‘Halo’ Season 2: Pablo Schreiber Addresses the ‘Helmet on or Off’ Fan Controversy

ICYMI, there’s been a controversy brewing over the TV adaptation of Halo. If you play the game that goes back over twenty years, you’d know that the main character, Master Chief, does not, I mean, never take off his helmet or armor. It’s a thing. Full stop. Halo arguably made XBOX the console gaming platform it is today and carried Microsoft on its back in the video game world for years, so this matters. Now fast forward to the high-budget, action sci-fi TV series on Paramount+, and there’s been a lot of back and forth amongst the fans about the lead character Master Chief, played by Pablo Schreiber, taking off the helmet.  

Get this, Kiki Wolfkill, the producer and game developer, explained away the controversy. “There’s such a fervor around the idea that it feels like it just happened in Season 2, but we took it off in Season 1,” Wolfkill said to Blavity’s Shadow and Act. “We just reignited the creative debate around his helmet being on or off, and it’s tough.”

“So much of Master Chief is how you, as a player, identify with him in the games and how you inhabit that armor in the games,” she added. “So it’s hard when his helmet comes off in the show, because all of a sudden, we’re telling the story of a character that may be different from how people imagine them in their head because of how personal their connection is to him as the character that they play in the games. At the same time, it was really important for us to be able to tell his story and who he is, both in and outside of the armor. And so we recognized it was a risky decision, but also recognized it was really important to how we wanted to tell his story.”

Look, we get it. They’re doing something different. It’s called taking a cinematic license, and it happens with adaptations. In The Walking Dead, the show departed from the book EARLY and OFTEN—the same thing happened with Game of Thrones.

But check this, and sorry, but spoiler alert, But audiences exited the first season with Master Chief surrendering his consciousness to Cortana, and then Schrieber dished this … “The approach with this show has always been to dig into the character that’s underneath the armor,” said Schrieber. “So we’ll continue with that approach. We’ll see Chief in armor and feel why he is who he is and how effective he is at his job. And, we’ll see Chief in all of his stoicism and power.” Schreiber added, “We’ll also get underneath the armor and examine the man, examine this soldier who has been tasked with saving humanity and is just beginning to experience his own and dealing with the ripple effects of what that means for him in trying to figure out what he’s responsible for, which parts of his life are his own and which he can claim for himself and what he ultimately owes to humanity in his role.”

Here’s what Joseph Morgan added. He plays the new kid on the block, James Ackerson. “You meet James in the first episode, and he comes in; he’s the new boss, right?” Morgan said. “Ackerson’s main concern is the survival of humanity, and so he’ll do whatever it takes to make sure that mankind survives…for the good of humanity. So, he shakes things up when he comes in, he has a plan and he truly believes that this is the right way of doing things.”

“He just needs everyone to get on board,” Morgan continued. “So he’ll do whatever it takes to bring people on board, and that means manipulating them. That means butting heads with people, but it’s all about pulling people in line with his vision, and as the season goes on, the character arc gets more complex because we see more of his personal life, his private life, and we start to learn more about James Ackerson, his vulnerabilities, why he is like he is and why he does what he does. So by the time we get to the end, he has been through some experiences that make him a very different person with a very different view on the world.”

For gamer heads, fans of Halo, and those who just follow the series, whether you prefer the helmet on or off, Season 2 of Halo is currently streaming on Paramount+.