History Film / HaloNightfall

* DebateAndSwitch: With only space for two people to survive, will Locke put his survival ahead of his morality? [[spoiler: Luckily for him and Macer, everybody else manages to get themselves killed, allowing them both to escape without sacrificing anything.]]

* DevouredByTheHorde: The cast spends most of their time on the Alpha Halo Shard being stalked by [[spoiler:swarms of feral Lekgolo worms, with most of the group getting eaten by them]]. In fact, there's only two deaths on the Alpha Shard that ''don't'' directly involve this trope.[[note]][[spoiler: Arris Le is shot by Horrigan, while Randall Aiken manually detonates a Havoc nuke to achieve the original mission objective.]] Everyone else who dies got eaten.[[/note]]

* BaldBlackLeaderGuy: Jameson Locke, commander of the ONI squad.

* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:When Locke, Macer, and Aiken pick beads to determine who will be left behind to manually detonate the bomb, Aiken says the one who draws the red bead will stay behind. All the beads were white and Aiken had Locke and Macer pick first. Never mind the moral question of letting the OldSoldier die to save the young, [[JustifiedTrope it's a good decision on purely practical terms]] because, as a SPARTAN-II, Aiken has the strength and stamina necessary to hand-carry the bomb to the detonation site.]]

** It's implied this is a straight-up WhatAnIdiot moment as Axl doesn't seem to speak English and may not even understand it.

* TheWormThatWalks: At one point, [[spoiler:the Lekgolo assume Wisner's form to lure prey (aka the squad) to them]].

* GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere: [[spoiler:The feral Lekgolo are this for the franchise as a whole, displaying behaviors and abilities that are rather different than what we've seen from Lekgolo gestalts like Hunters and Scarabs in the rest of the series. 343 later clarified that the Lekgolo are one of the rarer gestalts called "Thanolekgolo"[[note]]Whereas Hunters are "Mgalekgolo"[[/note]] and were placed on Alpha Halo by the Forerunners as a relic of one of their anti-Flood strategies that didn't go anywhere.]]

* ContinuitySnarl: One of the given reasons for going to the Alpha Shard is to find proof that "the Covenant's broken the treaty". The issue is not only that the Covenant has long been split into multiple opposing factions by this point, but that a number of these factions are openly vocal about their hostility to humanity; the entire plot of ''Spartan Assault'' was about a Covenant remnant attack on a UNSC colony that happened about two years ''before Nightfall''.

* CaliforniaDoubling:
** The scenes on Sedra were filmed in Northern Ireland. The shopping mall is the Titanic Museum.
** The scenes on the Halo Ring were filmed in Iceland.

''Halo: Nightfall'' is a five-part film set in the ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' universe. It stars Jameson Locke (Creator/MikeColter), the future co-star of ''VideoGame/Halo5Guardians''.

* AscendedExtra:
** Randall, who existed long before ''Nightfall'' was even thought of, having already been mentioned a few times in the novels as being one of the few SPARTAN-[=IIs=] who were genuinely MIA, and had a minor on-screen role in the short story "[[Literature/HaloEvolutions Pariah]]".

** Also Locke, continuity-wise. He narrates a few of the terminal cutscenes in ''VideoGame/{{Halo 2}} Anniversary Edition'', which are set earlier than the film even though they came out at the same time.

* AdaptationalPersonalityChange: The Hunter worms don't act like Hunters (millions of parasites forming into bodies covered in armor and part of the Covenant) but more like the Flood (alien gestalt creatures who are intelligent but all-consuming). This has led to theorizing the Flood was the original enemy but was changed to avoid weakening their presence.

''Halo: Nightfall'' is a five-part film set in the ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' universe. It stars Jameson Locke (Creator/MikeColter), an ONI agent who will be the co-star of ''VideoGame/Halo5Guardians''.

In the aftermath of the Human/Covenant war, with a very tentative peace between the two factions, Locke and his team track some rogue Covenant activity to the colony planet Sedra. There, a Sangheili (Elite) activates a mystery item in the middle of a populated area, unleashing a bioagent that only targets humans. In retrieving the shipping origin, Locke's team learn that the key element in the bioagent is being harvested from a fragment of the Halo ring Master Chief destroyed in ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved'', which has taken up a close orbit to a nearby red giant.

* TortureIsIneffective: In an early scene Randall Aiken [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique tries to beat information out]] of an alien prisoner who supplied a radiological weapon (something like a highly selective dirty bomb) to a Sangheili terrorist (It's worth noting Aiken's daughter was one of the victims, so he may not have been thinking too clearly here). This doesn't work, and Locke quickly gets the information they need by [[GoodCopBadCop playing the good cop to Aiken's bad cop]] and talking to the prisoner in his own language.

* DevouredByTheHorde: The cast spends most of their time on the Alpha Halo Shard being stalked by swarms of feral Lekgolo worms and most of the group is eaten by them. In fact, there's only two deaths on the Alpha Shard that ''don't'' directly involve them.[[note]][[spoiler: Arris Le is shot by Horrigan, while Randall Aiken manually detonates a Havoc nuke to achieve the original mission objective.]] Everyone else who dies got eaten.[[/note]]

* HumanoidAbomination: The Hunter worms assume the form of Wisener after they kill her. But it's not perfect, considering that [[GlamourFailure Worm-Wisener's form shifts and shimmers in an unstable manner.]]

* ItCanThink: The Worms are pretty damn smart for a feral species. Assuming Wisener's form as bait to lure the rest of the squad in for lunch isn't a common tactic at all.

* TortureIsIneffective: In an early scene Randall Aiken [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique tries to beat information out]] of an alien prisoner who supplied a radiological weapon (something like a highly selective dirty bomb) to a Sangheili terrorist. (It's worth noting Aiken's daughter was one of the victims, so he may not have been thinking too clearly here.) This doesn't work, and Locke quickly gets the information they need by [[GoodCopBadCop playing the good cop to Aiken's bad cop]] and talking to the prisoner in his own language.

* TheWormThatWalks: The Worms assume Wisener's form to lure prey (aka the squad) to them.

* ItCanThink: Despite being a colony of worms, they are ''damn smart.'' Like making a doppelgänger of Wisener to lure in potential prey.

* WhatYouAreInTheDark: It becomes increasingly clear that only two people are going to get off the ring. Locke and Randall assert "Lifeboat Rules," where until that decision has to be made the entire team works as though everyone will make it. This does not turn out well, as the backstabbing starts soon and almost everyone ''but'' Locke and Randall crack under the pressure.

* AssholeVictim[=/=]KarmicDeath: By the end of the events of the film, it is extremely hard to feel bad about [[spoiler:Horrigan]]'s death, since they've consistently been the most abrasive (and throughout the events on the Alpha Shard, selfish) character.

* DevouredByTheHorde: The cast spends most of their time on the Alpha Halo Shard being stalked by swarms of feral Lekgolo worms (the same species of [[TheWormThatWalks Worm That Walks]] which forms [[BossInMookClothing Hunters]] and [[HumongousMecha Scarabs]] in the ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' games, but gone insane from being trapped on a piece of Halo ring for several years), and most of the group is eaten by them. In fact, there's only two deaths on the Alpha Shard that ''don't'' directly involve them.[[note]][[spoiler: Arris Le is shot by Horrigan, while Randall Aiken manually detonates a Havoc nuke to achieve the original mission objective.]] Everyone else who dies got eaten.[[/note]]