Bungie writing director Joseph Staten talks Halo film

The Halo movie may be approaching Duke Nukem Forever-like levels of vaporware status,but the people behind the film continue to push forward. TheBlomkamp-directed shorts were surprisingly solid, and it seemed asthough the right hands were behind the project. Hoping to illuminatefans on the project, Bungie writing director Joseph Staten sat down with our good friend N'Gai Croal to talk about the project.

Though he wasn't willing to talk about the problems impeding themovie's course to realization, Staten did divulge some details aboutthe way the script has been developed, and he makes the revelation thatMaster Chief serves as more of a mythic supporting character ratherthan the active character around which the plot revolves.
"In the film, the other characters begin to comment on Master Chief'sanonymity, like 'Who is he?' and 'What's his story?' He becomes areally wonderful source of mystery, a sort of anonymous problemsolver," Staten explained. "In the final version of the script, theMaster Chief was certainly absolutely critical to the film, but therewere other characters around him which carried most of it, that didmost of the emotional heavy lifting. The Master Chief was there insupport of their story."
This seems to parallel the direction taken in the "old man" Halo 3 trailers, where a retired soldier reminisced about the battle and the role the Master Chief played. Though I'm not the biggest fan of the series,I found there to be something moving about the old man waxing about hisadmired war hero, and if that's the direction that the movie is taking,then I find myself quite excited.