Live-Action Halo TV Series is Not Part of 'Core Canon' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 03 January 2022 / 2,185 Views
The first official trailer for the upcoming live-action Halo TV series was released during The Game Awards 2021 last week. It stars Pablo Schreiber as Master Chief, Natascha McElhone as Dr. Halsey, Jen Taylor as Cortana, and Bokeem Woodbine as Soren-066.
The head of Halo transmedia and entertainment at 343 Industries Kiki Wolfkill in a video shared by Halopedia on Twitter said the Halo TV series is not part of the core canon and is instead referred to as "Halo Silver Timeline."
"We do have some context and perspective that is different from some of the stories that we've experienced and or read about in the games," Wolfkill said. "We’re referring to this as the Halo Silver Timeline, as a way of differentiating it from core canon.
"And both protecting core canon and protecting the television story. And by that I mean being able to give ourselves the chance to evolve both, and for both to be what they need to be for their mediums without colliding with each other."
The Halo TV series will premiere on Paramount+ in 2022.
The upcoming Halo TV show now has its own canon status! It falls under something called the "Halo Silver Timeline".
— Halopedia (@Halopedia) December 16, 2021
According to @k_wolfkill, this was done to help protect both the Core Canon and the TV show's story, letting each evolve to best suit the medium that they are on. pic.twitter.com/e3YAv5UDUm
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Really people?
Halo is hands down my favorite franchise ever out of every medium of entertainment and this news has zero negative effect on my excitement of the show. I just want great Halo show to watch.
I mean MCU vs 616 thing right? I mean this expected.
Wait, is this the same Halo TV show that was announced all the way back to the XBOne's announcement? Boy, they've either taken their sweet time or they got stuck in development hell for years.
Good article!
Looking forward to the Haloverse crossover in 2030.
So stupid that they do this. It just makes Halo fans, the primary audience, less interested.
MS - We'd like to bring the Halo franchise to TV.
TV - Ok, but it can't really be Halo then.
MS - Umm.... You've got a deal!
Does MS think they can't grow the Halo gaming community, so just start another community with a different take on the story through TV?
If your primary audience is Halo fans then it's bound to fail even if they did watch it cause that number isn't very big. For a TV show to succeed it needs to appeal to the TV audience in general not just Halo fans. This will probably fail on both counts though.
That's really dumb then. Why use Halo at all? Why not create something unique, or based on a Halo like formula, without using Halo?
They keep using known franchises, gaming, movies, or TV, thinking they can get away with changing what they're about, and it keeps failing.
Meanwhile they've stained if not ruined a bunch of those once beloved franchises.
Things don't get ruined by making appropriate changes, that's a requirement of adapting something from one medium to another successfully. Are all these great comic book movies that everyone loves 100% faithful to their source material? hell no, they're adaptations that made changes where they saw fit in order to make good movies or TV shows that appeal to not just the comic book fans but the general audience.
One of the main reasons videogame adaptations have failed is simply because the people working on them are just bad at it, and since there were so many bad adaptations they've built a bad rep which leads to talented Movie and Film writers/directors steering clear of them leading to more bad adaptations.
Are they the same though? Are comic book fans loving the new versions on the new medium vs the original?
I’d say it’s irrelevant, what matters is that they’re generally considered to be pretty great. If a bunch of purist fanboys don’t like it they can take a hike.
That's the same sort of attitude Mattrick had with XB1.
'You're a long time XB loyalist but don't want TV? Well too bad! You're out, they're in. Stick with 360 or suck it.'
How did that go over?
Now a few franchises have gotten away with making changes, like Star Wars, but the messaging was done well and the medium isn't as different. Though even then, some of the spin offs were terrible and even the main movies aren't beloved with the new direction.
Most attempts to change a franchise crash and burn.
The smart thing to do is what Bungie has done. Marathon, Halo, Destiny. They're basically all the same formula, though with minor changes and new identities.
Now do what Bungie does, but instead of transitioning game to game, go from Halo to another name on TV.
I’m not even gonna justify that terrible analogy with retort.
'Purist fanboys can take a hike with Halo.'
'Purist fanboys can take a hike with XB1.'
Terrible analogy indeed...
Alright fine I’ll entertain it. In your analogy it was a bad thing because XB1 failed cause no one cared to watch TV through a gaming console, but if it ended up selling a billion units like MS had hoped then they would’ve been justified in telling the gaming purists to take a hike.
Just like Marvel can tell comic purists to take a hike cause their movies and TV shows loosely based on those comics dominate pop culture and make billions year after year.
Ok, so....
'We, whoever that might be, are going to use you, a loyalist and/or purist, to build something new from the ground up, and once we've established ourselves, you can get lost, because you are now irrelevant. Thanks for nothing, you losers.'
Where do we sign up? Me! Me first!...
Well it’s been happening forever. That’s what “real fans” call “selling out” and it’s a natural progression of something becoming more popular and appealing to a wider audience.
So your point is as long as something or someone can be seen as 'growing' or 'expanding', it's ok for that to just drop you and leave you behind?
Great morals.
So gamers should purposely do everything they can to keep their fav franchises not quite niche, but not too popular either? Make sure they never reach the point where they'll reach their 'natural state' and be 'changed for the better'?
I wonder why it's so hard today to turn something original into something great nowadays? Maybe because everyone knows it'll end up getting taken and changed eventually anyway?
So now all we can do is take the same old broadened franchises that exist, and just keep changing them even further?
If that tends to work poorly to begin with, well...
I'm not here passing moral judgements, I'm just telling you how art is created under capitalism. Your only real option is to only consume new IPs and not get emotionally attached to any franchise so you can easily move on to another one when it inevitably changes cause it has to or it will die because under capitalism you must continually grow or die, because if you're not making more money this year than you did last year then the investors can't make a profit which is a no go.
Not all investors are looking for a big profit and there are many ways to make more money.
Some ways are more simple, like charging more for the product, or less simple, make a new product, even within a new medium.
Just 'sell out' is being lazy.
Okay, so name one franchise that has lasted decades without ever changing.
Define change more specifically. What counts as change?
I'd say Bond hasn't changed, even with the games, except for the conclusion to the most recent movie, which was really dumb. Others may disagree however.
What an idiotic take. It's not even close to comparable.
Care to explain?
You're comparing one of the worst decisions in video game history, universally hated among all not just Xbox fans, to something that might annoy a small group of "Halo purist." There have been bad Halo live-action shows in the past and it really didn't matter. Halo fans like myself only really care if the games turn out good or not.
Yet what I'm arguing against, is someone saying that likely and hopefully, Halo grows out of it's 'niche' like state, and becomes something broad and different. So much so that Halo purists get the shaft.
I disagree, and also hope that's not the case. I think Halo purists deserve to continue what they put into the franchise.
If Halo purists always got their way the franchise would be dead. They've bitched about literally every tiny change that has taken place past Halo 2. lol
What kind of shape has the Halo franchise been in since Halo 2?
Maybe if things went their way, it would've been better and far stronger today possibly?
Or dead from staleness.
Halos isn't niche and hasn't been since Halo:CE. Purist aren't always right. I remember when Halo 2 and 3 were called "bad games", and now they are considered classics among the community.
There is this little game called Halo Infinite that just released and it's been very well received by the community minus a few issues. That is way more important for the franchise and fans than any tv show.
Well it would be 'niche' compared to Marvels Avengers or COD. Depends what you're comparing it to.
I agree. Getting Halo back on track is more important than branching it out to other mediums.
Being less popular than 2 of the biggest IP's in gaming and film doesn't make something niche. The fact Halo is even mentioned among those IP's is proof enough.
Actually considering only one Halo has ever been able to cross the 10 million mark, it's pretty far low on a list of most popular game franchises.
I never said it was the most popular. I know there are plenty of other more popular franchises, but its still very popular and far from niche.
It seems like your argument is the canon has to be ignored to make a successful show. For Halo, I don't believe that is necessary like some other IPs. Although, its a safe bet the show will fail regardless what they do.
If you want a successful movie, cast The Rock as Master Chief and stick to the canon.
My point is canon doesn’t matter. You can make a good movie or show as part of the canon like say Mandalorian or something that’s it’s own canon like the many comic book movies. You just need talented writers and directors who can own what they’re making and aren’t afraid to stay true or deviate from the source material where necessary to create something that can stand on its own. All they should be worried about when making a movie or TV show is that it’s telling a good story that’s engaging.
Halo is more comparable to Mandalorian than comic book movies. Also, the Star Wars fans want content that's canon, I assume the same of Halo's audience. Frankly, I don't think anybody who cares about the development of this show wants to hear its not canon. This is basically news that could do nothing but disappoint fans.
Super hero comics are different, trying to recreate that in live action form would be hokey. Halo is more grounded in comparison, its not bright wacky costumes and super powers. Halo in theory could be good sci-fi content without making drastic changes to source material.
what an absolute waste then haha
Curious, what was your favourite Halo game?
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