25 May 2012

Amazing So Far

Halo Legends is based on Halo and the book series of Halo maybe. I have watched a few episodes on Halo Waypoint, and I love this show/movie so far. In my opinion, I have loved Bones ( Anime Studio that created series like Cowboy Bebop, Soul Eater, etc, like the other person said ) and this series was a great addition to what I get to watch. I also do not agree with the other person due to him mainly just hating Microsoft and how they didn't put english subtitles. Of course this isn't going to have english subtitles on Waypoint, and it has listed the information on Amazon. But back to this, Halo Legends is a great series and I am hoping to get it soon so I can watch it in Blu-Ray :)

Nova_Blast_13

24 May 2012

Halo legends- does not represent the halo universe well, but he anime itself is okay.

Content: Most of the Halo Legends movies give a very poorrepresentation of the Halo universe.(based on the books& games) Of the7, origins one and two are the strongest, giving a good backgroundstory. The package has nothing to do with halo, but is an excuse toshow off nice graphics. Odd one out is ridiculous. The Babysitter isthird closest to the story. Spartans do not talk during missions, anddo not try to be cool. The story represents this well, although it isunlikely the spartan female is so feminine looking. Prototype is nicestory wise, but unrelated to halo. The dual storyline may or may not beclose, but I found it the least interesting to watch. Graphics: Thepackage is the strongest in this respect. Origins 1 + 2, thebabysitter, prototype and the package have similar graphics which arein line with Japanese anime. They look average. Odd one out and thedual are the least strong in this respect. Music: Origins one and twostand out as true halo music. The rest are generally good but notexceptional. Overall: Overall disappointing. I would have liked to seestories which represent the Spartans as they truly were. Highlyprofessional soldiers who put the mission before everything else, whodo not say cool stuff, but have above all an inner strength whichallows them to win. They do not look like heroes(being in that armorafter brutal modifications), except for their physique. The anime isreasonable, but nothing exceptional.

21 May 2012

DO NOT BUY THIS! ITS TERRIBLE!

DO NOT BUY THIS MOVIE ITS TOTAL JUNK! This movie is terrible ESPECIALLY if your a big Halo fan. First off I was excited, but when I found out it was going to be Anime I wasn't as encouraged to watch it, I bit my tongue and watched it anyway. I was right, not only is it poorly done even by Anime standards but it makes a mockery of the whole series of games by making it some cheesy half witted group of scatter brained mini series'. Just the whole Spartan 1339 part was typical corny Anime junk like Pokemon and all the other poppy junk. Spartans are genetically engineered killing machines not crazed idiotic contortionists. This movie way under shot its mark and took the "Bad ass" quality of Halo and the whole battle riddled world the Spartans defend, and made it cute and cuddly land of stupidity with pet dinosaurs and Covenent Samurai sitting at their dinner tables conversing with there wives over a cup of tea before teaching at their Dojo... seriously thats whats in the movie. I can't stress enough that actually watching this made me even more angry with Microsoft. If your going to just throw funding away for a piece of crap like this movie, why not make an actual movie that's not garbage. Your better off holding on to the dream of "maybe someday they'll make a movie and its going to be awesome!" rather than have it obliterated by this movie.

21 May 2012

Not sure what people are watching

I think the sheer newness of this film has people blinded to the fact that it was not that good. I am fantasy and Manga artist and I am more than in agreement with artistic license, but there was so much of that in this flick that it took away what could have been decent stories. The visuals where at times confusing and totally unnecessary. It was like it was done by students who were allowed to spread their wings with colors and abstract shapes. This is somewhat typical of true Japanese Manga. Just too darn much. If they focused on what the game truly portrays this would have been much better. If you play the game religiously you will be a bit disappointed in this looooong awaited movie.

18 May 2012

Halo Legends (Single-Disc Edition)

This review is from: Halo Legends (DVD) Well, let me get this out of the way real quick. I'm a PC gamer, so my exposure to the Halo universe has been dreadfully slow, but I still regard Halo: Combat Evolved as one of my favorite FPS games. The mysterious environments, the badass weaponry, and some of the coolest characters in video game history all come to mind when I remember those first days playing the game. I was quite excited when I heard that a Halo anime was going to be released. After all, animation opens up so many possibilities for the direction of the Halo story to progress, but now that I've watched the whole DVD, I can't help feel somewhat disappointed. Many of the stories just don't have the emotional pull I was hoping for. The pieces are fairly short and you have to get used to a new animation style after every part, which isn't too bad, but some of them are animated in strange ways (a watercolor animation for example). Let me leave off with a few more comments.1. The voice overs are not bad, but you do have the option of listening to the voice in Japanese or English. Both are worth a listen.2. "Odd One Out" is intended to be a parody of the Halo universe. I don't think some of you understood that and unfairly criticized it as something it wasn't. 3. ORIGINS is by far, my favorite part of this collection(actually two parts). Origins is the reason why this DVD will stay in my collection. Cortana's sweeping narration and the effective animation of Studio 4C was amazing. Part II was as much a story about humanity as it was Halo. Although I appreciate the hard work that was put into the other parts, I wish that they where more like these segments. Very impressive.I'd recommend this DVD if you are looking for a light evening experience. Don't expect to be moved to tears or experience some sort of epiphany, but try and enjoy these episodes for what they are. Ya have some light comedy in there with "Odd One Out", unique animation with "The Duel", all around excellence with "origins", and a decent mix of action/lessons in morality in the rest of the episodes. Not bad, but not great. Make sure you get a good price.

18 May 2012

Worthless even for a Halo Fan

This review is from: Halo Legends [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray) I am a big Halo fan and I avoided to watch the episodes on Waypoint or Youtube hoping to be stunned by the final Blu-RayWell, the Blu-Ray is here with HD graphics.. but the episodes are a 7 floor pile of trashI have almost fell asleep watching it.. only the last chapter (Package) is somehow decentI strongly suggest to download the videos at any quality and avoid spending money on it

SirJun

16 May 2012

Hell-No Legends!

Other reviewers here have gone into the plot details each of the 7animated stories so I wont bother. Halo Legends is a mess. From thebeginning of the film up to the point where I pressed the stoppedbutton (halfway though story 3) it's mess.The story telling (narration) is painfully, painfully slow. The Animeis just simply awful. Halo Legends had the look and feel of Ulysses 31[1981] A great animated cartoon in it's time but released as it istoday would look dreadful because technology and animation techniqueshave moved on clearly the artist/animaters involved in Halo Legendshaven't. I just couldn't connect or relate to anything I heard or sawin Halo Legends because the look and narrative pace is so wrong. I gave Halo Legends a go because I'm a fan of the games and thought thestory from the games was impressive sci-fi so hoped to learn more aboutthe Halo Universe.I learnt that Anime feature films suck. (and the technique should onlybe used on the cartoon network) Halo Legends is a blatant cash in thatwas made without care or love.Avoid at all costs.

16 May 2012

For Halo enthusiasts

This review is from: Halo Legends (DVD) I enjoyed this DVD, even if it was a bit shorter than I'd have liked. The Halo Legends series, however, seems like something that would be enjoyed most by those who are enthusiastic Halo fans and particularly those who've read the books and looked into and discussed the mythos the game creators made.

Reviewafilm

12 May 2012

What were they thinking?

This is truly pathetic. Why make a movie from a milked game? Especiallysince they haven't even bothered to use real actors, oh no, theydecided to make an anime film. Anime has to be the worst kind of filmthere is. Its bad enough they made the film, but they fact they made itin Anime shows that they can not do anything they originally planned todo. It is a truly terrible movie, even for Halo fans. If you arelooking forward to this film, kill your excitement now so you are notlet down while you watch it. Truly a terrible film at best. Why didBungie even bother trying to milk the Halo franchise this far? Itshould have been left as a game. Save ourself the money and don't buyit.

arorashadow_2003

11 May 2012

A Decent Antholgy Collection With Good and Bad

I am not a Halo fan nor a Halo player. Sure I pick the game up onoccasions when I'm with friends or something. However I am a big animefan and the thought of a Halo Legends anthology anime did interest me.When I found my all time anime directing idol was attached (KoichiMashimo) I was excited and knew I had to check it out. Here is myoverall breakdown of the collection.Origins I&II (1/5): Origins from Studio 4°C was probably the worst ofthe bunch. I found it boring and tedious and the production qualitystrikingly amateurish that no anime fan would forgive from a lesserknown studio. While it is a good idea to give the background of theHalo universe for non Halo players, the choice of doing it in anarration format was just duller than dirt. I could have saved my selfthe $20 and read the history for my self at Wikipedia.The Duel (2/5): animated by Production I.G, I was taken aback by thisone at first. The insane style really threw a curve-ball at me but inthe end it kind of grew on me when I realized it was a very uniquestyle choice and innovative. But the color pallet and visual stylereally didn't do much for the story. Felt like I was looking through aglass window trying to watch a TV. The character designs are ugly andthey look like dinosaurs or something. The final nail in the coffin wasthe all to obvious "NOOOOOOOOO" when he finds the body of his wife. Ofcourse that would be upsetting but does everyone have to scream No infilm and television? It's an innovative and interesting episode towatch but feels more like a Samurai story set on an alien world than asci-fi action story. Not that's a bad thing necessarily either.Homecoming: (5/5) After the continuing disappointments the collectionfinally picked up with this great episode. Animated by Bee Train (withsupport from Production I.G) is one of my favorite segments yet. Afterthe disappointment of The Duel and that storybook they called anepisode (Origins) my hope was withering for these stories to pick it upagain. Having full faith they could do a good job I watched withanticipation. Frankly the dark turn of events was really not somethingI was predicting for anything Halo ever. I'm glad they kept such strongcontrast in the color pallet by not going dark just because it's a darkstory like probably most other studios would have done.The bear might have been cliché but you know, it really worked and itwas a very melancholic touch. The music was great having a bit of aretro feel but still not too retro. People at Bee Train to me havealways been masters of using music to it's full potential and this wasno exception either. The ending bit with Master Chief was really justthe best, while I didn't burst into tears like I have on some othersadder anime series I still felt moved by the story. The animationquality is also extremely well done in this as well the characterdesigns and art pallet are quiet beautiful.Prototype: (5/5) My other favorite of the series! Prototype animated byBONES really caught me off guard. I'm not a fan of BONES they makeoverrated and over hyped series and to many fall into useless clichés(like Tokyo Magnitude 8.0). This episode on the other hand was bothdramatic and action packed as well as sad enough to make a little tearin my eye. A very powerful well written and animated drama was theperfect installment. This episode and Homecoming were my two favoritesand there is no way I can chose one over the other as my 1st andforemost.Odd One Out (5/5): Harking back to the good old day of Anime right?Well maybe. Animated by Toei Animation, Odd One Out isn't well likedhere among the fans but being a non-Halo fan that is probably why Ienjoyed it. Amazingly funny and just felt like DragonBall franchisecolliding with Halo. A lot of fun and a lot of laughs come with thisone and it's just awesome.The Babysitter: (3/5) The Babysitter was the first episode I sawthrough Halo Way Point and I liked it. Didn't have much hopes for thisbeing from Studio 4°C and their usually super deformed style of art butI did like this episode.An interesting bit that provided good animation but not a particularlyengaging storyline. Apparently it's about rivalry between the twogroups but it seems to be playing more to one kid's ego and pride whichhas only been done 30 million times in film and elsewhere. Not the mostingenious or creative but not the worst.The Package: (3/5) Casio Entertainment's Big finale was a pretty funadventure. Really great Sci-fi action and adventure topped off with aspace battle is the icing on the cake. The story sadly suffers fromsome mediocre writing with cheesy one-liners and a predictable plotline.So in the end Halo Legends is another in the collection of animeAnthologies. What I like about projects like these is you get to seeseveral creative minds give their take on a storyline. Halo Legends hasit's good and bad and I think fans and non Halo fans alike will enjoyit.

07 May 2012

Ugh

This review is from: Halo Legends [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray) This was such a let-down. Only the last two stories are anything to write home about. The rest, boring, uninspiring, disappointing.

07 May 2012

Got Me Intersted In The Halo Universe

Before watching this film, I wasn't a Halo fan at all, but I was a little curious. I finally decided to watch it today, and it was so good, I had to watch it twice! It's not actually a feature film, but seven different short episodes on one disc, all done by different animation studios, so no episode is the same, and all of them are excellent. There is alot of action, drama, suspence, and even comedy in one episode done by the talented artists of the Dragonball series. I caught on to the Halo story pretty quick thanks to Origins 1 and 2, so I was able to enjoy all the rest of the episodes. By the time it was all done, I was facinated by the Halo story, and I will buy the games in the near future. Overall Halo Legends gets a 5/5.

mmushrm

06 May 2012

For Halo fans only?

Watching this "movie" makes me wonder if its for Halo fans only. If youare unfamiliar with Halo, this movie will appear disjointed. If you arefamiliar with Halo but not a die hard fan (ie. like myself) you willfind it rather dull, disjointed and disappointing.The movie is a combination of 7 stories by different writers anddirectors. Hence the disjointed feel as it does not flow from beginningto end.Part 1 - Origins; it explains the halo universe but IMO is a little toopreachy about humanity's penchant for war. Even though the intro intothe Halo universe was good, the humanity and war angle has been donemany many times in Japanese anime. The story line is also very verycommon in any superhero comics. Found it rather dull.Part 2 - Duel; Interesting artwork. Take the Halo universe andtransform it into the samurai era. reminded me of one of the episodesof Samurai Jack.Part 3 - Homecoming; Explains the spartans. Story is flashback on how aspartan "escaped" when younger to get back to her family. Found it veryinteresting and they could probably create a full lenght feature withthis story line. Japanese Anime style.Part 4 - Odd One Out; All I can say is WTF?? How did an episode ofDragon Ball get in here. Basically this is Dragon ball with the samecharacter designs, stupid dialogue and slapstick. Just replace Gokuwith a Spartan.Part 5 - Prototype; very mech type action oriented. Looks like Gundam.Action is good but (me not being a halo fanatic) don't see theconnection with Halo other then the baddies.Part 6 - The Babysitter; A throwback to the 80s style of anime likeRobotech or Yamato. Felt like an episode of the shows I mentioned, eventhe ending. No bad.Part 7 - The package; IMO the best of the parts. If the entire moviewas like this I would give it a 10. Great CGI graphics and actionscenes. This is the Halo im familiar with. Not much story (recover apackage from the enemy fleet) but exciting.While parts of the Halo legends are good and entertaining, as a wholeit is disappointing and I admit that for the 1st few parts I wasreading a book while watching and it took will power to not stop themovie partway through. Too disjointed and while the concept ofdifferent styles seems good, IMO in this case it took away from theflow.

Harlemer

05 May 2012

Very Disappointing

I'm a big fan of the Halo games, and when I heard that they were goingto make an Animatrix-like collection of animated shorts based on theuniverse, I was hugely excited...And then I got around to watching it, and I felt myself die a littleinside.Firstly, let me just say that not everything was bad. I did like howthey used the same music from the games, but also added in their ownmusic on occasion, and I thought the English voice acting was verygood. However, unlike the Animatrix, Halo Legends is mostly crap, withonly one or two good shorts out of all seven. Animatrix, despite someof it's shorts to be pretty mediocre, was mostly a good show.Out of all seven shorts, only three were really good. But since OriginsI and Origins II are the same thing, just divided, then let's just sayonly two were good. The two-part Origins segment is narrated entirelyby Cortana, with good animation and music (though it only uses musicfrom the game). It tells the history of the Halo Universe, why theForerunners created Halo, how they died, how Humans first encounteredthe Covenant, etc. The other short that's worth watching is the finalone, titled "The Package", is CGI-animated and loosely resembles thegame cut scenes. It's about a group of Spartans, 117 included, who headinto a Covenant fleet to rescue a "Package". This short is awesomebecause it starts off with a kick-ass space battle, gets you hyped upwith a sweet guns-a-blazing race, and ends with a cool cameoappearance. It defiantly makes Halo fans feel like they at least gotSOMETHING good out of this catastrophe.And then there are the rest of the shorts..."The Babysitter" is about a small squad of ODST soldiers who worktogether with a Spartan, who doesn't seem think that TALKING TO YOURSQUAD is all that important, who are on a mission to assassinate one ofthe Prophets. This has really boring animation, really stupidcharacters, and no real redeeming features. When we find out at the endthat the Spartan is actually a woman, I get no real shock. Who cares ifshe's a woman? We get to see the "main" character of the short, whogreatly disliked the Spartan, suddenly have a change of heart because,hey, I may not like Spartans, but I can't hate a woman! "The Duel" is alike it or hate it segment. I REALLY didn't like it because of theportrayal of the Elites. It focuses on an Arbiter who is accused ofHeresy, so his wife (yes, his WIFE, we get to see what female Eliteslook like, and let's just say, they don't look anything like ElitesIMO) is killed, and he takes out a whole god-damn army of Covenantsoldiers by himself. I guess what really irked me about this was howthey made the Elites live in some kind of Japanese-inspiredenvironment, wearing really uncharacteristic clothing. It just botheredme, even though I know it's a really petty thing to get upset over."Homecoming" is a boring pile of crap. It follows a Spartan named Daisy(ugh) who keeps having flashbacks about how she was recruited to be aSpartan in the first place. Omg, where do I start? First off, thekick-ass super-soldiers are portrayed as scrawny, angsty teens who needto serious get on some steroids, and the dialogue is all junk, soundingmore like it came out of some cruddy shoujo anime than out of a HALOTRIBUTE. And the little symbolic teddy-bear key chain thing made mewant to gag. And to top it all off, the animation was a major bore."Prototype" even though I kind of did like this one, because it hadreally good editing, voice acting, animation, and use of music, it justdidn't seem like it had anything to do with Halo to me. It felt likemore of an original segment from some mecha anime than a Halo tribute.It does a good job of making to feel sorry for the character and all,but by the end of it, all you can think of is, "oh yeah, right, this isabout Halo, isn't it?" "Odd One Out" is a parody. This is this worstbag of garbage I have ever seen! Why the Hell would someone make aPARODY of Halo in a collection of SERIOUS SHORTS? I don't care if it'sappropriately title "Odd One Out," it's not funny, it has horribleanimation, the main character is UNBELIEVABLY annoying, and it servesno significance whatsoever to the whole project. There may be one ortwo jokes that are actually a little funny, but it doesn't cover up thefact that this is one of the most insulting things they could haveadded.All in all, you may enjoy this if you're an anime fan, and, you know,you're stupid, but I suggest to fans of the Games to watch Origins I,Origins II, The Package, and maybe Prototype on the internet orsomething. Don't waste your money on the whole shebang.

04 May 2012

Its good, but not excelent...

This review is from: Halo Legends [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray) The first two episodes are great, without a doubt the highlight of the seven stories. I'm a great fan of anime and HALO, so I decided to check this out, its good but weird. Its not anime in itself, rather an attempt of anime by western creators, the thing is that the HALO stories were actually done by japaneese artist and directors so I guess they were trying to envision a western public since HALO isn't that big in Japan. And you definitely feel that in the stories, so bottom line: if you like HALO and just want to have some fun on random stories about HALO not of HALO itself then you will like this movie, if you want true anime... this is not it, although its not bad, and if you want some background or obscure stories about the game... then this is also not for you.

04 May 2012

Two Good Stories

Short and sweet:I was disappointed on many levels, and evidentally there are more female spartans than male according to the storyline. Only cool thing was the reveiling of how the Arbiter came about, and maybe a few of the much too late CGI scenes. Overall, rent if you MUST see it.

29 April 2012

halo wars movie

This review is from: Halo Legends (Two-Disc Special Edition) (DVD) I was very unhappy with this movie.both Dvd's were scratched.I would have sent it back but that's like pulling teeth considering i still haven't been refunded for something i bought that i never received from Christmas of 08!

29 April 2012

Halo Movie Fix in Animation

This review is from: Halo Legends (Two-Disc Special Edition) (DVD) If you like me are still a believer that there will one-day be a Peter Jackson produced Halo movie then you should buy this disc. Halo Legends is a collection of animated short stories that cover a broad sampling of the Halo Universe. the Stories are well written and the animation varied inn style and top notch. It's not a the movie we are all still waiting for but it's a much need fix for us Halo junkies till then.

28 April 2012

not quite what i expected

This review is from: Halo Legends [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray) the movie wasn't quite what i had expected but overall not too shabby. however i would prob recommend only to those die-hard Halo Warriors.

27 April 2012

Not even close...

I watched this some time ago, and I am still in shock. Let me start bysaying I love Halo. I have all the games, enjoy the books and comics...However Halo Legends was utter garbage and I regret watching it.There are 8 separate animated segments, done in different animationstyles. It is similar to the Animatrix and Batman; Gotham Knight,except those ones are good.I will comment on some of the segments and what I thought of them.Firstly, the worst segment in my opinion was 'the duel'. The animationwas horrible, I think it was trying to be stylized, but all I couldthink was 'lazy' and it was so blurry I couldn't tell what was going onmost of the time. The story was some junk about an Arbiter who lives inFuedal Japan and is married to a cat. He upsets the covenant and has tofight a bunch of blurry samurai after they kill his cat wife. Probablyworth skipping this one.The second worst segment was named 'Homecoming'. I think they weretrying to market this to an audience of 13 year old girls. It's about agirl Spartan who cries a lot and carries a little teddy bear keyring orsomething. I felt sick when I watched this one.The segment 'Odd one out' was bad from the start. This one I think wasmeant to be funny, but they forgot to put the jokes in it. I didn'teven crack a smile.I think the segment 'Prototype' was added to Halo Legends by accident.They had an un-aired episode of Gundam lying around and it somehowfound it's way into the collection. Watch it if you like Gundam.The segment 'Babysitter' had some potential... Unfortunately theyruined it because all the ODST guys had girl hair (Apparently themilitary doesn't have grooming standards in the future), and theSpartan is a girl (AGAIN). *SiGh* The package was probably the only segment I really enjoyed. The CG waslike the games and it had lots of action (And no girls crying).Origins was okay, but really nothing more than a rehash of the gamestory. I thought of it as an instructional manual being narrated.In conclusion I thought Halo Legends was awful. I believe anime was apoor choice and there seemed to be too much influence from the Japaneseproduction houses. (Apparently the Japanese thing all Spartans shouldbe schoolgirls or something).If they do another Halo animation I hope DC or Marvel can get involvedand do it decent.