Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn wraps up today with episode 5, and wow what a way to lead into Halo 4. This episode has emotional ups and downs, lots of action, and cool nods to Halo fictions fans. The 2nd of this series was grim with everyone dying save for the cadets, yet by the end I didn’t feel any sadness, just excitement for Halo.
Master Chief really shined in this episode. His movement and actions were great, and I loved that there were deep thudding sounds when he was running. He came across like the heavy yet agile tank he is which really showed during the epic Hunter battle. I really did not think we’d see anything to that extent, so color me impressed. Its subtle, but one of the best nods to fans is the brief monk chant heard after the Hunter is defeated.
Both the sound effects and visual effects continue to be awesome in this episode. I hope you’ve watched while wearing headphones or some decent speakers like I recommend in the review of episode 1 as I think it the extra depth really adds to it. The visual effects for weapon fire, the Hunter itself and its fuel rod cannon fire are quite stunning against the black night, though the plasma grenade explosion during the Warthog drive was a bit underwhelming.
The ending Pelican flight scene felt awkward to me the first time I watched and I wasn’t sure of its meaning. After a 2nd watch it didn’t feel as weird though I don’t fully understand it. I believe it was to show the Spartans are human too and for the cadets to realize this while they stared in awe. Of course Master Chief kept his helmet on while everyone looked and waited for him to remove it but he was still busy keeping guard. Including Fred and Kelly was a nice touch though I think there was a bit of a missed opportunity there to show them fighting alongside the Chief and for them to have more then a few seconds worth of screen time.
When the news of a Halo movie was going around several years ago, it never really interested me. I worried it’d be done poorly and not live up to my expectations. I felt the same way for Forward Unto Dawn. I’m not sure what I expected of the web series, but it definitely surpassed them in every way. In a way, this was the Halo movie, at least in the way Master Chief is portrayed. A hero, but not the star. The video games are great to experience through his point of view, but I think he works better in film as a supporting character so that his mysterious and stoic personality is kept. Still, I’d love to see what Steward Hendler and friends could do with even more time and money. I’d want to see more set pieces, a wicked bad ass suit for Chief, and a lot more Covenant.
I do have a few gripes with the series. I feel it took too long for the invasion to start which left us with too little time with the Chief. I also felt the impact of the invasion didn’t quite hit the mark. How were the cadets the only survivors? How did the Covenant wipe out an entire planet in less than an hour? Why didn’t we see more Covenant? I wish these things had been different or stronger, but it hardly detracted from the experience for me.
I really enjoyed Forward Unto Dawn and I’m really looking forward to viewing it a one fluid experience and in higher quality when the Blu-ray comes out in December. I’m really excited for what this means for Halo and I think it was a great way to lead into Halo 4. I wonder if future if any other studios will attempt something similar to this scale in the future and I wonder if we’ll see more live-action Halo in this format. I hope so.
Checkout our reviews of the past episodes: