document_title: Hill Valley (Back to the Future)

question_text: where was the clock tower in back to the future filmed

text: Hill Valley (Back to the Future)

text: Production[edit]

text: For Back to the Future, the producers considered filming the town square scenes in the real city of Petaluma, California, but soon realized it would be prohibitively expensive and impractical to alter a real place to suit the different eras.[1] Instead they filmed it on the Universal Studios backlot, where they had more control.[2] The main location, once called Mockingbird Square after the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird but now known as Courthouse Square, had been used for many films and television shows. One notable example is the very first episode of the sci-fi series The Twilight Zone, called "Where Is Everybody?" in 1959.[3] The Hill Valley courthouse can also be found in the movies Bruce Almighty, Gremlins, Bye Bye Birdie, Sneakers, The Offspring's music video "Why Don't You Get a Job?", an episode of Major Dad entitled "Who's That Blonde" and even in an episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. The clock tower itself was a removable addition, one of many ways in which the Courthouse building has been redressed over the years to suit the needs of a production.

text: Many of the cars that appear in the 2015 scenes are either modified for the film or concept cars. Examples include Ford Probe, Saab EV-1, Citroën DS 21, Pontiac Banshee Concept, Pontiac Fiero and Volkswagen Beetle. Cars reused from other science fiction films include the "Star Car" from The Last Starfighter (1984) and a "Spinner" from Blade Runner (1982). Griff's car is a modified BMW convertible.[4]

text: For Back to the Future Part III, Hill Valley 1885 was filmed in Sonora, California. The producers were able to use the land rent-free as long as they left the buildings there. They agreed to leave everything except the Clock Tower. Interestingly, on August 10, 1996, a lightning bolt struck the town and it burned down[citation needed]. An arson fire on the Universal Studios Hollywood backlot on November 6, 1990, had previously destroyed much of Courthouse Square, the setting in which all the other time periods were filmed. However, the Courthouse itself survived the devastation.[5] Another backlot fire on September 6, 1997. again damaged Courthouse Square. In both cases, the backlot facades were then rebuilt. The Sonora location was not rebuilt. In addition, a February 14, 1999 fire at Whittier High School, California, where some (mostly exterior) scenes were filmed,[6] destroyed the men's gym there. On June 1, 2008, yet another fire destroyed part of the rebuilt Courthouse Square backlot and damaged the clock tower.[7][8]

text: Real-life locations[edit]

text: Other real-life shooting locations of Hill Valley landmarks include:[6]

text:
Doc's house in 1955 is the Gamble House in Pasadena, California. Doc's garage in 1985 was a façade set up next to a Burger King on North Victory Boulevard in Burbank, California.[9]
Twin Pines/Lone Pine Mall is actually the Puente Hills Mall in Industry, California.
Marty's Lyon Estates house in 1985 is actually on Roslyndale Avenue in Arleta, California.
Peabody's Twin Pines Ranch is really at Golden Oak Ranch, which is owned by The Walt Disney Company and used in many Disney productions.
The houses of George McFly, Lorraine Baines, and Biff Tannen in 1955 are all in South Pasadena, California.
The train that hit the De Lorean and the Futuristic Train was parked in Port Hueneme, California.
John F. Kennedy Drive is actually Victory Boulevard in Burbank, California.
The River Road Tunnel is actually Observatory Tunnel at Griffith Park in Los Angeles. The actual tunnel is only a fraction of the length of the one depicted in Part II.
The Pohatchee Drive-In Theater where Marty initially travels from 1955 back to 1885 was not a real theater. It was constructed full-scale for the third film in Monument Valley, Utah (near the Arizona/Utah border) and was torn down after that portion of filming was completed.

text: Location[edit]

text: According to an 1885 railroad map in Back to the Future Part III, Hill Valley is located in Northern California in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

text: Fictional history[edit]

text: The following information is taken directly from places and events shown or mentioned in the three films:

text: Early settlement[edit]

text: The town of Hill Valley is depicted as having been first settled in 1850 and incorporated in 1865. By the 1880s, it was connected by railroad to San Francisco. Construction of a new county courthouse was well underway in 1885, the setting of Back to the Future Part III, in which a new clock was dedicated for the building. The Shonash Ravine Bridge was completed in the summer of 1886, around the same time the ravine was renamed Clayton Ravine in memory of Clara Clayton, a school teacher who died from falling into the chasm. However, in a revised timeline where Doc Brown saved Clara's life, the town renamed it Eastwood Ravine after Marty McFly's persona.

text: Town square[edit]

text: By 1955, as seen in the first two Back to the Future films, the area around the courthouse has developed into the downtown of Hill Valley. In front of the courthouse is a grass-covered town square, with stores, two movie theaters (Essex and Town), and cafés on the surrounding streets. A key moment in the town's fictional history takes place on Saturday, November 12, 1955, at 10:04 p.m. PST, when lightning strikes the courthouse's clock tower, freezing the clock at 10:04. The clock is never repaired and becomes a local landmark, left in its non-functional state at the behest of the Hill Valley Preservation Society. The broken piece of ledge from Doc Brown's successful attempt to channel lightning from the clock tower is likewise never repaired, as can be seen when Marty returns to 1985 and in 2015, but not in the Alternate 1985.

text: In Marty's original timeline, many of the town square businesses have moved or closed down by 1985. The new businesses which replaced them include a second-hand shop, a yoga studio, and an adult book store. The Essex movie theater now shows porno movies while the Town Theater is used for church services, and the courthouse is in a state of disrepair, and at night at least one homeless person (called "Red" by Marty) sleeps on the town square park benches. The grassy park outside of the courthouse has been converted into a parking lot. "That was always one of the major elements of the story even in its earliest incarnation," screenwriter Bob Gale says in The Making of Back to the Future, "was to take a place and show what happens to it over a period of thirty years. What happened to everybody's home town is obviously the same thing. They built the mall out in the boonies, and killed all the business downtown, and everything changed."[10]

text: By the 21st century, the downtown area has experienced a revival as the courthouse has been converted into the Courthouse Mall. Businesses have begun to move back into and around the town square and the parking lot has been replaced by a pond. The clock on top of the courthouse is still preserved at 10:04, and the mall's logo is an illustration of a lightning bolt striking the clock tower. The Town Theater/Assembly of Christ building has been converted to an art museum with a mural painted on the front side of the building above the marquee.

text: Signs that say "Welcome to Hill Valley" are seen in 1955, 1985 and 2015. Both 1955 and 2015 signs have symbols representing the Rotary, Kiwanis and Lions clubs. In addition, the 1955 sign has the logos of the YMCA, Jaycees, and Future Farmers of America while the 2015 sign has those of the Neighborhood Crime Watch eye logo and the 4-H Club clover logo. The "Welcome to Hill Valley" sign in 1985 does not contain any signage representing any clubs and mentions the name of the Mayor, Goldie Wilson. In the alternate 1985 Marty is seen walking over the sign, which has been knocked down and an 'E' has been spray painted over the 'I' in HILL VALLEY making the name HELL VALLEY. This sign does not display the name of the mayor but instead the words "A Nice Place to Live" as also seen in 1955.

text: Alternate history[edit]

text: In Back to the Future Part II, a nightmarish alternate version of Hill Valley is depicted complete with a partial history. Due to the influence of the powerful and corrupt Biff Tannen, gambling was legalized in 1979. Tannen's toxic waste reclamation plants were built downtown, polluting the air and leading to pollution alerts to be issued. All of the local businesses in the downtown area closed or relocated and were replaced with strip clubs, porn theaters, and brothels. Tannen also bought off the police. Consequently, crime increased and biker gangs settled in the city. Hill Valley's public schools burned down and the courthouse was converted into Biff Tannen's Pleasure Paradise Casino and Hotel. The clock on the courthouse still remains at 10:04 although despite the damage the Doc did to the tower's platform in 1955, for whatever reason, it now seems to have disappeared. Biff also murdered George McFly (Marty's dad) in 1973 so that he could marry George's wife Lorraine (Marty's mom) therefore making him a corrupt family man as well as town ruler.

text: According to the original script for Back to the Future Part II a partial view of the alternate 2015 was also to be depicted. By this time Biff now owns half the state of California with his influence having gained his son, Biff Jr., the seat of governor and they uphold their power and corruption with an army of large, powerful cyborg police officers.

text: Back to the Future: The Game alternate history[edit]

text: Another timeline, branching off the events of Back to the Future: The Game, sees Irving Kid Tannen, the father of Biff Tannen and a prohibitionism era mafioso, avoid his lengthy arrest for illegal consumption and sale of alcohol. As such, in the alternate 1986 Biff Tannen has two brothers, and the Tannen family is a recognized crime family, ruling over Hill Valley with an iron grip.[11]

text: In yet another alternate history, still branching off the events of Back to the Future: The Game, a teen Emmett Brown, in 1931, fell in love with the young journalist Edna Strickland: as a result she married Emmett, convincing him to pursue sociological and political goals. She managed to win him over by keeping him interested in science, but in a manner that his scientific skills could be used to control people instead of using science to understand mysteries and for the betterment of humanity. As such, under "Citizen Brown"'s influence by 1985 Hill Valley is a technological dystopia, where Emmett Brown oversees a fascist regime, controlling every single activity of his citizens, routinely brainwashed and spied over. In this new Hill Valley, in a reversal of their usual roles, Marty McFly is a square, serious and devoted to Emmett Brown to a fault (as the "original" McFly is dismayed to discover) and Jennifer is a rebellious rocker, a wild child with an unpredictable streak. Also Lorraine is again a mildly obese, inebriated sad woman, George has reverted to be the loser he is in the first, original timeline (although his oppressor is big government instead of Biff). Biff Tannen is now one part of the Citizen Plus program, brainwashed into obedience. Hill Valley now looks as a technological advanced marvel, owned by a now rich and powerful Emmett Brown, with even the iconic Town Hall replaced by a huge pane with the E. Brown Industries symbol. As a side note, since in this timeline Emmett Brown never developed time-travel technology, thus the events of the original series never took place, the Eastwood Ravine is still known as the Clayton Ravine, as no one saved Clara from her death.[12]

text: The last attempt to fix the damages involved with the events of Back to the Future: The Game ends with even a more radical change, with Edna Strickland traveling under an assumed name to 1876 to act as a moral guide of the newly founded Hill Valley: however, after a failed confrontation with Beauregard Tannen, a Confederate soldier who built and founded the Palace Saloon, she accidentally causes a conflagration that consumes Hill Valley, turning it into a ghost town with herself as the only resident. Again, Marty and Doc manage to restore the continuity, that now however sports minor alterations (Arthur and Silvia, Marty's grandparents, prepone their marriage to 1931 (it was 1936 in the original timeline), Doc Brown spends more time in 1986 and less traveling through time, Kid Tannen is now reformed, married to Edna Strickland and having a better influence over Biff).[13]

text: Places[edit]

text: Many family businesses are passed down from generation to generation in Hill Valley. As a result, the city changes but remains similar from one generation to the next, as businesses are updated but rarely change. These recurring elements were a deliberate choice on the part of the filmmakers. The production designer of Back to the Future Part II, Rick Carter, is quoted in a DVD extra as saying, "The future is built on the present." Director Robert Zemeckis adds that the continuity between the different eras in Hill Valley's history is an example of the adage, "the more things change, the more they stay the same".[14]

text: The following is a list of such places. When a place is not seen or mentioned in a movie, it is marked unknown. Some buildings shown in 1885 scenes are actually located further down the street in an area not shown in the first two movies.

text:
place №
1885
1955
1985
Alternate 1985
2015

1
Hill Valley Courthouse and Clock Tower (under construction)
Hill Valley Courthouse
Department of Social Services
Biff Tannen's Pleasure Paradise Casino & Hotel
The Biff Tannen Museum
Hill Valley Courthouse Mall

2
Nothing
Town Theater
Town Theater (as a church)
Biffco Toxic Waste Reclamation Plant
Hill Valley Museum of Art
A Bellman Retrospective

3
Nothing
Holt's Diner
Elmo's Rib Cafe
Unknown
(part of the Hill Valley Museum)

4
Honest Joe Statler's Fine Horses (in different location — this spot actually empty)
Statler Studebaker
Statler Toyota
PIG Mart
Pontiac Sales and Hover Conversions

5
Nothing
Ruth's Frock Shop
Goodwill Industries
Tanya Exotic Sex Goddess
Hyatas All Natural Earth-Grown Fruits

6
Nothing
Jacobson & Field Attorneys at Law
Loans
Bad Rap Bail Bonds
Simulex

7
Building under construction
Western Auto Stores
Empty Store (displaying Re-Elect Mayor Goldie Wilson signage)
Bondage
Hill Valley Gifts / The Hydroponic Gardner

8
Wells Fargo & Co
Bluebird Motel
Al's Tattoo Art
(out of business, for sale)
Video Nude Hardcore Movies
Pawn Shop
Sight Sound and Mind

9
Nothing
Elite Barber Shop
Empty Store (Sign on window saying "We Moved to Twin Pines Mall")
Bangkok Sauna & Asian Massage
Mr. Perfect All-Natural Steroids

10
Nothing
Hill Valley Stationers
Cupid's Adult Book Store
Hell Hole XXX
Eclipse — Contemporary & Traditional Lighting Store

11
Nothing
Zale's Jewelers
Abrams Brokerage Corporation
Hardcore X
Pizza Hut

12
Unknown
J.D. Armstrong Realty
Loans
Peeparama
True Blues

13
Unknown
Ask Mr. Foster Travel Service
Ask Mr. Foster Travel Service
Naughty and Naked
Uniglobe Travel

14
Marshal's Office
Bank of America
Bank of America
Naughty XXX
Hill Valley Transit bus stop (Second floor advertising Goldie Wilson Hover Conversions)

15
Palace Saloon (setting before Lou's Cafe)
Lou's Cafe
Lou's Fitness Aerobics Center (originally Lou's Cafe in 1955)
War Zone Bar
Cafe 80's (originally Lou's Cafe in 1955 and Lou's Fitness Center in 1985)

16
Barber shop
Roy's Record Store
The Third Eye
Time to Shoot Photo Store
Blast From The Past Antique Store

17
Docs Blacksmith shop (different building)
Texaco full-service station
Texaco gas station/food mart
(area cluttered with piles of junk furniture and other garbage)
7-Eleven (first floor) and Texaco automated Havoline station (second floor)

18
Unknown
Hal's Bike Shop
Hog Heaven
French fantasies
The Bot Shoppe

19
Livery and Feed Stable
Lawrence Building
Broadway Florist
French fantasies
Hill Valley Surrogate Parenting Center

20
Building under construction
Essex Theater (as a mainstream movie house)
Essex Theater (as an adult movie house showing Orgy, American Style XXX)
Hill Valley Theater of Live Sex Acts
Holomax Theater (Now showing) Jaws 19 "this time its really really personal"

21
Hill Valley Telegraph
Building with Sherwin-Williams Paint billboard sign
Building with Sherwin-Williams Paint billboard sign
Toxic Waste Reclamation Plant
Unknown (office building displaying Skyway Information)

22
Nothing
Lyon Estates (under development)
Lyon Estates (middle-class neighborhood)
Lyon Estates (rough neighborhood)
Lyon Estates Parkland

23
(empty land near ravine)
(farmland near Clayton Ravine)
Hilldale (new housing development with 1980s-style homes and described as being a rather affluent part of Hill Valley.)
Unknown
Hilldale (now a rough neighborhood)

24
Hill Valley School (in different building than later schools)
Hill Valley High School
Hill Valley High School
Remains of Hill Valley High School (burned down six years earlier)
Hill Valley High School

25
Unknown
Gaynor's Hideaway Bar
Gaynor's Hideaway Bar
Dee Dee's Delight Bar
Fusion Bar

26
McFly Farm
Twin Pines Ranch
Twin Pines Mall
(Lone Pine Mall upon return from the timeline of events Marty McFly created in 1955)
Lone Pine Mall
Unknown

27
Nothing
Brown Mansion
Doc Brown's garage/Burger King
Doc Brown's garage
Unknown

text: Unique places[edit]

text: Despite Hill Valley's notable consistency, many businesses do appear and disappear over the years, as their services begin being needed or become obsolete. The following is a list of businesses that have no known equivalent in other time periods.

text:
Wells Fargo & Co.
Marshal's office
General Mercantile
Gunsmith
Bath House
Cabinet Maker
Meat Market
Blacksmith

text:
Hill Valley Stationers
Armstrong Realty
Louis Watch Maker
Gaynor's Hideaway
Roy's Records
Elite Barber
Blue Bird Motel
Western Auto
Hal's Bike Shop
Pohatchee Drive-In Theater (outside of town)

text:
Dept. of Social Services
Cupid's Adult Book Store
The Third Eye
Hog Heaven
Broadway Florist
Robinson's (in the mall)
Fox Photo (mall parking lot)

text: Alternate 1985[edit]

text:
Biffco Realty
Biff Tannen's Pleasure Paradise Casino & Hotel
The Biff Tannen Museum

text:
Blast From the Past
Simulex
True Blues
Eclipse — Contemporary & Traditional Lighting Store
Flying High — A Kite Store
Hill Valley Surrogate Parenting Center
Bottoms Up: A Plastic Surgery Franchise
The Bot Shoppe
Mr. Perfect All Natural Steroids
Luxor Taxi Cab Co.
Hill Valley Transit
Hill Valley Gifts
Hyatas All-Natural Fruits
USA Today Hill Valley Edition
Wilson Hover Conversions
Domino's Hardware
Fusion Bar
Ice Cream Clone

text: Twin Pines Mall (Lone Pine Mall)[edit]

text: Twin Pines Mall is the name of the shopping center located outside Hill Valley, where Doctor Emmett Brown first tests his time machine, making his dog Einstein the first time traveler in the world. (The site where the mall was filmed for the movie is actually Puente Hills Mall, located in City of Industry, California. The J.C. Penney location seen in the movie has been shut down, and is now occupied by a 24 Hour Fitness center.)

text: When Marty McFly returns from 1955 to 1985, the mall can be seen to have changed its name to Lone Pine Mall, as upon arriving in 1955 and crashing into Old Man Peabody's barn at Twin Pines Ranch, named for Peabody's two prized baby pine trees. Marty was shot at by Peabody, forcing Marty to flee in the DeLorean, and accidentally run over and destroy one of the twin pines.


document_title: Halo 5: Guardians

question_text: who do you play as in halo 5

question_tokens: who do you play as in halo 5

root

text: Halo 5: Guardians

text: Gameplay[edit]

text: Halo 5: Guardians is a first-person shooter, with players experiencing most gameplay through the eyes of a playable character. The camera switches to a third-person view for some cinematics and gameplay sequences.

tag: p

text: The game preserves many of the core features of the Halo franchise's gameplay experience. Players step into the MJOLNIR powered armor of a Spartan and control that character's actions. MJOLNIR armor provides deflector shields, which diminish whilst protecting the wearer from weapons fire but recharge after a short recovery. Spartans may only carry two personal weapons at a time, but may swap them out at any time for any other weapon (including those dropped by slain enemies) and may also carry and fire a crew-served weapon (discarded when the player switches back to a personal weapon). Spartans may also throw grenades and use their weapons for pistol-whipping. Finally, some of the vehicles and their mounted weapons are available for use.

text: New to the series are "Spartan Abilities", replacing the Armor Abilities of previous games. In-universe, the characters' MJOLNIR armor has been upgraded with various thrusters that allow them increased mobility options in all three axes of movement. They are context-dependent and can be used for attack, defense and evasion. Additionally, all Halo 5 firearms can be aimed by looking down their iron sights, a capability restricted to specific weapons in previous games.[3]

text: Previous games in the franchise have featured brief gameplay segments where the player character is accompanied by non-player character (NPC) companions in the form of United Nations Space Command (UNSC) Marines, non-human allies like the Arbiter, and other Spartans. Halo 5 also equips the player with a persistent fireteam of NPC Spartans, who are present at all times and can receive limited orders using the Xbox controller.[4] During cooperative play, other players assume control of these Spartans; each Spartan has different gameplay attributes. If any Spartan, player-controlled or not, takes too much damage, they enter an incapacitated state, and a teammate must rush over and revive them before they die.

text: Unlike previous first-person shooters in the Halo franchise, Halo 5: Guardians does not feature any offline capabilities, including split-screen cooperative campaign and multiplayer modes;[5] it also does not have any local networking options.[6] Microsoft Studios corporate vice president Phil Spencer commented on the lack of split-screen, stating "We see the robustness of what Xbox Live is today and where people are playing across Xbox Live—you at your house, me at our house. We know that's the vast majority of the co-op play. With Halo 5, the team really wanted to focus on making that experience great, both visually on the screen that you're looking at, and all the systems in place."[7]

text: Synopsis[edit]

text: Setting and characters[edit]

text: Halo 5: Guardians takes place in the year 2558, and is set eight months after the events of Halo 4. The game follows the human fireteams Blue Team and Fireteam Osiris.[8] Blue Team is led by Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 (Steve Downes) and is composed of the Spartan-II teammates he fought alongside in the timeframe before Halo: Combat Evolved:[9] Linda-058 (Brittany Uomoleale), an elite sniper; Kelly-087 (Michelle Lukes), a scout known for her incredible speed and John's closest friend; and Frederic-104 (Travis Willingham), who is Blue Team's highest-ranking officer, but defers to Master Chief.[10] The members of Blue Team are all Spartan-IIs, augmented super soldiers whom were abducted and trained as children; they are among the last Spartan-IIs left alive.[10] Fireteam Osiris comprises Spartan-IVs, a newer generation of Spartans who joined the program as adult members of the military. Fireteam Osiris is led by Jameson Locke (Ike Amadi), a former agent of the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and skilled tracker. The other members of Fireteam Osiris are: Holly Tanaka (Cynthia McWilliams), a survivor of a Covenant attack on her world; Olympia Vale (Laura Bailey), who can speak many of the Covenant's dialects; and Edward Buck (Nathan Fillion), a veteran former Orbital Drop Shock Trooper, who was a main character in Halo 3: ODST.[11]

text: Supporting characters include Infinity's commanding officer, Captain Thomas Lasky (Darren O'Hare); Commander Sarah Palmer (Jennifer Hale), head of operations for all Spartan IV teams on board Infinity; Roland, Infinity's shipboard AI, and Dr. Catherine Halsey (Jen Taylor), a scientist who created the SPARTAN-II program. Other returning characters include the Arbiter Thel 'Vadam (Keith David),[12] now leading the Sangheili species against the Covenant remnants, led by Jul 'Mdama (Travis Willingham). Cortana (Jen Taylor), John's former AI companion who was presumed dead after the events of Halo 4, also returns.[13]

text: Plot[edit]

text: Fireteam Osiris is deployed to the Jul 'Mdama's splinter Covenant faction-controlled planet of Kamchatka to retrieve the rogue Dr. Halsey, who claims to have information on a series of devastating attacks on several human worlds, during a battle between Covenant forces and the Prometheans. While the team is successful in retrieving Halsey and eliminating the Covenant leader Jul 'Mdama, Halsey informs them that a new threat is about to emerge.

text: Elsewhere, the Master Chief leads Blue Team on a mission to secure a derelict ONI research station known as Argent Moon. The arrival of a Covenant fleet forces Blue Team to scuttle the station instead. During the sabotage, the Chief receives a cryptic message from Cortana, directing him to the planet Meridian. John is ordered to return to Infinity upon destroying Argent Moon, but he and Blue Team disobey orders and set out after Cortana, forcing Captain Lasky to list the rogue Spartans as AWOL. This causes consternation aboard Infinity, as Halsey believes that Cortana's survival through the use of Forerunner technology makes her unpredictable and untrustworthy.

text: Lasky gives Fireteam Osiris the aim of finding and capturing Blue Team. Osiris is deployed to Meridian to pursue Blue Team, where they find a human colony under attack by Promethean forces. During their pursuit, they encounter the Warden Eternal, a Promethean serving as Cortana's enforcer. After temporarily defeating the Warden, Osiris catches up to Blue Team, ordering them to stand down and return to Infinity. Chief bests Locke in hand-to-hand combat and flees with the rest of Blue Team as they board a Guardian, a kind of large Forerunner constructs built as enforcers of entire worlds. Osiris barely escape the colony's collapse as the Guardian activates and disappears. The Guardian emerges on the Forerunner planet Genesis, where John and Cortana reunite. Cortana says her terminal rampancy was cured by the same Forerunner technology that saved her.

text: Osiris is deployed to the Sangheili homeworld of Sanghelios, where they plan to use a dormant Guardian that resides there to travel to Blue Team's location. However, the planet is engulfed in civil war; the remaining forces of the Covenant have chosen to make their last stand there. To hurry their mission, Osiris joins forces with the Arbiter and help him strike a crucial blow at the Covenant remnant. Osiris boards a Guardian with the help of Commander Palmer while the Arbiter finishes off the last Covenant troops.

text: On Genesis, Osiris encounters the planet's caretaker, the artificial intelligence 031 Exuberant Witness, who allies with them to stop Cortana. Osiris catches up to Blue Team, who reveal Cortana is planning on using the Guardians to achieve galactic peace through forcible disarmament. Master Chief, aware of the massive devastation Cortana's plan will cause, attempts to convince Cortana to stand down. She refuses and confines Blue Team in a Forerunner prison, to prevent them from interfering with her plan. Osiris manages to transfer control of Genesis back to Exuberant, who wrests the prison from Cortana as she leaves the planet via a Guardian.

text: Artificial intelligences across the galaxy begin swearing allegiance to Cortana and her plans. Cortana locates Infinity and prepares to disable it, but Lasky has the ship's AI Roland, who is still loyal to Infinity, engage slipspace away from Earth and commit to random jumps until they can develop a way to combat Cortana. With Blue Team recovered, Osiris returns to Sanghelios to reunite the SPARTAN-IIs with an injured Commander Palmer, Thel'Vadam, and Halsey. If the player completes the game on Legendary, an extra cutscene shows an unknown Halo installation powering up while Cortana hums, before cutting to black.

text: Development[edit]

text: 343 Industries general manager Bonnie Ross recalled that after Halo 4, the team spent a lot of time discussing where they wanted to take the Halo series, reflecting on feedback from fans about what they did and did not like. In late 2012, game leads Tim Longo, David Berger, and Chris Lee laid out the studio's vision for the next game from a creative and technical standpoint, setting key goals to focus on: utilizing the Xbox One's hardware and Microsoft's cloud infrastructure for larger campaign and multiplayer spaces, deeper player investment systems, and a frame rate of 60 frames per second (FPS).[14]

text: At Electronic Entertainment Expo 2013 (E3), Microsoft announced a new, then-untitled addition to the Halo series, along with a trailer appearing to depict a post-Halo 4 Master Chief.[15] After E3, Phil Spencer said the previously-announced "Reclaimer Trilogy" had been expanded into a longer series of games, explaining that the developers "[didn't] want to limit the Reclaimer story within a trilogy".[16] Ross confirmed the game's title and 2015 release date in a May 2014 blog post.[17] The game is exclusive to the Xbox One.[18]

text: Halo: The Master Chief Collection gave players exclusive access to the Halo 5: Guardians multiplayer beta,[19] which began December 29, 2014, and ran through January 18, 2015.[20] In response to the negative coverage of The Master Chief Collection's broken launch, O'Connor announced that Guardians would not be broken at launch.[21]

text: The game uses motion capture to animate characters, following its use in Halo 4. To record the performances, it used a 5,000-square-foot stage and fifty cameras, along with a 3D tracking system called OptiTrack.[22][23]

text: Technology[edit]

text: On the departure from the Xbox 360 hardware, Ross noted that the Xbox One allows 343 Industries to broaden the game's scope, as its matchmaking and four-player online campaign co-op modes utilize the console's dedicated server support.[24] Franchise development director Frank O'Connor explained that Halo 4 pushed its game engine to the limit, such that moving on to the Xbox One called for the development of a new engine.[25]

text: To maintain a frame rate of 60 FPS, Halo 5's engine uses a "progressive resolution system", which automatically lowers the resolution at which the game is rendered during graphically-intensive scenes, which are then upscaled back to the game's native resolution of 1080p. Art lead Justin Dinges explained that "some sections of a mission might be relatively quiet and achieving 60fps is straightforward, but there are many situations where we dial the intensity up to 11. At those times, we need to maintain 60fps and give players the total experience from both a design and artistic perspective".[26] To achieve this, 343 Industries made extensive use of Havok.[27][28]

text: Eager to take advantage of the hardware, the art team built fully animated cacti that responded to gunfire, blanketing the campaign maps with the succulents. Ultimately, they proved to be the largest single technical problem in the game and had to be removed.[29]

text: To support the drop-in/drop-out co-op, 343 Industries built a dynamic AI system for the fireteam companions to assist the player when a session is played alone.[30]

text: Story[edit]

text: Narrative designer Morgan Lockhart described the co-op nature of the campaign as the most difficult element of the game.[31] Speaking about Cortana's fate in Halo 4, O'Connor stated that Halo 4's story was focused on the effect that Cortana's sacrifice and loss would have on the Master Chief.[32] He also noted that this effect would be reflected in Halo 5: Guardians, with a story that explores how the Master Chief copes with loss and past memories.[32]

text: Creative director Tim Longo explained that one of the main goals for Halo 5: Guardians was to expand the universe.[30] To achieve this the studio created new main characters for Fireteam Osiris and introduced characters from the expanded fiction with Blue Team.[30] Early in development, the team decided that Spartan Locke would be used to present the player with a different perspective on the Master Chief.[30] The aim was to create a deliberate contrast between the two main characters.[30] In developing the characters of Fireteam Osiris, 343 Industries initially considered making the team Fireteam Majestic, using the same characters from the Halo 4 episodic series Spartan Ops. When Longo joined as creative director and the rest of the story developed, the developers decided that Majestic was the wrong team to use and set out to create a new fireteam with different characters.[33]

text: The unnamed fireteam comprised three Spartans: "Smith", "Jones", and "Brown". Initially, none of these characters' traits—not even their genders—were determined. The narrative team decided Smith (later Locke) would be a former ONI agent, a cross of James Bond and Lara Croft. Brian Reed recalled that at one point they had added Fireteam Majestic member Thorne, as well as Spartan leader Palmer, and a still-unnamed Jones, who would be an expert in alien languages. Spartan Jones turned into Spartan Vesper, and her character matured from a child prodigy to someone more serious, if innocent.[33]

text: Once part of the story became set on the planet Meridian, the narrative team decided that one of the Spartans should have grown up outside the UNSC and survived the destruction of her home planet to act as a conduit for understanding Meridian; this character, now known as Spartan Song, replaced Palmer. When Thorne's actor, Ethan Peck, was unavailable due to scheduling conflicts, 343 Industries decided to replace his character on the team roster rather than recast the role. Other suggestions included an entirely new Spartan or a member of Blue Team, but the developers decided on fan favorite Buck after Nathan Fillion became available. Spartan Smith became Spartan Locke, Vesper and Song became Vale and Tanaka, and Fireteam Osiris took shape after more than two years of changes.[33]

text: Art[edit]

text: Halo 4's art director, Kenneth Scott, stepped down from his role in January 2014. He was succeeded by Nicolas "Sparth" Bouvier,[34] a concept artist who joined Microsoft in 2009. Bouvier described the early stages of developing artistic concepts as akin to sculpting from marble: "[we] start with a very loose idea that has trickled down from the writers or studio creative director and begin chipping away at the problem."[35] Concept artist Kory Lynn Hubbell recalled that the game's art had to be justified. "If there's no plausible story behind something, it shouldn't be there," he said, recalling that an original plan for a fountain on the mining world of Meridian was changed to a holographic tree, to reflect the desire to simulate nature in the barren landscape.[35]

text: 343's artist and designers focused on differentiating the members of each Spartan fireteam through their design. As Locke's mission is to find Master Chief, Bouvier recalled "he reflects that visually. The design of his armor is very nonintrusive. He doesn't have any bright tones. He's gray and dark to amplify the very nondisruptive nature of his armor." In comparison, Vale's armor was sleeker to reflect her agility, and painted magenta to imply nervousness and aggression.[35]

text: Audio[edit]

text: Sataro Tojima was the audio director for Halo 5: Guardians,[36] with Japanese composer Kazuma Jinnouchi composing the original score.[36] The music was recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London and the choir was recorded at the Rudolfinum in Prague.[36][37] Jinnouchi wanted to reintroduce the original Halo theme in Halo 5: Guardians, so he composed his own interpretation of the piece.[36] A larger emphasis has been placed on the use of a choir in Halo 5: Guardians' music than Halo 4's.[36]

text: For the first time in Halo's multiplayer, teammates will make voiced callouts.[37] Jul's Covenant faction have conversations.[37] The audio team worked closely with the AI and narrative departments when developing the Blue Team and Team Osiris in the campaign.[37]

text:
[show]Halo 5: Guardians Original Soundtrack, CD 1[38]

No.
Title
Length

1.
"Halo Canticles"
4:13

2.
"Light Is Green"
3:28

3.
"Kamchatka"
3:59

4.
"Return to the Fold"
2:03

5.
"Rock and Ice"
1:28

6.
"Argent Moon"
2:24

7.
"Scavengers"
3:34

8.
"In Absentia"
1:33

9.
"Meridean Crossing"
4:08

10.
"Unearthed"
3:54

11.
"Unconfirmed Reports"
2:09

12.
"Keeper Of Secrets"
1:15

13.
"Cavalier"
2:56

14.
"Crossed Paths"
2:22

15.
"Untethered"
3:46

16.
"Skeleton Crew"
1:02

17.
"Siren Song"
1:20

18.
"Enemy of my Enemy"
1:41

19.
"Honor's Song"
2:10

20.
"Warrior World"
4:44

21.
"Covenant Prayers"
3:43

22.
"Cloud Chariot"
2:32

23.
"Sentry Battle"
4:26

24.
"Worldquake"
2:50

tag: table

text:
[show]Halo 5: Guardians Original Soundtrack, CD 2[38]

No.
Title
Length

1.
"Advent"
3:10

2.
"Walk Softly"
3:38

3.
"Genesis"
4:12

4.
"Dominion"
3:58

5.
"The Trials"
4:13

6.
"Sentinel Song"
1:54

7.
"Crypt"
4:40

8.
"End Game"
2:08

9.
"Reunion"
0:39

10.
"Blue Team"
4:37

11.
"Jameson Locke"
4:26

12.
"Osiris Suite, Act 1"
6:40

13.
"Osiris Suite, Act 2"
5:58

14.
"Osiris Suite, Act 3"
6:21

15.
"Osiris Suite, Act 4"
8:34

text: Multiplayer[edit]

text: Executive producer, Josh Holmes stated that the development team wanted to provide lots of gameplay variety and support different play styles in multiplayer.[39] On launch, the game will include over twenty multiplayer maps, and the team plans to provide an additional fifteen maps as free downloadable content by June 2016.[39] 343 Industries chose to make additional maps freely available as they did not want to divide the player base.[39]

text: In Halo 5: Guardians' Arena mode, 343 Industries decided to exclude a loadout system so they could encourage the concept of a level playing field that was present in earlier Halo games.[30][39] The mode was inspired by older multiplayer shooters such as Quake.[40]

text: Warzone, one of the new multiplayer modes, was originally conceived in 2012 with a small demo set up as a four-versus-four player match with AI controlled enemies defending an objective.[41] Initially, the studio wanted to implement such a mode with Halo 4 on the Xbox 360 but they were unable to achieve their vision.[41]

text: A multiplayer beta for Halo 5: Guardians launched on December 29, 2014 and ran for three weeks.[42] The beta was a sample of Halo 5: Guardians' Arena gameplay, featuring three modes, seven maps and eleven weapons.[42] The development team wanted to launch a beta as early as possible so that players could test and give feedback on new gameplay elements.[30] This player feedback was used to make refinements to gameplay and adjustments to maps.[39][43] The beta used dedicated servers.[43]

text: The Sprint[edit]

text: The Sprint is a series about the development of Halo 5, which debuted in Xbox One's Halo Channel and was later uploaded to YouTube.[44] The first season was about the development of Halo 5's multiplayer;[45] the second season focused on the development of the Warzone game mode, and additional tweaks for the presentation at E3 2015.[46] The third season showed the development of the game's score and the use of motion capture.[47]

text: Marketing[edit]

text: During The Walking Dead's fifth-season finale, two different live-action advertisements aired, revealing the October 27, 2015, release date of Halo 5: Guardians.[48] In its June 2015 cover story featuring the title, Game Informer revealed that the campaign would feature four-player cooperative gameplay, and that its story would center on Blue Team, led by Master Chief, and Fireteam Osiris, led by Spartan Locke. The magazine also revealed that Fireteam Osiris would include Holly Tanaka, a new character named Olympia Vale, and fan favorite Edward Buck from Halo 3: ODST.[49]

text: On the multiplayer side, it was revealed that there would be a new map called Fathom and that there would be changes to Empire, a map playable in the beta. A new mode that would combine all of the sandbox (later revealed as Warzone at E3 2015) was hinted at,[49] and it was revealed that the game would feature 20 maps at launch and that 15 downloadable maps would be added later for free.[50]

text: Halo 5 was also marketed in sports events: the football team of Seattle Sounders wore jerseys with the game's ads;[51] and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and Jamie McMurray drove in the NASCAR competition in Halo 5-themed cars.[52]

text: The game's mainstream marketing received some criticism for being different from the game's plot.[53][54] Phil Hornshaw of Digital Trends wrote that Halo 5's marketing "suggests an emotional conflict between the questionably-loyal Chief and the 'traitor-hunting' Osiris leader, Locke, but those moments are barely in the game".[55]

text: Hunt the Truth[edit]

text: On March 22, 2015, Microsoft launched Hunt the Truth, a podcast similar to radio series such as This American Life. The first season followed the investigations of fictional journalist and war photographer Benjamin Giraud (voiced by Keegan-Michael Key), who investigates the Master Chief's background.[56] Giraud discovers that the official story of Master Chief's origins are false, and attempts to expose the coverup.[57]

text: The first season was highly successful, drawing an audience of 6.7 million listeners on iTunes and winning Hunt the Truth's ad agency a Clio Award.[58] A second season of the podcast began September 22, 2015, focusing upon the view point of ONI Agent Maya Sankar (Janina Gavankar), returning undercover as FERO, to investigate unidentified attacks on human colonies.[59]

text: E3 2015[edit]

text: Microsoft began their E3 2015 press conference with gameplay from the campaign of Halo 5: Guardians. This gameplay was from a mission known as "The Battle of Sunaion" and featured Fireteam Osiris. A new multiplayer mode known as "Warzone" was also shown off at E3.[60]

text: Release[edit]

text: Halo 5 is the first main installment in the Halo franchise to receive a "Teen" rating from the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) besides Halo Wars, rather than the "Mature" rating.[61] Microsoft Xbox division executive Aaron Greenberg felt that the M ratings on previous installments were surprising, "given the style of the game and the lack of real graphic violence and things like that", but that the "Teen" rating would theoretically enable Halo 5 to reach a broader audience of younger players who would have otherwise been unable to obtain the game.[62]

text: The game shipped in three different retail configurations: a standard edition, limited edition, and collector's edition. The limited edition came with a REQ bundle, dossiers on the game's characters, the Fall of Reach film, a statue of a Guardian, and a "steelbook" metal case. The collector's edition contained the REQ bundle, dossiers, Guardian statue, and Fall of Reach, plus a commemorative statue of Master Chief and Agent Locke.[63] The collector's edition comes with a digital code rather than a physical disc; fan feedback led Microsoft to offer a free trade-in program so collector's edition buyers could have the disc instead.[64]

text: Post-release content[edit]

text: Halo 5 is being supported by post-release content updates; 343 Industries stated that fifteen additional multiplayer maps would be added to the game at no extra charge through June 2016. 343 head Josh Holmes explained that the studio did not want to segregate the player base by distributing maps as paid downloadable content, a goal he felt was "really important to having a great multiplayer ecosystem".[65][66]

text:
Update name
Release date
Additions
Website

Battle of Shadow and Light
November 18, 2015
Big Team Battle (BTB) game mode, new player customization options, REQs
[67]

Cartographer's Gift
December 16, 2015
Forge mode, advanced controller settings, new player customization options, maps, and REQs[68][69]

Infinity's Armory
January 27, 2016
New maps and REQs[70]
[71]

Hammerstorm
February 24, 2016
New game modes, new map, new REQs[72]
[73]

Ghosts of Meridian
March 6, 2016
New maps and REQs, Forge additions, balance updates[74]
[75]

Memories of Reach
May 16, 2016
Infection game mode, new REQs, matchmaking preferences customization
[76]

Hog Wild (REQ Drop)
May 27, 2016
New REQs
[77]

Warzone Firefight
June 29, 2016
Campaign Score Attack and Warzone Firefight game modes, new maps and REQs, new Forge canvas[78]
[79]

Anvil's Legacy
September 8, 2016
New maps and REQs[80]

Monitor's Bounty
December 8, 2016
Custom Games Browser, Observer Mode, new REQs, new Warzone Firefight maps, bug fixes, balance changes
[81]

Overtime
November 2, 2017
Enhanced for Xbox One X, Oddball game mode, Local Server, New commendations, weapon tuning

text: Halo 5: Forge[edit]

text: Halo 5: Forge, a free version of Halo 5's map editing tool, was released for Windows 10 on September 8, 2016.[82]

text: Professional competition[edit]

text: In 2014, Microsoft announced the "Halo Championship Series", its own tournament. Prior to Halo 5: Guardians's release, Microsoft announced a competition with a US$1 million prize pool, and a focus on developing the game with competition in mind.[83] A portion of the proceeds from REQ packs bought with real currency contributes to prize pools; by November 4 REQ proceeds had added US$500,000 to the pool,[84] which climbed to US$700,000 by November 19.[85] At The Game Awards in early December, Microsoft announced a US$2 million prize pool, buoyed by sales of a special REQ pack.[86] By February 19, the total prize pool exceeded US$2,500,000.[87] The Halo World Championship began on December 6, 2015,[85] with the finals running March 18–20, 2016.[88]

text: After the Halo World Championship, Microsoft announced the Halo Pro League in partnership with Electronic Sports League as a way to grow Halo eSports.[89]

text: Reception[edit]

text:
Reception

Aggregate score

Aggregator
Score

Metacritic
84/100[90]

Review scores

Publication
Score

Destructoid
7/10[91]

EGM
9/10[92]

Game Informer
8.75/10[94]

Game Revolution
[95]

GameSpot
8/10[96]

GamesRadar+
[98]

GamesTM
6/10[93]

GameTrailers
9/10[97]

Giant Bomb
[99]

IGN
9/10[100]

OXM (UK)
[101]

Polygon
9/10[102]

VideoGamer.com
9/10[103]

VentureBeat
83/100[104]

text: Halo 5: Guardians received an aggregated score of 84 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 101 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[90]

text: Arthur Gies, writing for Polygon, wrote that 343 Industries had much to prove with Halo 5 after Halo 4's online population "evaporated", The Master Chief Collection's woes, and Microsoft's need for a strong title to sell more Xbox Ones. "343's response to that quagmire," Gies wrote, "[is] to return to the fundamentals of what made the series great in the first place. The studio has brought Halo's mechanics kicking and screaming into the modern era, while providing the most bombastic, co-op-driven campaign in Halo history."[102] GameSpot's Mike Mahardy agreed that 343 had produced some of the best iterations of the game series' facets with Halo 5. IGN's Brian Albert opined that 343 Industries had created an even bigger game than previous entries, with "the strongest combat Halo has ever seen".[96][100] Destructoid's Chris Carter felt that Halo 5 failed to grab him in the same way as previous games had, "but those of you who are still content with Master Chief and his wacky adventures across the galaxy will likely walk away satisfied."[91] More critically, the reviewers of GamesTM felt that Halo 5 was "sheepish and safe" and represented a series low.[93]

text: Halo 5's overall gameplay and multiplayer were strongly received. GameSpot praised Halo 5's multiplayer experience for being in the "best shape Halo's multiplayer has ever taken", and in particular, noting the game's return to "universal" weapon loadouts and obtaining stronger weapons spawning on-map, rather than unlocking weapons as in Halo 4. The Warzone mode was considered to be one of the "best new ideas" in both the Halo franchise and the genre, praising its MOBA-like mechanics and vast environments, explaining that "as with the rest of Halo 5, there is momentum here—but this is a force that shifts from side to side with each match. Warzone isn't so much about consistency—it's about adaptability. And the team that can roll with the punches, and punch back at the right moments, will have the upper hand."[96]

text: Halo 5's campaign and story received mixed reviews. Timothy J. Seppala of Engadget felt it was the first time in years that the campaign felt like a step backward compared to its predecessor; "instead of addressing what it got wrong with [Halo 4] and doubling down on what it did right, the team fundamentally altered how a Halo campaign works to horrendous results"[105] In contrast, Albert praised the campaign for challenging enemies and environments dense with secret pathways and hidden weapons. "This kind of design makes Halo 5's campaign ripe for replaying, and well suited for the [...] co-op it's clearly made for", he wrote.[100]

text: The game's artificial intelligence (AI) also received mixed impressions. Chris Carter found the squad controls rudimentary, but found the team chatter and their assistance welcome.[91] GamesTM pointed out flaws in enemies by criticizing overpowered bosses and saying that "the number of things that can kill you instantly—even on Normal difficulty—is exasperatingly high". Reviewers like Carter and GamesTM complained of ally teammates failing to revive players, even in instances such as when they were standing right next to the player.[91][93]

text: Time's Matt Peckham felt that in comparison to the setup in Halo 5's marketing and the Hunt the Truth series, which suggested a novel direction for the series, "What happens in Halo 5's story, by contrast, feels disappointingly by the numbers."[106] GameSpot's Mike Mahardy felt that while the plot had promise, the campaign did not effectively capitalize on its opportunities: "Cutscenes fade to black before they feel finished. Character motivations shift on a whim."[96] Forbes' Paul Thier and GamesRadar's David Houghton complained that players did not suitably impact the story's progression, and that the game's cliffhanger ended the plot at the conclusion of the first act.[107][108] Though he also found fault with parts of Halo 5's campaign, Albert praised Cortana's threat as "less black and white" in motives than previous antagonists, and the background chatter contributing to learning more about each character.[100]

text: Sales[edit]

text: First-week global sales of Halo 5 software and hardware totaled more than US$400 million, making it the fastest-selling Xbox One exclusive. Halo 5 made the biggest sales record in Xbox history, and was also the best-selling digital title.[109][110] Within its first five days of release, Halo 5 was the best-selling game of October in the United States, according to NPD Group,[111] which tracks physical sales from retailers. In November, Halo 5 was the eighth best selling game according to NPD's figures.[112]

text: In the United Kingdom, Halo 5 debuted on the top of the sales charts as measured by Chart-Track, besting the week's other new release, Assassin's Creed Syndicate. It outsold previous Halo release The Master Chief Collection by 50% in its first week.[113][114] The following week sales decreased 78 percent, and Halo 5 was displaced from the top of the charts by Call of Duty: Black Ops III.[115] The game was the tenth best selling title of 2015 in Australia.[116]

text: On June 9, 2016, Frank O'Connor said that the game managed to sell 5 million copies in the first 3 months of its release.[117]

text: Awards[edit]

text:
List of awards and nominations

Award
Category
Result
Ref.

The Game Awards 2015
Best Multiplayer
Nominated
[118]

Best Shooter
Nominated

Best Score/Soundtrack
Nominated

Game Critics Awards 2015
Best Action Game
Nominated
[119]

Best Online Multiplayer
Nominated

Game Revolution Best of 2015 Awards
Best Multiplayer
Won
[120]

Best Shooter
Won

Best Xbox Exclusive
Nominated

Game of the Year
Nominated

IGN Best of 2015 Awards
Best Competitive Multiplayer
Honorable mention (tie)
[121]

Best Shooter
Nominated
[122]

OXM Game of the Year Awards 2015
Best Innovation
Won
[123]

Best Online Multiplayer
Won

Ultimate Game of the Year
Nominated

20th Satellite Awards
Outstanding Action/Adventure Game
Nominated
[124]

12th BAFTA Games Awards
Best Music
Nominated
[125]


document_title: Eric Forman

question_text: when did eric forman leave that 70s show

text: Eric Forman

text: Storylines[edit]

text: Being the show's main character for the first seven seasons, Eric appears in many storylines. The show opens with Eric, a scrawny, socially awkward 16-year-old, dealing with his ever-evident and growing crush on the girl next door, Donna Pinciotti. During this time, Eric obtains the signature 1969 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser and takes it out of town, despite his father's warnings not to. This, evidently, impresses Donna and leads to the pair's first kiss.[2] The next episode, Eric's Birthday set on May 18, 1976 (originally making him born in 1959), sees the pair dealing with their kiss as well as Eric's long-awaited 17th birthday. As the series progresses, Eric's friends' influence over him begins to surface as he finds himself arrested due to Kelso being caught driving a stolen car while he was a passenger, due to an earlier ban on his Vista Cruiser. Eric and Donna soon share a first date, but all goes awry as Donna becomes intoxicated due to a mix-up with the drink order, causing an awkward and uncomfortable experience for Eric.[3] During the high school prom, the two decide to rent a nearby motel room for after, though ultimately decide not to engage in intercourse after receiving the attention of fellow students.[4]

text: Coinciding with the beginning of his relationship with Donna, Eric must deal with the death of his grandmother, sharing a rare bonding moment with his father Red, and his best friend Hyde's abandonment. It is Eric who ultimately decides that Hyde should move in with them. Season 2's episode, "Halloween" revealed that it was Eric who causes Hyde's downward spiral to rebellious stoner due to Eric framing Hyde for the destruction of a classmates school work. The pair end up in an argument, but all is resolved as they choose to forget it ever happened. Eric is suspended from school for smoking on school property after taking the blame but is allowed to return to school when the truth is later revealed. He also received his first steady job from his father at PriceMart[5] and Donna and Eric lose their virginity to each other at Midge and Bob's renewal wedding vows.[6]

text: Throughout season three, the pair's relationship holds a steady foundation despite Eric's constant awkward antics, such as accidental sexism and pantsing Donna. However, things take a turn for the worse as Eric's offer for a promise ring is rejected by Donna and he decides that if she doesn't see a future with him they should break up.[7] Despite it being his decision, this leads him to spiral into depression, dreaming at one point what it would be like if he had never dated Donna. He is angered on several occasions as Donna deals with their breakup and the downfall of her parents' marriage by acting insultingly toward him, even publishing in the school's newspaper a story that parallels their relationship.[8] He is also resentful of her relationship with Michael Kelso's older brother Casey, who is offensive and smug. When Donna begins acting out due to Casey's influence, Eric becomes concerned but refuses to take her back the evening Casey breaks up with her.

text: Regretting it instantly, Eric goes to find her to once again reconcile, and learns that she and Michael have taken off for California where they spend the remainder of the summer. Despite his parents foreboding, Eric takes off after Donna and they reconcile instantly and continue their relationship. Later, Eric contemplates in front of his friends the idea of proposing to Donna, something they all instantly point out the idiocy. However, the two do get engaged as he proposes, somewhat awkwardly, atop the water tower. After taking the SAT's he realizes he got the lowest score of the group, even getting a worse score than Kelso,[9] prompting him to work harder in order to marry Donna. Eric also thinks hard about his future, choosing to move to Madison with Donna. In the fifth season, Eric and Donna become engaged, despite widespread discouragement (and anger, in the case of Red). However, they refuse to call off the engagement and remain engaged until the end of the sixth season. Eventually, they both begin to experience pre-wedding jitters and Eric, acting upon these feelings, skips his wedding rehearsal. He then returns in the next episode and Donna forgives him.

text: After spending much of 1978–79 lazing around, Eric eventually decides he needs to do something with his life. This prompts many attempts to find a long-term career. It is not until a conversation with friends that he realizes his passion is in teaching. However, Red has spent Eric's college money on his muffler shop, but the guidance counselor at Eric's former high school offers him the choice of a fully paid education if he first spends a year teaching in Africa. Eric accepts, much to his mother and Donna's dismay. After a few weeks of preparation and receiving the cold treatment from Kitty and Donna, Eric packs his bags and prepares to leave. With the blessing from Red and forgiveness from his mother and Donna, he drives off with the Vista Cruiser to a hearty farewell.

text: Eric's family includes his doting mother, Kitty Forman, who has impending separation anxiety and menopause, his crabby father, Red Forman, who is a strict Korean War military veteran, and his older sister, Laurie Forman, who is a promiscuous blonde who uses her looks to get what she wants. Eric's best friend, Steven Hyde, who was essentially abandoned by his parents, later becomes his foster brother. Eric was the show's protagonist from seasons one through seven until he was written out due to Grace's departure from the series. However, despite Eric's absence, he is mentioned at least once in all 22 episodes of season eight. He makes a brief cameo appearance in the final episode titled "That '70s Finale."

text: Season eight[edit]

text: Due to Eric's departure from the show at the beginning of its eighth season, Eric was no longer the central focus of the show, though his character was still heavily used to influence elements of it, and he's mentioned in every episode of the season. Picking up a month after the seventh season's finale, Eric is revealed to have successfully become accustomed to his job teaching in Africa. As Donna's relationship with a new character Randy begins to intensify, it becomes apparent that Eric has broken up with her yet again. Eric returns home on New Year's Eve to reconcile with Donna, welcome the new year in with his friends and continue his teaching career.

text: Personality[edit]

text: A nice guy at heart, Eric is a stereotypical geek, scrawny and somewhat clumsy. He is not at all athletic and shows little interest in sports. He is a smart-aleck teenager with a lightning-fast wit and a sarcastic and deadpan sense of humor. He also lights "incense" with his friends in his basement. Eric is also known to screw things up a lot, which is parodied throughout the series.

text: Eric is often picked on for his slight stature and other characters have likened him to "Opie" (for the character Opie Taylor, from The Andy Griffith Show), and Archie Andrews. Other unfortunate nicknames include "Foreplay" (by Casey Kelso), "Foreskin" (by Donna), "Zitty Stardust" (in reference to him being unable to take a zit-free yearbook photo), "Scrawny Little Neighbor Boy" (by Hyde), and "Dumbass" (by Red).

text: His girlfriend Donna is physically stronger, smarter and larger than he is, a fact which is cause for many jokes by all who know them. Donna is seen beating everyone individually on more than one occasion.

text: Though physically weak, Eric can show a surprising amount of courage and even physical power when necessary. When incensed enough, he will stand up to anyone, including his father and during these moments he can be surprisingly eloquent. He stood up to Red when he was troubled about Kitty's apparent pregnancy and told him to be a man for her. He also stands up to both of his parents in his insistence on marrying Donna, despite their repeated attempts to stop him. He threatens Casey Kelso with serious injury if he hurt Donna and even defended his father by punching another teenager (David Milbank) who had informed him that Red will eventually lose his job at the auto parts plant. He also beat a Green Bay Packers fan up during a game, after the fan (along with Red) repeatedly insult Eric for wearing a Chicago Bears jersey; however, Eric turns to violence only when the fan insults Red for telling him to stop arguing once the game was over, as Red only saw the argument as being appropriate banter between opposing fans during the game. This made Red proud enough to remark that his son had the "Forman Rage."

text: Eric's best friend is rebel Steven Hyde. When Hyde's mother leaves town at the end of the first season, Eric tries to persuade his parents to do something about his best friend's living conditions and thus Hyde is invited to live with the Formans, which he does for most of the series. When Red is quick to throw Hyde out after an arrest for drug possession, Eric attempts to help him by proving Red's hypocrisy.

text: Of his group of friends, Eric seemed to dislike Jackie the most in the beginning, though as the series progresses, they develop a friendship. Throughout, the two have a clear "frenemy" relationship. They demonstrate their annoyance with each other, but show compassion for each other many times, and through it all, are close. At the series' beginning, Jackie admits to trusting and liking Eric, confiding in him that she might be pregnant. In "The Pill," for example, she says to Eric's surprise, "Look, I've always been able to trust you—and, god, you are such a nice guy." Later in the episode, once Kelso threatens to break up with Jackie, Eric yells at him, having developed protective feelings towards her. This proves that their burning of each other throughout the show is only for laughs and friendly bickering, as none of their hostility is ever serious. Eric is consistent in ignoring Jackie as an object of sexual desire, but this changes in "What Is and What Should Never Be" where Hyde helps Eric realize that Jackie is "hot." After this, Eric has shown to have a sexual attraction to her, as shown in many episodes. Jackie is, at times, demeaning towards Eric due to his effeminate qualities, dorkiness and physical weakness. They have been known to occasionally help each other out. In the episode "Jackie's Cheese Squeeze," Eric admits that they are "friends," as long as they don't refer to each other as such in public, and in the season seven finale, Jackie calls Eric from Chicago and admits that she's always cared for him, and that he was always very special to her.

text: Eric is a well-known fan of science fiction, such as Star Trek and especially Star Wars, in which he compares himself to Luke Skywalker. He is also known to have a large, beloved collection of G.I. Joe. He listens to artists such as Led Zeppelin, KISS, Aerosmith, Pink Floyd, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Deep Purple, Queen, Styx and Rush. He is also a Beatles fan and has been known to liken his group of friends to them, accusing Jackie of "breaking up the band" with her romantic entanglements with Kelso and Hyde (calling her Yoko, in reference to Yoko Ono). It is also hinted that he is both a Batman and Spider-Man fan, having Spider-Man bed sheets and a considerable number of comic books, most of them bearing the Marvel Comics logo with the titular character on the covers. When he fights a fan at the Packers game, he tells Red that he learned his moves from Spider-Man; coincidentally, Topher Grace starred as Eddie Brock, a character who obtains powers very similar to Spider-Man, thus transforming him into the monstrous Venom in Spider-Man 3 in 2007.

text: Eric has had many typical teenage jobs over the series. He has worked at Fatso Burger, PriceMart, a dog food factory and as a waiter at the Holiday Hotel. In the beginning of the series, Red vehemently opposes Eric's attempts to get a job during the second season citing that it would interfere with his schoolwork and make it harder for him to get into a good college located far away. Kitty supports Red by saying Eric's job is being her "precious little baby boy." When Eric announces his marriage proposal to Red and Kitty, Red fires him from his job at PriceMart so he couldn't make the money to get married. Kitty costs him a potential job at a bank for the same reason. Red and Kitty even go so far as to revoke their offer to pay for Eric's college tuition in a final act of desperation to put a stop to the wedding but are unsuccessful. In season seven, Eric is ridiculed by his father when he takes a year off from school and work to contemplate his future and enjoy being lazy. Eric takes pleasure in the contempt Red has for this decision.

text: Eric is usually very supportive of his friends, even though it is very rarely reciprocated. On several occasions, when the group find themselves in a predicament as the result of a prank gone awry or some other unforeseen circumstance, the rest of the group would take off, leaving Eric to absorb the brunt of the trouble, after which the group (mainly Hyde) would hassle and tease Eric for getting into trouble (as in "Stolen Car," "Eric Gets Suspended," "Eric's Hot Cousin" and "Rip This Joint"). This has much to do with Eric's trusting nature and indicates that what he lacks in physical strength and courage, he more than makes up for in strength of character. Eric however, has been known to get his revenge on his backstabbing friends from time to time, such as when Kelso took the group on a "dine-and-dash" without telling them and the group eventually abandoning Donna and Eric at the restaurant. Eric and Donna get their revenge by serving a batch of brownies which they referred to as "special" brownies. However, in this case, the "special" ingredient that Eric and Donna include is a chocolate-flavored laxative. This was a particular problem for Fez, whose girlfriend had arrived to make amends with him, just as he was running for the bathroom. At times, however, Eric's friends will come to his aid when he's truly at the end of his rope. However, Eric is also quick to stand up for himself whenever he feels he has been wronged by his friends' actions.

text: Eric is also quite stubborn, which has on several occasions brings bad luck to himself. For example, when Donna calls from California and when Kitty tries to tell him, Eric refuses to even listen to his mother and (when he finds out the call) later scolds her for not telling him. Also, when Hyde is about to get kicked out of the Forman's house for his drug use, Eric tells Red that he also does drugs (despite Donna telling him not to), only to find out that Hyde is allowed to stay. Another prime example is during his first break-up with Donna: he refuses to see the signs that she is hesitant to say they will always be together, even when Hyde tries to explain it to him, and when faced with the truth chooses to end the relationship rather than accept Donna is not ready. (However, he would later on acknowledge it was unfair for him to pressure Donna.)

text: Relationships[edit]

text: Eric's relationship with his parents is characterized by his attempts to prove to them that he is mature and independent. Eric's father, Red, is a notorious authoritarian and often refers to Eric as "dumbass" and "boy". He frequently threatens "to put his foot in Eric's ass". Red finds Eric lacking the qualities which he feels a grown man should possess, including physical strength, sportsmanship, and interest in manly pursuits, like hunting and fishing. Despite the fact that Red's strict parenting often prevents intimate father-son moments, Red truly cares for his son. On rare occasions, Red displays genuine fatherly love such as in "That Wresting Show" and "Street Fighting Man", as well as when he learns that Eric is a good hunter and chose not to shoot a deer because he didn't want to. Oddly, Eric is, in many ways, a younger version of his father. Both display a dry sense of humor and tend to be the sanest people in their circle of friends.

text: Eric's mother, Kitty, typically supports Eric against the wishes of her husband and she often scolds Red for being too hard on him. However, she also does not consider Eric to be a man and often refers to him as her "precious little baby boy." Eric appreciates his mom's support but her overblown displays of affection often leave him feeling embarrassed. At times, Kitty's love for Eric borders on Hitchcockian. His mother is often insecure about being replaced by Donna as the woman in Eric's life. Their rivalry is played up in many episodes (often comically, but sometimes to the point of it being problematic). In theory, she's okay with a sexual relationship between Donna and Eric (even pressing the two to discuss it with her); however, in reality, she goes into a depression after learning that Eric and Donna had sex and considers Donna a harlot who has stolen her baby boy away from her. Eric reassured Kitty that he would always need her because, "[Red]'s going to be riding [his] ass for the rest of [his] life". When Eric tells his parents about his plan to spend a year teaching in Africa, his mother is less than thrilled. This is most notably and comically presented when, the morning after his announcement, Kitty fixes everyone at the breakfast table a smiley-face breakfast with eggs and bacon and then hands Eric a plain pancake and says, "nothing smiling up at you, nothing". Even with a couple of days before his departure, Kitty reveals that she hid mailed notifications that Eric must receive certain vaccinations before he can leave. Eric protests his mom's actions but she still tries to dissuade him, stating that the needles used for the vaccinations are "as big as sausages" and "will hurt a lot."

text: In the episode "Eric's Birthday," the gang is acutely aware that Kitty has planned a surprise party for Eric, despite her claims to the contrary. This annoys Eric because he believes that surprise parties are for kids, which indicates that Kitty won't accept the fact that he is becoming a man. However, throughout the episode "Magic Bus," Eric expects Kitty to throw him a surprise party even though she and the gang constantly tell him that there is no surprise party. He becomes upset when he realizes that his mother is telling the truth. After Eric disobeys his parents' orders not to go forward with his plans to marry Donna, Red finally deems Eric a man and offers his blessing while a devastated Kitty turns on Red for allowing her "precious baby boy" to get married. Though Eric and Donna call off the wedding, they decide to move, which causes Kitty even more grief. She's even less pleased when she learns that Red is fine with it.

text: Eric's relationship with his older sister, Laurie, is based on mutual ridicule and contempt. Eric repeatedly mocks Laurie for being a whore while she chides him for being weak and less favored by their father. On several occasions, Eric and Laurie have tolerated each other and have even shown a brother-sister bond. When Eric saw his parents having sex, Laurie tried to comfort him, which included hugging him and stroking his hand. In the middle of a fight between the two, Hyde tried to break it up, and the two teamed up on him, complimenting each other's insults. Eric once even defended Laurie from Red. After discovering that Laurie moved out and was living with a man, Red, having been forced to face reality about his daughter's behavior and reputation, attempted to alienate her. Sympathizing with her, Eric attempted to defend Laurie, saying that Red was being too hard on her. Laurie once told Eric and Donna to move away after they got married and even cried during her apology. Eric tasted the tear and, having deemed it legitimate, replied "I have a sister!" and hugged her. Laurie appeared to have turned a new leaf but soon regressed to her old habits of mean-spirited and lascivious behavior.

text: Other appearances[edit]

text:
Topher Grace briefly reprised the role in a Robot Chicken skit, featuring the That '70s Show characters. The skit was titled "That '00s Show".
Eric Forman was portrayed by Max Wrottesley in the short-lived British adaption, Days Like These.

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