The Fall of Reach

Columbia Pictures presents…fades
Based on the novel by Eric Nylund….fades

Quick, drum/string-powered T&R Suite begins to play. Children are sitting the amphitheatre's concrete risers around Dr. Halsey.
Halsey: As per naval code 45812, you are hereby conscripted into the USCN special project, codenamed SPARTAN II. You have been called upon to serve, you will be trained, and you will become the Navy's best and brightest. You will be protectors of Earth, and all her colonies.

Cut to John, Kelly, and Sam in morning calisthenics, lying in the grass and sweating under the hot sun.

Halsey slightly tense, slightly uncertain, V.O.: Keep them busy. Keep them from thinking about what we've just done to them.

Cut to John 117 and CPO Mendez, walking down a ship's cold metal hallway.

Mendez: A leader must be ready to send his soldiers to their deaths. It is acceptable to do this when necessary, but lives must be spent, and not wasted.
John: What was our last mission, sir? Lives spent, or lives wasted?
Mendez turns away without an answer. Out the window, canisters of ashes zoom off into the stars.

Music becomes soft, but quickens and crescendos throughout Mendez's speech, as does his voice.

Cut to quick flashes of multiple scenes--John lying in a hospital room with IVs in his veins, Spartans trying on MJOLNIR armor, fighting an Elite on the Covenant ship, Keyes barking orders on the bridge in the battle for Reach & the Keyes loop.

CPO Mendez V.O.: The unidentified vessel launched an attack against our forces. Fragments of the enemy's transmissions were intercepted; we believe they call themselves the Covenant. One message, however, was loud and clear; "Your destruction is the will of the Gods, and we are their instrument!"

All music and voices stop. The screen fades to black…and then the Halo theme begins to play.

Before they were heroes…fades

Slowly zoom in from behind on Master Chief in his MJOLNIR armor, standing next to Captain Keyes on the bridge. Both with heads held high in respect, watching the fall of Harvest. The planet appears bright and fiery in front of them, plasma shooting in from Covenant ships and human vessels evacuating-but the Pillar of Autumn stands, silent and solemn and absolutely condemned, drifting through space. Cut to the Chief's face as he bows his head; the scene is reflected in his visor. Fade out.

…They were children.

Fade to black.

"Halo: The Fall of Reach"