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The second season of the Halo TV series has had some interesting moments, but many questions (and plenty of theories) were raised when the Fall of Reach (simply titled 'Reach' in the show) was limited to just a single episode.
Now, in this week's Xbox podcast, the show's executive producer and Microsoft veteran Kiki Wolfkill has admitted the budget played a part in its limited coverage, despite Halo being a massive hit on Paramount's streaming service. Here's what she had to say:
Kiki Wolfkill: "The battle for Reach is still going on, as we know from canon that actually is a very extended battle, and as much as we would have loved to have spend four episodes on it, 'A' we couldn't afford to."
The team also wanted to explore "more than just the battle" and some other themes "more deeply", so Reach was instead used to help "motivate" other storylines in the show (note: Season 2 spoilers ahead):
"And 'B' - we wanted to explore more than just the battle, we wanted to explore, what is the impact on everyone of such a momentous event for humanity at both that humanity level and the personal level? And what is the impact of losing your brother and your family in Vannak. What is the impact on someone like Riz?... And at the same time how do we also explore all this political intrigue that has existed in Halo... all those things are things we got to dig into a little bit more...We needed the moment on Reach to help sort of motivate all of these other storylines...But that's really the thing that kicks off that race to the ring.
So, there you go Spartans, that's some insight as to why the Fall of Reach was just one episode in Halo: Season 2.
What are your thoughts about this and Season 2 so far? Let us know in the comments.
Comments 28
Yes, political intrigue is something I think of when I think of Halo.
Extremely tacky to bring up budgets in an interview like this in this fashion. That’s like saying “If we had more money, we could’ve made this the show fans wanted.”
There should really be a spoiler warning in this article, I’m only on episode two and just read about Vannak 😑
I enjoyed the first episode of this second season and heard it’s only gets better. I’m thinking of doing another playthrough of MCC now I’ve got renewed interest in the Halo universe.
The second season has been great so far, much better than the first and if anything I thought the budget was bigger and better spent.
Yes a Game of Thrones budget with 24 episode series following the storyline of the games and expanded universe would be cool, but obviously for a TV series to work for non-fans too it was going to need to be more focused.
The first season was a bit scattergun but this series is really hitting the mark for me
Maybe if they followed the books/games better, instead of putting in their agendas, they'd have more budget for stuff that should have been filmed!
That wouldn't have been an issue if the first season hadn't been made and they strictly started with the book the Fall of Reach by Eric Nylund. Instead of whatever that fanfiction BS is was.
The second season's writing really is no better.
This season is better. I do think it could’ve had more time on the battle, but I understand budget reasons. It’s starting to pick up more. I see people complaining about the political stuff and I get it, but it does make for some interesting things. So I’m not too mad about it. As long as it keeps up with what we know as halo I’ll be happy.
Honestly they should just cancel the show. Phil Spencer and modern Microsoft have destroyed the Halo franchise.
@IssaBrvndo
I like your avatar image!
They should have just put in the cutscenes from the game and called it a day. I would have found it endlessly more entertaining.
@somnambulance
Not tacky at all. The issue was raised online, all over the place actually, on why so little time was spent on the Fall of Reach. He was just being truthful and letting people know it was the budget that limited that story to a single episode. Again, absolutely nothing tacky about answering a question many people and sites were asking.
@RIghteousNixon Respectfully disagree. With a multimillion dollar TV show like Halo, talking about a lack of money is sort of a tasteless argument, in my opinion. It’s not like we’ve got an indie production here. This is a show backed by Microsoft, after all. Transparency is great, but honestly just say that the vision for the show was more specific on different facets of the franchise. The second reason adequately explains their reason to reduce the size of the Fall of Reach’s presence in the show, whether people agree with it creatively or not.
@somnambulance
Talking about a lack of money on why they didn’t make a particular story more episodes when people are openly asking about that very question is very very very very different than someone just running around stating they don’t have enough money to make a good adaptation. The question of why The Fall of Reach was only a single episode became a hotbed topic on the internet. I have nothing but respect in him for not only addressing said question, but also doing so honestly. We need more of that today, not less. We will definitely agree to disagree.
And why would he twist it into what you stated when the overall reason can be easily stated as not a big enough budget? Every show has a budget. There is absolutely nothing wrong with stating that doing something people might have wanted to see would have taken them over budget. Yes, MS is behind this but they didn’t give the show runners a blank check.
There is absolutely nothing tacky about being truthful in regards to why something was done the way it was done when dealing with these topics. It’s just being honest. It’s tacky lying or twisting it or wording it in ways that are less truthful. Again, we need more honestly like that, not less.
What’s stupid is Phil talking so much about the Japanese / Asian market but didn’t think hey let’s make a Japanese anime halo with a good budget or Japanese Anime halo movie rather than this cheesy crap
@RIghteousNixon Basically, for me, I would say that their financials are of none of our concerns and she shouldn’t be putting that out in the open as a contractor for Microsoft, you know? It lacks professional etiquette. Yes, transparency is good, but personally, I don’t think talking money as a reason something is minimized is a good look. There’s a budget on everything, sure, but, I mean, if the Fallout TV show didn’t have Deathclaws and their reason was, “A) We didn’t have the budget and B) for these various reasons, it wasn’t the story we were trying to tell,” you really don’t have to state reason A because they likely decided it wasn’t in the budget in the first place and chose a different path anyway. It’s a slippery slope when you start pointing fingers at the allotted money for a project as any reason for anything. I mean, do we forgive Redfall’s mistakes at launch if it launched the way it did because of its budget? Just own up to the creative decisions. This is a big budget TV program. At the end of the day, they made creative choices, regardless of what money they had to spend, because they felt it was the right thing for the show, narratively and for viewer engagement.
I dunno. My perspective comes from being someone that’s deep in the budgeting side of business, and typically that’s something that we keep tight lipped about. If I were to divulge budgetary information, typically it would only be positive information, as that tends to create an assurance that things are going well and it puts my employer in a “safer place,” so to speak. Yes, things get cut because of budgets all the time across all types of businesses, but to me, it’s just not professional to bring that up to the press, you know?
@somnambulance who is he???? KIKI WOLFKILL made those comments.
@Jark My bad, corrected my typo
@Spider-Kev love the name! Haha.
@TheSimulator ooooo Halo anime would be fire!!
@TheSimulator They mostly already did that with Halo Legends
With some of the things in the adaptation I'd say sure the scale was big but I mean did it need to be 'that big' or 'that needed' in the story.
Professional or not I mean eh. The scale was a going a bit of a certain way anyways with the story/CGI limits they were pushing for I assume. Or whatever actors were asking for too.
Many parts have been huh worthy but others have been really good.
@IssaBrvndo I agree, even though Halo Legends as a collection of different stories was good with each story covering different aspects of the series.
If it was more a linear one than collection yeah I'd be curious in another Halo anime.
Haven't seen the Dragon Age one but the Mass Effect one was pretty weak in what character focus and the events were passable.
I enjoyed the Witcher anime.
I need to catch Mass effect and Dragon age ones!
@somnambulance lol it was a whole bunch of comments that everybody was making. Made me think I couldn't understand what the heck was going on lmao
@AverageGamer yea halo legends was pg 13 tho an adult gory version would be legit
@TheSimulator They're not going to do an adult gory one cause Halo is not adult orientated. Even the games aren't rated M anymore. They're rated T now.
@AverageGamer film and the game releases are two different outlets there’s no law that it can’t be gory .. it’s just one of Phil’s crazy direction
@TheSimulator First, it would probably be 343 directions and not Phil’s. But they’re not gonna limit their potential audience by making it gory.
@AverageGamer it’s already limited in the direction they are now … wouldn’t hurt having another avenue to cater to another demographic same way Phil always caters to indie gamers
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