Awakening

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Awakening is a pre-rendered teaser trailer for Halo 4, developed by agencytwofifteen, produced by Digital Domain, and filmed at Anonymous Content. The music featured in the trailer was composed by Neil Davidge and Human Worldwide.

The trailer was first shown at Microsoft's E3 Media Briefing on June 6th, 2011. It depicts Cortana hastily awakening John-117 from cryo-sleep on the aft half of the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn, followed by John securing Cortana's storage chip and rushing through the wreckage to witness the ship being pulled into a mysterious object.

Transcript

Fades in to many points of reddish light, apparently stars, against a black background. In the foreground, one of these sends small curling sparks throughout columns of smoky material; the lights resolve themselves as neurons in a human body, sending slow pulses to one another.

• Cortana: (muffled) "John, wake up!"

• Cortana: (muffled) "I need you!"

The neural pulses reach the heart.

• Cortana: (muffled) "Please!"

The heart begins beating, and the neural pulses race up the spine to the brain.

• Cortana: (muffled) "Wake up, John!"

The brain awakens, and the camera rapidly zooms out to show John-117 inside of his cryo-chamber. His helmet's flashlights activate, and he slightly moves his head back and forth.

• Cortana: "Chief!"

John, now wide awake, forcibly throws open the cryotube and pushes himself to Cortana's holotank.

• Cortana: "John..."

• John-117: "I'm here."

John and Cortana turn to see the Template:UNSCship exploding and collapsing. John stows Cortana's chip in his helmet, and pushes off the holotank to speed down the hallway. Taking advantage of the microgravity, he uses a pair of thrusters on his armor to maneuver through the girders and debris in the imploding hallway. He grabs a floating pistol and blasts a piece of debris out of the way, and stops his movement by grabbing a protruding girder. His boots magnetize themselves to the ship's hull. Now standing on the edge of the Forward Unto Dawn, John reloads his pistol and stares out into space. The camera turns to show the Dawn being pulled into an enormous iris-like opening in what appears to be a Forerunner machine or spacecraft.

Cut to black. The Halo Theme plays.

HALO 4

HOLIDAY 2012

Video ends as the Xbox 360 logo is shown.

Trivia

• Frank O'Connor has confirmed that the events depicted in the trailer are "definitely not a part of the real game story" and that the trailer is intended as a teaser only.
• The Forward Unto Dawn looks noticeably different from its appearance in Halo 3, as the external bridge structure is not present and the hangar bay is less prominent. John's armor also appears to be visually revised; the helmet has an external rebreather apparatus, the chestplate has a different configuration, the shoulder pauldrons are much wider, the abdomen is armored, the groin armor is absent, and the gauntlets are smaller and are flat rather than ridged. Frank O'Connor has stated that some of the changes to John's armor are merely aesthetic, though other changes, including the lack of the codpiece, will be explained in the game's story. However, John's appearance in the trailer does not represent its appearance in the final game; the armor is currently in its fourth artistic iteration, as the art team intends to make John appear both iconic and familiar to fans.
• Cortana can be heard crying "Wake up, John!" and "I need you!" to John while the latter is still in cryo-sleep. This is a reference to the final line of Halo 3, when John tells Cortana, "Wake me. When you need me."
• There is also a "Director's Cut" version of the trailer. Differences include the music, the Chief not saying "I'm here", the sound effect of the pistol, and that the Chief throws away said pistol at the trailer's end instead of reloading it.

Gallery

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  John and Cortana aboard the Forward Unto Dawn

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  John-117 standing at the edge of the Forward Unto Dawn's wreckage

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  The Forward Unto Dawn being pulled into an opening on the mysterious object