Halo legends

[Brandon]

For those of you who don't know Halo Legends is a group of short anime style stories that take place in the halo universe and was recently released. I got the opportunity to watch the 8 different 10-15 minute films tonight and I have to say I'm conflicted. I might as well get this out of the way, I am not by any stretch of the imagination, a halo fan. I consider the video games bland and unimaginative with the only defining point being that it took the best of several different FPS games and did a seemless molding of them together. Even with that point I have to say that while it did meld those good aspects together everything it took was done better in some other game.

That all said, I went into watching Halo legends with the idea that it would be another hyper masculine piece of junk with nothing noteworthy to say. I am pleased to say I was very wrong about that.

Halo legends has 7 different short stories that I'll detail below without spoilers

Origins: Origins is the first 2 of the 8 animations and tells the backstory of Halo from Cortana's (an AI) point of view. In the first one she goes through the existence of the forerunners, the war with the flood, and the building of the halo rings. In the second she goes over mankinds rise to power and gets a little heavy on our warmongering over the ages which kind of turned me off. The animation of Origins isn't amazing, its not even good (for anime) but it does a good job of telling the backstory.

The Duel: The third story I watched takes place on the covenants side and shows an inner scuffle of elites in a samurai-esque feel with some surprising animation done in water colors (something I had never seen before in anime). While the story itself is mostly unremarkable (serious if you've seen one samurai flick you've seen this) I found the animation different and pretty good in most places.

Homecoming: The fourth that I watched takes place on a far off world and goes over the story of a single female spartan. Now I like stories with a strong narrative and if any of the 7 stories has that its this one. It takes a hard core look at life as one of the original test subjects of the Spartan 2 project and adds in an interesting twist towards the end. Without a doubt this one was my favorite.

Odd one out: This was the most comedic of the bunch where Spartan 1337 (haha see what they did there?) falls off a pelican and lands planetside. Early on you can tell he isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer and it isn't long after till you see the Prophet of truth sitting on his throne like Rita Repulsa and plotting to destroy the spartans with his newest monster. Overall it takes a fun twist with 1337 meeting some cute kids, a pet dinosaur, and some hyper powerful matrial artist teenagers that made me think of Dragon ball Z with the persuing fight scene and explosions. This was probably my third favorite

The package: This one was done via CGI animation rather then what I'm used to seeing in anime and there really isn't much to say about it. Its more or less an extended CGI where you watch master chief (oh this is the only story with MC in it) beat everyone up. He and a few other spartans attack  covenant fleet to recover something. That's about it. Not overly bad, not overly good, just pretty meh.

Prototype: This one was without a doubt my second favorite due to the combat scenes but it also had a strong narrative and a deep character that really called to the soldier part of my heart. In this story we see a Spartan-esque Mecha take the field as a shamed soldier attempts to hold off the covenant so his people can evacuate the planet. He gives everything he can and destroys a lot, ultimately giving his life for the soldiers under his care.

Babysitter: The last one I saw and also a pretty cool one where we see a team of Orbital Drop Shock troopers (ODST) team up with a spartan for an assassination assignment. Throughout the story you see the animosity between the Spartan and troopers which gives an interesting if haunting look at how the Spartans effect soldiers around them.

Overall, there wasn't anything in Halo legends that I didn't like. Some of the stories were just meh IMO and others were good but there wasn't any bad parts IMO. I'm wondering what others, especially halo fans, think of this collection?

[Kunoichi]

From what I've seen on a few bizarre adventures around the internet, the real hardcore Halo fans found something to rage about in just about every short.  The ones I managed to see were fairly entertaining, though there were a few things in some of them that kind of broke my suspension of disbelief. (The 'ruins of some unknown civilization' in The Babysitter looking like somebody just took some random Asian ruins and transplanted them onto another planet, any point in any short where the Elites were put in samurai armor...)

Overall, I definitely enjoyed them as well.  My own personal favorite was Prototype, but again, I haven't exactly seen them all. ^^;

In the second she goes over mankinds rise to power and gets a little heavy on our warmongering over the ages which kind of turned me off.

Actually, from what I've heard, the basic intent in that one is to show that she's starting to go rampant, and thus, like other rampant AIs, is getting a little unstable and slowly but surely growing to have a very dim opinion of humanity...

[Sabby]

Actually, from what I've heard, the basic intent in that one is to show that she's starting to go rampant, and thus, like other rampant AIs, is getting a little unstable and slowly but surely growing to have a very dim opinion of humanity...

Cortana is a bit of a freak of nature/technology. I don't remember if it was intentional or a total accident, but she's far more advanced then any other AI out there (enough so to contend with Covenant AI's, which have a pretty frikken long head start on us :P)

Not only does she function at such an insane level, she actually has a full grasp of human emotions. Other AI's can simulate it, but she can actually worry, instead of 'calculating the risks'. She's dying, and they knew that from the second she went online. She operates at such a level eventually she'll degrade and go insane, literally think herself into death.

I haven't seen it yet, but it sounds like the beginnings of her withering. I can only imagine what being trapped with Gravemind did to her, as well.

[Kane Gunlock]

I find most halo fans to not be that bright and understanding when it comes to art I'm in any thing