Halo has been saving up its CGI budget for the Big One
Three episodes into its second season, Halo on Paramount+ still seems to be saving its budget. The second season has gotten off to a slow but pleasant start, mostly avoiding the pitfalls that infuriated lifelong fans of the Halo franchise in the show's premiere season. So far, season 2 has engaged in background work introducing an important new character from several of the Halo novels and moving pieces into place for what comes next. While casual fans new to the franchise may be frustrated so far at the show only doing the giving us the briefest of actions sequences in these three episodes, if they can hold out hope a bit longer, I believe that it will be paid off.
The Halo TV series was always going to be a difficult one to pull off, as it features highly cinematic sci-fi action sequences involving aliens and spacecraft. What’s more, as the aliens and technology in the Halo universe were already depicted in the high-budget gaming franchise, the visual aesthetics of much of the Halo universe was locked in before the show was launched. Past adaptations of the Halo games such as Halo: Forward onto Dawn sought to solve this production issue by balancing the extremely CGI-heavy action sequences with a more human storyline that they could fill out the run time.
It is abundantly clear that Paramount+ is attempting to follow that same model. The first three episodes of season 2 were extremely character-heavy and mostly consisted of conversations in small rooms. However, the end of Episode 3 has telegraphed that one of the major plot events of the Halo cannon will be depicted this season. The Battle of Reach is a major flashpoint in the Human-Covenant War that immediately precedes the first game in the Halo franchise: Halo: Combat Evolved. It is also the main plotline of an excellent novel by Eric Nylund. Doing the battle justice will require a massive budget.
Because of many decisions made in the show so far, it is impossible for the Paramount+ series to follow the same exact plot as previous installments in the franchise, but I would still highly recommend Nylund’s novel, which is a great read and depicts several aspects of this world that the show is unlikely to get to. I for one am very excited to see the show adapt a big battle that has already been portrayed in both Nylund’s novel as well as a prequel game in the Halo franchise. To anyone weary of continuing this season after its slow start I would say: hang in there.
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