: Please keep in mind my comparison vids should not be used to judge image
: quality. They're re-encodes of YouTube-encoded previously-encoded
: recordings from other users. There is sure to be something lost in the
: translation. What my vids ARE useful for, however, is analysis of
: filmmaking and storytelling and how it's changed in 10 years of our
: industry maturing.

Right. I probably should have been more clear. I wasn't judging image quality so much (except I don't like 343's tendency to use a lot of bright, blinding light for skies and such) as shots and what they chose to focus on. For instance:

1. I noticed that in scenes with the Prophets, Blur choose to focus on facial expressions in many cases instead of the hand gestures that the original cutscenes showed. I'd guess this is because the facial tech has come so far you can get really good expressions instead of having to try your best with an in-game model and supplement it with (rather nice) hand movements like Bungie had to do a decade ago.

2. Blur added quite a bit of emotion and sorrow to Miranda when she accepted the award for her father. Similarly, they did a good job with her while being held by Tartarus across the last few cutscenes. I liked when she looked up at In Amber Clad embedded in the outer wall of High Charity and the way she grimaced in Tartarus' grip during the Arbiter / Tartarus confrontation in the control room.

3. It was also interesting to spot the various differences. Blur changed the direction of some things, like which way the UNSC ships were heading to engage Regret's fleet. They also tended to have Cortana keep her hologram up instead of turning it on and off.

Aside from things like that, I'm a bit out of my depth to be evaluating the storytelling shot by shot. What changes did you see that you thought were significant or emblematic of the industry maturing?