{"id":82378,"date":"2015-12-01T16:40:52","date_gmt":"2015-12-01T16:40:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=82378"},"modified":"2015-12-01T16:28:36","modified_gmt":"2015-12-01T16:28:36","slug":"halo-the-fall-of-reach-blu-ray-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/reviews\/halo-the-fall-of-reach-blu-ray-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Halo The Fall Of Reach Blu-ray review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">If you\u2019ve even<\/span><span class=\"s2\"> got a passing interest in the <em><strong>Halo<\/strong><\/em> series, you\u2019ll know it\u2019s a universe defined by an intricate timeline that charts the peaks and troughs of human achievement, with the majority of the story revolving around the iconic armoured super-soldier Master Chief. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">While the game set around the planet Reach focuses on the genetically enhanced soldiers that came before him, this animated series goes back to give John-117 something he never really had: a dedicated origin story.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">Thing is, in giving this silent protagonist a back story, the writers on <em><strong>The Fall Of Reach<\/strong><\/em> have compromised some of the lore that\u2019s been so consistently set out in <em><strong>Halo<\/strong><\/em>\u2019s back story \u2013 there are retcons in the series that go against the grain of what other Halo writers have outlined, be it in books, games or comics. It\u2019s a small complaint, certainly, but jarring to anyone that\u2019s using the animated series to delve deeper into the universe.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">Then there\u2019s the art style \u2013 a strange mesh of almost watercolour palettes and low-resolution models, with questionable dubbing and slipshod animation. It\u2019s not bad exactly, but compared to the levels of 3D animation we\u2019re used to from other studios, it\u2019s certainly not good. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">The show also has a habit of slowing down on a lot of shots and using voiceovers to exposition dump \u2013 going against that age-old adage of \u2018show don\u2019t tell\u2019, which can often feel quite patronising, especially for sci-fi fans that like to work out the meaning behind what they\u2019re seeing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">There\u2019s a lot of build-up and insistence that you care for the characters that are being paraded before you, but in the last few episodes \u2013 when all the action comes to a head and individual arcs are supposed to peak \u2013 the timing and the momentum of the narrative wears off, and you\u2019re left with a few cumbersome action sequences that do little to make you care about what\u2019s going on. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">The stakes never feel high, the main cast never feels in danger, and it just leads to more predictable high sci-fi shenanigans that feels, honestly, like a loveless tribute to everything Halo\u2019s achieved in its 15-year history.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Discover the Master Chief&#8217;s origins in Halo: Fall Of Reach<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":82380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[2617,8],"tags":[4893],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Halo.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82378"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}