Real time review of this video Part 2 (Destiny)

by narcogen , Andover, Massachusetts, Tuesday, July 09, 2019, 08:50 (1974 days ago) @ narcogen

Ten minutes in.

So 1991-1999 gets nine minutes.

More 4:3 video, some stretched, some pillarboxed.

There's 16:9 footage of Halo 1 that has to come from the PC version, so it doesn't appear as if old footage is being used for authenticity, they just didn't bother to try and get fresh captures of any of the older games; Marathon and Myth are still quite playable.

Halo 2 music on top of Halo 1 footage (Impend). Of course evoking mood should be priority #1 but it seems to me the H1 soundtrack is diverse enough to give you what you want without mixing things up.

...and we follow that up with Halo 1 music over Halo 2 footage (Devils Monsters)

Weird phrasing regarding Jones' absence from the H2 team and Phoenix (MMO?) I mean, sure, MMOs were a thing, and WoW came out in 2004, but I don't remember hearing that Phoenix was an MMO before now. Maybe the author is mixing it up with Phoenix Dynasty, which is an MMO?

This seems like just a place to throw all the footage he has access to. We switch from footage of new features for H2 to Pentathlon footage with an aside about how that's a Bungie tradition. But it doesn't really serve his thesis, if he has one. I think that now that he's on to the Halo era he's just copying the timeline of a lot of the DVD extras available with editions of the game.

The video has now switched to a countdown centering on H2 crunch, which feels like an awkward shift.

Really blurry H2 cutscene footage and stretched JJ interview footage. There's no connection in this segment between these things; he used the cutscene footage from the same clip he took the interview footage from. It should either have been pillarboxed, or used capture footage from somewhere else to clean up the quality and fix the aspect ratio. Not that there was any particular reason to use that cutscene footage with that interview footage; they were just together in the clip he took from some DVD extras that went with Halo 2.

The thesis of many of the H2 crunch focused interview segments up to now has been the admission that Halo 2 was released unfinished.

The VO then states that H2 was made finished and ready for release.

I know he has to move on and cover the actual release of the game, but the way this is presented sounds like a contradiction. H2 was released, but it was not finished.

Unnecessary inclusion of a sexist joke from a late night host that "maybe 3 women" are in line for H2 at release.

There's a shot in here of Halo 2 footage that is actually both letterboxed AND pillarboxed. Kill me. Thankfully it's brief.

Sixteen minutes in and I think the only individuals mentioned by name are Seropian, Jones, Griesemer and O'Donnell. Staten and Timmins have been on screen and given quotes but no lower third identifying them, and no mention of them in the VO.

VO says "Halo 3 got a full year of pre-production"

Cut to interview footage of CJ Cowan, no lower third, repeating almost the same phrase. It's so close it feels very redundant, and again, the removal of names other than the ones everyone already knows seems deliberate.

21 minutes in.