Transcript
Speaker: It's a long term thing.
Speaker: They're not really good at the long ball.
Speaker: Libertarians aren't good with the aren't good with the longest view in the room.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: But you know who always has the longest view in the room?
Speaker: Who's that?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixel It.
Speaker: My name is Kevin.
Speaker: With me as always is Phil.
Speaker: Hello.
Speaker: That was adorable.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: I just I just got done watching the pajama game with with.
Speaker: Oh, there you go.
Speaker: So I'm in a very 50s, holy shit, this is all about unions, what the fuck is going on, kind of a move.
Speaker: Go unions, you know.
Speaker: Go unions, it's so pro-union, and it came out in 57, I can't believe that none of them had to stand before Joseph McCarthy.
Speaker: Oh yeah, I mean, it might have been too...
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Was it was it was it obviously you pro union or was it?
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: Like literally the bad guy is the boss and he calls them all a bunch of communists.
Speaker: That's right on the, that's right on the tin right there.
Speaker: It is very, all that's missing is Sally field holding up a sign that says union on it.
Speaker: That's like all that's missing.
Speaker: It it's based on a novel called seven and a half cents because that's what these people are asking for an extra seven and a half.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Added to their hourly wage.
Speaker: That's the whole plot line.
Speaker: And a woman who works with the union and a man who's one of the manager head bashers ends up falling in love.
Speaker: And that's the plot.
Speaker: So it's Romeo and Juliet, but for unions and corporations.
Speaker: I mean, I wanted to kill myself by the time it was over.
Speaker: It wasn't great.
Speaker: It was just surprising.
Speaker: That's all.
Speaker: Oh, it wasn't, it wasn't a good movie.
Speaker: It was just surprising.
Speaker: No, it was just, I'd never even heard, I'd heard of the pajama game.
Speaker: Like when you're in high school musicals, you always hear about the school across town is doing the pajama game.
Speaker: Everyone does the pajama game.
Speaker: And I never knew what it was about.
Speaker: And me and my fiance this, this month are watching nothing but films that are, um,
Speaker: adapted from the stage.
Speaker: That's our little challenge.
Speaker: That's your that's your theme for the month.
Speaker: It's it's really cute.
Speaker: And I just got to say for everybody who doesn't know, Phil and his fiance every month or seasonally, it would be probably more specific.
Speaker: It's more like a seasonal thing.
Speaker: They watch specific movies.
Speaker: So for for it was spooky movies in October and then like November into December.
Speaker: It was how it was.
Speaker: It was a Christmas movie every night and it was the most God awful Christmas movies.
Speaker: They were so bad.
Speaker: It's the ones that you're thinking of that are just like, you know, they're made in like a week.
Speaker: And that's true.
Speaker: They're made in seven to ten days.
Speaker: That's the shooting time.
Speaker: The directors have little to no say in anything that happens.
Speaker: It's just like there's a there's a house style that is handed to them.
Speaker: And they're like, you got to do this.
Speaker: So there's those every now and then one of them will do something kind of subversive.
Speaker: And you start to notice because you start to notice the patterns.
Speaker: And every now and then one of them will do something that is like totally anti the pattern.
Speaker: And me and Emily go, whoa, wait a minute.
Speaker: That wasn't supposed to happen.
Speaker: It's so funny.
Speaker: And it's hilarious because by the end of because we did, we did two months of holiday movies and we had to we had to space out the good ones.
Speaker: you know, your white Christmas, your Christmas story, you know, your Christmas vacation.
Speaker: You have to space those out because most of them are hot garbage.
Speaker: And we will just scream at the television and make fun of it and shout and get so pissed off.
Speaker: And then it literally it's been what has it been?
Speaker: It's been almost three weeks since we watched our last holiday movie.
Speaker: And I'm already like looking forward to November.
Speaker: That was fun.
Speaker: Like, it's so pitiful.
Speaker: We've that's our we've done that two years in a row now.
Speaker: And then this and we decided we're like, you know, let's let's let's keep doing the challenges, but let's let's try something else.
Speaker: And we were doing, yes, stage adaptations.
Speaker: That's a good that's a good choice.
Speaker: It's a lot easier.
Speaker: There's so many of them, too.
Speaker: There's so many.
Speaker: So you there's a lot more quality.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right in the 50s.
Speaker: Like.
Speaker: There was like two a week.
Speaker: Well, we we we keep trying these 50s, 60s ones.
Speaker: Like we did the pajama game.
Speaker: That was a blast.
Speaker: And I said, damn Yankees.
Speaker: I remember seeing damn Yankees.
Speaker: That's boring as hell.
Speaker: It was awful.
Speaker: It's so bad.
Speaker: It's literally about a guy who gives his soul to the devil to play baseball.
Speaker: And then it gets weird.
Speaker: awful it was just so bad and and like these are classic movie musicals that were like what is there's like a bunch of musicals that are on the AFI top 100 which is a garbage list it's it's just a garbage list but there's a bunch of them that are in the top 100 that are just like they don't belong there
Speaker: There's like some really old dude like remembered seeing it when he was a child and was like and was like this belongs on the list and be like, sure.
Speaker: OK, maybe it was foundational at one point, but it is it is it is such a soft foundation.
Speaker: It's nearly unwatchable at this point.
Speaker: It is like the foundation of the Tower of Pisa.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's well.
Speaker: And the funniest thing about when you do staged when you do stage shows and stuff like that, when you're watching movie adaptations of you, you get whiplash in the theme and the tone, because like we watch damn Yankees.
Speaker: We watch a funny thing happen all the way to the forum.
Speaker: which is just a total farce and zero mustel.
Speaker: And, and it's the sixties.
Speaker: And it's all the worst parts of the sixties.
Speaker: And, uh, and you're like, Jesus Christ.
Speaker: And then, and then we watched fences.
Speaker: with Denzel and Viola Davis and it's fucking magnificent and very strong and serious.
Speaker: And, uh, and you're like, Oh God, we need to warm ourselves up.
Speaker: So you're not just doing musicals.
Speaker: It's stage.
Speaker: No, no, no stage plays.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: So it's always a good opportunity to just throw the new, um, if you wanted to, you could throw the new West side story.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we went and saw that in the theaters actually.
Speaker: We love it.
Speaker: I found out the other day.
Speaker: She told me that it's not doing well.
Speaker: No, it didn't do well at all.
Speaker: It's a it's a sin.
Speaker: It's a sin.
Speaker: It's a magnificent film.
Speaker: If you guys are listening and you haven't seen West Side Story, watch West Side Story.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This is by the way, this is me and Kevin's movie theater.
Speaker: This is our movie.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We talk about theater.
Speaker: We talk about movies.
Speaker: No, actually.
Speaker: It's all adaptation.
Speaker: It is all adaptation.
Speaker: You know, call me Charlie Kaufman because it's all adaptation to me.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: No, today we're talking about we're doing part three of our Halo the Flood series by New York Times bestselling author William C. Dietz.
Speaker: What's Dietz, William C. Dietz?
Speaker: And where we last left off, flipping back because, of course, I didn't mark the page like a fool.
Speaker: Like a fool.
Speaker: I got to go through all my notes on Mega Man 2.
Speaker: Air man.
Speaker: Jesus.
Speaker: It's like 160 or something.
Speaker: There we go.
Speaker: Chapter six.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Chapter six.
Speaker: The spine like is all messed up now on my book.
Speaker: So I'm folding it like a. You got it.
Speaker: You got a break.
Speaker: I broke that spine like like Bane breaking Batman's back.
Speaker: Bring me the bat.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So chapter six is where we left off last episode.
Speaker: And it's a McKay chapter to begin with.
Speaker: It's a McKay section.
Speaker: And she's talking about how she's they're basically they got these vehicles are driving and she's like, you know what?
Speaker: I'm not going to hide these vehicles.
Speaker: We're just going to drive in formation.
Speaker: And because we can't.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they're getting.
Speaker: Well, they don't really have much choice.
Speaker: Basically, they're they're heading towards Alpha Base and they're setting up.
Speaker: for what is going to be a confrontation with the covenant.
Speaker: And this is a big time and covenant descending response.
Speaker: They are covenant.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This is posts the pillaging of the pillar of autumn.
Speaker: That was too many peas in a sentence.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And Covenant... The prospects are poor at the pillar of autumn.
Speaker: Post pillage of the pillar.
Speaker: Yeah, so that's happening.
Speaker: I apologize for the Ps.
Speaker: The one thing I really noted was, and I hate this,
Speaker: It's always a good start.
Speaker: I hate this is is is quoting that Psalm.
Speaker: Yay, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
Speaker: And I thought it would have been better and slash more hilarious, but just better overall.
Speaker: If she said it's like that Coolio lyric.
Speaker: Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker: No, I, because this is like, what is it?
Speaker: It's it's it's what's the year that this, this is, I don't know the year it's like 25 something.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's hundreds of years.
Speaker: It's like, it's a long time.
Speaker: And, and we're going to go ahead and get the Warhammer 40 K reference out of the way off the top.
Speaker: Um, when you, when you read the stories of 40 K it's, it's, it's the, it's like literally the year 40,000, you know, and, uh,
Speaker: And they still have pieces of the oldest civilizations and everything like that.
Speaker: And so you'll get like quotes in there every now and then.
Speaker: And it'll be like a William Shakespeare quote, but the name will have shifted over the years.
Speaker: And so it will be William Shakespeare, you know,
Speaker: Poets of the ancient time before the Dark Ages, you know, it's just it's it's it's stuff like I wish they would have done that because that's what happens.
Speaker: That's what happens.
Speaker: It'd be a different.
Speaker: These people wouldn't be speaking English.
Speaker: It would be a totally different language.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it would be an even if they were speaking English, their version of English would be nothing like ours.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And I guess Deetz didn't work.
Speaker: I mean, that's like if you're if you're creating your own IP and you're going to create a series and like you're really getting into the world building and lore building and all that stuff, then, yeah, you would probably start mucking about with stuff like that, where it's like changing syntax of words and all that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But he was like, he was like, let Bungie worry about that.
Speaker: I'm not.
Speaker: But that being said, I hate, I hate that Psalm being quoted in things because it's so trite at this point.
Speaker: It gets used so often.
Speaker: And also nobody ever finishes it.
Speaker: They just say the first part and like, if you're going to reference it, just it's like five more words.
Speaker: It's really gaudy.
Speaker: And so they're like, they're like, we don't want to, we don't want to get the whole Jesus thing.
Speaker: It's like the rod and the shepherding and be like, and I'm not afraid.
Speaker: Rod and the staff, they comfort me.
Speaker: Rod and the staff, they comfort me and I am not afraid.
Speaker: And let's face it, let's face it out of context.
Speaker: I rod it comfort little gay.
Speaker: And we all know Spartans ain't gay.
Speaker: That's just, it's been proven.
Speaker: I beg to differ.
Speaker: I think the Spartans would be, well, they're named after a Greek.
Speaker: You mean to tell me that someone named after the Spartans might be a little bit curious?
Speaker: They're very open-minded, the Spartans.
Speaker: They are.
Speaker: Actually, that is the one thing that they're very much not as open-minded.
Speaker: Anyway, yeah, McKay is comforted by the rod, and she is moving on with her convoy.
Speaker: Psalms weren't going to win the coming fight, firepower would.
Speaker: Sounds like a heretic and a non-believer.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Just, just, just curse God and die.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, and we get, we get a little, we get a little cut to some covenant troopers.
Speaker: A, a, a, a, I only wrote Mort in here.
Speaker: What's what was the full name?
Speaker: More to me, more to me, which is, which is what I had actually on my Tinder profile for years.
Speaker: There's more to me than the profile picture suggests.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just pounds upon pounds.
Speaker: What is it?
Speaker: The picture of you with the purple suede jacket, smoking jacket on?
Speaker: Oh, my velour smoking jacket?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I look good in that.
Speaker: I'll have to wear that to our next stream.
Speaker: Yeah, to the next stream and for the show.
Speaker: If we ever do a live show, that's going to have to be your...
Speaker: Oh God.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If we do a live show that is on the table.
Speaker: So he's watching them with he's all he's all he's there with a field master field commander basically.
Speaker: And who basically accuses him of being a spy.
Speaker: Basically he's trying to be cool about it.
Speaker: He's like, like very calm, but he basically says, you know, like, I know you're here to watch me just as you are as much as much as you are meant to watch them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We got another example of maybe some of the Covenant isn't always Covenant is a little.
Speaker: Yeah, a little.
Speaker: He's less of a spy and more of like a bureaucrat.
Speaker: He's he's basically like a number cruncher who's just there to like like look, just rate the effectiveness of their guys versus the effectiveness of the enemy.
Speaker: And just just that's all he's doing.
Speaker: That's all he's doing.
Speaker: So you get that moment.
Speaker: And then and then we got lots of.
Speaker: We got so much fighting, so much fighting battle.
Speaker: The covenant forces.
Speaker: This scene, this sequence is per our longstanding rule.
Speaker: We're not going to get into all the nitty gritty, but it's actually this is probably one of my favorite battle sequences in the book.
Speaker: because it was because of the way it's written back and forth and it has a lot of variety in terms of the stuff that happens in it.
Speaker: It's not just like there's an engagement and and they're fighting.
Speaker: So, yeah, they.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Deets.
Speaker: Deets likes to kill them in various ways.
Speaker: He does.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So one of my favorite things that happens is at some point there's a Lance Corporal who gets thrown from a warthog and he's getting he's trying to figure out what do I got to do?
Speaker: And he gets back to the warthog and he finds a sniper rifle and it's like Chekhov's sniper rifle.
Speaker: So he takes it and he hides it.
Speaker: We know that's coming around.
Speaker: We know that's going to come back around.
Speaker: And then
Speaker: A couple of scenes later,
Speaker: A couple of scenes later.
Speaker: This is a great scene.
Speaker: It's so good.
Speaker: Mort, Morty boy, the spy, is talking to the field master, the field commander, and he's like, they're blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: Mort is basically saying, you're doing a bad job.
Speaker: They're winning.
Speaker: I'm going to report.
Speaker: I'm writing a report on how bad of a job.
Speaker: Then Mort's head explodes from the sniper shot that was set up a few scenes earlier.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's fantastic.
Speaker: It's yeah, it's just, it does.
Speaker: And that's the thing for it.
Speaker: And that's not important to the grand scheme of the story.
Speaker: It's not going to come back for any reason.
Speaker: It was just Deets was like, we're having another fight scene.
Speaker: Let's make it interesting to do some fun stuff in here.
Speaker: Let's put some skin in the game here with like some weird ass bureaucrat.
Speaker: And like, like these people really aren't going to come up all that much.
Speaker: And, uh, and he just gives you a personal taste for, uh,
Speaker: this big ass fight that happens.
Speaker: Uh, it's, it's fantastic.
Speaker: And eventually, uh, the humanity makes it to this gap, uh, and, and basically, uh, pushes back the covenant forces there.
Speaker: So it's a big covenant.
Speaker: It's a victory for, for the UNSC.
Speaker: Um, and the covenant has to retreat.
Speaker: Um, then finally we get, we're, we jump back and we're, we're with master chief.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: As we as we should be.
Speaker: Actually, it was like it was almost like a letdown to be back with Master Chief after that battle sequence, because it was a little because this sequence that plays out for Master Chief is very, very straightforward from the game because I've been replaying the game now to kind of catch up to where we are in the book.
Speaker: And it's like I was I had just finished the silent cartographer mission and then I was reading it in the book and I like, oh, yeah, this is not changing a whole lot.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: And it doesn't really because because frankly, and we've talked about this before, but Dietz is doing the right thing here because the first Halo game was revolutionary for its time.
Speaker: But looking back on it, it's just like a lot of rooms that kind of look the same.
Speaker: Especially if you play the if you play the anniversary edition.
Speaker: And you flip over to the old version.
Speaker: You're like playing the new version of the game.
Speaker: You're like, oh, man, it's so gorgeous.
Speaker: This is this is what it looked like back in tooth.
Speaker: And then you flip over.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: It was just a lot of.
Speaker: You're like, oh, it's just a lot of gray walls.
Speaker: It was just a lot of sludge.
Speaker: And yeah, so we're going to get eventually to a point where for those of you who joined us for the first Halo book for the Fall of Reach, we are going to get back to a point where Master Chief is a little more introspective and thinking about the things that are going on.
Speaker: We are not there yet.
Speaker: We are not there yet.
Speaker: For now, it is him looking for the silent cartographer, killing lines of jackals and grunts and all those.
Speaker: Occasional hunters.
Speaker: He's blowing hunters up with rocket launchers.
Speaker: which will get increasingly easy as it goes for some reason.
Speaker: Somehow he just... We're going to get to that.
Speaker: Hunters just became a pretty easy thing because there's at one point where he kills... There's kind of a very cinematic moment in this sequence where he kills a hunter while standing in the ocean.
Speaker: Like the it's kind of a it's kind of a pretty neat like he's he's up to his like knees in the ocean when the waves are coming in and he blows up a hunter with a rocket launcher and there's blood.
Speaker: The hunter's blood is spewing into the water.
Speaker: That's kind of cool.
Speaker: It's really cool.
Speaker: And then he kills the Bond brother with like there's like a sentence dedicated to it's like, oh, I took the next one's head off.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And it only gets easier as he goes.
Speaker: Like, like, and I think part of it was like, you know, I, I want to, part of it's because you start to realize you face these hunters kind of a lot.
Speaker: There are no bosses in the first Halo game.
Speaker: The hunters kind of serve as the closest thing to bosses.
Speaker: And I, I wanted, I wish that he would have just used them less.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: We run into them a lot.
Speaker: And so for necessity,
Speaker: the writer deeds just starts.
Speaker: He kind of makes them easier.
Speaker: And we'll get into that in a second.
Speaker: But like, they just get easier and easier to kill.
Speaker: And you just want to go, just make them rarer.
Speaker: It doesn't matter.
Speaker: No one's going to like count.
Speaker: Well, actually, you know what?
Speaker: I take it back.
Speaker: Gamers may take this book and go, all right, there were four hunters in between here that you skipped.
Speaker: And so I take it all back.
Speaker: Maybe, maybe he did need to be that precise on a precise pedantic.
Speaker: What do you, you know,
Speaker: Whatever.
Speaker: So yeah, he blows up a couple of hunters with the rocket launcher, blames himself briefly for the death of a couple of Marines that had joined him in a war.
Speaker: And we have an interest.
Speaker: We do have an interesting moment there where he's just mentally thinking to himself.
Speaker: that he that he's to blame.
Speaker: And Cortana almost reads his mind and literally says out loud, you know, you're not to blame for this, which is interesting on a certain level.
Speaker: Yeah, because they're they're sharing up a brain place.
Speaker: They are.
Speaker: They are.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they they continue the firefight through.
Speaker: It's it's if you played Halo, it's a silent cartographer level, you know, there, which is a great level to be is a great level to be playing.
Speaker: not always a great level to be reading about.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We're making our way down Master Chief.
Speaker: Master Chief gets wounded pretty bad at one point in this sequence.
Speaker: Whether that pays off in an interesting way later, I don't know.
Speaker: We don't know yet because we're not there, but he has to actually take his armor partially off
Speaker: to, uh, plug a wounds that he gets from, uh, from, I think he gets, he gets like ambushed or something like that.
Speaker: Um, yeah, he gets, he gets, he gets, uh, it was, it's another hunter basically who like, he get, he gets him chink in his armor or something like that.
Speaker: And he has to use that good old phone to fill up the wound.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Um, and, uh, Cortana is pretty sure they're being tracked because it feels like everywhere they go,
Speaker: They're running into these rights, which is a fair.
Speaker: That's a fair assessment of their situation.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we do get a little lip service to Cortana being kind of worried that she's pushing Master Chief too far, which isn't a lot.
Speaker: And we do get here as he's healing himself up.
Speaker: This is I felt like Kevin, you'll probably agree with me when you hear the quote.
Speaker: This is a very important moment.
Speaker: In minutes, he had suited up, popped a wake up stem and moved on.
Speaker: Master Chief does blow.
Speaker: What else is a wake up?
Speaker: You can't tell me he had a quick espresso, had himself a nice hot Americano.
Speaker: Well, the Mjolnir armor has an espresso machine built into it.
Speaker: It does.
Speaker: It looks that way, doesn't it?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just like he just like bends the elbow and like espresso starts dripping The steam and all that it's a it's a beautiful sight and when he's taking the armor off and like patching himself up He couldn't see it but Cortana was like was like hugging him from behind and the unchanged melody was playing
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And then when the espresso is made, it comes out in a little paper cup and Cortana holds out and goes, Master Chef, Master Chef, espresso for Master Chef.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: I think we're good.
Speaker: I think we've killed that scene.
Speaker: I think that horse is good and very.
Speaker: So in the next scene, the covenant is reinforcing, but Master Chief finds the button, basically.
Speaker: It's the end of the silent cartographer level where you find the map.
Speaker: That tells you where the control center is.
Speaker: And word for word, you get the end of that moment with Cortana paging Captain Keys and Foehammer responding.
Speaker: Captain has dropped out of contact, Cortana.
Speaker: His ship may be out of range or may be having equipment problems.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And what do you think?
Speaker: I think he's captured by the covenant again.
Speaker: Again.
Speaker: Fucking Captain Lode is more like it.
Speaker: And it's just, come on.
Speaker: He's staring.
Speaker: Um, and the curb your enthusiasm music.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Directed by Robert B. Weedy.
Speaker: Just,
Speaker: Keys come on.
Speaker: Come on, Jacob.
Speaker: Jake, Jake the snake keys.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Speaking of which he's listening to the incessant slam beat slam bam beat of the sergeant's colonial flip music.
Speaker: Yeah, which doesn't tell me anything about what it sounds like.
Speaker: What is that?
Speaker: Like what is that?
Speaker: That is literally ladies and gentlemen, that is literally how they describe it.
Speaker: Slam bam.
Speaker: The slam bam beat.
Speaker: The slam bam beat.
Speaker: Is that the soundtrack?
Speaker: It's the soundtrack.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But that's not how I'd describe it.
Speaker: It's kind of more orchestral and beautiful with a good drum section.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they've interrogated covenant grunts for information.
Speaker: They're basically searching throughout this structure trying to find some sort of a
Speaker: Is it like a cash?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They're looking for covenant weapons that they can take and kind of reinforce their own weapons because they're running out of, you know, they're running out of bullets and armor and et cetera.
Speaker: So they might as well start using covenant stuff.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So basically this guy, this prisoner is like, fine, there's like a there's like a building in the middle of a swamp.
Speaker: And they're like, all right, let's go check it out.
Speaker: And yeah, they find themselves in this structure and we get the standard.
Speaker: I I'm not feeling so good about this kind of moment.
Speaker: And go in Marines.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Stow it.
Speaker: Stow that bullshit, Hudson.
Speaker: And suddenly they are swarmed by what those of us who have played the game know as the flood.
Speaker: Yeah, those little blobby dudes just come in and start possessing people left and right.
Speaker: Just giving them spinal marines, certain needles.
Speaker: Spinal taps right into the back.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And it's not a good sight.
Speaker: It's it's it's really unfortunate.
Speaker: Jacob, Captain Keys is possessed.
Speaker: Everybody's possessed by these these these flood flood monsters.
Speaker: And yeah, we got the horror, a horrific moment at the end.
Speaker: Jenkins helpless to do anything about it.
Speaker: By the way, there's a Jacob.
Speaker: Jenkins and Johnson in this scene.
Speaker: And yeah, that's like violating.
Speaker: There's like some internal rule that I have about like not reusing the letter, especially within a scene just because try to avoid it.
Speaker: There's too many J's.
Speaker: It's just a real.
Speaker: I'm not saying that you don't know.
Speaker: people with a bunch of the same first letter in the names of saying, if you have the choice, you got five characters and you, you get to choose what their name, do yourself a favor, pick a different letter for each one of them.
Speaker: Pick a different letter because Jenkins, um, anyway, Jenkins, uh, he screamed and the air left his lungs, but no one turned to look.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I have a mouth and I must scream, but nobody cares.
Speaker: That's the, that's the, that's, that was the next, you see, if that was Harlan's next book, next door, the next few words, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me, but nobody cares.
Speaker: Like that's just, they would just keep reading.
Speaker: Nobody cares.
Speaker: Harlan Ellison.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't think Harlan Ellison cares.
Speaker: Harlan Ellison only cares if you owe him money.
Speaker: Chapter seven, though.
Speaker: Guess who's back?
Speaker: Well, it's Danny Zuko.
Speaker: But you know what that means?
Speaker: What does that mean?
Speaker: That means yayap.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker: So Zuka Zemeime, Zemeeme, whatever.
Speaker: He's in the council chambers.
Speaker: And this is a grim scene.
Speaker: Totally pitch black in there.
Speaker: He walks in and he's like, hey, he got called in there.
Speaker: What's up?
Speaker: And nothing happens until another spotlight comes on.
Speaker: And his his superior, his old superior officer, Rollamy, the guy who talked to the council and said, letting
Speaker: Zuka do whatever he wanted.
Speaker: Like just the head, his head on a spear.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they, and they tell him, and it's kind of ridiculous because they tell him like his, the elders or whatever, like telling Zuka like that he, his head's on a plate literally for his failure, his failure to do anything.
Speaker: And they're upset with Zuka, with Danny Zuka because of his failure.
Speaker: his inability to bring down the Master Chief.
Speaker: And I wanted to go, oh, now you're worried about the Master Chief.
Speaker: My man Zuko came in there and was trying to warn you.
Speaker: You didn't trust him the first time.
Speaker: Finally, you half-heartedly gave him permission.
Speaker: And now you're, oh, you fucking assholes.
Speaker: The Covenant sucks.
Speaker: I know that's an unpopular opinion.
Speaker: Covenant sucks.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Why are you doing me?
Speaker: I'm right.
Speaker: I'm right.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Fuck him, man.
Speaker: Fuck the covenant.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know what I got to say?
Speaker: Fuck the covenant.
Speaker: Don't like them very much.
Speaker: I know that they're the enemy of humanity and they've murdered millions upon millions of humans.
Speaker: I was I was tolerating.
Speaker: I was giving them the benefit.
Speaker: I was giving them their space to learn and grow and adjust.
Speaker: But then I learned that they are also shitty bureaucrats.
Speaker: And that was a line too far.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: No, man.
Speaker: The straw and the paraplegic camel.
Speaker: That camel is broken.
Speaker: That camel is broken.
Speaker: So we got, we're back with Master Chief after, we do get yayap in the scene, but it's just like a sentence.
Speaker: Yayap is very, very brief.
Speaker: We get a way better yayap.
Speaker: There's much, there's better yayap coming.
Speaker: Stay tuned for more better.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Not this scene with who cares?
Speaker: No, but he's still just on his way to find the command.
Speaker: center for the silent cartographer.
Speaker: And now he's in that cold area that you're in as you're going to find the command center.
Speaker: And it's literally beat for beat that level, including like you're crossing the bridge and there's, there's literally written in here justification for all the weird shapes and cover that you've,
Speaker: on the bridge as you're crossing it.
Speaker: It's a little weird.
Speaker: I would have just ignored it and just said, oh, he fights across the bridge.
Speaker: But no, Dietz writes in the blocks that are on the bridge for no reason.
Speaker: Which, okay, sure.
Speaker: So, yeah, he crosses.
Speaker: Finds his way past the bridge onto a lift, fights a tank.
Speaker: as he's getting closer to a bunch of pinned Marines, which you probably recognize.
Speaker: He and the Marines take out the tank and take the valley.
Speaker: The valley is theirs.
Speaker: And here's another hilarious moment, kind of a wink to the audience.
Speaker: Cortana basically says, there are a lot of valleys just like this one.
Speaker: So you're going to go from valley to valley, freeing Marines and probably killing a lot of Covenant along the way.
Speaker: And then at the end, you reach the all-valley tournament and you have to face off against Johnny Lawrence and Cobra Kai.
Speaker: I'm literally going to make a Cobra Kai joke.
Speaker: I was like, whatever he says next, I'll add a Cobra Kai.
Speaker: And then you fucking this is why we're on the show together.
Speaker: This is why this is why this works.
Speaker: God damn it.
Speaker: Um, and then so Matt, he sweeps the leg and he sweeps the leg and we do, we get, we do get a nice little, little bit of an introspective moment for master chief at the end of this section, uh, where it's clear that he's just happy to be part of a team.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's happy to be fighting alongside the Marines instead of being a one man wrecking crew.
Speaker: Um, you know, so he's, he's, he's enjoying his time with those damn, those damn good men.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Watch those trees.
Speaker: This ain't no picnic.
Speaker: I wrote down in the next section, I wrote down Silva and McKay and then nothing else.
Speaker: I don't remember.
Speaker: What happened here?
Speaker: I don't think it mattered all that much in the grand scheme of things.
Speaker: Oh, it, um, it, it, it matters because it is, um, it's the lead up to finding.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Ooh.
Speaker: Okay, yes.
Speaker: That's the only thing that matters.
Speaker: That is important.
Speaker: Okay, so Yayap is laying in a wreckage of a ghost, I believe.
Speaker: He's been planted there.
Speaker: He's been planted there as if he's dying.
Speaker: Basically, Zuka beat him, so he looked like he was in a crash and left him there.
Speaker: In no way taking any pleasure in it, right?
Speaker: And yeah, I was there to get picked up because they believe that the Marines are going to take prisoners, which they do.
Speaker: But yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's like maybe they don't take prisoners and I'll just die.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's like, that would be pretty good, too.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That means I would.
Speaker: If I died instead, that would be all right.
Speaker: And he's but he's got he's got a signal beacon attached to his his breathing apparatus breathing apparatus.
Speaker: So the idea is they want him to be captured so they can track him and all that.
Speaker: I like this line.
Speaker: Yes, Zem, uh, Zemimi, uh, swore that the humans took prisoners, but what did he know?
Speaker: Thus far, Yaya have been unimpressed with Zemimi's plans.
Speaker: Which, you know what?
Speaker: You and me both are, like... I mean, good lord.
Speaker: Uh, Yaya is reading this, he is reading this situation correctly.
Speaker: He is.
Speaker: He's totally right.
Speaker: He's totally right.
Speaker: So, yeah, he's, he's, and the, and the Marines find him and they literally, he's, he pretends, there's a, there's a part where it says it would be much easier for me to, to, if it would be way better if I was unconscious in this moment.
Speaker: So he went ahead and went unconscious because he was already just,
Speaker: beaten to a pulp and he's just like, you know what?
Speaker: I want to act real good.
Speaker: Let's go method.
Speaker: Passes out.
Speaker: They throw him in the back of it.
Speaker: In the back of Marlon Brando would only dream.
Speaker: Oh God.
Speaker: Marlon Brando as.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Directed.
Speaker: Can you imagine the actor's studio interview directed by Orson Welles?
Speaker: Between, oh my God, him and Marlon Brando and James Lipton are all in hell and they're just talking about Brando's moment as, yeah, yeah, as directed by Orson Welles.
Speaker: Yeah, Orson Welles is, actually Orson Welles is not in the room.
Speaker: He is bitching about it to Peter Bogdanovich.
Speaker: RIP Peter Bogdanovich, by the way.
Speaker: Just.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: As of when this episode comes out, it'll have been like a month ago.
Speaker: But RIP Peter Orson Welles' best friend, Peter Bogdanovich.
Speaker: Kicked Orson's ass in the end, didn't you, Pete?
Speaker: You won.
Speaker: So we get back to master chief.
Speaker: He's getting closer to the command center.
Speaker: He steals a ghost.
Speaker: He's got to ride it up this pyramid, which is actually a really, you know, this is kind of an infamous level in halo.
Speaker: You've got to ride your, your, your way up this pyramid.
Speaker: Cause the, the, the command center is going to be,
Speaker: at the top.
Speaker: Now, this is where I'm sorry, but he takes out a hunter, he kills a hunter, and he knows they come in pairs.
Speaker: He looks for the other hunter, shoots it in the back, and kills it.
Speaker: And I can't help but think, I feel like all the other ones are harder to kill them.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: Because he even says, I wish I had a rocket launcher.
Speaker: And then he just kind of unloads a clip and the other one's back.
Speaker: And he's just like, he's dead.
Speaker: Oh, this is like, I was being dramatic before, I guess.
Speaker: And in the game, it takes like, if you're using the standard marine weapons, it takes like, you have to bait and dodge the hunter like four or five times shooting it in the back.
Speaker: Yeah, that's,
Speaker: that guy soaks up so much ammo.
Speaker: And yeah, so he just, he just does that.
Speaker: There's a, there's a hilarious scene where there's like some covenant with a turret gun and he just mows them down.
Speaker: And it's kind of like, it made me think of the Indiana Jones shooting the guy with the sword.
Speaker: He sees this opportunity where we're expecting another grand battle and he's just, ah, fuck it.
Speaker: He's really tired.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He says, I've had a long day and, uh, and mows him down and then finally makes his way to the apex of the pyramid and finds the command center and he pops
Speaker: Cortana in there and she just is like a squirrel on cocaine when they throw her in there.
Speaker: She fucking loves it.
Speaker: She's turning colors.
Speaker: She loves it.
Speaker: She's like the, the, she is the, she's the, the, the person who in Twilight Zone who wants everybody to be gone so he can read his books.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: She just she's got all this information coming to her all at once and she loses her mind and then all of a sudden finds information on the flood and starts to realize that the covenant discovered something here, something horrible.
Speaker: Horrible.
Speaker: She also calls Master Chief a barbarian.
Speaker: And that's right, because he's because he's
Speaker: Because he, because yeah, she hurts his feelings.
Speaker: She hurts his feelings because he's been told this is a weapon.
Speaker: He's been told that this is a weapon.
Speaker: He says, okay, so show me how to use the weapon.
Speaker: She goes, it's not like a fucking club, you fucking barbarian.
Speaker: It's like, oh, MC.
Speaker: But yeah, so she's like, we got to go find keys because the weapons cache he's looking for.
Speaker: It's not really, we can't let him get inside.
Speaker: Too late for that.
Speaker: We're in section four of the book now.
Speaker: Section four?
Speaker: Chapter eight.
Speaker: Chapter eight.
Speaker: The section is 343 Guilty Spark.
Speaker: And it has a little poster of Master Chief getting his arm wrapped up by a flood.
Speaker: A flood?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: A floodling?
Speaker: What's this...
Speaker: A floodling, a member of the flood.
Speaker: Floodite.
Speaker: Floodite.
Speaker: I like that one.
Speaker: Floodite.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he's now he's getting dropped off by a foe hammer at the swamp where he was where Master Chief was last seen.
Speaker: And the goal is to find keys.
Speaker: Now let's, let's find keys.
Speaker: Meanwhile, we jump inside keys head and he's losing memories.
Speaker: Like the, this is good.
Speaker: This was, this was good.
Speaker: Basically the flood is like sucking memories out of his mind.
Speaker: And it's like, it's making it clear.
Speaker: Like this is the last time he's going to remember this.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He's losing memories and he has to, he's got this buzzing chant in his head.
Speaker: He can't move.
Speaker: He can't even speak.
Speaker: And he's trying to kind of hold on to these different memories.
Speaker: And they don't have a, it's not all bad memories are all good memories.
Speaker: They're just memories, memories of the first guy he killed, of a promotion he had, like all kinds of stuff.
Speaker: And as we go on, he kind of starts to really, he needs to hold on to these memories as best as he can.
Speaker: if only to, um, retain some level of humanity here.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, uh, so we jump back to, uh, to chief and he is now stalking through the swamp.
Speaker: Um, and he's finding, he's finding, um,
Speaker: basically he finds a wreck of a is it yeah he finds a wreck of a pelican he also finds a wreck of a covenant dropship yeah like just it's like and they're both like just sinking into the swamp muck
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah, there's like... And we get this whole thing with him like figuring out what went down, like it's clear based on where the bodies are, that the dropship came down fine, that the people got out, but that there was a firefight outside.
Speaker: There was a fire fight!
Speaker: Right!
Speaker: And I'm not sure who that's for.
Speaker: Like we already know that Master Chief is like good at this shit.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: It feels a little padding.
Speaker: Yeah, it feels a little padding, but at the same time, I think it would be cool if there was more, if there was like a book that just focused on Master Chief doing forensic investigations
Speaker: we're like a Spartan.
Speaker: I mean, that could be kind of neat, you know, um, there are Warhammer and more to your point.
Speaker: I really do think we know who should play master chief in the Netflix show.
Speaker: They're going to make it's will.
Speaker: Yeah, of course.
Speaker: He's got to play master chief.
Speaker: I'm something of a Spartan myself.
Speaker: So we get, we get, he finds a shotgun.
Speaker: This is incredibly important for anybody, for anybody who's fought the flood, you know exactly how important a shotgun is.
Speaker: There's no opposition until a couple of jackals pass him.
Speaker: And then we get into more shooty stuff, more shooty stuff.
Speaker: And it's, it gets more shooty, shooty, fighty, kill some jackals, kill some grunts.
Speaker: And then he starts finding bodies of like,
Speaker: Yeah, he finds this structure and he's literally following the dead bodies through the structure to figure out where he needs.
Speaker: I thought that was a nice touch.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they're not looking too good.
Speaker: They're like ripped apart dead bodies.
Speaker: Yeah, it is.
Speaker: It is not looking fantastic.
Speaker: So he starts going down into the structure, which that's a that's a bad sign.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And there's there's some jackals down there.
Speaker: He kills them like it's it's weird because had he stopped, you probably would have noticed that the jackals are also probably afraid of whatever the fuck is going on.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Now, eventually he finds a half crazed Marine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Who is shooting at him and telling, shouting about how, you know, you're not going to turn me like the rest of them.
Speaker: But as Kevin pointed out, if he had stopped and done a little recon work and like, listen to the jackals, he probably would have got this information a lot faster.
Speaker: Yeah, because they're all they're all just like terrified of what's going on.
Speaker: Whoever's still alive down there.
Speaker: And this Marine literally tries to shoot Master Chief to death.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he disarms the guy.
Speaker: The guy tells Master Chief to find his own hiding place.
Speaker: which is hilarious.
Speaker: Master Chief doesn't want to leave the guy, but he realizes that there are a lot of Marines ahead of him.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a it's a numbers game.
Speaker: So he's just like, just it is he tells the guy like, you know, the exits that way, just like get up the elevator and get out, you know.
Speaker: But the guy and he just feet.
Speaker: Yeah, he's he is a try not to cry.
Speaker: Cry a lot.
Speaker: Meme.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so Master Chief decides he's going to go with, you know, the needs of many over the needs of a few.
Speaker: And he ends up in a room.
Speaker: He starts to feel watched.
Speaker: He's getting real kind of paranoid and starts feeling like he's being watched.
Speaker: And he's a room that's in a room filled with shells, with spent shell casings, but no marines.
Speaker: There's nothing there.
Speaker: And he's also starting to feel alone.
Speaker: He had gotten very used to... He had grown accustomed to Cortana's face, to be...
Speaker: To be honest.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: That's exactly it.
Speaker: And she's not there right now because she's, uh, she's back in the control center.
Speaker: Uh, the halo control center still kind of like learning everything she can about what's going on.
Speaker: Um, with, with halo.
Speaker: And, uh, and so he, he finds, but he does find a video.
Speaker: He finds video footage.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: of these fleshy blobs.
Speaker: It's basically he's seeing the last moments of Key's squad going down.
Speaker: This is a perfect time for a Dead Space audio log.
Speaker: Pretty much, I mean, that's pretty much exactly what he gets.
Speaker: Screaming, shooting, fleshy blobs that he can't quite identify.
Speaker: And then suddenly these fleshy blobs basically become real and start swarming him in that room.
Speaker: And he starts making with the shooty fighty.
Speaker: He makes with the shooty fighty, yeah.
Speaker: um the uh so we have a um a scene jump over to um oh yes so while this is happening well well well master chief is doing the shooty fighty um uh
Speaker: Alphabase is getting some weird call signs being barked at them because there's a Pelican, a Charlie 217, that they thought was destroyed.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: It's coming in hot and they're like, all right, you can come in.
Speaker: And, uh, Wellesley's like, yeah, is let's, let's get people ready to like figure out what this is.
Speaker: Uh, so tell them to land on pad three and we'll have, we'll have people there to meet it.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So it cuts to inside the Pelican and there's this there's this pilot who is just like, so how did I do?
Speaker: And and Zuko, Danny Zuko, Zuko is just like, you did great.
Speaker: And then he chokes him out with a garrotte.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which I had to wonder in this moment, what was it that he promised?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because like, I understand the idea of like,
Speaker: taking a human hostage, negotiating with him, trying to get something for it.
Speaker: Uh, and the human doesn't say like, please don't kill me.
Speaker: You know, I did, I did good.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So please don't, don't hurt me or something like that.
Speaker: It kind of, but it's kind of worded more like he's expecting a reward of some kind.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He, um, uh, so the human inquired, how did I do?
Speaker: Uh, extremely well.
Speaker: Uh, thank you.
Speaker: And then he chokes him out.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so it's very weird.
Speaker: It's kind of a weird moment.
Speaker: But what's important is that we have betrayal from within and Zook is using it to basically he's got a pelican that is filled with
Speaker: Yeah, with invisible, the cloaked covenant elites.
Speaker: And then there was going to be another six drop ships.
Speaker: Once Alpha Base was engaged with those initial elites, then another six drop ships were going to come.
Speaker: Um, basically they, they, they land and, um, uh, and Zook is looking, he's there looking for master chief.
Speaker: He's looking for master chief who isn't there.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Um, and, and so, yeah, cause yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Is, is in a jail cell basically three levels, one level down.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: He had seen this.
Speaker: And I love when he started because he's trying to decide whether or not he wouldn't be better just staying with the humans instead.
Speaker: He's like, take me with you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's just like, you know what?
Speaker: These guys take prisoners.
Speaker: Maybe this wouldn't be so bad if I just stayed with them.
Speaker: And by the time he's like, but while he's in, he's caught in thought with that, Zuka suddenly shows up to rescue him.
Speaker: And he's super surprised about this turn of events until he realizes that Zuka is only doing this because he figures the IAP knows where master.
Speaker: So he's kind of like, oh, fuck you.
Speaker: So you don't love me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: So, yeah, he's like, yeah, he's guarding some some ships that they some ghosts that they captured on a landing pad over there.
Speaker: And Zook is like, oh, take me to it.
Speaker: Meanwhile, the Marines are not faring that well against the... They started out on their back heels fighting against the Covenant during this incursion.
Speaker: But it starts to turn... They kind of get themselves... The one thing they do is they throw gasoline.
Speaker: They start spraying gasoline and it starts hitting the invisible troopers.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: fire and they just light them up.
Speaker: It's pretty great.
Speaker: It's I mean, that is not that is if you told me you're like, all right, this novelization of this game, here's the mystery.
Speaker: Tell us what game this is.
Speaker: There's going to be a bunch of Marines that are going to pour gasoline on these invisible guys and light them up that way, like improvised Molotovs.
Speaker: Yeah, basically.
Speaker: What game is that?
Speaker: I wouldn't have fucking guessed Halo.
Speaker: Not at all.
Speaker: It's some really brutal shit.
Speaker: That's like some alien versus predator versus Marines or something like type of
Speaker: I could see that in Fallout.
Speaker: I can see that in like any number of game worlds.
Speaker: Not this one.
Speaker: So it's it's down and dirty.
Speaker: It's down and dirty.
Speaker: But so they kind of they kind of turn they turn the tide with their their anti-aircraft guns.
Speaker: Wellesley controls their anti-aircraft guns.
Speaker: A couple of one of the drop ships gets taken right out of the sky, doesn't even get a chance to land.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And and basically they're they start sniper.
Speaker: The sniper is just set up and they start shooting the the the grunts and the jackals and the elites while they're still in the dropships.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just taking them out.
Speaker: So they would hit the ground dead.
Speaker: so yeah Yayap meanwhile basically has to decides to take Zuko to where he quote unquote Master Chief is
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm going to I'm going to I'm taking you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then just basic and he puts a culture gun on him.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Basically says, yeah, you know what?
Speaker: I was fucking with you.
Speaker: He's not here.
Speaker: And so it was like, why, why you're pissing me off?
Speaker: Why did you bring me here?
Speaker: And he goes, because you're the only one who knows to drive one of these ships.
Speaker: So you're going to go ahead and drive it and holds a gun on the guy.
Speaker: He's like, he's like, guess what?
Speaker: Your fucking battle is over.
Speaker: Like we got it.
Speaker: Like I'm, I'm saving both of our hides by making you get out of here because they lost.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Way to go.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like for actually using his like, I mean, it's one thing to be like the cowardly goblin character who wants to survive and get out by.
Speaker: But he's also being actually pretty smart.
Speaker: He's like, look, the fight's over.
Speaker: Let's go.
Speaker: Uh, so yeah, pretty cool.
Speaker: Pretty cool note for you.
Speaker: I like where Yaya's character is going and I am excited to follow along, um, his journey.
Speaker: It's so good.
Speaker: It's a good journey.
Speaker: Um, meanwhile, uh,
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We're, we're getting some, some, some, some good shooty action from, from master chief.
Speaker: He is dealing master chief, taking out, he is fighting the flood.
Speaker: And he's, and by the way, his strategy for killing them is pretty accurate to how the best strategy for killing them in the game.
Speaker: As I was reading it, I was like, these feel like tips for the game.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's kind of like Mega Man 2.
Speaker: It's like, except except they didn't end the chapter upside down going, did you know if you use the shotgun against the flood, you can kill a whole lot of them.
Speaker: Did you know that Airman is weak to shotgun?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But aren't we all?
Speaker: Anyway, chapter 19.
Speaker: Like.
Speaker: Chapter 19, Hemingway Man.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Do you know who else is weak to shotgun?
Speaker: Mom and dad.
Speaker: Anyhow, Heat Man looks like a lighter.
Speaker: Mega Man got Menendez Brothers weapon.
Speaker: Rock and roll.
Speaker: God.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: It got dark.
Speaker: It was always going to get dark.
Speaker: Well, we're talking about the flood, so it's getting real dark now because Master Chief now is not only fighting the flood, but he's fighting zombified elites.
Speaker: Yeah, and he's quickly, and you know, they don't waste a lot of time with him going, wait a minute, wait, these used to be Covenant soldiers.
Speaker: What's going on?
Speaker: He figures out what's going on pretty quick, which I appreciate.
Speaker: I appreciate that.
Speaker: The realization gap from experiencing zombie to acknowledging zombie, you gotta hit that pretty close.
Speaker: You gotta hit it close, man.
Speaker: I mean, we're way beyond the saturation point for zombies and undead and what have you.
Speaker: You got to move.
Speaker: You got to accept it and move on.
Speaker: If that should happen in the real world, I mean, well, okay, 55% of people would not acknowledge that there was a zombie epidemic.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: But... And then 25% people would acknowledge there were zombies, but would blame, would say that it was part of the gun on.
Speaker: This is part of the, you know, the uprising.
Speaker: And JFK, zombie JFK.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: and the rest of us would be dead.
Speaker: We did.
Speaker: So it wouldn't be so bad.
Speaker: At least we wouldn't have so zombified elites.
Speaker: Xamified elites.
Speaker: And then Master Chief runs into young Private Mendoza.
Speaker: Who was, he remembers from before.
Speaker: Yeah, he's from before.
Speaker: Private Manuel Mendoza.
Speaker: He's dead.
Speaker: He is.
Speaker: He is totally chunkified into, he is just, like, parts of his body are just animated by
Speaker: the sludge that is the flood.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And Mendoza, the Mendoza thing.
Speaker: Mendoza, or rather, the thing that had once been Mendoza.
Speaker: And you know who Magic Chief really needs is Kurt Russell.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Totally all.
Speaker: I mean, have you seen that, man?
Speaker: I'll take I'll take him now.
Speaker: I'll take him in the eighties.
Speaker: Any Kurt Russell's good.
Speaker: He's beautiful.
Speaker: Any Kurt Russell's good.
Speaker: Russell.
Speaker: It doesn't matter when you get Kurt Russell.
Speaker: That's he likes to drink.
Speaker: He likes to party.
Speaker: I've got a guy Kurt Russell.
Speaker: Why not?
Speaker: And just maybe just just a little bit.
Speaker: Just just hold him.
Speaker: Just hold him in the darkness.
Speaker: But you're right.
Speaker: He desperately needs Kurt Russell in this moment.
Speaker: Nobody trusts anybody.
Speaker: Nobody trusts.
Speaker: Least of all private Mendoza.
Speaker: We're all very tired.
Speaker: We're all very tired.
Speaker: And Master Chief just, he just murders.
Speaker: Murders the shit out of him.
Speaker: Just blasts him apart with that shotgun.
Speaker: Thank God he found that naval shotgun.
Speaker: Thank God he found that, that.
Speaker: That really worked out great.
Speaker: That worked out perfectly.
Speaker: And we get another moment with Captain Jacob Keyes, who... Yes.
Speaker: He was not in Fall of Reach.
Speaker: We have determined...
Speaker: He was not.
Speaker: It was a different character.
Speaker: It was not him.
Speaker: Different guy.
Speaker: That is a callback.
Speaker: That's what they call a callback.
Speaker: So he's trying to remember who he is.
Speaker: So he starts repeating a mantra, which is just his name and serial number.
Speaker: And it's pissing off the parasite, which I thought he like.
Speaker: He senses that him remembering his name and his serial number is angering the pair.
Speaker: I thought that was such a nice touch.
Speaker: It kind of gives the the idea that the parasite can't do its its mutation shit until it completely takes over his mind, basically.
Speaker: So for now, he's just because he's remembering his name and serial number.
Speaker: He has stopped it.
Speaker: Yeah, he's holding it back for a little while.
Speaker: He's kind of, yeah.
Speaker: Like, this is what you imagine people are doing any time there's a movie with a person who has psychic abilities and you're fighting against them and the only thing they know how to do in the movie is for the person to go, eh!
Speaker: like they're constipated uh he's basically doing that but uh in a far more effective way um so so the one final scene is master chief uh running into some living uh marines um and they're like uh hey uh we should sir i would advise that we leave and respectfully respectfully let's get the fuck out of here the chief goes that's command thinking corporal let's go
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: You're right.
Speaker: We should leave.
Speaker: Takes a minute to go.
Speaker: Now you're thinking like an officer.
Speaker: Let's run away.
Speaker: Fair.
Speaker: I mean, even Master Chief is like, I'm out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Good luck, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: Hashtag blessed.
Speaker: And he's gone.
Speaker: He says strangely to much to his surprise, it felt good to enter the stinking swamp.
Speaker: Very good.
Speaker: Indeed.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, and that's, and that's the end of that chapter.
Speaker: And that's, that's what we got.
Speaker: Um, yeah, there's some fun moments in those chapters, uh, you know, going back and revisiting them.
Speaker: I think it's, I think it's, um, I like this series of chapters better than some of the chunks that we read earlier in the book where it was kind of samey battle stuff.
Speaker: It does feel like he's getting a real handle for more.
Speaker: He always threw something into the battle scenes that made them stand out a little bit.
Speaker: But now it feels like the battles are feeling a little more.
Speaker: He's really he's really finding a rhythm with them now.
Speaker: And it's it's it's really nice.
Speaker: There's a shit ton of fighting in what we just talked about.
Speaker: And it was actually really enjoyable to read.
Speaker: It wasn't a slog.
Speaker: Some of the other scenes were a little bit sluggish.
Speaker: The only other thing I would say is the scenes with Master Chief, the silent cartographer, and the control room scenes for Master Chief were a little... Because they were just so beat for beat from the game.
Speaker: It's just a little...
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a shame and it's understandable.
Speaker: I totally get it.
Speaker: I totally get why that would be.
Speaker: Um, but it is a shame that the mo and you even said this earlier that the moments we come back to master chief are the ones where I go.
Speaker: It's Halo for Christ's sake.
Speaker: Like, why am I bummed out when I come back to Master Chief?
Speaker: The thing I'm least looking forward to is the Master Chief moments.
Speaker: Isn't that crazy?
Speaker: I think it's, I think there's a few, a few things at play is because Dietz kind of like Nyland before him is hamstrung by the character of Master Chief because there's not a whole lot going on in there.
Speaker: I mean,
Speaker: Not right now, no.
Speaker: One of the best character moments is when he gets his feelings hurt by Cortana calling him a barbarian.
Speaker: We weren't even aware that he could get his feelings hurt.
Speaker: It's fantastic.
Speaker: It's really good stuff.
Speaker: And yeah, I totally agree.
Speaker: We spent a whole book
Speaker: sitting in the inner monologue of, of master chief.
Speaker: And now we've come to it and we're not, uh, and it's a little jarring at times.
Speaker: And, and I will say, and I think, I think the, the thing that Dietz brings back from it all is that the supporting characters,
Speaker: these Covenant characters, these these hell hell writers, you know, like like all these guys are great.
Speaker: And they have and it shows you how good of a writer.
Speaker: Yeah, this is it makes me want to read more of his stuff because it's like when left to his own devices, it's fun stuff.
Speaker: Here's a world.
Speaker: Yeah, he's a good writer when he doesn't have to follow the prima strategy guide.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's exactly it.
Speaker: So he's a good writer.
Speaker: Like, there is no question about him being a good writer.
Speaker: It's just it's he's just kind of he's a little hamstrung.
Speaker: Yeah, I think I think he's a little hamstrung.
Speaker: And and it's one of those things where I'm always interested in and I think.
Speaker: This is way too early to make this judgment in the podcast, but we'll see as we go through.
Speaker: I have a theory about books that are written written as direct adaptations of a game versus books that are written as sequels and prequels to to a game.
Speaker: And my theory is when it's a, when it's like a sequel or prequel or just an in universe story that the writer has a little bit more flexibility on, you're going to get a better product.
Speaker: The only thing, the only thing I'm going to say that really doesn't give me any favors in that argument is dead space, which was really had as much flexibility as you can get.
Speaker: Um, and it was, uh, yeah, um, it was,
Speaker: It was too much.
Speaker: Too much flexibility.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Fall of Reach, I still say Fall of Reach is a better book than The Flood, obviously.
Speaker: Agreed.
Speaker: It had a little bit more flexibility.
Speaker: So that's why I'm curious.
Speaker: What's Resident Evil Caliban Cove going to be like?
Speaker: And what's some of the other...
Speaker: I'm looking forward to that too.
Speaker: Because the, the, um, the Perry's are always pretty good writers.
Speaker: So, you know, yeah.
Speaker: Um, but that'll, I think it'll be fun considering we started with the resident evil books.
Speaker: Um, and, and, and Ms.
Speaker: Perry, uh, I'm going to be very interested in how, after we've read all a bunch of other video game novelizations, when we come to, and I'm playing with our schedule right now,
Speaker: Uh, cause we really should.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Maybe around our one year anniversary, we should aim to do our, Ooh, yeah.
Speaker: Good call.
Speaker: Good call.
Speaker: That would be June.
Speaker: So that's perfect.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Um, yeah.
Speaker: So it's, uh, I'm going to be very interested to see how it compares now, because I remember us thinking it was a little mediocre.
Speaker: It was a little laughable.
Speaker: And now with all the stuff we put, uh, we've put behind us, I have to wonder,
Speaker: if our opinion of it won't have gone up especially with her being able to write her own story and not be beholden to a narrative structure she's not writing right exactly exactly um but that does it for tonight's episode uh thank you so much for listening everybody we truly appreciate
Speaker: The support that you've shown us over the past seven months or so, it's been a wild ride and we're really looking forward to continuing on this journey.
Speaker: If you can, please share us with friends of yours.
Speaker: The only way a podcast grows is word of mouth.
Speaker: And we've been working
Speaker: We've been growing every month, so clearly some of you have been able to get the word out, and we really appreciate it.
Speaker: If you can, rate us five stars on Apple iTunes or Apple Podcasts.
Speaker: Also, Spotify allows for ratings now, so if you could drop a five-star rating on Spotify, if that's your platform of choice.
Speaker: And I know 35% of you, that is your platform of choice because I look at the analytics probably too much.
Speaker: Proud to say, proud to say that we are in the top 10 video game podcasts in.
Speaker: That is, yeah.
Speaker: Thank you for everybody from Argentina who listens to us.
Speaker: That is, that is huge.
Speaker: That is awesome.
Speaker: That's really neat.
Speaker: So thank you so much.
Speaker: And, and, and, and, and Kevin's right.
Speaker: You know, like we see the growth every month and that has everything to do with you guys passing it around and telling your friends and that kind of thing.
Speaker: And we are insanely grateful because we're,
Speaker: I didn't know we'd be doing this for, we've worked on projects before.
Speaker: I didn't know we were going to go seven months like this.
Speaker: Seven months and we're going to go on for seven more years.
Speaker: A hundred years, pixel it.
Speaker: A hundred years.
Speaker: I mean, God, have you seen how many video game novelizations there are?
Speaker: We'll be fine.
Speaker: We'll be fine.
Speaker: We haven't even touched FNAF yet.
Speaker: We haven't even touched FNAF.
Speaker: We have, but we don't talk about it.
Speaker: We don't talk about FNAF.
Speaker: We don't talk about Bruno.
Speaker: We don't talk about Bruno.
Speaker: It is a fact.
Speaker: So, yeah, that'll do it for today's episode.
Speaker: Have a good night, everybody.
Speaker: Good night.
