(I want to apologize; I'm currently quite ill, so this might not come out formatted flawlessly, and for that I'm sorry. I do feel I've communicated the problems and solution adequately, however)
Before I respond to Flipyap's thought-provoking post, I should probably explain that I feel that Halo 4 needs another act. I thought about it quite a bit last night, slept on it, and thought about it a lot more today, and now I think I can see how it would have created a lot more compelling experience.
Alright,
first, the act is needed because the game has two major elements that are introduced and inadequately explained. I should note that nearly everything the game should introduce and explain is introduced and explained within the context of the game, but not these two things. Not even the terminals, just the cutscenes themselves. Some of you guys are wanting a lot of detail that really isn't relevant to the story's drama, pacing, or even basic understanding. Watch the cutscenes, pay attention, and you should be fine.
Alright, the two things that aren't explained:
- The game opens with a cutscene showing Halsey in chains, being interrogated, and we hear that they might be making more Spartans. Much later in the game, we're kind of told "oh, by the way, these guys are Spartans but you wouldn't know them," and that's really about it.
- The Mantle is never properly explained. As such, we don't really understand why The Didact is such a threat beyond "he has a machine that he wants to kill humans with." It's not nearly as compelling as "he believes it is the Forerunner's duty to care for the Galaxy, but as a result of the war with humanity, he feels it's fair to turn them into a race of insane digital intelligences."
Second, the act is needed because Halo 4 makes the mistake of
assumed empathy. That is, it assumes we understand the emotions and motivations of various characters within the plot without actually expressing them itself. There is no reason for Del Rio to act the way he does, for instance, other than, apparently, the fact that he's supposed to fit the role of "Generic Human Authority figure." Maybe there's some personal motivation, but it's never explained. Likewise, the game treats Didact simplistically: "we were attacked by humans a long time ago, Didact lost his head, I had to imprison him." And all it seems he wants to do are to put humans in computer space jail.
A fundamental storytelling rule is that the audience, if they're paying attention to the story, should be able to follow it, empathize with the characters, and understand their motivations. That is ultimately why these two areas needed to be expounded on within the game.
SO, WITH ALL THAT SAID, THIS IS THE ACT HALO 4 NEEDS TO HAVE A GREAT STORY:
The act should take place right between after the game's first act--that is to say, it should take place right after the Infinity's MAC cannon scares him off. The game's first act is really all about finding Requiem, crash landing on it, and discovering the threat.
Using a traditional five-act structure, the next step would be for us to explore the threat--that is, try to find out who the Didact is and what he wants. In Halo 4, once the first act is complete, we jump right to Del Rio being a total jerk and forcing the Infinity off the planet. As such, we never really truly explore The Didact's motivations or his character, nor do we really see Del Rio's motivations explained. They just kind of
happen.
Likewise, we don't really know much about these Spartan IVs. An act where we spend more time on Requiem would be a great opportunity for us to get to know the Spartan IVs, explore the idea of the Chief as 'fundamentally broken,' and maybe get some of that inter-human 'conflict' going. I've been told that one of the themes of Glasslands is that Halsey is treated with much less sympathy and more like a criminal--having the Spartan IVs react to Chief as if he's some aberration, or, perhaps, treat him with some sympathy, because he's Halsey's 'victim' (though realistically, the characters would likely treat him with a mix of both).
If Del Rio shares this point of view, we can see why he might be somewhat antagonistic towards Chief. He doesn't need to be the bad guy the game paints him as, however. Instead of having him "relieved of command," a moment which had no emotional resonance in the game itself, having his character grow, getting players to come to like him, and then having the Didact kill him would make things a bit more emotionally engaging. This is, of course, just one way to do things. There are a lot of things that could be done with Del Rio, and even the "relieved of command" thing might work, but we simply need to know more about the guy and his relationship with the Chief if we want to have any sort of emotional resonance.
Basically, this second act should comprise of between one and three missions. On the first, Chief should go on a mission with the Spartan IVs. They should be fleshed out; as it was, only Palmer had a face or personality.
That said, it's important to note that Halo's always at its best when the player is alone (most great shooters are this way--System Shock 2, No One Lives Forever, Deus Ex, Half-Life, Halo, Aliens vs Predator 2, etc), so the time Chief spends with the other Spartans should be spent via radio contact, rather than actual in-game behavior. Basically, the Spartans could operate as audio feedback for player actions; as the player, through Chief, progresses through the level, the Spartans could come to appreciate Chief (and provide audio feedback to the player that makes the player feel increasingly more badass).
One of Half-Life's greatest moments is after a long, exhausting stretch of the game, this guy goes "You can trust me. You can trust all of us." It's a moment that expresses to the player that their efforts are
valued by someone, and really helps relieve the tension of the game, making the player feel pretty great. So this theoretical level could do that.
This level should end with the player beginning to understand The Didact a lot better. The next two levels should help this understanding evolve, introducing the mantle, having Chief remind everyone why he's awesome, and, by extension, making the player feel awesome, which sets up a nice big emotional gut punch. Perhaps it culminates in a personal confrontation with him, perhaps Del Rio dies, whatever. The point is, this section of the game should end with the player feeling that they HAVE to get off the planet. After this, the motivation to play the level Goliath is a lot stronger.
As it stands, Halo 4's pacing and the character motivations are a bit weird. We don't spend enough time on Requiem, we don't learn ANYTHING about Spartan IVs, Del Rio's motivations are senseless, and we don't really understand the gravity behind Didact's motivations other than "people are going to die." The Flood, at least, had a motivation--to turn people into a hive mind. That's what made them interesting. Didact is just "I want to kill you."
A second act just after Didact is scared off and just before Goliath begins would vastly strengthen the game. Plus, that apparent plot hole I mentioned last night, where the people at Installation 03 are expecting Chief with no way of knowing that he's coming, could be closed during this act.
Whew. That was fun. It's a single-drafted, headache-fueled mess, but it was fun to write, and I hope it makes sense.
Now on to Flipyap.
Yeah... you've read the only really relevant book, the one that provides backstory to all of this.
Um... no? There's a lot--the Composer, the Didact's drastically altered relationship with the Librarian, and other things--that I had no idea about.
The one thing that Halo 4 failed to do that Cryptum did was explain the Mantle and its significance. As a result, the Didact's personal motivations didn't have any inherent meaning, so it just seemed like "there is a thing humans are getting [that I won't explain] that I want."
That was a mistake on 343's part. The other elements, like the Composer, the Didact's relationship with the Librarian, and so forth, were adequately explained in the game, even though I gather there's probably more detail in Primordium.
People who haven't read Cryptum don't know any of the Forerunner characters, the alternate history of Halo's humanity, yet the game introduces all of this matter-of-factly, like you're supposed to know this already.
The game introduces A Guy. He says Vague Things, but it is clear He Is A Threat. Then, The Librarian is introduced. She explains the alternate history of Halo's humanity, how The Flood took out the Forerunner, and what The Forerunner did to humanity.
She COULD have said more, but it would have annihilated the pacing and flow to do it. Introducing the Precursors, explaining the importance of the Mantle, the rebellion of the Forerunner, and their jealousy of humanity, and all that stuff... it SHOULD have been in the game, absolutely. ALL this stuff is Mantle related.
We didn't need bigger cutscenes--what was there was great. We simply needed an additional section of the game explaining the Mantle and the Didact's response. I've already discussed it above.
The characters don't seem to be all that bothered by these universe-shaking revelations. The Didact is just some dude, Captain Generic Military Anger has bigger fish to fry.
This is a result of them failing to explain the Mantle. The Mantle is the key to all forerunner related stuff.
The Master Chief sees a vision of ancient humans engaged in space war with Forerunners and his reaction to this is "So... the robots are humans? That's pretty weird, huh?"
Explained by the game that Master Chief is rather sociopathic; even then, you're simplifying his reaction. Cortana should have had one or two lines expressing the horror that the Chief cannot.
Because it was supposed to be science fiction, not Harry Goddamned Potter.
And it is science fiction. Master Chief has no reason to know--or even want to know--how she did what she did. She made him immune. That's really all that matters. A cutscene explaining just what she did would actually make no sense in the story's context, and what's worse, it would dissolve the game's dramatic flow. Explaining
doesn't serve any purpose at all whatsoever and actually works to the detriment of the dramatic tension in the film. Nothing benefits by receiving an explanation of the minutae of the Librarian's modifications.
Here's an
excellent essay that does a far better job than I could explaining why it doesn't matter.
Yes and no. In Prehistoric times, they were relentlessly killing Forerunners and whatnot but because of Flood infestation. They were trying to protect the galaxy, but by doing so were mercilessly eradicating life. Librarian finds this out later and sympathizes with the humans a bit. Didact doesn't care if the humans were trying to "act as caretakers" because the humans were slaughtering billions of Forerunners in trying to protect the galaxy from the Flood. Humans are stripped of their technology and 'devolved' by the Forerunners are punishment but for the Didact this is not punishment enough and he makes them into robots using The Composer. He feels even that fate is too good for them but at least he can now use these humans-turned-robots as a defense against the Flood.
My understanding, judging by Cryptum and the Wiki, was that the humans were a lot more sympathetic than that. They were fleeing the Flood, colonizing worlds closer to Forerunner territory. The Forerunner got uppity about this because they felt it was their duty to run things, and the humans were all "lol, what? No thanks." This angered the Forerunner, who believed that the Mantle was theirs. At some point, they also discovered that it was the humans, not they, who were to possess the Mantle. Both of these things resulted in Forerunner genocide/dehumanizing of humanity.
Halo 4's cutscene indicates that the humans were a lot more violent than that, and this doesn't really work for me, because usually, refugees don't resort to slaughtering an advanced potential ally when fleeing from an enemy. They usually go "please give us shelter and help us fight our foes." That their first instinct was 'war' doesn't strike me as something genuine or believable.
Now, it could be that The Librarian was misrepresenting things because she is, after all, a Forerunner, but I doubt it.
The lack of explanation in Halo 4 is sad, do we even know which Didact it is? I mean 100%?
And I really hope he isn'T dead or finished, that would be more than idiotic.
And what happenend now on Earth, were all humans on earth burned down to ash or just the ones in the area?
1. Um, didn't the first Didact die in Cryptum?
2. Actually, he fell into the digitizer beam. Considering that he is speaking at the end of the game, it's reasonable to assume that he has been composed.
3. Just the ones in the area, as demonstrated by the video at the end of the credits.
it's gonna be weird.
