Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn is a five-episode web series that Microsoft used to sell a video game, and it is better than that description suggests. Released weekly on YouTube starting October 5, 2012, and wrapped by November 2, the series runs about 15 minutes per episode. It was shot in Vancouver over 25 days in May 2012 for just under US$10 million.
Trailer, via YouTube Movies.
A Cadet Named Thomas Lasky
The story is a coming-of-age tale set in the twenty-sixth century, 31 years before the events of Halo 4. Thomas Lasky, played by Thom Green, is a cadet at the Corbulo Academy, a training facility for the children of high-ranking UNSC officers. He is unsure of his future in the military. His mother is a colonel. His brother Cadmon, played by Max Carver, was an ODST. Thomas feels the pressure to follow them, but he considers diplomacy a better option than warfare.
Green played him as a “regular teenager,” unsure of his future. That is the right instinct. The series works best when it stays with the cadets and their doubts.
Circinius-IV and the Covenant Attack
Forward Unto Dawn takes place on Circinius-IV, a human colony outside the Solar System. The UNSC is training cadets for war with insurrectionists on various colony planets. Then a Covenant army attacks the academy. The Covenant are a theocratic collection of alien species, religiously offended by humanity and seeking to eradicate it. The cadets do not know that. These are some of the earliest encounters with the Covenant, and everyone except the Master Chief is unaware the aliens exist.
The attack brings confusion and panic. Lasky and his surviving squad mates are rescued by the Master Chief and must escape the planet. Daniel Cudmore plays the Master Chief, cast largely for his height and physique. He is 203 centimetres, or 6 ft 8 in. The actors playing the cadets were deliberately chosen to be “short, scrawny freshmen,” so the size contrast lands. It is a simple trick and it works.
Boot Camp, Blisters and Vomit
The cadets attended a boot camp before shooting to raise their fitness and get used to assault courses and rifle drills in their armour costumes. Cast members drove themselves to overexertion. Some vomited. They saw it as a bonding experience.
That detail explains the series better than any marketing line. The production asked teenagers to sweat in costume, and the result is a cast that looks like it has actually been shouted at.
Forward Unto Dawn has just under 500 shots with computer-generated imagery, about a quarter of what a feature film would have. Reviewers praised the visual effects anyway. The constraint is visible in the battle scenes, which stay close and dark rather than wide and grand. That is not a flaw. It is the reason the Covenant attack feels like a disaster rather than a spectacle.
The series was written by Aaron Helbing and Todd Helbing and directed by Stewart Hendler. It was produced as a marketing effort for Halo 4, intended to widen the audience of the Halo series and as a stepping stone to a potential Halo film.
- Release: Five episodes, weekly, October 5 to November 2, 2012
- Network: YouTube
- Episode length: About 15 minutes
- Budget: Just under US$10 million
- Shoot: 25 days in Vancouver, May 2012
- Setting: Circinius-IV, 2526; framed aboard the UNSC Infinity in 2557
- Computer-generated shots: Just under 500, roughly a quarter of a feature film
- Score: 7.0/10
Cast and the Master Chief Problem
Thom Green leads as Thomas Lasky. Anna Popplewell plays Chyler Silva. Darren O’Hare plays Adult Lasky, and Jen Taylor returns as Cortana. Osric Chau, Iain Belcher and Enisha Brewster play cadets Junjie Chen, Vickers and April Orenski.
The source lists both Daniel Cudmore and Alex Puccinelli as Master Chief. It does not say who voiced the character. The decision to use Alex Puccinelli instead of Steve Downes, the previous voice artist of Master Chief, was approved by Microsoft. Microsoft had final say on casting throughout. The production team cast the series, but the publisher kept a veto.
Cudmore prepared by watching the Landfall shorts by Neill Blomkamp and reading the Halo canon material. Green had to watch the previous shorts and read the “Halo encyclopedia” that 343 Industries uses to preserve continuity.
| Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn (2012) | Halo 4 (2012 game) | |
|---|---|---|
| Format | Five web episodes, later a single film | Video game |
| Release | October 5 to November 2, 2012 | 2012 |
| Setting | Circinius-IV, 2526 | 2557 |
| Lead | Cadet Thomas Lasky | Master Chief |
| Purpose | Marketing and a possible film stepping stone | The main release |
| Budget | Just under US$10 million | Not stated in source |
Awards and What Holds Up
Forward Unto Dawn received a Streamy Award. Several crew members won awards for editing, producing and filming it. It also won a Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel Award. The series was later released as a single film on DVD and Blu-ray, and it went to Netflix in 2013.
Executive producer Josh Feldman considers Lasky an important character in the Halo universe beyond Forward Unto Dawn and Halo 4. That is a producer talking about his own property, and the source does not say what came of it. It is a claim, not a result.
The cadet material is the strongest part. Lasky’s ambivalence about the military is a real conflict, and Green plays it without sulking. The boot camp training shows on screen. The Master Chief arrives late and functions as a rescue, not a character, which is faithful to the games and thin as drama.
The Covenant are never explained in the series. The source notes that their religious motivation is not made clear. That is a deliberate choice to keep the cadets’ ignorance intact, and it costs the story a villain. The aliens are a force, not an enemy.
The visual effects earned their praise. Just under 500 shots is a small number for this kind of action, and the series spends them on the right moments. The DVD and Blu-ray release and the 2013 Netflix run gave it a second life, and the awards recognition was earned by the crew rather than the premise.
What matters most here is the experiment. A publisher spent just under US$10 million on a five-part YouTube series to widen an audience and test the ground for a film. The source does not say why that film did not follow. The series did its other job on paper: it was built to make Lasky matter, and the source stops short of confirming that it did.
That is a real result, and a modest one. Forward Unto Dawn is a good piece of franchise marketing that occasionally rises above its purpose, and it never quite becomes the film it was auditioning to be.
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