that could be improved upon if anything, is the facial animations but even that has a particular style I suppose.
Halo: The Fall of Reach is definitely a nice addition to any Halo fans collection and I would also like to apologize for going off on a rant if this what you would like to call it, I was just logically disapproving of another persons deception and ignorant statements, and who chooses to be unstudious about what he reviews..
Missing the heart of the book it was based on.
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.
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..
It Doesnt Even feel like you are watching a movie.
I just started at the screen laughed twice at the terrible animation and moved on with my day like nothing happened.
It felt like I lost 1 hour to the void.
I am one of many who has read the novel on which this movie is based off of and which I loved so you could say I went in with high expectations.
Besides, book adaptations are rarely if not ever better than in it's original form simply because our own imagination plays a mayor role in it.
It's hard to live up to those standards which are different for each and any individual.Unfortunately lowering my standards was not merely enough to be able to enjoy this movie.
The only thing that actually kept me going was me liking the universe the books created and my interest in how the team behind this production envisioned this prelude to the Halo games.And that's why it baffles me so much that it's this bad because this is coming from the people that have the property in their possession and who work on the current games in the franchise.
Everything is there and checks out, from the original voice actors down to the lore, even small details like the HUD indicators from the games, and yet they have managed to produce a lackluster representation of an otherwise great story written by Mr. Nylund with stiff voice-acting and even stiffer animation work that resembled something closer to in-game graphics from last generations game consoles than anything.
If I didn't know any better I could be fooled in to thinking I was watching a not so funny episode of Red vs.
I know and agree that looks aren't everything but then at least get the emotion part right one way or another, especially because The Fall of Reach is one of emotional heavier tales in the franchise, if not the heaviest.The movie adaptation of the Fall of Reach ended up being quite a disappointment to me and I wasn't even expecting all that much of it to begin with, and to make matters worse, to top it all of, we didn't even get to see the full story.
We have seen Reach, but the falling bit as mentioned in the title is a big part of it too.
And if you're a fan and you're as curious as I was though, take my advise and put the book on your nightstand before hand..
This video was nothing more than a cheap rip-off of Orson Scott Card's Enders Game.
I was surprised how uncreative it was.
Read Enders Game, then watch the movie, you will see how this was nothing more than someones attempt to capitalize off another persons ideas.
I read Fall of Reach a few years back and found it entertaining but again I was saddened at how closely it resembled Orson Scott Card and Heinlein.
I was hoping for original ideas, plots, and characters but this was the wrong place to look for it.
Stick to the video game, and ignore the sad plagiarizing back-story..
Watching the Western fantasies about the future and it clicks: the Western future society is far worse than any non Western threat, including the recent Islamist scare.
What I am really tired of is all of the reviews from people who have "READ THE BOOK" and are disappointed that it's not the same.
Haven't we all learned by this time that anything from book to film/video is never going to be like the book.
Halo The Fall of Reach Review.
However I like Forward Unto Dawn more, the Animation I like the style of it.
Look I know that this is based on the Novel, but still it doesn't make since when you think about it.
Halo Origins would have been a better title.
And even still, so with all odds Halo The Fall of Reach is best of what it can do.
First off, let me start off by saying that I've read the book, off of which this movie is supposedly based, cover to cover, multiple times over.
If you're a fan of the book, you're going to be very disappointed.This movie is deplorably bad.
Dr. Halsey is voiced by the same voice actress who voiced Cortana, which is appropriate based on the books.
Sometimes their tone is off, sometimes the children sound like they're shouting - for literally no reason at all.
You truly never realize the importance of talented voices in an animated film until you don't have them.Moving on, the writing is terrible, too.
Anything of value from the book has been stripped away from the script, including its namesake - the fall of Reach.
That's right, the climactic end of the book is nowhere to be found.
The parts of the story which do exist are only partially correct, seemingly re-imagined for brevity instead of drama.
Kellogg's should sue this guy, because the dialog in this movie makes them all sound like Fruit Loops.But maybe bad writing and poor voice acting could be saved by good cinematography.
The 3D animation in this movie could've been great if they'd used any of the technology created in the last two decades.
Instead, we get stiff, poorly animated characters who rival marionettes controlled by a triple amputee.
There's zero tension in any scene throughout the entire movie.
It's visual heresy.The worst part of this movie is that they had the audacity to say "based on a book by Eric Nylund", because that's an outright lie.
(spoilers if you haven't read the book).
This is a short movie/series so ill keep the review short as well, or maybe i wont.I was expecting a book adaptation like any other, with some scenes missing and so forth...
(i have read Fall of Reach multiple times) The reason why i think its worth solid 5 is because the story of Chief is followed to the letter...
which is good, but some details are outright wrong and completely opposite of the book.Before I go into the story details, let me just say that the animation was fine...
it was unique style, might have been cheaper production wise like people say...
I didn't find any significant complaints in the animation, could have been better of course but it was good enough.
Reminds me of those other Halo Waypoint-series's which are done in similar fashion.However the main issue that this movie has (i own the blu-ray) is the story details.
they had already been described in the book, so why not use that description and make it look like it?
Instead it looks like that they didn't bother...
just slapped something similar to get it over with.Some of those details can be overlooked because they are merely formalities like the way the kids dispatched the 2 soldiers during their training, in the book they beat up the last one of them instead of merely throwing a few rocks and stand around him...
that was supposed to look like a pack of wolves taking down larger prey.
The details that i could not forgive were scenes like when the kids were first time introduced to their new place and told what they were gonna be...
nobody tried to leave, it seemed like they didn't care...
6 year old kids would care and they would want to get back to their parents (like in the book...), but there was not a single bit of reluctance visible during that introduction.The next scene i found unacceptably wrong was the Mjolnir-armor suit up...
Correct me if I'm wrong but in general only Halsey was able to distinguish Spartans from each other while they were suited up...
well, i guess every officer in the UNSC is too stupid to notice that they all had UNIQUE helmets to further make themselves distinguishable...duh.Okay the last scene i found disturbingly out of place was the first fight against a covenant ship...
in the book the UNSC ship was like 3 times more massive than the covenant ship, and thus they thought it wasn't a threat...
SURPRISE FACTOR!.
what the heck, the covenant ship was like 10 times bigger than the UNSC ship.
The superiority of covenant ship-technology was immediately made insignificant because their ship was so much bigger.The whole point of Halo story - Human-Covenant War - has been the humanity's struggle to survive against overwhelming technological superiority.
This movie forgot that.If the major wrongness's were fixed...
i would give this movie 7/10, if it was exactly as accurate as the book it would get 8.5/10.
The Animation only takes 2 points in my book...
so i will end up with 5/10.In reality i should give 4/10 but i love halo so i want to give it 5/10...
Shame animation doesn't match visuals.
After brutal boot vamp and physical enhancements, they form the basis of a strike force against an alien invasion.This feature-length CGI animation is a 3-part mini-series joined together, based on a novel and video game, neither of which I know much about.The story is fine, albeit very reminiscent of Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers, intertwined with assorted rites of passage stories, not to mention Wolverine's origin.The backgrounds, props and sets are great - strongly effective visuals, well designed and executed.The characters and animation are downright poor, especially for something created in 2015.
The faces are inexpressive and far too similar, the facial animation is unconvincing, and the characters are extremely badly integrated into the scenery.The voice acting isn't very good, either.This could have been much, much better..
While I agree with some that the graphics are not important, a lot of emotion was left out of this story because of that lack of graphics.
There is also blame for this on the voice acting, but perhaps the actors themselves realized there wasn't much to go on.
Look, I for one am not one of those "the book was better" people, but in this case they forgot key points from the book altogether.
If you wish to understand, read this excerpt from the book that talks about a cave drill in chapter 8 page 67.
Watch it if you like, I give them a soft 4 for effort, but this movie was seriously lacking in all areas.
If you have the imagination, stick with the book..
(Note - this review has some spoilers)The Halo movies aren't usually that bad so I thought this one might have 'improved' from the last.
However, I've seen better animation and rendering in a late 90's video game than this movie!From the start you watch 6 year old kids getting beaten up - it's just plain unpleasant and unnecessary.
John (who becomes Master Chief) is totally unbelievable - almost schizophrenic in his character; one minute he can be slaughtering those who annoy him and then suddenly become the most caring soldier on the block.The 'story' slightly reminds me of Enders Game with John being a very pale-in-comparison 'Ender'.
But there's just nothing to like about him or any of the characters.
The whole movie consists of short cut- scenes based on the sacrifice of kids as they grow up.
It's just plain morose from beginning to end.I haven't watched such a shallow, wooden, stiff, badly animated cartoon such as this for a long time.
I usually love sci-fi but you'd have to be a dyed-in-the-wool, die-hard, Halo lover to give this movie any rating above 1!I seriously wasted my money on this one..
Movie makers have to realize that adapting a story-line from a video-game is easy.
It's funny because a die-hard gamer friend of mine warned me to stay away from pretty much most video game adaptations and he was right.This starts out just too entirely bloated in terms of meaningless dialog.
The set-up is just too long winded and no way is this much set up needed for an action film.
It's like watching stick figures talk to each other.
SPOILER ALERT i saw the movie from games point of view as most of others would who played halo day night it is great piece of work..!!
the movie had some drawbacks on backgrounds but the story telling was impressive..
the hard choices characters made were emotional but overall it was just a start and so i would like a sequel..!!
actually the movie made me curious and so many that were missing were present in the novel..
i would suggest each and every fan of HALO games fandom you should see it..will change your perspective..!!