(Hated)changing somenthing to be more "progressive" ends up being a bad thing

[u/Morr4Seiya]

Now to be clear,i am not one of these "anti-woke" losers that complain some people exist,and i am also not the type to complain about changing somenthing in a new version or adaptation,however there are cases where it did ended up being a bad idea.

-In the anime of Cowboy Bebop there is the character Gren,despite being short lived the character is very memorable specially thanks to his tragic story.Basically his story was that he was a soldier from the titan war who was a great friend with Vicious(the main bad guy)after the war he was emprisioned thanks to Vicious who testified against him and he was forced to take a experimental drug that caused him hormonal problems,giving him a feminine appearence and even breasts.

In the Netflix live action,for some reasons they decided Gren was going to be non-binary,which wouldn't be a problem(some people believe he was gay in the anime)if it wasn't for the fact that they also removed all the nuances and complexities that made the character memorable and interesting,instead of a tragic war veteran that was betrayed and had his body changed against his will,Gren is just kinda there.

-The original Rugrats cartoon had the couple Betty and Howard,Betty was a big and masculine woman while Howard was a smaller and nervous man,it was a genuine interesting relationship that stood out from the other couples who were the standard straight couple.

In the new series however they replaced Howard with a woman named Trish,two things,first off why?What was the problem with having a woman being the stronger in a straight relationship?Second why does Hollywood seem to think that every tomboy or masculine woman is a lesbian?

Overall not the worst thing but it is jarring that they had a gender reverse roled that was progressive and decided that wasn't enough.

-Oh man,this one pisses me off the most so i am gonna have to break it down

So back in the late 80s and 90s there was this anime called Saint Seiya also knows as Knights of the zodiac,it tells the story of knights who fight for the Goddess Athena to protect earth,being divided in the golden,silver and bronze knights,the anime was a huge hit in latin america and Europe and while it floped in the US it still has a loyal fanbase.

Being a fan myself i can't recommend it enough,now granted the story does have a fair share of flaws,and that's because the author was honestly just making stuff up as he went along(also a lot of side characters are poorly used or even forgotten about)still it is a great story you should check out

But then a couple of years back Netflix got the rights and decided to a 3D reboot,in this reboot they decided to make the story more "american" to try to bring more american viewers,now i could go on and on a big rant about how that was a bad idea and the execution was so terrible that it made me want to strangle someone but this post is about one specific change.

So Saint Seiya has five main characters,those are Pegasus Seiya,Dragon Shiryu,Cygnus Hyoga,Phoenix Ikki and finally Andromeda Shun.

While the other four characters were the standard masculine and brute male characters who were always ready to throw punches,Shun was smaller,more sensitive and even feminine looking,a pacifist who didn't liked fighting,but don't mistake that for weakness because Shun was loyal to his friends and was extremely powerful.

Then Netflix decided to change Shun into a girl named Shaun.

So wait,you have a male character who goes against every male stereotype and you turn him into just another generic female character?

When asked about it,the showrunner Eugene Son said he made that change because there was no girl in the group and having a all boys group wouldn't be acceptable nowadays

First off that's not true because Athena was also part of the main cast,yeah she wasn't the fighting type but she still helped quite a lot in the story even saving the knights on several occasions,second if you wanted to add a girl to the main group why not use Marin or Shaina?Hell,if you were going to change the story anyway why not turn Seiya sister into a knight?

Thankfully this monstrosity was cancelled(so much for trying to bring more fans)

[u/Atari774]

I’d throw the Halo TV show in here as well. They raceswapped Jacob and Miranda Keyes from white to black, assumedly in an attempt to make the show more diverse. But Halo is a series that already had a ton of diverse characters to choose from, which they completely ignored when making the show. For instance, Sergeant Johnson is one of the most famous black characters in video games, and is extremely important to Halo’s story, but he’s completely absent from the show.

And even with Jacob and Miranda Keyes, they changed their characters significantly to something that’s worse than what was there originally. Jacob doesn’t even make it to the Halo ring, and instead dies a completely pointless death on Reach. Miranda isn’t even in the military like she was in the games, and is instead a scientist. In Halo 2 and 3 she’s your commanding officer leading the fight, but that wouldn’t have been possible with the version of her we got in the show.

[u/Old_Potato_5450 → u/Atari774]

The frustrating part is when an adaptation changes characters so much that they barely resemble the people fans connected with in the first place. Halo already had such a rich cast and story to draw from, so why not build on what made it special?

[u/Makuta_Servaela → u/Old_Potato_5450]

According to the developers, they had wanted to make it the same story, but they ran into issues with funding and ratings. So they had a decision: Try and fail to make it a show-version of the games, or make it very clear "This is an alternate universe where the characters are generally there, but their decisions are slightly different."

They went with the latter, and all of the big changes they made were intentionally put to remind viewers "Do not expect the game, expect an AU story", just like Marvel, DC, etc often do.

Contrary to popular belief, they did mean well and did respect the story. They even required all Spartan actors to engage in Halo media to make sure they understood their characters, such as playing the games or reading the books.

[u/Atari774 → u/Makuta_Servaela]

The fact that they had funding issues at all is insane. It was produced by Paramount and Microsoft, which should have given it all the funding it ever needed. The fact that they didn’t shows a staggering amount of corporate greed on the part of the production studios (namely Microsoft). It’s also the reason why so much of the show is about the different human factions fighting one another instead of the Covenant. They needed to save money so they added a human Covenant character to avoid animating an Elite or Prophet in every episode, and other cost saving measures like that.

As for “respecting the story,” that’s debatable. It’s hard to simultaneously respect the original story while making a brand new one with the same characters, locations, and events. A lot of what they did doesn’t even make sense for Halo in general, like Chief being a “chosen one,” or Keyes dying before ever getting to the Ring. Those are choices that weren’t made due to budgetary issues, nor do they respect the original story. Same thing with Miranda being a scientist instead of a naval officer. At this point it’s not just a different take on the story, it’s an entirely different story altogether. And if you’re gonna make an entirely different story, then just don’t call it Halo at all.

[u/Makuta_Servaela → u/Atari774]

The fact that they had funding issues at all is insane. It was produced by Paramount and Microsoft, which should have given it all the funding it ever needed.

Tbf, it's a live-action show. Had it been a movie or cartoon, it would have done a lot better, but live-action shows are way, way differently funded than movies and cartoons. And more importantly, they are held to way different standards and ratings.

As for “respecting the story,” that’s debatable. It’s hard to simultaneously respect the original story while making a brand new one with the same characters, locations, and events.

Again, they do that all the time with things like Marvel, DC, Transformers, MLP, etc. That in and of itself isn't really new or too bad.

like Chief being a “chosen one,”

That one I think they explained pretty well: Besides the fact that he canonically has the power of Luck even in the games, the biggest narrative difference between the Silver timeline and the standard universe is that everyone's Trust dial is set differently. The San'Shyumm trust the Sangheili more (enough to admit to them that they need a human), Halsey trusts everyone less, John trusts Halsey less, and in that Chosen One thing, the Forerunners trust humans less, so greatly reduced the amount of humans who could interact with their things.

(Of course, as of the later game retcons, it turns out the Forerunners never really trusted humans in the first place).

Same thing with Miranda being a scientist instead of a naval officer.

Tbf, she is able to do more interesting things as a scientist. Her naval office position doesn't really do that much in the games- especially not while her dad is alive- as she spends most of her time in the games making quips and then being captured and dragged around by Tartarus. Like she's rather famous for a game scene where she is asked to make a military order, and then makes a quip instead.

[u/Atari774 → u/Makuta_Servaela]

Other franchises have done alternate universes, but Halo notably hasn’t. Halo never dealt with alternate timelines or interdimensional travel like the MCU and DCU often have. This was the first Halo project that did, and it didn’t really have much of a reason to do so. This was the first time a Halo show was being made for general release, as in it wasn’t restricted to a Microsoft-specific application like the Halo channel on Xbox (which is where Halo Nightfall was released on). So for a first time outing to be a bizarre alternate universe take on the franchise, is a really odd choice.

As for Chief having “the power of luck,” that’s not true. He didn’t have any special powers in the games, he was just relatively lucky while also being a supersoldier. He was also never a chosen one in the series, as all humans were able to access Forerunner technology rather than just him. It also doesn’t make sense to restrict access to their technology to just a handful of people because, ya know, what if they died? Then all that equipment is just lost permanently, and the Halo rings could never be fired again if the Flood returned. Also in the games, the prophets admitted to the Brutes and Elites that they needed humans to access forerunner tech, which is why they purposefully captured humans prior to the Great Schism in Halo 2.

As for Miranda’s role in the games, she does a lot more than just “making quips and being dragged around by Tartarus.” She led the mission to Delta Halo, found the activation index for the ring, then stopped the firing sequence before it went off. Then she spends Halo 3 leading the fight to the Ark and stopping Truth before she gets killed in the process. So she does a lot in the games, none of which she would be able to do in the show as a scientist.

[u/Makuta_Servaela → u/Atari774]

Other franchises have done alternate universes, but Halo notably hasn’t. This was the first Halo project that did, and it didn’t really have much of a reason to do so.

No one has other alternate universes until they do. Everyone's gotta start somewhere. Halo also has half-a-dozen Fractures universes, which are mini alternate universes, and some Legends are non-canon or alternate canon. But again, they didn't go into this wanting to make an AU. They wanted to make a standard universe, and then got pushed by too many barriers.

As for Chief having “the power of luck,” that’s not true.

It is. It got kinda retconned out later on, but him being insanely, sometimes superhumanly lucky, was a running gag in the early games.

He was also never a chosen one in the series, as all humans were able to access Forerunner technology rather than just him.

Technically not true. With the early "Forerunners are just humans" thing it potentially was, but when Forerunners were established as a different species, Reclaimer got two definitions: Colloquially for "A species in which reclaimers can be found" and specifically for "A being whose genetic line was personally altered by the Librarian for use in activating Forerunner technology". I mean, if Reclaimer was synonymous with "Human", then there is no reason for the Spark to not just call the humans he meets "Humans".

It also doesn’t make sense to restrict access to their technology to just a handful of people because, ya know, what if they died?

The technology in question being the "Wipes out all sapient life" thing. Kinda don't want everyone to be able to press that button. Their other tech is available to other species, such as High Charity itself.

Also in the games, the prophets admitted to the Brutes and Elites that they needed humans to access forerunner tech,

Selectively when they realised it. For the greater Covenant, they had to keep it secret to keep their lie that San'Shyumm are the mantle-bearers. Whereas, in the show, since they needed more specific humans, they had to make a bigger and more public deal out of "Okay, we actually need to put aside resources to find a correct human".

She led the mission to Delta Halo, found the activation index for the ring, then stopped the firing sequence before it went off.

The former isn't something she specifically needed to do. A military officer could have done it. My point there isn't the she is boring completely, but that the show is showing stuff outside of just battles, which the game does not. So it'd make more sense to be less redundant about making important characters military officers.

(That last bit also explains the common complaint of "John has his armour/helmet off too often. He only really takes them off when he's out of active combat, but game-players aren't used to him spending time out of combat, and you can't make a show about just combat.)

[u/Atari774 → u/Makuta_Servaela]

It’s still silly to do an alternate universe for the first time as your first time doing a big budget TV show. Those other things you mention (Legends and Fractures) were explicitly not canon, and instead just the studio experimenting with different ideas. Fractures was also a single book that came out in 2016, and Legends allowed each anime studio to have wild interpretations of the games’ lore. Thus why it’s so different from everything else in Halo to that point, and why there’s a straight up comedy in the middle of it. Point is, neither were meant to be canon, nor were they meant for a big budget, mainstream release, unlike the Paramount show.

I also don’t know what you mean by saying that they were “pushed by too many barriers” into making an AU story. They had a lot of creative freedom in how they wrote the story, and a lot of the changes they made had nothing to do with budgetary restrictions. So it really feels like they wanted to do an AU story from the start, or even a completely different franchise altogether.

Chief being lucky was a running gag because he was the player character, meaning that he obviously couldn’t die or else the games wouldn’t happen. He didn’t have any sort of “luck powers,” he just got lucky at random points.

During the Bungie era, it was the case that all humans were reclaimers and they could all access forerunner technology. There wasn’t a specific gene that allowed it, it was just universal because humans and forerunners were the same species. And you do want anyone to be able to press it, because then you don’t need to get one specific person there (who would obviously be a high value target for the enemy). They need to grab the index and then take it to the control room anyway, so it’s not like they would press it on accident. At least, assuming they know what the ring is, which the forerunners assumed humanity would know by the time they found the ring.

[u/Makuta_Servaela → u/Atari774]

It’s still silly to do an alternate universe for the first time as your first time doing a big budget TV show.

Which is why they didn't intend to and just went with it when they were forced to.

I also don’t know what you mean by saying that they were “pushed by too many barriers” into making an AU story.

Already answered that: budget and ratings restraints forced them out of being able to make a good show version of the games. So their options were "Make a shitty representation of the games" or "Make it clear that it's an AU, so viewers can enjoy it without being caught on accuracy points". They did not predict that some viewers would just decide that the producers picked the first option when they did not, purely so they could get to complain about accuracy points.

During the Bungie era, it was the case that all humans were reclaimers and they could all access forerunner technology.

Production for the show began in 2013. The "Not all humans are reclaimers" was present in Halo 4, which came out in 2012 (and was in development before that). Halo Wars (2009) and Spartan Ops (in Halo 4) both mention situations where specific humans are identified as non-reclaimers/ a location full of humans is found to not contain reclaimers.

So, "John is special in that he is a Reclaimer" was already established before the show. The show universe just has Reclaimers be more rare. (As per the Trust dial thing I mentioned earlier).

[u/Atari774 → u/Makuta_Servaela]

What do you mean “ratings restraints”? I can understand budgetary restraints (as silly as that is for a company like Microsoft), but what ratings restraints were there that stopped them from following the games more closely? They also didn’t have to follow the games 1 for 1, they could have done something else set in the same universe. Similarly to how Halo Wars was completely detached from the Bungie games, taking place 20 years prior, but still clearly fits with the rest of the franchise. Either way, the two options you’re presenting were not the only options they had.

Halo Wars doesn’t include the idea that not all humans are reclaimers, they just have the same person interacting with forerunner tech because she’s the first one there. They never say that other humans can’t access those things. Similarly, Halo 4 stated that John was special, but not that only a few humans were actually reclaimers. She doesn’t even say that only John was given the ability to resist the Composer, because she still had to activate the gene in him that did so. There’s no reason to think that gene couldn’t have been activated in other humans, but you had to be at that facility on Requiem to get it done, and only Chief was there at the time. So the games didn’t introduce the idea that only a few humans were reclaimers at all. At least, definitely not prior to the show’s development.

But all of that is irrelevant because the way the show handles it is entirely different from how any of the games did. In the show, Chief touches a forerunner stone and has a seizure where he gets crazy visions of the Halo ring. And apparently he was seeing those visions as a child too. Whereas in the games he touches forerunner stuff all the time, and so do a ton of other people, without anything happening. Chief in the show is a predetermined chosen one, hand picked to find the Halo ring. In the games, he’s just a soldier who stumbles onto it, and literally anyone else could have done the same had they been able to survive the fighting on the ring. They’re just entirely different motivations for the character, which take the story in entirely different directions. Which is a really weird decision to make given their goal of adapting the series to a TV show.

[u/Makuta_Servaela → u/Atari774]

What do you mean “ratings restraints”?

TV show raters, Movie raters, and Video Game raters are three different groups with different standards, including about how sets and actors can be managed. This would effect what a producer can and cannot do with a TV show set, actors, filming restraints, etc. The script would have to be designed around what they can do with their set.

Either way, the two options you’re presenting were not the only options they had.

Yes, as someone who didn't produce the TV show, I'm sure you know better about the available options than those who did and were very clear about their barriers.

Halo Wars doesn’t include the idea that not all humans are reclaimers

It does. A character mentions in passing that "Reclaimers are humans who can access Forerunner technology". Another point mentions that the Covenant broke through a base full of humans looking for Reclaimers. They didn't just grab the first human they found.

Halo 4 stated that John was special, but not that only a few humans were actually reclaimers.

In Spartan Ops, which is in Halo 4, a human structure, full of humans, is scanned and no Reclaimers are identified.

Also, in Ghosts of Onyx, which came out in 2006, there is a scene where a Sentinel identifies a human Spartan as a "non-reclaimer", meaning again, Forerunner tech has a concept of someone being both a human and not a reclaimer.

In the show, Chief touches a forerunner stone and has a seizure where he gets crazy visions of the Halo ring

In the games, it's presented as "You have an innate knowledge of how to use it", which is why John activates things in 04 without anyone telling him how. The Flood book (2003) goes into John's experience with that. That's not as interesting for a show, so they likely bumped it up a bit to "You also get seizures".

[u/Atari774 → u/Makuta_Servaela]

For your first point, are you talking about things like ESRB ratings? Because I don’t think that had anything to do with limiting the scope of the show. They still have a ton of violence and gore in the show, as well as horror elements that gave it the TV-14 rating. Even so, it’s not like the issues with the show are down to a lack of an 18+ rating like the games had. Plenty of Halo games have been rated T anyway, so it’s not like there aren’t Halo stories that fit a rating meant for teenagers. Not to mention that shows are rated after they’re completed, not beforehand, then edits are made as needed to fit the desired rating. Meaning that the story was already written and set well before the final decision on a rating was made. Thus why I don’t think they meant much when deciding the way the story went.

It’s also not like they couldn’t have retold some of the games and just edited them for a TV-14 rating. The whole original trilogy of games could have easily been toned down slightly to fit that rating, without compromising the story at all. So I’m not sure where you’re getting the idea that a rating restriction is what was holding the showrunners back.

And again, you laid out two options of “either they make a horrible retelling of the games or do a completely different universe” as if those were the only two options. Clearly they weren’t. You don’t need to be an expert on the movie industry to know that.

[u/Haunting_G5159 → u/Makuta_Servaela]

They didnt respect shit lmao they didnt even keep fundamental themes from the canon

[u/Makuta_Servaela → u/Haunting_G5159]

Already addressed that in this and the continued comment thread where I and another commenter broke the differences down.