Language warning:

A car full of Irish nuns is sitting at a traffic light in downtown Dublin, when a bunch of rowdy drunks pull up alongside of them.
“Hey, show us yer teets, ya bloody penguins!” shouts one of the drunks.

Quite shocked, Mother Superior turns to Sister Mary Immaculata and says, “I don’t think they know who we are; show them your cross.”

Sister Mary Immaculata rolls down her window and shouts, “Piss off, ya fookin’ little wankers, before I come over there and rip yer balls off!”

Sister Mary Immaculata then rolls up her window, looks back at Mother Superior, quite innocently, and asks, “Did that sound cross enough?

: Thank you for saying exactly what I was thinking. These aren't soldiers.
: They're stuntmen, hitting their marks effortlessly, and their fellow
: actors are falling down and blowing up and hitting their marks so that our
: protagonists can blaze through in a streak of glory.

: Remember when the Covenant were, like, a threat?

Remember when Covenant warships had aimbot point defense lasers, shields that could tank MAC rounds, and weapons that could gut capital warships? Remember when they didn't go down to a few small missiles? Or even just one?

Remember when a sword-wielding Elite on the Ascendant Justice would have killed the Chief if Johnson wasn't there?

In the games (Except for Halo: Reach Legendary =P) the Covenant have always been cannon fodder. When they go up against the UNSC, they never win. They're always driven back, or the Forerunner MacGuffin is retrieved moments before the Covenant can reach it. Within the realm of gameplay, I'm perfectly fine with that. Elites and Grunts and Jackals and Brutes and Hunters and Drones are like Slay's potato chips: You can't kill just one. I understood that there was a fundamental disconnect between what the Covenant were in-game and what they were supposed to be story-wise.

In terms of lore, if the Covenant had been the pushovers they were in the games, I doubt I'd have fallen in love with Halo. Fortunately, they weren't. They were a force to be respected even by Spartans, who fought back with well-prepared ambushes and stealth missions that would make Batman take notes. The weakest link in the Covenant war machine is the Grunt, and they can go toe-to-toe with Marines if they're properly led. Elites are quick, heavily protected badasses who are also effective leaders, usually. Yes, Elites can be stupid, but the fandom rebelled when they went down to a few burst of gunfire in The Flood.

The problem is that, outside of the stories penned by Nylund and Statten, the Covenant are pushovers. People love the Monsters cutscene from Halo Wars because it shows the Spartans at their finest. I hate it because I want to see a fight between Spartans and Elites at their finest, and the Elites were at their worst. I can't even begin to guess at why they charged down a bridge with no shields and no ranged weapons against soldiers with guns.

And after Halo Wars, there is a whole slew of stories where the Covenant suck at fighting. The Package basically ignored all their advantages. Spartan Ops (I know the cutscenes had a different name, but I can't remember it at the moment) basically made them look badass by making the Spartan IVs act like a bunch of incompetent boobs, and Escalation's sole saving grace is Ayit 'Sevi. By this point, Spartans slaughtering their way through a whole company of Covenant just drives home how pathetic the Covenant is.

Also, the Master Chief wading through a Covenant battalion in-game is different than seeing him do it in a movie. In a game, I understand all too well that I'm just a few hits away from dying. Also, animators have a nasty habit of making Spartans do the flashy thing instead of the pragmatic thing.

: Agreed. You know, I always thought the Babysitter short in Halo Legends
: pretty much nailed Spartan ability and athletics. If you look closely,
: there's weight to the movement and form. There's a little bit of flipping
: acrobatics, but it's subdued and kept to a minimum.

: And take a look at the 9:45 mark, where Cal-141 is actually shown reacting to
: the situation. I actually just noticed it again watching the short. This
: is always how I pictured Spartan reaction times; obviously heightened, as
: she's able to evade the gravity hammer in time, but still human. She still
: has to react.

Setting aside my problems with the ending, The Babysitter is one of the best depictions of Spartans.