Deliver Hope

<youtube width="300" height="200">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKRlWLDWhGI</youtube>

Deliver Hope is a live-action trailer for Halo: Reach, part of the Remember Reach marketing campaign. It was released on August 26, 2010 and has a runtime of 1:06. The trailer takes place before the events of the actual game, during a battle on an unspecified human colony, where Noble Team destroys a CCS-class Battlecruiser using a Medium Fusion Destructive Device.

An extended cut of the trailer, which lasts for 2:31, was released on September 6, 2010 exclusively on YouTube.

Transcript

The video opens with Catherine-B320 running across a battlefield in a ruined human city, holding an MFDD while firing an M6G sidearm with her other hand. Covenant ground forces, including Sangheili Ultras and Unggoy, can be seen assaulting human troops. The view cuts to show Jorge-052, supporting regular human infantry with his heavy machine gun and faces forward where you can see Emile-A239 waving Kat through to the left. The camera briefly cuts to show a wider view of the battle, revealing a Covenant CCS-class Battlecruiser hovering above the city, while two UH-144 Falcons fly past the camera, their turrets firing at targets on the ground.

The camera then cuts to Kat's first-person view, with her arming the MFDD. A five-minute countdown appears on her Heads Up Display. She keeps running through the battlefield, and in the background, Carter-A259 can be seen assassinating an Elite. Several shots of Kat running are shown, one from first-person view of her firing her pistol (killing a Skirmisher) and another showing the reflection of the Covenant cruiser on her faceplate. A first-person view of Jun-A266 seeing in Kat under fire, then snipes an Ultra. After Kat leaps over an obstacle, a Banshee swoops overhead, and fires a plasma bolt from its Fuel Rod Cannon. The bolt impacts the ground right next to Kat, and the explosion sends her flying through the air, leaving her and the nuke lying on the ground. The nuke is shown to have two minutes left in its countdown display.

Thom-293 arrives at the spot where Kat is lying, briefly looks at her, and then picks up the nuke. Kat's eyes are shown through her cracked visor as she watches Thom activate his jetpack, take off and fly toward the Covenant cruiser, entering the ship through its gravity lift. Inside, he rushes to a ledge overlooking a hangar bay where multiple Phantoms and Banshees are docked, and countless Unggoy move on the lower floor. Thom tosses the MFDD down and starts running back the way he entered the room. As the nuke flies to the camera, its display shows 00:01 left in the countdown.

The view cuts to an overhead shot of the cruiser, its shields fluctuating uncontrollably as multiple explosions bloom across the hull. Text is shown on the screen:

REMEMBER WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

The view zooms out as the explosion engulfs the Covenant ship, to the unknown planet's orbit, where more explosions and fires are seen in different points on the surface. Text shown:

REMEMBER REACH

The view then fades to black and the Halo: Reach logo appears, along with the game's release date of 9.14.2010. The Bungie and Microsoft Game Studios logos are seen in the lower left and right-hand corners of the screen, respectively. The video ends in the Xbox 360 logo being shown on the screen.

Production notes

The live-action trailer was directed by Noam Murro and edited by Angus Wall. The trailer features an original musical score written and produced by Human, with Brian Emrich as sound designer. The entire trailer was filmed on location in Prague. For the production of Deliver Hope, Microsoft and Bungie partnered with advertisement agency Agency 215, Legacy Effects and Method Studios. Visual design assets such as the interior of the Covenant cruiser or concept art for the MFDD were provided by Bungie.

Trivia

• The fact Catherine-B320 does not have a prosthetic arm implies that the events seen in the trailer take place before the Fall of Reach. This was later confirmed by Bungie. However, the trailer is intentionally vague about the setting, which may lead casual fans to assume that it takes place on Reach.
• Early storyboards of the trailer showed Kat's arm being severed, presumably by the Fuel Rod Cannon blast that knocks her down, but the scene was deemed too violent for television and subsequently cut. Instead smoke is emitted from Kat's right shoulder, indicating a possible issue with her arm, and hinting that it needed to be amputated.
• The scene shown in the trailer is reminiscent of a part of Chapter Four in Halo: First Strike, where Red Team destroys a Covenant cruiser from the inside with a Fury Tactical Nuclear Weapon.
• Two Elite Ultras are shown to be wielding both Energy Swords and Plasma Rifles, a combination that has never been seen before.
• When Catherine drops the device, the screen shows that 63 Terajoules of energy are released upon detonation. The Atomic bomb that exploded over Hiroshima during World War II released 60 Terajoules of energy.
• Jorge-052 is seen wielding his M247H left handed, although he wields it right handedly in Halo: Reach. It is unknown whether he uses the weapon ambidextrously, or if this is merely an oversight by the trailer.
• The shielding on the CCS-class Battlecruiser appears similar to the energy shielding on the Sentinels in Halo 3, as well as that of the Bubble Shield, as all three display hexagonal shapes.
• Although the cruiser's shields are supposed to contain the blast, making it multiple times more destructive, if one looks closely near the beginning of the explosion, several small plumes, and eventually the entire explosion, travel right through it as if it were not there.
• Near the end, Thom flies up through the cruiser's gravity lift located in the middle of the belly, while several aircraft are dropped out of the hangar in the back that Thom later reaches. However, when the explosion goes off, it detonates in the "neck" of the cruiser, the opposite direction of where the hangar was located.
• The Banshee that circles around to attack Kat appears roughly 7 times in the entire film, sometimes highlighted on, other times merely appearing in the background.
• Unusually, Kat is not wearing a Jetpack, leaving it suspicious about how she intended to reach the Cruiser's gravity lift in the first place, though it's possible this was not part of her plan, lending further credence to Holland's statement that Thom's death was the result of acting impulsively.
• The Army soldiers are shown using MA5C instead of the MA37 assault rifles used in Halo: Reach. Since the battle protrayed did not take place on Reach it suggests Army units on different planets could be equiped differently.
• Curiously, Thom's jetpack allows him full flight, as opposed to the limited flight it actually allows players to use in game.