Ah, the Halo movie that will never be. I remember when I heard that Peter Jackson was producing it, and big giant tears welled up in my eyes as I thought about how badass every single Covenant alien was going to look. I could practically see the green phlegm dripping from the bifurcated mandibles of the Arbiter while Keith David’s basso roar made his energy shields ripple with majestic challenge, turning to face off against John-117 as a slow-motion shot tracks slowly over battle-worn yet gleaming plates of Mjolnir Mark VI armor, adhered with hydrostatic gel right to his very . . . hang on, I need a moment.

Ahhhh.

Okay, where were we? Oh yeah. Hollywood frakked up my pr0n. The Halo movie provided the public with an example of something that they usually don’t see, but that happens all the time: a movie is supposed to get made and it doesn’t. I’m glad that the movie as proposed didn’t happen. We geeks have to deal with desecration of nerdery all the time. Hollywood moguls look at our beloved franchises and notice a cash cow, but then they use it to make a turd milkshake that alienates the fan base faster than you can say Howard the Duck. Halo deserves better, and I was glad when the project (a cinematic suppository in the making) got scrapped, because it sounded like somebody took the concept for ODST and sucked out all the cool (read: Cap, Wash, and Jayne). As if that weren’t enough, the writers had enough contempt for the fans to make the Master Chief a minor character, which would mean Cortana’s role was nonexistent. Boo. Pass.

Such is Halo’s power that, even though a movie has never been made, it can still spawn spoofs right along with longstanding blockbusters. Even though IGN’s April Fools’ joke was clever, I had a hard time laughing out loud. It made me long once more for the awesome that could have been, but also scares me, because if something like this really happened I’d probably blow my jugular vein:

The sneak peak I saw of Halo: Reach though was most definitely not an April Fools’ prank, and the sight of Spartans with GORRAM JETPACKS was enough to cheer me up from the horrors of Bollywood actors gyrating with assault rifles. It’s a long, long wait until September. I hope I can hold out until then. Sigh . . .

I’ll be in my bunk.