HALO LEGENDS (2010, Blu-ray released February 16, 2010 – MSRP $34.99)
I’ve never played Halo. Hell, I don’t even own an XBOX 360 (I’m sure you all know by now that I’m strictly a PS3 guy!) So I entered into my viewing of the new Halo Legends Blu-ray as a blank slate, having no preconceived notions about the franchise. It’s an anthology of short animated tales based on the universe of the game and as such, it has it’s share of hits and misses.
There’s a lot of talent at work on the short films of Halo Legends – Hideki Futamura (The Animatrix), Hiroshi Yamazaki (Karas), Koji Sawai (Patlabor), Daisuke Nishio (Dragonball Z), Yasushi Muraiki (Macross Plus, Vampire Hunter D), Tomoki Kyoda (Eureka Seven, Evangelion 1.0), Toshiyuki Kanno (Black Lagoon) and Shinji Aramaki (Appleseed). I don’t know that much about anime but I do know that these are some heavy hitters. And the work shows for the most part. Each creator (or pair of creators in the case of Muraiki and Kyoda) has created a unique look at the world of Halo using the elements of the franchise that suit their styles best. Futamura examines the history of Halo, drawing out the details of the universe for those ignorant among us, much as he did in his short history of The Matrix in the animated Animatrix anthology. Muraiki and Kyoda use their skills at depicting high-tech mecha battles to illustrate some of the most exciting moments on the disc (check out a preview in the video clip below!). And Nishio takes advantage of his sense of the ludicrous, adapting Halo to the humorous styling of his Dragonball Z series. When it’s good, it’s really good. But sadly, I just found myself only mildly interested throughout the length of the film.
I’m not certain if it was the overall length of the piece, with all shorts combined into one two-hour film or a result of struggling through some weaker, colder entries that lack little sense of humanity and character or perhaps simply my absence of interest in Halo overall that kept me from loving this Blu-ray disc. While it has its moments, I can’t help but feel that this film is for game fans only. Some shorts are certainly strong enough to appeal to the anime crowd, with beautiful animation handled by studios like Toei, Studio 4°C and Production I.G, but overall Halo Legends is best appreciated as a supplement to the XBOX 360 adventures of Master Chief and his crack team of commandos.
The stories may only appeal to Halo fans but the visual presentation of them will blow just about anybody away! Halo Legends looks fantastic on Blu-ray. This may be the high-water-mark for 2-D animation on Blu-ray so far. It’s just gorgeous, with only slight banding and aliasing present to keep it from perfection. The audio, while powerful in and of itself, is sadly only presented in a compressed Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t sound bad at all. There’s just no reason that Warner couldn’t have given the disc a lossless audio track. As good as the existing audio is, it could have been better in TrueHD.
I think I may have enjoyed the special features on the Halo Legends Blu-ray disc more than the main feature! There’s a ton of information here about both the Halo universe and the making-of the film. Each short benefits from a featurette focusing on the creators, the animation studio they work with and the process of bringing their vision to the screen. And just when you think you’ve learned enough, franchise development director Frank O’Connor and Halo Legends producer Joseph Chou sit down for a reserved but informative commentary track. A couple of trailers, A 22-minute featurette about the evolution of the game and a 24-minute overview of the story of Halo “so-far” round out the special features.
