{"id":23115,"date":"2015-09-21T23:07:55","date_gmt":"2015-09-22T04:07:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/halofanforlife.com\/?p=23115"},"modified":"2015-09-21T23:07:55","modified_gmt":"2015-09-22T04:07:55","slug":"12-things-we-learned-about-halo-5s-hunt-the-truth-season-2-spoilers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/halofanforlife.com\/?p=23115","title":{"rendered":"12 Things We Learned About Halo 5\u2018s Hunt the Truth Season 2-SPOILERS!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Okay, first of all…do NOT read below if you do not want to be SPOILED!!!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"halo-hunt-the-truth-2\"<\/a>Okay, now that you’ve decided to have some spoilers, let’s proceed.<\/p>\n

This is a reblog of another article from Time.com.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Article by Matt Peckham<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Season two of Microsoft\u2019s\u00a0Halo<\/i>-related\u00a0Hunt the Truth<\/em>\u00a0podcast\u00a0arrives Tuesday, and with it, the landing path to\u00a0Halo 5: Guardians<\/em>\u00a0on Xbox One is finally visible.<\/p>\n

I spoke with\u00a0Halo<\/em>\u00a0franchise development director Frank O\u2019Connor,\u00a0Hunt the Truth\u00a0<\/em>creative director Noah Eichen and season two lead Janina Gavankar (reprising her role as rebel operative FERO) about where we\u2019re headed next. Some of that made it into the preview piece. Here\u2019s the rest, lightly edited for clarity and with spoilers if you haven\u2019t listened to season one.<\/p>\n

1. We find out more about Ben straightaway<\/h2>\n

\u201cThe first episode will help you come to terms with what direction Benjamin\u2019s going in,\u201d says O\u2019Connor. \u201cHe\u2019s absolutely there for the first episode, and obviously regardless of what happens, his effect on the story is vital, like the things that he achieved and failed to achieve in season one are absolutely what season two is about. Even if he weren\u2019t in it, his actions and his legacy would be the central focus of the story in some ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Season two is partly a meditation on perspective<\/h2>\n

\u201cI think thematically when we sat down for season two, what kept hitting us was this idea of, guy on the ground versus guy in the tower, and they both have a point,\u201d says Eichen. \u201cThe guy on the ground, he may see the human cost of everything, and he\u2019s right there with it. But in the tower, they may think you need to crack a few eggs to save all of humanity. They\u2019re both valid points to some degree, and we play with that a lot in season two, where there\u2019s this idea of perspective, and who\u2019s always right in that situation, it\u2019s never black and white.\u201d<\/p>\n

3. And it scales up quicker<\/h2>\n

\u201cIt gets to that scale of escalation much earlier than season one, largely because a lot of elements of season one\u2019s mystery are now out there for you to think about,\u201d says O\u2019Connor. \u201cSeason two gets to the point of the drama and the action much quicker, and part of that is also I think just a confidence in knowing what the story is that we\u2019re telling, whereas with season one there was a lot of experiment and a lot of adjustment in the process. Season two can afford to be much more direct in its storytelling.\u201d<\/p>\n

4. It deals with why no one\u2019s asked the questions Ben asked until now<\/h2>\n

\u201cEvery single reporter and voice that\u2019s out there trying to say something has been suppressed for years, for decades,\u201d says Gavankar. \u201cIt\u2019s easy to erase people when you\u2019re such a strong force. And I think that we answer some of those questions in season two.\u201d<\/p>\n

5. Unlike season one, season two was completely written before recording<\/h2>\n

\u201cA lot of the stuff toward the end of season one was very mushy when we started the process, it took us finding that voice to define what it was going to be,\u201d says Eichen. \u201cSeason two is very different. Season one, we were writing the whole time, we were literally writing episodes up to the last month. Whereas this time, we wrote it all first, we recorded it in one big chunk. It feels more like it was prepared and we\u2019re telling a very singular story, where first season it felt like we were Ben, and the story was unfolding with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

6. Part of FERO\u2019s persona evolved out of technical necessity<\/h2>\n

\u201cYou cannot speak casually if you\u2019re going to have voice modulation affecting your voice-slash-performance,\u201d says Gavankar, referring to the way her voice was disguised for parts of season one. \u201cIf you listen to it, I\u2019m enunciating to the extreme in the first season, and I think it actually affected the character in a really positive way, because she is so succinct in how she handles Ben over the airwaves.\u201d<\/p>\n

7. Mark Hamill got involved simply because he liked the story<\/h2>\n

\u201cWith Mark specifically, that was like a shock to me,\u201d says Eichen. \u201cBecause we were trying to cast this character that he plays, and we were reaching out to certain people, and an agent that we were talking to offered him up, saying \u2018Would you ever consider Mark Hamill?\u2019 And I was like \u2018Yes, yes please.\u2019 I guess Mark listened to season one of the podcast, and we heard back from the agent, and we were like, \u2018You know, we don\u2019t have . . . Here\u2019s what we have to offer.\u2019 And the agent said \u2018Well, Mark just picks things that he likes, and he loved season one, and he wants to do it, he\u2019s in.\u2019 It was unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n

8. And he initially pitched his character with an Eastern European accent<\/h2>\n

\u201cMark Hamill came in and he had a very specific idea of who he wanted his character to be,\u201d says Gavankar. \u201cAnd he presented an Eastern European accident, and Noah had to go in and say \u2018There is no Eastern Europe. There is no Europe. Europe\u2019s been gone for a long, long time.’\u201d [Update: Eichen notes that Gavankar may have misunderstood him, that Europe still exists, and that what he meant was \u201cThe\u00a0Halo<\/em>\u00a0Universe is set 500 years in the future and cultural lines are much more blurred, we\u2019re not confined by modern interpretations of names and stereotypes.\u201d]<\/p>\n

9. Season two is a \u2018brilliant emotional space odyssey\u2019<\/h2>\n

\u201cI\u2019m doing a TV show right now, so I got the script [for season two], and it\u2019s 50 pages at the most for 44 minutes of content,\u201d says Gavankar. \u201cSo you read it, and you get a grasp on the entire episode. When you get a movie, it\u2019s about 120 pages, and we all know that one page equals one minute of screen time. This thing was 136 pages.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo my stomach just seized up. And I read the entire thing, and it is a brilliant emotional space odyssey that I did not have a lot of time or preproduction to get straight in my head. So doing all of that character work, all of that emotional journey work in like a week is not what actors are used to. And you have to remember, it\u2019s not just the feeling, it\u2019s the recollections of the feeling, and it\u2019s just . . . there were a lot of tears.\u201d<\/p>\n

10. The series was cast with gender-nonspecific roles<\/h2>\n

\u201cWith\u00a0Hunt the Truth<\/em>, one of the great things about this experience making season two, is that I\u2019ve been in the trenches with Noah and talking about different characters, ones that weren\u2019t cast yet,\u201d says Gavankar. \u201cAnd every time that I would bring one up, he\u2019d say \u2018Oh, that could be a guy or a girl.\u2019 So it was gender nonspecific. And they\u2019ve drawn a really big line in the sand saying in the future, gender and race will not matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo this is the future, and one of the most exciting things about people who work in science fiction or futuristic scenes or anything of the sort, is if they are a person who truly doesn\u2019t think in a sexist or racist way, they can make a statement saying it will not matter, it should not matter, and in the stories I make, I will make sure it doesn\u2019t matter. You can represent parts of the future that you want to exist.\u201d<\/p>\n

11. At least one of\u00a0Hunt the Truth<\/em>\u2018s characters may be lurking in\u00a0Halo 5<\/em><\/h2>\n

\u201cI believe we have at least one character who\u2019s represented in the game, though not in a meaningful way, more like an Easter egg,\u201d says O\u2019Connor. \u201cIn terms of ongoing fiction, absolutely some of these characters are very likely to end up in novels in the next couple of years, and then those novels feed back into our game. We may be having this conversation again in three years and saying yes, those two characters are right in the heart of the game. But not for this one. They\u2019re more like background detail and a perspective shift.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe events, on the other hand, happen both simultaneously and preceding the game. So you\u2019ll see real crossover, and big meaningful events that aren\u2019t just subterfuge and spying. There\u2019s some big world-changing things that happen that affect both our game and the Hunt the Truth podcast.\u201d<\/p>\n

12. And season two ties into stuff we\u2019ll see in the next\u00a0Halo<\/em><\/h2>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve already taken elements that were sort of agreed upon premises from\u00a0Hunt the Truth<\/em>\u00a0one and two, and there will be some knock on effects that happen even in our next\u00a0Halo<\/em>\u00a0game,\u201d says O\u2019Connor. \u201cSo there\u2019s definitely connections with\u00a0Halo 5<\/em>, but it\u2019s also tied to plot elements that will be part of the universe following\u00a0Halo 5<\/em>. All of this stuff just feeds into our real history, and stuff that we continue to use.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m almost positive we\u2019re going to do something again, both with the character and scenarios of\u00a0Hunt the Truth<\/em>, and with that format. We just don\u2019t know what those things are yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

HFFL:<\/strong> Hmm, that’s a lot of stuff to ponder. But don’t ponder TOO long. The first episode of Hunt the Truth<\/strong> hits in less than 24 hours!!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Okay, first of all…do NOT read below if you do not want to be SPOILED!!! Okay, now that you’ve decided to have some spoilers, let’s proceed. This is a reblog of another article from Time.com. Article by Matt Peckham<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-huntthetruth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/halofanforlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/halofanforlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/halofanforlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/halofanforlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/halofanforlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23115"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/halofanforlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23124,"href":"https:\/\/halofanforlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23115\/revisions\/23124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/halofanforlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/halofanforlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/halofanforlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}