Let's leverage some IP's!

So when you think of a TV adaptation of Halo, you'd naturally think of Game of Thrones, right? Like as a template for-huh? Halo? Riiiight. Sorry, I'm presuming that you know what Halo is when clearly you're far to well-read and erudite to have ever played a video game.

Pictured: A typical reader of this blog, enjoying
some classic literature on a crisp autumn day.

It'll be hard to top that
Mortal Kombat TV show...

So here, allow me to sun up Halo: it's a series of first-person shooters wherein you play as the faceless cyborg space marine Master Chief. You shoot and occasionally plasma-grenade your way through level after level of aliens before facing down some kind of final boss whom you defeat through additional shooting. For whatever reason, the games developer, 343 Industries has been trying to develop a TV series based on the games. Why? I don't know, I guess because everything is a franchise. Everything.

Pictured: Some of the twenty-eight
Halo novels. Twenty-eight...so like,
move over the late Sue Grafton.

And ok, I may have undersold the game's story. Yes it is a game about space marines shouting hoo-rah and blowing shit up, but there is a surprisingly complex story about an alien empire of religious zealots and some ancient civilization building ring-worlds and there's tons of tie-in material like comics, novelizations and spin-off games that further flesh out the game's narrative universe. I've not read any of it because that's just-believe it or not-too nerdy even for me. But I can attest to the game's story being decent.

You know, for a video game. Like, I don't remember furiously mashing the button trying to skip the cut scenes as one sometimes feels compelled to do when the people who make video games think they're freaking Tolkien.

Kingdom Hearts, I'm looking at you...

But I'm getting off track. What I want to talk about what could the Halo TV series possibly have to do with Game of Thrones? Here, check out this quote from an interview Kiki Wolfkill of 343 Industries did with AIAS Game Maker's Notebook wherein she discussed it:

And some of that complexity was
so confusing even the writers forgot
about it for entire seasons of the show.

"We talk about Game of Thrones a lot in terms of scope and scale and complexity of relationships. It's funny because a lot of the background of Halo is this sort of political drama. Right? And, it's something that you touch on really lightly in the games and  see more deeply in some of the other mediums. And so I think in something like a Game of Thrones some of that complexity is interesting. Um, no incest planned."

-Kiki Wolfkill, 343 Industries' Halo Transmedia
Chief...which is a job title, evidently

While it's a relief that Halo won't involve incest, I guess what's bothering me about this connection she's drawing is that it doesn't feel-huh? Yes, that's her name. Kiki Wolfkill. And she's a video game developer. It's ok, I'm jealous too, but Game of Thrones? 

In case you weren't already feeling inadequate, Wolfkill, in
addition to winning the name lottery, took time off from
professional car racing to make video games. 

Pictured: Master Chief offering an adroit
rebuttal to the Covenant's assertion that
political authority derives from divine right
rather than the consent of the electorate.

Again, Halo's story isn't at all bad, but it is a video game story. It's really more of a frame narrative designed to string together all the alien murder. I know Wolfkill is drawing on the tie-in material as well as the games, but that feels a little like cheating. As far as the games themselves go, I don't remember them containing much in the way of political drama. Maybe the Covenent, who are the antagonists through most of the games, could be read as a sort of a commentary on the dangers of theocratic fanaticism? Kinda? But that's kind of a stretch. 

"Gratuitous sex and violence? Naw...
I watched it for the political intrigue."

-Big liars

Certainly not enough to base an entire series on. Ok, yes, I did say earlier that the story in Halo was complex, but that's not the same thing as depth. Like, there's tons of lore. In fact, Wolfkill's job title essentially translates to 'keeper of the Halo lore.' But I don't think lore is the same thing as substance, even though I think it gets mistaken for it sometimes. And what was so interesting about Game of Throne's political drama anyway? It was the War of the Roses with ice zombies. I think we were just into it because it was a soap opera.

"Business? Business business, business!"

-Business people

I mean Halo's a great game, but does it really need to be a TV show too? And if it does, why does it have to be like Game of Thrones of all things? Look, I don't mean to knock Wolfkill here. She sounds totally genuine in her desire to make this show awesome. My skepticism comes from the trend of adapting something from one media into another just for it's own sake. It feels less about creativity and more about leveraging IP's in order to create new revenue streams going forward into the new fiscal year.

But I guess that's why they call it the entertainment industry and not...uh...the entertainment...non-industry. Sorry, that got away from me. In any case, I found Kiki Wolfkill's full interview to be super-interesting and you should totally listen to it. I'm just not sure that Halo: Transmedia Content IP (working title...probably) can or will feature either complex relationships or political drama. 

Although I guess it ultimately comes down to whether or not
you consider teabagging to be an inherently political act.