I will confess to my Geekiness....

I Love the way this is shot, simple lighting, simple angles. yet effective. This is set in the days impending the alien invasion of the human controlled plant Reach. For those uninitiated and unaware of the story behind the Halo franchise the invasion and subsequent 'glassing' of reach was the "Pearl Harbour" of the on going war with the alien forces of the Covenant. This Video is depicting what could happen to human lives were such an event to occur. For example the woman that is going 'off world' on business will be absent when the invasion occurs, thus saving her life but she risks losing her family. The horror of such a situation for a mother away from her son must be unimaginable, no human being has ever been that far away from their child when they are facing such risks. Maybe in the future they will be.

Could the Little girl carrying the red balloon be an homage to the final verse of Nena's 1983 hit song, "99 Luftballons"...

99 Jahre Krieg

Liessen keinen Platz fuer Sieger

Kriegsminister gibt es nicht mehr

Und auch keine Duesenflieger

Heute zieh ich meine Runden

Seh die Welt in Truemmern liegen

Hab' nen Luftballon gefunden

Denk' an Dich und lass' ihn fliegen

Which roughly translates as.......

99 years of war

Left no room for any victors

War Minister's are not here anymore

And there are no more jet planes

Today I make my rounds

To see the world lie in ruins

Here I have found a balloon

I Think of you and let it fly

And once more in the English version......

Ninety nine dreams I have had
In every one a red balloon
It's all over and I'm standing pretty
In this dust that was a city
If i could find a souvenir
Just to prove the world was here
And here it is a red balloon
I think of you and let it go


Now having read the lyrics look again at the red balloon, I do hope I am right about why this was put in. This symbol of the released balloon could here mean that in war there are no victors, there is no glory, only death. The loop here between the balloon the and the song and translation, the imagery of "the dust that was a city" makes me think now of the "glassed" planet reach. In the Halo franchise the term "glassed" refers to how the Covenant heat up a planet's surface to a point where the dirt, soil 
and sand all turn into glass.

I shall end my Reach based rant with two quotes from the video.





"It's better than staying here and having no future at all"






"Remember when there was a tomorrow, Remember where it all began, Remember Reach."