Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn

I am a long time fan of the Halo series. Iv read all the books and played every camping more times then I'l admit, so when I say Machina Prime has done something special you will believe me. I can remember when it was rumored the Peter Jackson would be filming the Halo series and although that never came to light, these webisodes have surpassed my expectations. Why do I give FUD a 11/10? Because its not often I get chills from a movie that's why. When the Hell Jumpers start landing and then the Covenant ships glow through the clouds around the I just freaked out, the atmosphere and suspense is simply thrilling! well done Machina.

In the future, a group of teenagers from prominent families are trained at the Corbulo Academy of Military Science forming the Hastati Squad to fight against the insurrectionists. Out of the blue, the planet is invaded by powerful aliens and only four cadets survive. When there is no hope for them, they are rescued by the strong Master Chief. "Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn" is a sci-fi movie made to promote a video game. The characters are not well developed and the first half is a rip-off of "Starship Troopers". Maybe fans of the video game like this movie but for those like me that do not know the game, it is a deceptive sci-fi movie. My vote is five. Title (Brazil): "Halo 4: Em Direção ao Amanhecer" ("Halo 4: Torward the Dawn") Note: On 19 Feb 2022, I saw this film again and I note that the Brazilian one-disc DVD is completely edited and maybe this is the reason of my bad review. I upgraded my note to six.

I'm aware enough of the Halo Universe to pick up on most of the references in the series, but beyond the fact that it provides an excellent live action piece of an excellent game series, it's simply a great piece of storytelling all it's own. The people reviewing this saying it's 'boring for the first 55 minutes' or 'cheap and generic' must be expecting heavy action and constant explosions. And those people will never be satisfied with character pieces, which this most certainly relies heavily upon. The arc of the characters is phenomenal, and their trepidations about becoming soldiers are real and extremely pertinent to the teens of today. This series manages to fulfill Halo fans expectations of a glimpse into the universe they love, as well as provide new fans with relatable, intensely realistic characters that allow new viewers to experience this universe for themselves, along with the characters. Definitely worth a watch. That is unless you're looking for non-stop action, explosions and witty one liners said by Master Chief. At which point, don't bother, because this is so much more than that.

To promote the upcoming release of the video game Halo 4, somebody made a series of five 15-minute web videos, using live action, set in the Halo universe. They were set up like a little miniseries with a vague story to accompany the novelty of seeing what it would look like if Halo came to life. It was a much, much higher quality than you would expect for a bunch of web videos. In fact, I'd say the production values and special effects were of higher quality than several movies I've seen recently. If the goal was to create a compelling marketing product that people would want to watch in order to get them excited about the game, they really did a phenomenal job. Unfortunately somebody decided that because they had something that visually looked like a movie and had a story that vaguely resembled something you might see in a movie, that meant they had made an actual movie that they could release as a commercial product. Because Hanlon's Razor states, "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity," I'm forced to assume that this decision was an attempt to cash in on the Halo buzz and not an act of spite against all the people they knew would be furious when they realized they paid actual money for something that is not actually a movie. There are no real stories, there are no real characters, there's really not any explanation of why anything is happening or what any of it means. It's just long stretches of children being upset interspersed with shots that will make the viewer feel like they're playing the video game. It's about as much a movie as a pile of bricks and lumber is a house. Warning to parents - towards the end of this movie my son (who's a little young to be playing Halo yet himself) looked at me with a very concerned face and asked, "why are so many kids getting killed?" If you think you might want to put this on for your child because they don't care if something doesn't have a story as long as it's something they like, you really don't. Nothing at all interesting happens for the first half of the movie, and then the rest of the movie is children getting crushed, shot, blown up, and slowly bleeding to death from gory leg wounds as their friends helplessly look on in tears. You'd have to be a real piece of excrement to deliberately charge people money for this.

As a fan of all things sci-fi, I was really eager to see what a live- action representation of the hallowed game would look like. After seeing this, I am motivated to buy my first ever Halo game and start playing. I would have given it a 10/10 but for the constant slo-mo which I believe was used due to the brief nature of the series. Very good acting, conveying so much emotion and some pretty good action scenes for a 15- minute webisode. I was very impressed with this and as a Halo novice, I am now so intrigued by the series that I want to play it more than I ever wanted to plan any other game! I put this up there with some of my other favourite shows, Battlestar Galactica (the remake) and Stargate Universe. This was very well done.

The year is 2525 and the UNSC is at war with terrorists know as Insurrectionists. Thomas Lasky, a freshman cadet, is unsure about this war and his combat capabilities, but when the Covenant invades, he learns what it takes to be a hero from spartan John-117 (aka Master Chief). This was an awesome film/mini series. Pretty good cast of characters, the actors weren't people I've heard of, but they were still good, cool special effects, and of course the music was great. I think anyone, whether they are Halo fans or not, will like or love this film/mini series. One more thing: as a lot of people know, most games that are turned into movies are bad, but after watching this, I have faith in an actual Halo movie being made and it being great. All they have to do is do what they did here.

FUD is a series of webisodes that premieres every week on Machinima Prime channel on youtube. For long, I've waited to see a live action film about Halo. I believe it's a movie that has the potential to be amazing if done right. Halo fans all over the planet would go gaga. However, Microsoft's inability to lower their profit share deal, killed the movie. 343 on the other hand, thought it's best to release a 90 minute movie anyway but let it screen on youtube, google and Blu Ray Discs. Essentially, this movie would lead to the release of Halo 4. Hence, your's truly, Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn. These episodes will be taken off youtube on December 4. So, how is the series? It's mind blowing! Granted, there's only 3 webisodes out till now but I have to say this, the movie is not at all bad. It's the closest thing you'll get to a movie but it's better this way. With FUD not releasing on silver screen, we've got a chance for a bigger and better Halo film that could be under plans for release via Hollywood. For now, FUD is all we get and I love it. Since, the movie's being monitored by 343 and Microsoft, they'll make sure, that the story doesn't deviate from the game. So far, it hasn't. I have some predictions that might be counted as spoilers so not gonna write it here but I know from what I've seen so far, that FUD stays true to the game.