Halo 3 Ad Brings Battle to Reality

A model museum constructed for a Halo 3 commercial recreates the fictional universe.

Details were announced for Microsoft's latest Halo 3 promotional scheme: a real-world replication of a Halo battle. Stan Winston, the creators of the creatures for Aliens and Jurassic Park, constructed a 400 square-foot, 12 feet high diorama scene that holds character models standing 8 inches high. It took a director Rupert Sanders and his team four days to shoot the commercial that tells the tale of the human struggle against the Covenant army. Within game's campaign, the diorama is explained to have been built as a tribute to Master Chief and his heroism, and to be kept on permanent display in the Museum of Humanity.

The ad will hit television on Tuesday, September 18 during ITV1's coverage of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Champions League and will be made available on Xbox.com's Halo page on Friday, September 14 at 1 P.M. Eastern Standard Time.

Stephen McGill, Head of Gaming and Entertainment at Microsoft UK, commented, "It's amazing to see such the legendary world of Halo brought to life in such a creative way through the construction and filming of this ad. I'm sure the epic shots and dramatic scenes in the commercial will be a hit with Halo fans and newcomers to the franchise alike, giving them just a taste of what they have to look forward to when the game comes out on 25th September."

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The first commercial, including a look at the diorama, is up at Xbox.com

Direct Link to Video (Requires Windows Media Player)

I thought it was really quite cheesy. Still, it'll float somebody's boat.

I don't think that's the diorama they're talking about, Virgil. I saw the Museum trailer linked elsewhere, and then I saw this on here, and I had to wonder whether someone was getting their figures wrong. The one in the Museum piece, to the best of my spatial abilities, is not 400 sq ft, or 12 ft high, and I don't even think the character models are 8 inches high.

So, either that's not the same thing, or somebody is doing some funny math.

The video is also on Xbox Live.

Geoffrey42:
I don't think that's the diorama they're talking about, Virgil. I saw the Museum trailer linked elsewhere, and then I saw this on here, and I had to wonder whether someone was getting their figures wrong. The one in the Museum piece, to the best of my spatial abilities, is not 400 sq ft, or 12 ft high, and I don't even think the character models are 8 inches high.

I can't be sure, it's hard to get a sense of scale from the closeup shots - I can't imagine that they'd build two full dioramas though. Could just be fancy camera work, with the closeups being the real diorama, and the zoomed out shots being a mocked up sample. It appears that the second commercial has been leaked onto YouTube, which takes a closer look.

[removed the video - it's gone. I'll update the post when an official one is released :P]

I see what you're saying. I was getting my sense of scale from the glass case the guy was looking into. I guess I was mistakenly assuming that the camera was doing a closeup of the same thing the guy was looking through the glass at.

The leaked commercial certainly answers my questions about why "when Master Chief armed his grenade..." is a significant moment in Halo history.

Edit: In between the time I watched that video, wrote this post, got distracted, finished the post, and refreshed the screen, the Youtube video had been DMCAd. Amazing.

The site has been updated to include another movie that looks at the diorama closely, as well as a 'making of' video. http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/h/halo3/believe/default.htm

The page also links to a new, and apparently very large, flash site that lets you 'explore' the diorama as if it were a museum exhibit from the future, complete with info bits and the ability to download/create wallapapers from the images you see. http://halo3.com/believe

They're certainly sparing no expense

That was pretty impressive. I still don't get what the glass case in the "Museum of Humanity" is, because its obviously not the diorama. Unless, its like an overhead viewing thing that lets you see down into the diorama. Always a possibility.

Either way, I found the entire thing to be very well presented. I can't see any future war "memorial" consisting of a diorama though. Sure, museums use dioramas as exhibits, and they get really dusty, and then they get retired (or vacuumed, or magic cupboards cause them to come to life). But war memorials? Those tend to be big, and outdoors, and permanent-ish.

If you watch the "making of" video, they go into why they made the diorama. It seems really forced. "Hey, let's make a diorama, and then hand it off to the marketing department to figure out how to sell it in a commercial."

What am I most impressed by? The explosions. They've been done in such a perfect snapshot sort of way. I have to say, I am looking forward to the next video. I like this campaign.

I was really turned off by it, I'm not one to be offended, or one who cares about political correctness, so that can't be it. But it's the fact that they're trying to make more of something, that simply can't be taken like that from an emotional level. Is the Halo story compelling? In my case, god no. It's the most mundane thing ever. So when they try to appeal to my heart strings with it, it just makes me want to scream at my screen, "Oh my god! Shut the fuck up!".

Granted, I would have understood if it was a game that actually tried to establish some emotional connection, like Bioshock. But the fact that it's Halo 3... come on...

It seems to me that Halo did try to do just that. Both Halo and Halo 2 are littered with the minutae of human interaction designed to make you feel less like a lone hero and more like part of a devoted team. That effect even carried over into the Arbiter's storyline, where he held the same importance to the Covenant as the Master Chief did to Humanity.

I think one of the biggest differences between Halo and Bioshock is that they ask you to care in different ways. Bioshock is extremely light on the characterization and emotional depth, but they do manage to pull it off near the end. Your character experiences Rapture as an outsider, as a normal person fighting against insanity. Halo, on the other hand, puts you in the middle of a war, and makes you a veteran. In doing that, it's asking you to believe in the strength of normal people to do amazing things against terrible odds.

Personally, I think it does justice to the series, and also honors the whole idea of a veteran. This ad campaign is meant to honor heroes that never existed, in just the same way that the Vietnam Memorial honors those that did exist.

Nice not to OTT and gives a nod to thos who have served.