3/5/10 First Impressions HALO Legends, Toward the Terra
Somewhat quiet on the site front, from which I gather that everybody is kind of busy. As per Zach’s suggestion I finally sat down yesterday to watch HALO Legends. Not being a fan of console shooters I didn’t know much going in, except what I had heard on some podcasts and read at anime sites. Overall, I wasn’t blown away by the quality of the animation but it was intriguing to think that this was all an exposition of a mythos that originated from a video game. I guess that’s not too uncommon. One thing that’s nice about the HALO universe, in my opinion, is that it’s not one of these post-apocalyptic Mad Max type settings. I’m seriously getting sick of that. Fallout 3, Borderlands, and then Rage coming out sometime soon. It’s nice to see more a more traditional science fiction space marine type universe. It’s important to note that Halo legends is an anthology, and I know everybody is saying the last chapter is the best but I was so put off by the 3d that I couldn’t watch it. Probably liked ‘odd one out’ and ‘the babysitter’ the most.
Another anime I’ve been watching recently is ‘Toward the Terra’ a full length anime movie which was originally released in 1980. Came across this from the review in the most recent issue of OtakuUSA. At the time I was like, really love the androgynous beauty of the character design until I found out that that picture is in fact a guy. Still think it’s a great design and love how it’s just like, ‘yeah, listening to headphones.’ After I watched the trailer, I thought, if you were really into Interstella 5555 and wanted to scratch that itch you could probably do pretty good cuing up discovery on your mp3 player and watching this movie.
March 5th, 2010 at 12:48 pm
but the design is still androgynous whether the character is a guy or a girl, would you have felt the same way if the character turned out to be female? or did you want him to be female, i mean? or did you want the character to actually be androgynous in the context of the story?
la la la la la la la. yeah definitely busy over here. not that i post much anyway, i guess. haven’t really had anything to say. i thought about posting my livejournal daily sketches here on roaringshark but felt maybe that would be too weird.
March 5th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
I guess I wanted the character to be female. it’s cool the way it is because it sort of reminds me of cloud. In terms of anime, I feel the androgyny for a female would be a little riskier and kind of refreshing.
March 5th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
btw, you can watch the trailer here
http://terra.rightstuf.com/
March 5th, 2010 at 5:22 pm
I should have written a HALO Legends review since I was the one to suggest it, but it was such a disappointment I didn’t really know what to say about it. I definitely agree with you that I was into the standard space-marine feel of the setting. But the first two episodes on the disk (origins I and II) were so heavy handed and serious. After that was the Duel which was like the nail in the coffin. Couldn’t even finish that on 1.5x speed. It really reminded me of that David Denby Matrix review we read once, “Yet the relative absence of mighty significances did not prevent the Matricians sitting all around me…from remaining utterly still, as if at a High Mass…” All this overblown bullshit like this totally standard sf plot was somehow a towering cultural monolith. I ended up skipping over a bunch of the episodes, but The Babysitter was the one I found most tolerable. While I was watching it I wished that that was what Halo was like, but I think it’s more of a straight-ahead shooter. Odd One Out might have been better if they hadn’t named the spartan “1337.” Such a stupid joke.
I’ll have to check out Towards the Terra, although I don’t know how into Interstella 5555 I was, aside from the soundtrack of course.
March 5th, 2010 at 11:58 pm
mark: ah, i see what you mean, yeah. definitely would have been more unusual if it was a girl in the context of the broader anime/manga scheme, you’re right.
definitely not watching this Halo movie, heh. kind of surprised you guys bothered.
March 6th, 2010 at 10:46 am
zach: duel was definitely the worst. wtf was up with that art style, blurry 3d?
I guess origins was kind of pompous but I didn’t mind it so much because they were going for a kind of epic introduction. but now that I think back on it I can see more and more your take.
I sort of liked ’1337′ joke but I guess I’m just a sucker for that sort of humor.
ross: while not really good, legends is definitely an interesting movie to watch