Halo Producer Teases Big Changes to Cortana for Paramount+ Series
The Halo TV series is now streaming on Paramount+, bringing the epic video game series and its lore into live-action. Of course, with any adaptation of a popular property, there will be changes to the core material. In the case of Halo, there are already plenty of canon tweaks that are being done – with more big ones to come. When ComicBook.com recently spoke with 343 Industries' Halo Franchise Transmedia head Kiki Wolfkill, she teased that fans better strap in for a very different take on Cortana in the show!
Press got to see the first two episodes of the Halo TV series, and without any SPOILERS it's safe two say that by the end of Episode 2 fans will have a much clearer direction on where Master Chief's (Pablo Schreiber) story is heading, and how familiar elements of the games – SPARTANS, the Covenant, Halo and Cortana – will eventually be developed into the icons we know so well.
When it came to the early hints and foreshadows of a very different Cortana that will debut in the Halo TV series, Wolfkill was all too happy to tease fans:
"Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because not unlike the dark underpinnings of the Spartan origins, Cortana's origin has dark underpinnings to it. You get a hint of that just in terms of the technological process of creating her at the end of episode 2. Yeah. I think in the show, you do get to see Cortana and Chief meeting, and you do get a different perspective on what it means for Cortana to be created to help John and to help the Master Chief because that's her role in the games, and this is a little bit of a different perspective on that.
And the hope is that seeing the motivations behind her creation, and seeing her relationship with Halsey, and seeing her relationship with the Master Chief, I think that we'll end up in a ... well, I don't want to spoil anything, but the Chief and Cortana relationship is sacred. And there's always, always been an interesting dynamic with Halsey and Cortana and Chief. And that was something that we really enjoyed exploring more on the show."
SPOILERS FOR HALO EPISODE 1 FOLLOW!
The premiere episode of Halo dropped a big foreshadow in the form of revealing that Dr. Catherine Halsey (Natascha McElhone) is keeping an artificial android body modeled after her own within her lab. Condemnation from Admiral Margaret Parangosky (Shabana Azmi) quickly establishes that the artificial being is a project Halsey is no longer supposed to be pursuing. That scene left many fans wondering and speculating:
Will the Halo TV series make Cortana an entire physical character rather than just an A.I. interface?
In terms of keeping viewers attentive, having Master Chief interact with another person onscreen probably works much better...
Halo is now streaming exclusively on Paramount+.