The first episode for Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn airs today. Does it tell an exciting story of heroism and sacrifice?
Back in August a trailer for Halo 4 came out staring live actors that was meant to promote the video game. I thought the trailer was shot well, but confusing since it seemed to advertise a movie than a video game. Turns out I was right as there is a Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn film made. It's a four part episode series hosted on Machinima Prime and Halo Waypoint, with a new episode available every Friday.
Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn seems to be one big flash back prior to Master Chief's return in the video game Halo 4. The protagonist is Thomas Lasky (played by Tom Green), a cadet training to be a soldier during the human and Covenant war. Lasky is struggling with his doubts about the war, ignoring orders and getting in trouble with authority on a regular basis. One oddity of his character seems to be him being sympathetic to the Covenants in the war, wishing to find peaceful methods of ending conflict with them instead of murdering everything like the others wish to do.
I know we're only seeing the first episode of the Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn movie, but there seems to be a lot missing in this first episode. I'm not entirely aware of the Halo lore but this film doesn't explain a lot to keep newbies like me up to date. Lasky refers to the war being against 'overtaxed farmers', yet this a war between the Covenant, an alien race that seems to be fine with forming genocidal war with humanity. I'm not sure how we're supposed to sympathize to Lasky's beliefs since fans looking into the Halo lore might see the Covenant like the orcs in Lord of the Rings.
Aside from this flaw in Lasky's character, there are some dull costumes and settings. The costumes look to be a mesh of a military ballistic vest with props courtesy of Mattel toys. The sets might work as a military base for being bland and sterile, but none of the characters seem to try livening up their bunk rooms – aside from Lasky, who plays chess with bullet casings.
This seems like a film only fans of the Halo franchise might appreciate – and I thought all they enjoyed was frying their friends with Promethean weapons.
