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i'm glad the boycott is stopping me from doing something stupid like actually buying the halo remake and being sad about it. what a dark fate for a once classic series

i've seen a few clips of cortana's classic lines and the voice direction on them is so crazy she's like your chipper ai girlfriend. not who cortana is but ok.

being someone who got really invested in the lore of halo 2 specifically in the mid 2000s is a fate i wouldnt wish on anyone. longest suffering heroes on the planet

even halo 3, which is mostly a classic, i'm like. you got scared. you blinked. you lost something. this is too 9/11 never forget. arbiter and chief are meant to be twin solid snakes on opposite sides. did you forget the unsc are evil. get marty out of the writers room

idk I guess it gets worse but i'm not sure they ever thought the unsc were bad in the actual games, the first game is about the virtues of stoic heinlein militarism vs organised religion (also how you can be an emotionally closed off teenage boy and the cute girl will definitely still like you)

thats why i like halo 2 the most its the one that gets the closest. opening by intercutting chief's military propaganda parade with the arbiter's public torture; the covenant and humans both have turned war into a religion. the one time halo felt like movie starship troopers not book lol

I always saw that as an aspirational thing not a condemnation of both! Our lovely civilised ceremonies vs their barbaric branding one etc especially in the 9/11 context. I guess i can see that other read too but i think i also might just be incapable of reading any halo thing as not 100% sincere lol

it’s also like. a tension running through the depiction of the covenant in general. are they the catholic church doing the crusades or are they islamic jihadists doing super terrorism. bungie kind of want to have it both ways even though one of those lenses is interesting and one is insane racism

To my knowledge the islamic terrorism inspirations were actually unintentional. They were religious inspired before 9/11 and toned it down (such as Brutes executing Marines via decapitation apparently being removed and there being more islamic-inspired names) in response.

I forget the specifics but I think the religious zealot inspiration behind the Covenant (which was already a thing back in Marathon for it's aliens back in 1994) was just kind of an unfortunate coincidence.