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Most of what I agree with is in the whole Gravemind scene.
Let's talk character design: I don't think giving the Gravemind an actual mouth was a good idea. I get the reference to the Mouth of Sauron, but it doesn't make sense in context. Those meaty chops are thirty meters across! You should hear them slamming together when it speaks. And what's with that second set of mandibles? What's it even doing? Why is it waving around like a cheerleader squad on speed?
I think the driving idea behind the cutscene in the first place was that of a puppet show. It was using two captive puppets to convince two new puppets to do the Gravemind's bidding. And the Gravemind's head itself was a bunch of vestigial limbs folded together into a hand puppet. It wasn't a face. That wasn't a working mouth.
The Gravemind turning to face the Chief also undercuts his characterization. In the original cutscene, he was there and ready for the Chief, like Lucifer at his desk. And now that everyone is flailing around, it's hard to see the Arbiter struggling in particular, or see him react to the Chief's "Relax. I'd rather not piss this thing off."
: Pelicans can't fly out to a city in the horizon, there needs to be dense
: buildings under them at all times, and they also need to make lots of roll
: motions. Miranda can't pose a thought without an aggressive scowl. A
: warthog can't be driving along a road, it has to ramp up onto it. A scarab
: can't enter by crushing a car, it has to crush a building and then crush
: a car. A pelican can't simply tumble out of control under pink AA fire, it
: has to suffer a big explosion in the process.
In isolation, some of these would be great additions to the Halo 2 cutscenes.
: Also, I have to complain about the general framing and editing during the
: discussion with Gravemind. It's very impersonal in the new version, and
: what it focuses on makes no sense. It's especially baffling that the don't
: center around Arby at all during the "your prophets have promised
: you... or all will perish as they did before", which in the original
: showed Arby's train of thought throughout the monologue brilliantly; now
: the camera is focusing on the Chief for some reason, and rather than
: pausing in awe at the appropriate moment, Arby is just sort of twitching
: the whole time. Or when the Gravemind is saying "you will search one
: likely spot, and you will search another", in the original the
: Gravemind gives the semblance and general air of actually addressing the
: group as a team, whereas now he's just yanking them in one by one; he's so
: blunt , not even pretending that his next line will include a
: "this ring will make us brothers."
: The way these scenes are staged and edited just doesn't seem that great. The
: rhythm and ideas present in the originals were sacrificed, and I'm not
: sure what for.
I agree with everything here.