Jimmy Shelton

Senior Video Director and Halo aficionado

I started playing Halo when the original game came out in 2001 and I've been highly addicted. The universe fascinated me. It was ancient, grand, and epic and the stories being told felt larger than anything I had played previously. That's why, naturally, I was desperately waiting for the inevitable movie or TV show announcement so that the rest of the world could experience this magical place.

When Halo Nightfall was announced with Ridley Scott attached, instant giddiness ensued. It was going to happen this time. Someone as talented as Ridley Scott was bound to get this universe right. After watching the premiere episode, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Halo Nightfall tries to briefly introduce the audience into this world (via text) and then immediately turns into a generic sci-fi show with some of the worst CGI I’ve seen in recent years. It doesn’t feel grand or epic or ancient. One of the main scenes has a Covenant Elite casually stroll into a shopping mall to detonate some form of biological weaponry. Seriously?!?

This show was only green-lit because of the Halo name and it will die after this season because if this pilot is any indication it’s not only a bad Halo adaptation, it’s just a bad show. We now expect brilliance from our television. You can’t ride the Halo brand and expect poor storytelling, bad acting, and horrible CGI to get you anywhere. I want the industry to stop trying to adapt Halo because they’re doing it for all the wrong reasons. Just make an entertaining show and stop destroying my hopes and dreams.

Adi Robertson

Reporter and science fiction aficionado

Despite my overall love of science fiction shooters, I’ve never really followed Halo’s story — if nothing else, the Endless Capital Letters for non-proper nouns put me off. So I have no investment whatsoever in Nightfall, and if I really want to get up to speed for Halo 5: Guardians, I’ll check Wikipedia. That said, if someone described the theoretical premise of Nightfall to me at a party, I’d probably watch it. "Yeah, it’s like someone set Event Horizon in Battlestar Galactica, except everything’s happening because of Master Chief." The show might be richer for someone who knows the world, but the tropes are universal enough that I doubt it matters much.

Unfortunately, the first episode is neither Event Horizon nor BSG. It’s not even Caprica. I imagine it’s hard to squeeze a whole pilot into 30 minutes, and the building blocks are fine — Mike Colter and Christina Chong are likeable leads, the cinematography has a ‘90s-TV feel but a rich palette — but it’s just so hard for me to care about people I’m barely introduced to, laboring under a comically gruff voice-over about honor in battle, fighting over a world that so far consists of a military base, some trees, and a shopping mall. I might not be able to see the capital letters when characters keep talking about Elite Zealots, but I know they’re there.

I’m holding out hope that Nightfall’s "ancient, hellish artifact" will actually be as creepy or surreal as the showrunners have promised, which could draw me back for at least one more episode. But I’m not optimistic. The pilot feels like my worst stereotypes about the Halo universe and space opera (BSG notwithstanding) in general: a serviceable action story hamstrung by a devotion to bland epic lore-crafting at the expense of character development or unique set pieces that don’t fit some overarching 343 Industries Bible. Wake me up when Master Chief summons Pinhead.

Chris Ziegler

Deputy Editor, likes cars

I am a casual gamer (and that's being generous). I think I've heard of Halo. I may have owned the first Halo for the original Xbox.

Where am I? What's going on? Why does the CGI look like it was pulled out of the bottom of a Cracker Jack box? Why is North Korea's infamous "Tower of Doom," the Ryugyong Hotel, on this space city's skyline? Oh, and spoiler: there's no Halo anymore. I guess it got blown up? I don't know if that's actually a spoiler, maybe that happened in one of the video games already.

Nightfall just doesn't seem accessible in any way to people who aren't up to speed with the franchise — but Halo diehards will probably have a very different experience. I won't be watching again, unless Vin Diesel shows up.

Andrew Webster

Reporter, succinct reviewer

The emotional depth of the Phantom Menace combined with the production values of a made-for-TV movie. Cool armor, though.