Halo: Legends Review

Why yes, I am a slave to this franchise. Now kindly shut the fuck up.

Following my review of Halo 3: ODST back in December I've been pretty disillusioned with the entertainment industry. I went to see all the big films that I had missed: Avatar, Where the Wild Things Are. And I didn't review them.

Why? My fury was somewhat spent on Halo. I found Avatar to be a pretty, fun, as and altogether enjoyable experience. It's not the masterpiece that everyone seems to think that it is; it's not as original as everyone thinks it is; it's okay. And normally that would anger me – but not now.

Where the Wild Things Are is a different story. I didn't review that because I didn't want to admit that it was my favourite film of the year.

So, now that I've finished excusing my absence, let me explain my review choice. I was running late for an unimportant lecture at university when I realised that I'd forgotten to bring a pen. Foolishly I went to my local supermarket, which for some reason stores the DVDs right next to the stationary. Now that I think on it, the booze is kept in clear view of the books too. Perhaps it's designed to trap me and me alone.

Paranoia aside, after selecting a pen which I have since lost, I just had to glance up at the DVDs. Nothing caught my eye in the best-sellers area – just a bunch of Hollywood garbage thrown together by literate monkeys – so I turned my attention to the less popular new releases.

That's when it happened. I glanced the name Halo and I didn't know whether to be afraid or uncontrollably happy. If the DVD was good it would catapult Halo back up into my esteem; if it was bad, I might need to see a psychiatrist. So I stood there, marvelling at the box art, suspended in time, figuring out if I could afford to pay £9.99 for something that would most likely just annoy me. It was fate. I was meant to buy it. It had to be.

So I like totally bought it.

And missed my seminar.

Shit happens.

As an aside: it was only when I got the disc home that I realised that it was an anthology of short films. Most of which are animated anime-style. Fuck's sake.

In all honesty I'm a bit stumped at how to review this. I've never been able to review any sort of collection before on this website. It's unfair to review an entire collection as a whole because each item in it is basically it's own product. Nor do I have time or patience enough to review every single item within the anthology. This does sort of put a stop to my reviewing process for this DVD – until I realised that Bungie tried to link all the films with a single bare plot thread, and that every film of this DVD is abysmal.

We open where Halo 3 left off and get a clear and long shot of the planet that Master Chief is currently orbiting around. But don't get your hopes up! The plot doesn't continue from here; it takes place in the form of flash backs! Making this scene ENTIRELY POINTLESS!

So Cortana (Master Chief's completely nude blue female companion – Avatar really wasn't that original was it? I mean when your soft-core porn scenes are stolen you're a bit boned) takes the front seat and tries to wake up the Chief despite his clear request that she should leave him alone. Failing this she proceeds to narrate to herself starting off our anthology with a 20 minute PowerPoint presentation. I really wish I was joking, but the first two films on this disk run to about ten minutes a piece and consist of nothing but continuous exposition over the top of images. It's not badly animated or anything; it's just mind-numbingly boring. Add on top of that the fact that any Halo fan already knows all of this, and that they completely ignore most of what actually happened in the games and it becomes painful to watch.

Actually this helps me flag up one of the main problems in the Halo continuity. During her narration Cortana mentions that the Halos kill Flood. In the first game it is specifically stated that the Halo rings do not kill Flood. Furthermore, in everything made after that game Bungie have stated that it does kill Flood. So which is it Bungie? I sincerely doubt that you're gonna retcon the first game, so does that mean the Halo 3's climax is fundamentally flawed? Does it?

Anyway, following these films we have more bullshit. Only one or two of the films suffer from bad animation, the rest a superbly done. Literally all of the dialogue is trite, self-referential bullshit which does nothing but grate on my nerves. The whole thing is voice-acted well enough, and the music is... the Halo music.

To sum up: it's terrible. The plots make no sense. Coherency has been thrown to the wind. And I sincerely doubt that it has been edited at all. This said, ODST is far, far worse, and this isn't the worst anthology I've seen either.

Still, don't buy it.

2/10