: Iconic lead characters are overrated. The later Terminator movies sucked
: because there's no way Ahnuld could convincingly portray a Terminator
: after T2. Aliens 3 couldn't get the actors for Newt and Hudson, and
: Sigourney Weaver's character couldn't hold up without the support cast
: from Aliens. But they went ahead and wrote 3 around her anyway, and then
: the fourth one added a whole bunch of nonsense about cloning that dragged
: down the movie.

Hicks, you mean? Hudson's character couldn't exactly return...

Also, for all of the hate it gets, I though Terminator Salvation was great, and Ahnuld showed up for all of 20 seconds in it (in convincing CG).

Also, fun fact, as bad as Alien Resurrection was, it had some great dialogue and characters, because it was written by none other than Joss Whedon.

: Sometimes, you just have to retire a character, at least until you absolutely
: need them.

Agreed. 343 wanted to unseal the hushed casket too soon after it was shut, and well before they could create a decent reason for it. ODST and Reach proved that the Halo name could sell without the Chief. Bringing him back so soon put too much pressure on them to deliver.

: Meh.

: I want another game with Alpha Nine. Give them another mystery to solve on
: some unimportant colony somewhere. Imagine another ODST game with Jewel
: Staite voicing a nuts-and-bolts Pelican pilot and an ONI officer (Sean
: Maher) escorting a battle-damaged AI (Summer Glau) . Game of the year
: material.

I'd have been first in line for their desire to take such a risk like that alone... But nah, we get a crappy interpretation of Blue Team, and terrible fan-fic writing to shoehorn Buck into 343's Halo... The more I think about it, the sadder I get.