Addendum from one of your HBO posts, Cody

by HawaiianPig, Wednesday, August 28, 2013, 02:41 (4104 days ago) @ Avateur

"Halo 2 was a beautiful mess. Plenty of filler missions, yet we get a character, the Arbiter, who quite ironically has the most humanity of any character in the trilogy. It's actually fitting the game ends with him; for we really are shown the true protagonist in the Halo trilogy. He has internal struggle, in total conflict with his long held beliefs. The end to the trilogy would be a glorious redemption for this character and his story arc. While some people bemoaned the whole 'great journey' thing, little hints were dropped that led me to believe there was more to it than that, and that Truth's ultimate plan was yet to be revealed."

I love the post as a whole and agree with nearly all of it, but just check out that above portion right there. You said it quite well. That human condition, even in an alien. And but one example of it from H2.

And yes, it's still small scale. That's what leads me to my larger point, which is that we have no idea what Bungie's writers have the ability to do now (especially considering H2's development and story got derailed, and considering that Halo was supposed to end at the end of H2). New universe, new motivation, years of experience, and potentially something really great on the horizon.

http://forums.bungie.org/halo/archive31.pl?read=926360

I'm gonna use this one post that I randomly clicked on to launch into some rambling...

On Stories

I do not share your optimism regarding Bungie's ability to tell a good story. New universe? New motivation? Sure. But it's the same old writers with a pretty awful track record.

Let's start with Halo 3:

As you've noted, by referencing Cody's post, Halo 2's writing was pretty good.

Halo 3's writing was... sufficient. Bungie ended the main conflict of the trilogy well enough. The Human-Covenant war came to a reasonable and more-or-less logically sound conclusion. In that regard, it handled the "big" story elements just fine. There was nothing particularly wrong with that series of events. But that's it. It was a series of events. There's nothing insightful or compelling about how a war plays out. That's tantamount to watching a battle scene in a movie.

If Halo 3 handled the "big" story just fine, then its problem was that it squandered potential in the "small" stories. The character level. You know? Where most stories are able to thrash out interesting inter-personal conflicts that reflect upon humanity, philosophy, morality, and other things that end in -ity?

In that regard, Halo 3 dropped the ball entirely.

Halo 3's "big" storyline could have dovetailed nicely with a suitable character-driven story. There could have been meaningful and dare I say, dramatic, interaction between the Chief, the Arbiter, Truth and Gravemind. You know, the protagonists and antagonists? The characters in a story that are at the heart of the conflict and therefore the ones most capable of seeing development?

What did we get? Well for one, the Arbiter's story was shuffled off to the margins. More egregiously, we were treated to a colossal mishandling of Truth's potential as an antagonist with any real motivation. Gravemind never really moved beyond being an evil plant monster bent on consuming all... and the Chief? Well he fell in love.

Yup. All we really got was series of events, and a love story. A bad love story.

Thankfully, Halo 3 benefited of having the heft of the entire trilogy behind its back. It answered questions, and for that reason it was satisfying.

Post Halo 3

Things didn't get much better after Halo 3. ODST's story was uneventful. It was certainly not a "big" story. That was intentional. So what remained? What was the "small" story? Well there was none. A bunch of things happened and some stock characters reacted. Does anyone even remember what happened? Something about an Engineer. Whatever.

Let's be real. ODST's characters survived off of star-power. That game is lucky that I love Firefly and that I could just project that show's personalities onto its characters.

And then there was Reach. We all know how I feel about that game.

The Bungie games stopped after that. In my estimation, Halo stories got progressively worse. I feel like that is the general attitude held by most people anyway. Regardless of where people rank the games in the trilogy, the stories in ODST and Reach were beneath them.

So why don't I share your optimism? Well, if Bungie's most recent games had awful stories, why should I expect any different with the next?

Side Note: I'm curious as to where Halo 4 fits in. I haven't played it, nor do I plan to. I don't know anything about it. From what I hear, I think I might be better off that way. Maybe some day... If I find the time and can justify burning some money. If I do, I'll be sure to buy it used.

On "Big" Stories

It's concerning to hear that Bungie is focused on telling "big stories".

Given their handling of the Halo franchise, I don't think they understand how to tell a small story, let alone a big one.

I really don't believe they get what makes a good story tick.

Hint: It's not the scale. Bigger isn't better.

Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter are not big stories. They're small stories with big settings.

Lord of the Rings wasn't great because of its massive universe. Few people care that Gandalf is a Maiar of Valinor. What defines Gandalf is the bond he forms with the hobbits and his almost reckless faith in their abilities.

The heart of the Lord of the Rings trilogy is the fellowship. Yes, there is this massive overarching plot of good vs evil... but ultimately, the story is told through a handful of a experiences of a few key people.

Tolkien was an expert at giving the reader only a snapshot of the big picture. He told small stories in a big world.

The Halo trilogy, on the other hand, demonstrated that Bungie may know how to create a big world... but Halo 3 showed that they aren't exactly experts in handling the snapshots.

But I've digressed. Onto the idea behind this thread.

On Bottles and Lightning

So we've had some PR speak lately where Bungie basically describes itself as having talent that "rivals entertainment creators anywhere across any entertainment ever."

Basically they're amazing and everything that they're working on is gold. This attitude isn't anything new.

All of the ViDocs and interviews... every reveal or public statement... are all bathed in this "confidence".

There's always this feeling that every Bungie employee is just certain that what they're working on is going to be revolutionary. Every time I hear them speak, I feel like I'm listening to a sermon on the mount.

I don't know about you, but I can't think of any great creator, composer, artist or writer that ever thought his or her work was going to be fucking epic. In fact, the best ones I can think of were often dissatisfied with their works, even in their final form. A great creator is always looking at ways to improve and is often his or her own greatest critic.

I've never seen or even suspected Bungie's creative minds of being critical of their own work, or at the very least, reserved in their expectations about what they're creating.

Maybe they are behind closed doors, but it doesn't show. Did any of the writers stop after Halo 3 and think "So what story did we tell? What happened? What were the motivations behind our characters? What was compelling about this story?"

What about after ODST? Seriously. Ask those questions about ODST. Now do it with Reach. Sad.

And yet, as ODST and Reach came out, this same "Bungie is amazing" attitude was ever-present.

It's funny that Pete references Star Wars. I have to wonder if Bungie's writers have been suffering from the "Lucas-effect" that resulted in the debacle of the prequels.

A common explanation as to why Episodes 1-3 pale in comparison to Episodes 4-6 is that George Lucas was given greater creative control over the franchise in the new movies. He was questioned less and his ideas would go further without any push-back from fellow creative minds.

I wonder if Bungie writers get any push-back from... well, anywhere.

There's always been this undercurrent among our fandom that Bungie is some monolithic video game developer that is destined for greatness, and that the stewards of the ship can do no wrong.

"Trust them! They know what they're doing!"

I wonder if the "Bungie-can-do-no-wrong" attitude of community bled into the company itself. It seems that at some point after Halo 3, they started drinking the same Kool-Aid that Bungie fans have been brewing for years.

With Bungie's substantial growth over the past decade and a half, it wouldn't be surprising that a new generation of employees would have come to this "AAA developer" with starry eyes--all humbled by its great success in the market and reputation for being a studio of great esteem.

I mean, do they really think that everything they do is ground-breakingly awesome?

I really hope it's just PR-speak.

Rambling over.

***

All things considered, it'll probably be a fun game. I just don't expect it to be a narratively interesting one. Certainly not worthy of a place beside great films or novels on my bookshelf.