After what took more than an entire console generation for Microsoft to execute in its deal with Steven Spielberg, the Halo Television Series is close to concluding. And while there is plenty to look at in terms of recorded trailers, the context of the new series is left vacant in details. Directly when the story takes place and the characters involved leaves many fans to question when in the storyline is this new experience.
Just this past December Showtime revealed the first full trailer for the Halo Television Series giving a true glimpse at what the new TV show will deliver and fans are excited. Even more this week Paramount revealed that a new trailer for the approaching series is to be released this coming Sunday, January 30th.
By extension, 343 Industries made a new Halo Waypoint blog to elaborate and discuss the new plans for the Halo Television Series. Altogether, it is confirmed that this new ‘Silver Universe’ is a separate timeline unique to the show whilst still set within the Halo universe.
We’ve been working on the idea of a Halo TV series for a long time, but one of the first things we realized when we started working with writers and directors was that there were some real dangers of mapping a totally different medium – games – to a linear narrative format, TV or movie for that matter. Not just because of the differences in approach and perspective that make sense for each medium, but also because we want to make sure that we’re not forcing either the game or the show to go in completely unnatural directions.
By the same token, Halo’s core canon is extremely important to us and our fans, and we wanted to think of the simplest and most productive way to make sure we didn’t ‘break’ either medium by trying to force square pegs into round holes. The idea of the ‘Silver Timeline’ kept resurfacing throughout that process. We could compare the choice we landed on to other IPs, but that might set faulty or negative expectations and would likely oversimplify our intent.
Basically, we want to use the existing Halo lore, history, canon, and characters wherever they make sense for a linear narrative, but also separate the two distinctly so that we don’t invalidate the core canon or do unnatural things to force a first-person video game into an ensemble TV show. The game canon and its extended lore in novels, comics, and other outlets is core, original, and will continue unbroken for as long as we make Halo games. To be clear: these will be two parallel, VERY similar, but ultimately separate timelines whose main events and characters will intersect and align throughout their very different cadences.
Frank O’Connor, Halo Creative Director
“The TV show timeline – the ‘Silver Timeline’ – is grounded in the universe, characters and events of what’s been established in core canon, but will differ in subtle and not so subtle ways in order to tell a grounded, human story, set in the profoundly established Halo universe,” O’Connor adds in the blog post.
“Where differences and branches arise, they will do so in ways that make sense for the show, meaning that while many events, origins, character arcs, and outcomes will map to the Halo story fans know, there will be surprises, differences, and twists that will run parallel, but not identically to core canon.” He also explains there is the possibility for the game & TV universes to intersect due to the approach for the storyline.
“The show certainly is built on the shoulders of Halo’s canonical giants. The history, the aesthetic, the narrative underpinnings, and so on, are all directly aligned with, inspired by, based on, or aligned with existing Halo stuff.” Previously, the upcoming Gears of War film was said to be inserted into a separate cinematic universe to assist with the story and production creativity. You can read the full report by heading here.
Are you excited for the Halo Television Series?
Source: Halo Waypoint
