HALO 3 as allegory

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity. ---- Robert A. Heinlein

This is a different kind of post for me. Usually I could give a crap about games. But I asked one of my writing students about Robert Heinlein and he hadn't a clue--and this is after he regaled me with tales of Master Chief (and how some fools didn't know that "master chief" is a US Navy enlisted rank). Well, I'm wondering why Robert A. Heinlein's widow and estate have not sued the hell out of the creator of this game. See, Robert Heinlein wrote a novel in the 1950s called Starship Troopers. Yeah, that same story that Paul Verhoeven butchered into a film with heavyweights Casper Van Dien and Charlie Sheen's crazy ass wife. Kids, the novel was nothing like the movie. And kids, this book...yeah, a book...was one of the the seminal sci fi stories of all time. You can trance plot lines, terminology and iconic phrases in everything from Star Trek to Star Wars and back again...hell, even Full Metal Jacket...back to this novel. That's not my opinion. That is fact.

Of course, we have a generation of dweebs and layabouts who do nothing but play these games and do not expand their minds on the literature and history that gave them rise. But there's something our non-reading generation's not hip to, behind the scenes. My sister's boyfriend is getting his degree in game design, and guess what? Required courses in literature, history, mythology,philosophy and religion are the order of the day. Do the techno-nerds whine when faces with this? Hell yes. Are the games better now because of this liberal artsy-fartsy focus? Hell yes.

Look, we have parents who gave their kids the day off from school to buy this damn game, and no one knows it's a rip off of Starship Troopers right down to the body armor, deployment and even the weapons (recall Heinlein wrote this in the 50s, when the weaponry of the game was even more out-there!) The game's creator reminds me of the authors of "street fiction" and rauchy stuff in African American Lit. It's all about the "me," as if they invented something fresh and enduring! Ha! ell at least HALO dude's getting paid, as if getting paid's ever an excuse for this. Look, I've even been told that books are dead...hey, HALO 3's arrival is the second coming of Christ almost. This, by the same sort of consumerist zombified crap that hypes Hannah Montana as bigger than the Beatles. No. Master Chief is the second coming of Johnny Rico. Who's that Johnny Rico? Read the damn book...