{"id":10955,"date":"2016-03-05T17:35:37","date_gmt":"2016-03-06T01:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/?p=10955"},"modified":"2016-03-05T17:35:37","modified_gmt":"2016-03-06T01:35:37","slug":"gregs-movie-night-halo-4-forward-unto-dawn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/?p=10955","title":{"rendered":"‘s Movie Night : Halo 4 – Forward Unto Dawn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Greg Russell<\/b><\/p>\n

Halo 4 : Forward Unto Dawn (2012)<\/b><\/p>\n

(Goes well with young versions of Starship Troopers and war movies)<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never played Halo. \u00a0That\u2019s the name of the video game this movie is based on. \u00a0I know it is a shooter game. \u00a0I\u2019ve never enjoyed a movie based on a video game. \u00a0Let me think about that for real now that I\u2019ve typed it out\u2026. Tomb Raider, no, Mortal Kombat, no, Super Mario Bros, not really. \u00a0Maybe the closest was Resident Evil? \u00a0No. \u00a0Heck , when I got this movie I thought I would have to watch the first three to understand what was going on. \u00a0OH SILLY ME, the \u201c4\u201d wasn\u2019t a reference to the number in the film series, it was a reference to the number in the game series! \u00a0Man oh man. \u00a0Preemptively this was not looking good for a movie pieced together from a collection of web shows but it ended up much better than expectations.
\n\"a2\"<\/a>
\nA group of cadets are in training to fight \u201cinsurrectionists\u201d. \u00a0Through a few field exercises we see that following orders is more important than thinking. \u00a0Thomas Lasky finds this out the hard way when he is punished and ostracized for disobeying orders. \u00a0Lasky struggles with the memory of his brother, a former soldier who recently past away, and a rare sensitivity to a chemical common in the military. \u00a0When he is faced with making a choice of walking away or staying in the family military business the whole world is turned upside. \u00a0Almost literally. \u00a0Interrupting his first (and only kiss) with the girl soldier are emergency calls. \u00a0Who would\u2019ve known that the planet would be attacked by super powerful aliens all of a sudden! \u00a0In fact, within just 15 minutes of their first appearance it is announced that they are they only survivors\u2026 on the whole planet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Something I didn\u2019t gather while watching the movie is that this takes place on another planet separate from Earth. \u00a0Oh, and it\u2019s the year 2525, I\u2019m not sure if that is mentioned either. \u00a0I\u2019m not really sure who the \u201cinsurrectionists\u201d were but I think I gathered that they were\/are willing to join the fight against the aliens (which my research found out to be something called the Covenant). \u00a0All this probably would have been quite clear to someone who plays the game but not to a general audience.<\/p>\n

Halo 4 : Forward Unto Dawn actually has good acting and atmosphere. \u00a0I\u2019m a sucker for the soldiers go to boot camp before they go to war storyline. \u00a0I first this in Gung Ho! (1943) \u00a0and The Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) and have loved all their re-boots! \u00a0My daughter got really upset when some of the characters died. \u00a0While no one is developed in much depth they each have a distinct personality that is consistent through the film. \u00a0The opening shots of interviewing the cadets about their views on being a soldier, while trite, was really well executed to develop these caricatures.<\/p>\n

The problem is, I feel, there is too much the movie wanted to dive into and just never explored any of them in depth. \u00a0There is allusion of dissent among the cadets as to the \u201cguilt\u201d of the insurrectionists. \u00a0Thomas Laskey\u2019s health condition is shown but never really fully explored other than an \u201cout\u201d for his military service. \u00a0We see that there is a common enemy through some screenshots of the actual video game (used as surveillance footage) but we don\u2019t really know where that battle is taking place and who is fighting the battle. \u00a0Everything is just put together at such a fast pace.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I was glad to have the movie \u201cintroduce\u201d a war film (of sorts) to my daughter. \u00a0While my son will sit and watch any black and white World War 2 film I put on, I would have to coax her into it somehow. \u00a0The fact that these were younger actors and that the aliens had light-sabery swords kept her on the edge of her seat. \u00a0Kids were nervous and cheering through the whole last half of the film.
\n\"a3\"<\/a>
\nI\u2019m sure I missed all the nuance and inside jokes from the popular video game series in the movie. \u00a0Well, not ALL of them. \u00a0When the one super soldier says \u201c… but you can call me Master Chief\u201d I turned and said \u201cThat\u2019s gotta be a reference to the game right there. \u00a0Master Chief, really?\u201d \u00a0I guess Thomas Lasky is an important character in the Halo 4 game. \u00a0Missing the innuendos was just fine by me. \u00a0It allowed me to see it as a film rather than a patchy extension of a video game. \u00a0Highly flawed story-telling was made up with atmosphere and enough high stakes tension to keep the family watching and laughing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mom says \u201cI played World of Warcraft. \u00a0Thrall was my Master Chief.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Best Guess : 9+ (fighting and some characters die)<\/b><\/p>\n

Adult Grade : B-<\/b><\/p>\n

Kids\u2019 Grade : It was great!<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greg Russell Halo 4 : Forward Unto Dawn (2012) (Goes well with young versions of Starship Troopers and war movies)   I\u2019ve never played Halo. \u00a0That\u2019s the name of the video game this movie is based on. \u00a0I know it is a shooter game. \u00a0I\u2019ve never enjoyed a movie based on a video game. \u00a0Let […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":10960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1059,4832,8820,8821,18767,23776,23959],"class_list":["post-10955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature-articles","tag-aliens","tag-covenant","tag-halo","tag-halo-4","tag-space","tag-video-games","tag-war"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10955\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}