Live Action: Breakdown

Let’s get creative

The following is going to be some miniscule things that stick out within the most recent Live action ads that were released for the upcoming Halo 5: Guardians game. Their campaign is to #HuntTheTruth with two perspectives in regards to the events that took place. I am going to shed some light on a few things that are so minor they have been overlooked in all the comments that I have read thus far. These are only just opinions and ways to look at the marketing in a slightly different way.

Spartan Locke Ad

Master Chief Ad

History

When you look at the Halo franchise it is well documented that the Master Chief is the bread and butter, the main character that we all fell in love with… the one that the universe/media is built around. So to us we have come to know this character and much like in real life when you know someone for a long time there is a sense of history that develops with them. In this recent ad campaign the company 343 seems to be tempting our hand to look at Chief differently. Almost as if they are questioning our loyalty to the hero we’ve all come to know over the last 14 years. They are slowly trying to influence us in a way that is far different from the past. When you develop friendships in real life, who is it you believe when it comes to terms of hearing the truth? The person you just got introduced to not long ago or the person you’ve been through countless experiences with?

Order

If you recently saw the two ads were released in a particular order. First, was the point of view of Spartan Locke the new main character that was introduced to us in the past Live action series Nightfall. Within his recollection it was a bit more theatric and played out. With the looming presence of the “truth” and what is the “truth” in your mind it comes as a bit of a shock to see the Chief in the situation he is in during this particular version. Then the second ad showcases our familiar Hero and his point of view of a similar event mirroring what it was we saw previously. The correlation to an outside the box view here is when finding the truth in our lives we often times experience lies, deceit, and distraction FIRST and later discover the actual truth. So to see the first version play out, could we have saw lies to later then see the actual truth second from the Chief?

Details

As you may have heard the saying before the “devil” is in the details. When having two sides to a story not only is it based on perspective, but also right and wrong or true and false in most cases. In the picture of the Halo 5: Guardians cover it shows Locke on top with Chief reflected below him. In the trailers it has Locke first and then Chief. In the pictures since, it shows Locke on the left and Chief on the right. When taking into consideration right and wrong often times you draw the parallels to Heaven and Hell the ultimate view of good and evil. Heaven obviously being above and Hell below. If you noticed in the social media postings they stated with Locke’s video “There are 2 sides to every story.” and with the Chief’s video though it was upside down you saw “There are two sides to every story.” When considering literature and ways of writing it is commonly known that the grammatically correct way to write that phrase is in the second form. Another example of one being correct and another incorrect. Besides if you think outside the box once more to consider familiar sayings there is the term “an upside down truth” and “a downright lie”… could that be what is happening here? Could the above or Heaven be indicative of the “good” view Locke is trying to put on things and the clarity of his video in comparison to the Hell Chief has been through and is in during his perspective?

Another way of saying it is not to judge a book by its cover, which again brings me to the details. Within the videos there were two errors in my mind of the “recollections”. Firstly, the most common one that was pointed out was the fact that Locke was carrying a DMR… but within his HUD it showed a Battle Rifle. The other aspect though I appreciate the symbolism of it all, the statue of the chief was essentially unblemished in Locke’s rendition compared to the second video or even the surrounding environment of the first video. I find this to be another form of “error”. Not to mention where Locke started from being within some form of cover that wasn’t in the line of sight to the Chief statue nor Chief himself. So was the fact that his view starts with him basically hiding indicate that he is hiding the actual truth or being that his view is obscured of the Chief and statue make his view is skewed? Could these details be errors because they are fabricated rather than the actual occurrence?

When meeting people in real life it is all about impressions, being Locke is a newer character to us as stated earlier we don’t have much history with him. As people do in life often to try and improve their image to others… they lie. Could 343 have Locke trying to impress us as fans by sprucing up what actually happened to make him look better than he actually is?

When asking if something is True or False it is commonly known that with that statement or aspect of wonder True is always put before False. When reading it True is left and False is right. However, they keep harping on how the truth isn’t always what it appears as well as perspective playing a role in how things are portrayed. When Chief is laying down at the foot of the statue he is leaning to his right and Locke’s left. When Locke is laying down at the foot of the statue he is leaning to his left and Chief’s right. Is this just a similar occurrence again to how it has been set up with them being placed within pictures? Could that just be the simple explanation for the difference or could Locke leaning to our views right indicate that this is the “right” view, since favoring his left would be toward “true”? Looking closer at the damage to Locke being on his right side and our views left, may that indicate a lean toward making it true with the opposite being portrayed on the Chief having damage on his left and our views right to lean toward false? Remember, not everything is what it appears on the surface.

Perspective

This is a huge indicator in how someone views things and it always varies depending on the people involved. When you want to tell a story, often times it is human nature to add things to spice it up or make it a little more impressive. It ties in to my saying about people wanting to maintain a certain image with people and often lying to improve the view. If you compare movies to real life, there are inconsistencies in how things actually operate from one to another. Something adapted to a movie can take on a whole different tone and be altered in a way that looks more glorified than the actual grimy experience that may have happened. When Locke speaks within his perspective it is more theatric and a show with his body language as well as speech. The statue is more pristine and the view around him is brighter and more pleasant to the eye. When you go to the Chief’s perspective it is more of a fitting atmosphere for the carnage that took place surrounding them and his vocal delivery is more fluent with the scene or event that just occurred.

The other simpler explanation for the color tones have been discussed to just be the color variant of their visors. It is blatantly obvious that Locke’s is a blue tint with the Chief’s being more of an amber, so is that a good enough reason for their surroundings having the same color tone in our view? Perhaps, because the shadows were eerily similar despite everything else potentially indicating a different time of day.

Conclusions

I believe that they are doing an incredible job with this particular marketing endeavor. I hope that they can translate the high quality of this to the game itself. I remember how great Forward Unto Dawn was only to be semi letdown by the actual game. Halo 4’s campaign did work for me in the sense that it got back to a Halo:CE style, but at the same time was just missing something. 343 has shown that they are incredible at generating a buzz and making content to draw people in. The same professionalism has been lacking within their games so far though by doing a lot of things people weren’t pleased with, not to mention just the shear amount of problems they have had so far on the next gen system. These ads were pretty awesome though and provide me with more hope than I had before in regards to Halo 5. I was pretty set on not buying the game, but depending on what is seen from here on out after these trailers it would seem they are starting to sway my opinion back to being interested.

Thanks for your time in reading, always analyze every aspect of the actual content provided and the intent behind it. As I said these are all just opinions I found interesting that mostly weren’t yet talked about. Feel free to add any of your own opinions or views. I have read through a lot of the youtube comments so far and there are some interesting theories for sure. I could go on more and more, but figure this is quite lengthy enough and showcases things in a simpler fashion.