: I understand that it's not necessary. I just think it would make an
: interesting framework for a continuing series of games, rather than just a
: one-off. It lets you continue to current story of the universe alongside
: that of the past, so you can keep the Halo story moving forward in small
: ways even while we explore these events from the past.

: Also, there's a huge part of me that rages against the trend for prequels set
: by Star Wars and other similar films/media. In my mind, prequels should be
: handled as flashbacks (if anyone's read The Dark Tower series, King does a
: great job of this with Wizards and Glass ), that way fans never have to
: go through this debate of what order to go through things with people
: who've never experienced the story before.

Always read a series in publishing order unless the author says otherwise.

: If someone who knew nothing about Star Wars were to just follow the series in
: its numerical order, they might not enjoy 4-5-6 as much because of the
: dated effects.

Such people are dead to me. ;)

: The proper way to do it would have been to leave the
: first trilogy as 1-2-3, then introduce what we know as the prequels as
: 4-5-6. Episode 4 would start with Luke going to Dagobah or some remote
: Jedi planet to converse with the Force ghosts of Yoda and Obi Wan. Obi
: Wan's ghost would begin the narration ("When I first met your father,
: I was a Jedi apprentice, serving under my master Qui Gon...") and
: then the rest of the movie would proceed as we know it. But at least with
: that framework, you have a clearer sense of the order you should watch
: things in, and you'll never have to go through jarring shifts in quality.

The problem with that is that it only considers special effects. The actual storytelling in the prequels is bad enough that you don't want to end the series on it.

I've heard of an alternative way to watch the series. According to your numbering system, it would go 1-2-4-5-6-3. In this order, Episode 3 is the payoff to the story of both Luke and Vader.

: Some of this is just me expressing my wish that Halo could rise above the
: conventions we currently have in film and games, stop focusing only on the
: current audience, and think about people who will play the games in the
: future and what that experience will be like for them.

I do as well.

This reminds me... no, wait, I've been wanting to tell this story for months. My parents got Netflix last year so my dad could have something to watch while he recovered from his back surgery, and one day he pointed out that there was something on called "Halo". "Isn't that the game you were always playing with?"

I realized that he was talking about Halo: Forward Unto Dawn and told him that, yes, it's a tie-in to one of those games. No, it's not very good, let's watch something else.

That was a lie. I actually liked FUD, but I was afraid that my dad wouldn't get it. It's that problem I have where I am much more fluent in science fiction concepts than a lot of my family, so I intuitively understand what a space elevator looks like or what a room-temperature superconductor acts like and why engineers would murder their own grandmothers to get the recipe for the stuff. I also understand the backstory to Halo, but my dad doesn't.

Anyway, a few months ago we sat down after work, I saw that Forward Unto Dawn was on, and decided to give it a try. Watching it with my dad, I realized two things. The first is that Forward Unto Dawn is thoroughly confusing unless you know the backstory to the games. I gave my dad a sixty-second rundown of who the Innies were, what the UNSC is, and what started the Human-Covenant War. He enjoyed the movie, but he remarked that it probably made a lot more sense to people who have played the games. He also said that it felt unfinished, and wondered if it was supposed to be a pilot episode to a whole series.

The second problem is the Cortana moments. Those make sense only to the lore fans, and are outright confusing to everyone else. Even after my dad knew who Cortana is and why she was stranded on a ship, he still didn't understand what that story had to do with this story. There's no payoff except to advertise Halo 4, and Forward Unto Dawn would have been better off if the runtime and special effects money went to other parts of the story.

I started (Then abandoned) a rewrite of FUD's script, assuming that if the Cortana moments and the Scanned trailer were never filmed (No big loss) there would be enough money to give FUD a proper introduction and make it the movie to introduce new fans to Halo. Maybe one of these days, I'll get around to finishing it.

I think I'm getting over this writer's block.