My Adventures with Halo
Jun. 5th, 2024 12:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
d21jaydeeUnfortunately for you, gits, I saw Halo in My Adventures with Superman S02E01, so now I'm going to babble about it.
One of the things I honestly love of the 343 era, is their interpretation of the Forerunners. Whereas Bungie treated them as saints that could do no wrong and meant to give everything to humanity, the Forerunner of Greg Bear's books were a divided, hypocritical, complex lot, that made their society far less black-and-white as it is often treated. Interestingly, My Adventures with Superman seemed to take plenty of inspiration from it, in their portrayal of Kryptonians.
The moment Jor-El called the Kryptonian species the Kryptonian Empire, I mumbled "Oh, shit."
The Forerunner Ecumene of Halo was plenty inspired by the way ancient empires rose and fell, and this hails back to the Bungie era. What Greg Bear did in his books is show how and why they decayed, even their own version of the White Man's Burden to subjugate all species, to the point the Flood ultimately defeated them. I found it interesting how MAWS treated Kryptonian civilization as something quite similar, in that the DID have incredibly advanced technology, even aesthetics, but apparently at the core of the background story, how even Kryptonian civilization faced internal corruption before collapse.
Like, this scene in particular was a dead giveaway, since it goes into similar themes: John-117/Clark Kent finds something in the ancient Forerunner/Kryptonian structure/ship, a geas calls him towards to the source, and he meets with the essence, ghost, of the one that flung the light into the future. Whereas John-117 finds the spirit of the Librarian, Clark Kent finds the spirit of his biological father, Jor-El. They both feel enormous joy at seeing what their creations ultimately achieved, but realize they are running out of time with a far greater, far more terrifying threat on the horizon.
Just as well, they too get a view of their past civilizations.
Mind, this is not a derision of MAWS. Far from it! I honestly dig this interpretation of the Kryptonians and superman, and seeing how one piece of art influences another is honestly fascinating to watch. The Forerunner aspect of the 343 era is one of the things I adore reading about. Their complexities, their hypocrisies, their twisted society, and what ultimately was their final redeeming act at the face of certain doom. It's likely that the people that worked on this series were inspired by Halo when making the Kryptonian Empire, as their very architecture reflects on it.
When designing for Halo, Bungie inspired themselves by the buildings of architects Frank Lloyd Wright and Santiago Calatrava, due to their uses of mostly-rectangular structures alongside "sails", repeating patterns, and geometric angles. There's... a certain influence of Brutalism into those buildings, but at least they redeem that sodding architectural current by making it with smooth, clean surfaces and glowing colors, alongside a peaceful coexistence with nature. However, both the Forerunner and Kryptonian civilizations do a neat trick to show their dual nature: When nature isn't present, it is foreboding, intimidating, and crushing.
These are some of the works by Santiago Calatrava, one of my favorite architects back in my days of Architecture school.
And this is Forerunner architecture.
The influence is there, in the same repeating patterns and the same Brutalist current of Architecture, in using raw material to work on imposing, geometrically-patterned structures. Frank Lloyd Wright seems to be a much minor influence, and most of his works do have texturing in stark contrast to Brutalism, making his own works a more traditional form of Modernist Architecture. Paul Russel, Bungie Artist, apparently credited FLR with the current, but I'm not seeing much of it.
(Random, but I visited FLR's Phoenix Studio once. It was incredible to see hexagonal rooms and listen to those shapes interact with sound. I even took photographs of the interior! ........... but them stupidly lost all of those photos. I never forgave myself for that cock-up.)
Returning to the subject, MAWS uses those same aesthetics and purpose to show the complexities of Kryptonian civilization in this new series. They use the same powerful sense of aesthetics, using those smooth clean, metallic surfaces, alongside the levitating and foreboding technology, coupled with the ever-present threat of them returning, alongside something far worse that destroyed them. I notice those influences in both aesthetics and story, and honestly? I love MAWS, but seeing one of my favorite elements of Halo portrayed in the series made me love so much.
I cannot wait to watch the rest of the episodes. This is an amazing series, and realizing their inspiration for it made me love it even more.
One of the things I honestly love of the 343 era, is their interpretation of the Forerunners. Whereas Bungie treated them as saints that could do no wrong and meant to give everything to humanity, the Forerunner of Greg Bear's books were a divided, hypocritical, complex lot, that made their society far less black-and-white as it is often treated. Interestingly, My Adventures with Superman seemed to take plenty of inspiration from it, in their portrayal of Kryptonians.
The moment Jor-El called the Kryptonian species the Kryptonian Empire, I mumbled "Oh, shit."
The Forerunner Ecumene of Halo was plenty inspired by the way ancient empires rose and fell, and this hails back to the Bungie era. What Greg Bear did in his books is show how and why they decayed, even their own version of the White Man's Burden to subjugate all species, to the point the Flood ultimately defeated them. I found it interesting how MAWS treated Kryptonian civilization as something quite similar, in that the DID have incredibly advanced technology, even aesthetics, but apparently at the core of the background story, how even Kryptonian civilization faced internal corruption before collapse.
Like, this scene in particular was a dead giveaway, since it goes into similar themes: John-117/Clark Kent finds something in the ancient Forerunner/Kryptonian structure/ship, a geas calls him towards to the source, and he meets with the essence, ghost, of the one that flung the light into the future. Whereas John-117 finds the spirit of the Librarian, Clark Kent finds the spirit of his biological father, Jor-El. They both feel enormous joy at seeing what their creations ultimately achieved, but realize they are running out of time with a far greater, far more terrifying threat on the horizon.
Just as well, they too get a view of their past civilizations.
Mind, this is not a derision of MAWS. Far from it! I honestly dig this interpretation of the Kryptonians and superman, and seeing how one piece of art influences another is honestly fascinating to watch. The Forerunner aspect of the 343 era is one of the things I adore reading about. Their complexities, their hypocrisies, their twisted society, and what ultimately was their final redeeming act at the face of certain doom. It's likely that the people that worked on this series were inspired by Halo when making the Kryptonian Empire, as their very architecture reflects on it.
When designing for Halo, Bungie inspired themselves by the buildings of architects Frank Lloyd Wright and Santiago Calatrava, due to their uses of mostly-rectangular structures alongside "sails", repeating patterns, and geometric angles. There's... a certain influence of Brutalism into those buildings, but at least they redeem that sodding architectural current by making it with smooth, clean surfaces and glowing colors, alongside a peaceful coexistence with nature. However, both the Forerunner and Kryptonian civilizations do a neat trick to show their dual nature: When nature isn't present, it is foreboding, intimidating, and crushing.
These are some of the works by Santiago Calatrava, one of my favorite architects back in my days of Architecture school.
And this is Forerunner architecture.
The influence is there, in the same repeating patterns and the same Brutalist current of Architecture, in using raw material to work on imposing, geometrically-patterned structures. Frank Lloyd Wright seems to be a much minor influence, and most of his works do have texturing in stark contrast to Brutalism, making his own works a more traditional form of Modernist Architecture. Paul Russel, Bungie Artist, apparently credited FLR with the current, but I'm not seeing much of it.
(Random, but I visited FLR's Phoenix Studio once. It was incredible to see hexagonal rooms and listen to those shapes interact with sound. I even took photographs of the interior! ........... but them stupidly lost all of those photos. I never forgave myself for that cock-up.)
Returning to the subject, MAWS uses those same aesthetics and purpose to show the complexities of Kryptonian civilization in this new series. They use the same powerful sense of aesthetics, using those smooth clean, metallic surfaces, alongside the levitating and foreboding technology, coupled with the ever-present threat of them returning, alongside something far worse that destroyed them. I notice those influences in both aesthetics and story, and honestly? I love MAWS, but seeing one of my favorite elements of Halo portrayed in the series made me love so much.
I cannot wait to watch the rest of the episodes. This is an amazing series, and realizing their inspiration for it made me love it even more.
