Man that guy Bloomkamp must be laughing his ass off right now, with his cheapo-for-a-scifi movie District 9 getting 4 Oscar nominations and worldwide acclaim while his latter project gets..........whatever this is. The problem with Legends is that it tries too much to be like Animatrix, only that it doesnt have the talent nor the quality of the latter. Instead of finding it's own style like Watchmen's tales of the black freighter, it's goes to the point of were the first 2 chapters (Origins) are a carbon copy of the second renaissance, even to the point of having Cortana narrate them just like the AI of scion, same monotone voice and everything, just less realism and cheaper animation. The Duel might be the only short with a style of it's own, but it's too off-canon, which is a shame since you dont need to dress the elites in samurai clothes just to get them to fight Kurozawa-style. Homecoming and Odd One Out............shit I'm getting a stroke just remembering those two. Both had a barely acceptable quality, subpar voice acting, and one big problem: using every trick on the book to get the japanese to like Halo. I'll be clear here, the japanese dont like the space marine crap (shit I dont like it either, but the background is quite good). Halo isnt kawaii, so making it cutter and/or funnier wont work, and it just deteriorates the franchise. Somebody show the guys at MS the Sonic cartoons so they may snap out of this shithead idea. Still, Prototype and Babysitter compensate for this, being still anime-ish with the character design and mecha stuff, but with a higher overall quality than the others. The stories are ok, althought some of the die-hard Halo fans out there will find them a little too sentimental, but they will probably use the other F-word to describe it, as they do most of the time. The Package its la creme de la creme in Legend, a 3D short made by the same guys behind the latest Appleseed movies. Great animation, mechanical and character design which rivals Bungie's, and above good voice acting. Too bad the people in charge of the project didnt choose to make an entire movie like this, since it could very well be a feature film. Anyways, thats it: I'll say the whole experience barely breaks even. After seeing it I can't do nothing but wonder what the original Halo movie could've been considering D9 had a mere $30M budget and yet Fox refused to finance it, probably because they had an idea for a cheap action flick with no deepness whatsoever from the start, like most videogame movies are. Between ODST and this I'll say the hype surrounding Halo is pretty much gone, so any chances of a live action movie are low for now, until 20 years from now when hollywood will be so desperate for ideas that they'll pick the franchise again. After all, they're already making an entire series out of a twitter feed... Trivia: in 2 of the shorts the black guy dies first. Racism much? <--EDIT: this is a JOKE, dont take it seriously
I agree with Disagreeing. I loved D9. And I will like Halo:L as well regardless of what people think, I might not like it much but I will like it still. (Ex: I Still like the Halo Graphic novel, Sure as a GN it's a terrible POS and the only thing worth purchasing the book for were the art galleries.) Do I still like it? yes. Do I run to pick it up to read it over and over? Sorry no. lol so i'll make my own judgments about H:L Edit: Racism call? osnap. I don't think so, it's probably just a coincidence. I mean c'mon Sgt.Johnson is/was Black and he didn't die. Did he? I still haven't gotten to play Halo 3 yet :< (DON'T SPOIL PLOZ <:O) *sigh* and yet I still stare at all the novels on my shelf and wish I could play ODST, 3 and get the new chronicles book :O
It'd be racist to have the whole squad black, it'd be racist to have noone black, it'd be racist to have the last guy die be black, etc. Can't do anything these days without it coming off as racist. God help you if you set a game in Africa where the majority are in fact black and the main character is forced to kill them...
I remember the debate about this particular Resident Evil 5-trailer. White man shoots at black people - OH GOD RACIST!! now what? Black man shoots at white people - OH GOD RACIST!! Black man shoots at black people - OH GOD RACIST!! No black people in the game - OH GOD RACIST EVEN MOAH!! Some minorities are so sensitised on prejudice and discrimination, they feel urged to react on every bullshit and thus they are sort of separating themselves from what is considered "the majority". See, Europeans don't start to cry because they are getting killed by the dozen in the Call of Duty-games either. Just my 2cents though.
Personally, I didn't find it overly racist. There have always been high tension between the black and white community of South Africa, and the film was trying to represent that. However, I found it a quite grinding stereotype with the whole Nigerian drug barons part. But that isn't the reason why I don't enjoy this movie. It's actually because they couldn't quite decide on what movie to make. The first 30 minutes is depicted in a documentary style, then a major switch to being a 3rd person drama with long lingering thoughtful filmmaking, then all of a sudden an action movie, then back to a documentary again. The movie was quite a feat, but in the end it was a mish-mash of different genres which were horribly disjointed, and to be honest the last lingering shots of the "alien" should have been left out the movie as it would have made a better ending. All in all, I was pretty disappointed with District 9. I wanted it to be a good piece of sci-fi storytelling from beginning to end, and what it gave me was parts of 3 pretty good movies that they just couldn't get together.
Guys, it was a joke OK? thats why I wrote "racism much?" instead of THATS RACIST! Back to Legends, I dont say it sucks just that most of it is kinda half-assed...
*shrugs* Guess i'll decide when I see it myself. It couldn't possibly be worse than the Graphic Novel.
Is it out on dvd yet? I'll probably end up watching. I haven't watched anime in a WHILE. I don't know if Legends qualifies as anime but whatever.
Shockingly, many people at the time said that in all serious business for their dislike of the movie - I actually didn't notice the bit you tacked onto the end of your message until just now, and actually was basing my discussion on other's opinions. Thanks for the caveat, though.
My buddy has Halo Legends on Blu Ray and said it wasn't too good.. I'll see if I can borrow it and tell you what I think.(I'm not too big of a Halo fan though)
I just bought Halo Legends.. and actually enjoyed it.. it wasn't the best thing i ever saw.. but it was rather interesting to see some different intepretations of the Halo universe (think art styles etc.).. some of the stories seems a little to short.. (I would have rather had 1 single full length film).. But then again.. i've never seen Animatrix or District 9...
That's racist, yo! The commercial to the movie, Halo Legends, practically screamed crap, unless you're into straight-to-DVD release films and think they're worth watching.
