Master Chief would have had supporting role in Halo movie

by Justin McElroy { Jan 16th 2008 at 6:30PM }

Though the many deaths of a Halo-based film were pretty hard for us to swallow, there have been several events since that have helped to cushion the blow. First were director Neil Blomkamp's live-action short films which were, frankly, not particularly Halo-esque. Now, courtesy of Level Up, we learn that Master Chief would have played a supporting role in the story, driving the film right past Relevantville and into Pointless Gorge.

So we don't put words in Bungie's Joseph Staten's mouth, we'll give it to you straight from him. "Over time," he said, "I think everybody around the table agreed that the Master Chief is best left as the most important supporting cast member." The thing is, when you read his full response, you realize he's kind of got a point. We're still not sure if that means we want a Halo movie with the Chief as the wacky neighbor, or if we want the film to just stay dead. What do you think?

Tags: bungie, halo, halo-movie, neill-blomkamp

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

umm....hello??? @ Jan 16th 2008 6:35PM

unless Peter Jackson or Steve Spielberg is doing the live action movie, then this project should either stay dead or be sent back to Bungie or Squeenix to do an animated feature film.

maverick_saturn_626 @ Jan 16th 2008 6:41PM

No, Micro is stingy, and as long as they remain wanting this movie to cost $500 million dollars but other companies to pay for it, no one will. Their heads are in the clouds.

Jerk Face @ Jan 16th 2008 6:43PM

When you read it how he spins it, I think the Chief as a supporting character would be totally fine. I especially like how he said that the other characters in the movie would talk about him like this legendary anonymous hero. That does it just about right, I'd say.

Either way, video game movies usually suck.

Abuzar @ Jan 17th 2008 7:27AM

No man you can't have fuckin Halo without Master Chief. If he was a supporting character that would totally ruin the Movie. I mean it's HALO!

dan stabbingworth @ Jan 17th 2008 9:14AM

The original Halo story was great because it was all about one man's (w/Cortana, I guess) relentless and ragged trek. The story focused entirely on the Master Chief. It was man triumphing against his environment.

The story for 2 and 3 sucked ass because they tried to be all Star Wars epic and frankly did a lousy job with said stories.

Mike-453 @ Jan 17th 2008 3:23PM

Yup, makes complete sense.

And the mentality of 'Master Chief IS Halo' is bullshit. If that's what you think then you only really like a suit of armour.

elmer @ Jan 16th 2008 6:44PM

Halo - Master Chief = Starship Troopers

TomCo @ Jan 16th 2008 11:01PM

Please, I don't think we need another film to sully the memory of such a fantastic book.

FOXHOUND @ Jan 17th 2008 7:35AM

Dr. DOOM> They ruined a perfectly good book. -shakes a fist at Denise- RICHAAAAAARDS!!!

Bladev1 @ Jan 16th 2008 6:48PM

I think the only way to do a Halo Movie is to do it with out MC. But still having the characters mention him is a good idea sucks this movie was killed and yet Uwe Boll can get $70 million for whatever crap movie it was that came out.

Cyro @ Jan 17th 2008 8:26AM

Exactly..... WTF?

Slaziman (B-B-BRUSHED WITH FAAAAME) @ Jan 16th 2008 6:47PM

If Master Chief was the main character, the movie would be totally cheesy. He isn't meant to have more than just the few lines he has in the games.

Then again, we would all be going to the movie because we love the Chief, and if he just had a minor role, what's the point? Kinda like how you went to Aliens vs. Predators hoping to see them fight the whole time and it was totally fucked up by the humans in the story.

MasterInsan0 @ Jan 16th 2008 9:09PM

Or like in Transformers where you expect to see a story about the Transformers but instead see a story about Megan Fox being hot.

Kael @ Jan 16th 2008 6:53PM

This isn't a complete surprise; I thought the same thing when I heard about the movie. I figured they'd either have to take off the helmet, or do this. And taking off the helmet would be... uh, a disaster.

maylon @ Jan 16th 2008 7:02PM

Stay dead.

Dauragon88 @ Jan 16th 2008 7:02PM

Only if the main character is Sarge :D

In all seriousness the Chief would make a great Supporting character. Granted then main characters are interesting enough. Just showing the chief point, nod, and shoot stuff for two hours would get very stale.

tmacairjordan87 @ Jan 16th 2008 7:03PM

it makes total sense for him to be a supporting character. You can't have a movie where the main actor just stares at the camera the whole time in a full body armor suit. I mean ahnold said more lines in the terminator movies than chief did in the halo games. Not to mention chief has 0 personality and charisma.

Probot @ Jan 16th 2008 7:04PM

So what they're saying is making a generic action movie is easier than making a good video game adaptation. If you aren't going to even try to stay true to the source material, then why bother?

Master Chief is the most recognizable element of the series. I'm sure there are plenty of people that simple refer to him as Halo, the way the uninitiated refer to Samus as Metroid and Link as Zelda.

I can understand changing Silent Hill or Resident Evil to make it more appealing to the masses, but Halo has enough mainstream support that people will appreciate it without dumbing it down.

MasterInsan0 @ Jan 16th 2008 9:14PM

Eh...I'm not sure that actually happens with Master Chief, considering his name is mentioned often in the game. In Metroid, maybe, since Samus is rarely mentioned by name (although I think she is more often in the Metroid Prime series).

Same logic applies to Zelda: she's referenced by name often in the games, so anyone that's played them probably knows the difference between the main character (who they might not know as Link since you can rename him) and Zelda.

Mike-453 @ Jan 17th 2008 3:29PM

LOL

So making the movie more complex then having just the Chief would dumb it down?

Eh?

It's Bungie that dumbs the Halo story down to appeal to mainstream with the games.

Mr Khan @ Jan 16th 2008 7:07PM

Master Chief was never really humanized as a character, more of a living legend than anything else. Kind of like Samus, except better about expressing himself

Supporting role, indeed. Hell, he would make a good "Qui-Gon Jinn" sort of character. A kickass mentor to some Spartan of the next generation or something

pezman726 @ Jan 16th 2008 7:15PM

The books were great, and they focused on a crapload more than just the chief! If they made it with the other spartans at the beginning of the war with the covenant, that'd be a sweet movie!

Gbogdan @ Jan 20th 2008 10:12PM

I agree, I want them to make a movie that follows the first book(The fall of Reach)exactly. Learning all about how master chief and all of the other spartan's came to be is awesome.

Edguy @ Jan 16th 2008 7:18PM

If they did make a Halo movie it would be about the fall of Reach. What that means is that Master Chief would be only one of many SPARTANS.

Edge @ Jan 16th 2008 7:30PM

"driving the film right past Relevantville and into Pointless Gorge."

My cerebrally-challenged brother once tried to convince me that Metroid would make a great movie. I'll be sure to get him Doom on DVD for his next birthday...

Of course, MC won't be the main character. If he were, it would be great for the 5 seconds after he appears for the first time, followed by complete SUCK for an hour, 29 minutes, and 55 seconds. Same with ANY videogame icon. They aren't the story. The STORY is the story.

Prince King @ Jan 16th 2008 7:30PM

maybe they could make a movie about 300 Spartans. they go out and fight an army of maybe a million. a halo movie any was is madness...

madness? THIS IS SPARTAAAAAAAAA

riggs @ Jan 17th 2008 11:27AM

i thought this line was old and stale, but you sir, have revived it for this post and this post only +1

BIGGEN @ Jan 16th 2008 7:35PM

if they make a movie, i just wish they would follow the books. that's all i ask. not come up with some shitty tangent story that makes no sense like most of the game related movies.

Kendall B @ Jan 16th 2008 7:36PM

Take heart, ladies and gentlemen. If it's a video game film you crave, there is always Street Fighter: The Movie...

Hey, I bet Jean Claude Van Damme would let someone film him running around in Spartan armor for like, 20 bucks at this point. That would suffice, right? I mean it's not like he's doing anything anyway.

TheQuagster @ Jan 16th 2008 8:36PM

apparently, he's playing WoW right now, so you better give him 20$ and 5000 gold to do the trick.

CDN Crockett @ Jan 16th 2008 9:12PM

Coool!

MasterInsan0 @ Jan 16th 2008 9:18PM

I think having Master Chief play a secondary role in the movie would have been a great idea. A great idea that would also make the movie totally unwatchable for a large number of the beer-guzzling fratboys that play Halo.

A *good* film/filmmaker would worry about keeping the Halo world intact, and creating a story that fits well into it. A *wealthy* film/filmmaker will do whatever makes the most money, and obviously slapping Master Chief's face all over the movie will draw in the most viewers.

Michael @ Jan 16th 2008 9:52PM

Landfall is easily the best thing to come out of Halo in any cinematic sense. Bungie's own stuff is just hammy and overblown.

Also, watching marines struggle to take down monstrous, giant ape-like aliens as well as the other little green men that make up the Covenant is something that watching the Master Chief isn't: Interesting. There's tension, agony, and every amazing thing a soldier does is an achievement, because they're just another person in uniform.

The Chief is just going to run in and beat everyone up. Maybe he nearly-almost-dies, but you know, miraculous escape yadda yadda. Boring.

Make this movie, and make it like Landfall.

bighit @ Jan 16th 2008 10:06PM

games do not translate well into movies and a halo movie would suck.

what is the biggest strength of halo? most likely its gameplay and multiplayer, seeing as you cant make a movie about multiplayer, and gameplay isnt really something you see in movies these days. it comes down to halos story and characters...unfortunately these are both weak points in the halo series.

i hope it stays dead for the good of the series.

Geist @ Jan 16th 2008 10:11PM

I actually prefer the story in Halo over the gameplay. I'm usually like "Damn, the cutscene's over? Hurray, more run-and-gun. Again."

Nessman @ Jan 16th 2008 10:06PM

Let it live but chiefie has to be main character. I can imagine a movie with him as supporting and it'll just be some bigshot actor's big sci-fi action film with some gamer lingo thrown in to sell more tickets. It has to be hardcore and good.

Geist @ Jan 16th 2008 10:09PM

I was about to say something along the lines of "When you make a HALO movie, you had better make damn sure the damn MASTER CHIEF is damnly in it, damnit. Damn."

But perhaps it could be done without him, that idea has merit. I wouldn't mind seeing a movie that speaks of the MC (Hammer) as a legend, not a main character.

turkeybaster @ Jan 16th 2008 10:57PM

How many of you dorks never watched past the end credits in Halo 3? He's NOT DEAD.

Version 1.0 @ Jan 16th 2008 11:10PM

I think it can work out to be a good concept for the Halo movie. Leave the videogames to Master Chief, and the movie to be from another characters perspective, with Master Chief popping in the movie too of course.

EMaster @ Jan 16th 2008 11:31PM

I think it should stay dead. Hollywood would fuck this movie farther up the ass than all of Uwe boll's "accomplishments" combined. Face it. Hollywood loves to fuckup great games made into movies. Hitman is the only movie based on a game I have
liked. Halo the movie would probably have a goofy sidekick character played by paulie short or rob schneider.

Easo @ Jan 16th 2008 11:47PM

I think one of guys at 360 fanboy summed this news up nicely in his comment
"Epic said...
Lets be honest, the movie is hardly gonna be of Oscar quality anyway, so if i'm going to watch a halo movie that sucks' i'd rather see a sucky one where MC is the main character."

Amen.

Mr.ESC @ Jan 17th 2008 12:53AM

The thing is that such a popular character shouldn't be bastardized by a shitty movie. Yes Mario went there and I can say that movie was F’ed up because the director, the writing staff and hell even they producer were in a nightmarish acid trip while playing Mario in the NES,I say that because there isn’t another rational explication to such pile of wacko.

Now making a movie about Mario is probably impossible because the setting, time and characters are so unrealistic but the plot is still simple. Dragon kidnaps princess, hero rescues princes, everyone lives happily ever after, It has been done a million times.

Halo is more realistic (sort of) and the plot is already there and if Hollywood can’t connect the dots they deserved to be hanged .I mean is not that I’m against creative writing but Directors have proven to be complete morons when it comes to creative writing, They force their perspective too much into the movie and that f*cks it in such an epic manner that it makes fans cry, a good example is the infamous director Uwe Boll.

But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t work, the original MK movie for example was the only movie based in a videogame that is actually good if not great. The actors were totally pros, the soundtrack was epic and the whole story was good, even when in other circumstances it wouldn’t work somehow they made it work, and the whole staff, director(s), producers, writers and actors deserve a good place in history because they made the first movie based in a videogame that didn’t suck ass.

Too bad I can’t say the same about the sequel.

Back on topic:

A movie about Halo or better yet Master Chief himself told by the point of the view of the stupid AI..er I mean Marines could work if they do it properly like I don’t know if anyone remembers that episode of the old Batman Animated series about the kids that were telling tales about the dark knight (epic episode) but if the manage to pull something like that it would be great but then again the only way that movie would be a success in the box office would be if New line Cinema, Fox or Warner produce it and Peter Jackson or George Lucas direct it (Steven Spielberg weird Alien fetish kind of scares me so I wouldn’t say he would be perfect ) and there was anything else to watch.

angrybubbles @ Jan 17th 2008 12:58AM

Ok theres two ways that this movie would be great. For those of you who have read the books of halo you might agree. But this is kinda like the Batman Begins movie in a way. In the First book it went through how the Master Chief became the chief. It started as a little boy in the middle of war and then if they followed through with the books and then with the games. The only way that the movies could be made would be in three parts because there is no way that the whole story line would fit into a 2 and a half hours. There is a certain way that they could do this and follow the book story line and then also do the story line with the games. He did talk before the games and was kinda dating kelly and you could bring in her. Thats just the way that i think they could still do the movie with JOHN not the Chief as the Main Character you could do this and it would be great.

chispito @ Jan 17th 2008 1:15AM

What kind of supporting character are we talking about? Sometimes the movie is still largely about the supporting character, like Lieutenant Dan in Forest Gump.

ThornedVenom @ Jan 17th 2008 1:49AM

It depends if they want to sell the Halo universe, or sell Master Chief.

Steve @ Jan 17th 2008 4:32AM

Blomkamp's short films made me see how awesome a Halo film COULD be. Sad fact is, Hollywood wouldn't let it get that gritty. They're gonna want pretty colors and green blood and a PG-13 rating.

Get a HUGE director and go for the R rating or leave it in it's grave.

Cyro @ Jan 17th 2008 8:32AM

The Fall of Reach was a great book. I just loved to read on how the whole spartan project started and the amazing things they did.

I think that it would be imposible to tell the whole story in just one movie, it would take 3 at least. To cover at least 3 of the books or something. I have read all of them, except contact harvest and I can say that they were all pretty good. The one I liked the least was The Flood.

James @ Jan 17th 2008 12:13PM

hold up! I think you guys are on to something. The movie takes place in modern day America; the suburbs. Master Chief is the wacky neighbour next door. One day he takes his and the neighbours kids on a trip to the mall but something terrible goes wrong. They get car jacked!