User reviews

It all felt like someone strung up all the scenes from a game to make a story. I asked myself if it were fan made. The animation wasn't only weak, it was slow. The whole thing's an hour long, but at what I consider normal speed, it's probably more like 45 minutes. I watched at 2x and it was OK. Also there were some scenes that were perfect candidates for eye candy, like the explosions of ships and the fights. They had no budget for those.

Now, about the story, it's an origin story of this character in a game called Halo that I have never played or seen played, so I can only comment on it as an independent thing. Young children are abducted and turned into supersoldiers just in time to fight an aggressive alien species. I don't know why they called it The Fall or Reach, since nothing fell. Just as I was getting invested in the story the film ended.

Bottom line: nothing spectacular, not in terms of production or storyline, but it is an animation probably made using a game engine for a novel written for that game. What did you expect?

my only real gripe is that it's not long enough. it has great story telling. i just hated the fact that i was aware of it wrapping itself up. i would've appreciated another hour or so. it does say "series" so if there are more to come, then awesome.

as for as the visual quality, it's not AAA quality production. do you love Halo just for the graphics? or the lore.

i read the book years and years ago. i don't read books for AAA graphics. there are none. if it WAS done through AAA production, sure it'd be nice. there are two general paths to 3D, photoreal or stylized. this was chosen to be done in a stylized manner. and i actually like how they executed the style and atmosphere.

if you're in it for the visual effects, don't watch this. if you appreciate halo for the lore, if you appreciate some storytelling of a once great franchise, then i'd recommend watching this.

it helps shed some light as to why 117 is the way he is.

This mini-series is not the best I've seen but not the worst either. I like it and think it is worth a view if you like Sci-Fi to any degree. What I am really tired of is all of the reviews from people who have "READ THE BOOK" and are disappointed that it's not the same. Really? Haven't we all learned by this time that anything from book to film/video is never going to be like the book. Get over it man.

Halo has been a flagship title for Xbox consoles for more than a decade, it has spawned numerous titles and spin-offs, but apparently animation movie is not a priority. The CGI is incredibly stiff and design is equally lackluster, there is barely any shred of production value of the game here. This will no doubt disappoint the fans while probably won't attract any casual movie viewers.

It tells the story of John / Master Chief, the main protagonist as he goes through his training and childhood. He is not the easiest character to transition to cinema as he's a silent protagonist on the game. The animation delivers his story by narrations from other characters, while Joh himself is pretty one dimensional. His interactions are mostly military oriented, leaving little room to expand.

To make matter worse, it utilizes the same formulaic sequences like those in Universal Soldier films. Also, characters' facial expressions are extremely bland. Animation can barely produce any quality equivalent to today's game cutscenes. It's just plain rigid motion and uninteresting setting for one hour, and that short runtime will not amount much in term of narrative anyway.

The low quality visual will most likely upset gamers, and it's certainly not the introduction story Halo would like to represent the franchise on animation genre.

I have read the Halo: The Fall of Reach book a few times and was actually reading it around the time I saw this movie.

Basically the movie follows the outline of book fairly well, but...

Somehow they managed remove the parts of the book that made it so good.

In the movie: John is kind of a dick, there isn't really any relationship between John and Chief Mendez (John is supposed to really look up to him and respect him), Captain Keyes is kind of a dick, the relationship between John and his fellow spartans is hollow. Everybody felt very 1-Dimensional. I think these problems are because of the lack of detail in the movie and the bland animation, the sometimes very off-key voice acting.

Honestly, if the people who made this movie would have just payed attention to why the characters in the book were so good and why the relationships were compelling we might have gotten something much better. That's too bad.

The book has great potential for a movie, but it was wasted with this attempt.

If you want some quick general backstory on Halo, watch this. If you want entertainment and a compelling story with compelling characters - read the book.

What the first reviewer obviously doesn't realize is that this episode was based on the novel, written by Eric Nylund, "Halo: The Fall of Reach" in 2001. Excuse me when I say that this guy is flat out wrong saying "there is barely any shred of production value of the game here". This wasn't meant to resemble the games but more what we read in the book and saw in Halo: Legends, However there are some cameos that relate back to the game.

I love how Said reviewer goes on to say that most of the chiefs actions are military-oriented, Which is only part true since there are so many examples when he is not, in a military-oriented series... Now lets talk about the visuals, I had no issue with them, but this is a different age where everything has to look like "quality equivalent to today's game cut scenes" as he says.

He fails to realize yet again that the action sequences ("formulaic sequences like those in Universal Soldier films") are almost identical to the ones in the book and are nowhere near the cliché "Universal soldier films". To me Halo has always been a, come for the awesome game play and stay for the lore. Obviously I wouldn't expect some hardcore gamer who only cares about KDR to look at this. However when you say that the "Low quality" will most-likely upset gamers, I will make an account for the first time on IMDb just to write a review explaining how wrong you are.

In my own personal opinion this is as true to Halo as it gets and I would definitely recommend a viewing as I was brought back to when I read the book a few years ago. In terms of visuals, like I said before, It reminded me of Halo: Legends and even a lot of the scenes in that looked worse than what people are making this out to be. The narration is also top notch as you'll notice through-out and I could not be more pleased. I feel like one thing that could be improved upon if anything, is the facial animations but even that has a particular style I suppose. Halo: The Fall of Reach is definitely a nice addition to any Halo fans collection and I would also like to apologize for going off on a rant if this what you would like to call it, I was just logically disapproving of another persons deception and ignorant statements, and who chooses to be unstudious about what he reviews.

I just started at the screen laughed twice at the terrible animation and moved on with my day like nothing happened. It felt like I lost 1 hour to the void

Halo: The Fall of Reach (2015) was originally an animated mini series adapted from the novel of the same name. The original novel was a brilliant story of the origins of Spartan 117 also known as Masterchief. The story gave fans a much more detailed look at Masterchiefs backstory including his time in the Spartan II program which transformed him from a six year child into a genetically altered super soldier in one of the most brutal and painful ways imaginable.

The Halo video games were where fans first got to know Masterchief as a character however his character wasn't always as talkative as he is in the later entries of the video game series. Masterchief was given very little backstory in the early days of the game series and if you were a big Halo fan and wanted to know more about Masterchiefs backstory and really get to know the man behind the helmet you had to take the time and actually read the novels and graphic novels based on the Halo series.

This movie does provide some of the backstory detailed in the original novel but sadly a lot of what made the novel such a joy to read has been watered down into another generic origin story. Only very poorly animated.

I would highly recommend reading the original novel over watching this poor excuse for animated movie. The animation is absolutely horrendous to look at and is honestly some of the worst looking animation I have ever seen in a big budget animated movie. Every scene looks like a cutscene from Halo Combat Evolved which was released in 2001. The bodies and heads of every character is shaped like a block with sharp edges. The hair looks like something from the Lego movie only with less detail, shape and colour. The audio doesn't match the characters poorly animated lip movement.

Overall Halo: The Fall of Reach is an absolute travesty of a film in every possible way avoid it at all costs.

I enjoy The Fall of Reach for what it is. However I like Forward Unto Dawn more, the Animation I like the style of it. But I have only one problem with this Animated feature. The title is a darn lie! If your series doesn't even deal with The Fall of Reach or part of what was covered in Halo Reach, don't even call it The Fall of freaking Reach! Just call it either Halo Origins or Halo Blue Team and it'd be done. Look I know that this is based on the Novel, but still it doesn't make since when you think about it. Halo Origins would have been a better title. And even still, so with all odds Halo The Fall of Reach is best of what it can do. I give it a 8 out of 10.

I am one of many who has read the novel on which this movie is based off of and which I loved so you could say I went in with high expectations. I would be lying if I said i didn't have any. I will however say that I tried to lower those expectations and be open to a different view. Besides, book adaptations are rarely if not ever better than in it's original form simply because our own imagination plays a mayor role in it. It's hard to live up to those standards which are different for each and any individual.

Unfortunately lowering my standards was not merely enough to be able to enjoy this movie. I would even say that if it weren't for me being a fan of the source material I would've given it an even lower score and it might have even scared me away from the franchise completely. The only thing that actually kept me going was me liking the universe the books created and my interest in how the team behind this production envisioned this prelude to the Halo games.

And that's why it baffles me so much that it's this bad because this is coming from the people that have the property in their possession and who work on the current games in the franchise. Everything is there and checks out, from the original voice actors down to the lore, even small details like the HUD indicators from the games, and yet they have managed to produce a lackluster representation of an otherwise great story written by Mr. Nylund with stiff voice-acting and even stiffer animation work that resembled something closer to in-game graphics from last generations game consoles than anything. If I didn't know any better I could be fooled in to thinking I was watching a not so funny episode of Red vs. Blue. I know and agree that looks aren't everything but then at least get the emotion part right one way or another, especially because The Fall of Reach is one of emotional heavier tales in the franchise, if not the heaviest.

The movie adaptation of the Fall of Reach ended up being quite a disappointment to me and I wasn't even expecting all that much of it to begin with, and to make matters worse, to top it all of, we didn't even get to see the full story. We have seen Reach, but the falling bit as mentioned in the title is a big part of it too. Either 343 didn't think so or this is a 2 parter.

All in all I can't recommend this to anyone. And if you're a fan and you're as curious as I was though, take my advise and put the book on your nightstand before hand.

This video was nothing more than a cheap rip-off of Orson Scott Card's Enders Game. I was surprised how uncreative it was. Read Enders Game, then watch the movie, you will see how this was nothing more than someones attempt to capitalize off another persons ideas. Shameful. I read Fall of Reach a few years back and found it entertaining but again I was saddened at how closely it resembled Orson Scott Card and Heinlein. I was hoping for original ideas, plots, and characters but this was the wrong place to look for it. It is sad how people will spend thousands of dollars on producing a show yet they spend nothing on making sure that show has quality original content. Stick to the video game, and ignore the sad plagiarizing back-story.

I lasted about 35 to 40 minutes, this is one of the worse animations I have ever seen. I had to check the release date and was shocked when it said 2015. It looks that it was from the 80's, the characters have zero expressions, the story line is slooooooow and boring it is really just terrible on all levels and that's from me a big fan of halo but this is just a joke avoid avoid avoid.

Well, now that the Halo series is finally around the corner and only 2 months away, I've decided to watch Halo: the Fall of Reach. The first thing I should mention is that this is a low-budget mini-movie and is only 65 minutes. The story goes deep into project Spartan-II and where are they originally from, especially Spartan 117 or the great master chief. CG and animations are weak and terrible for a movie in 2015. However, since it is a low-budget movie maybe you could ignore it. Music except the famous Halo soundtrack has nothing to offer.

Overall, there is nothing much to say about this movie if you are a real fan of the halo it can be recommended. Other than that don't waste your time because you probably won't make it through the first 10 minutes.

Wow, I enjoyed the first 3 halo games (I bought an xbox 360 shortly after they came out so that I could continue following the halo story with halo 3), I played ODST (I think it was) hoping to find the answer to the origin of halo's main character. But this video was such a disappointment; mengele is what this story reminds one of - this is such an ignoble and deplorable story (but it did come from microsoft and its "leader", so I shouldn't have been surprised). After watching this, I doubt I'll ever desire to have anything to do with halo ever again. If you like halo, you should watch this - so that you have a better idea of what it really is that you think you like.