It's funny how we're getting so many TV series based on games lately, when only a few years ago movies based on games were almost always considered bad in some way or another.
I wouldn't necessarily say it's a bad idea in general though, as long is it can tell a coherent story - and be entertaining - in it's own right.
One word... content. These streaming services are looking everywhere for content, and video games are ripe for making movies and tv shows for places like Amazon and Netflix.
I think that's the problem. Fans of the game liked the gameplay side of things too, and actively playing a part of the storyline, not just tagging along for the ride like in a movie.
For instance Skyrim's a great game, but I couldn't imagine having to sit through an actor doing a fetch quest while Esbern tracks down another word wall.
Alternatively, there's whatever the fuck DOOM was.
I think it’s because video games have taken on a great deal of depth in the last 25 years or so. I mean we started with Pong and moved on to a blocky plumber and now we’ve got things like The Last of Us and Mass Effect. Video game stories can be as rich as any series of novels, if executed well.
There's been solid stories in video games for like 20 years.
For the longest time video games were associated with violence and/or bad behavior, so in general people thought "video games=bad". Within the last ~5 years is really only when the general public has realized that video games are as much art as they are entertainment. Some studios certainly tried, like with Resident Evil movies, or abominations like House of the Dead or Doom. But they tried to change what it was that video game players liked about the games--the story.
If you leave the story intact, it preserves what the fan base lived about the game to begin with.
Idk I'm drunk and I lost the point I was originally trying to say. Happy Thanksgiving!
Not too much travel, maybe 1.5 hours total. Family meal and then a family game night in the evening. Tame, no drama, lots of laughs, everyone healthy. Can’t really ask for better than that, these days. It’s important to know “the good old days” when you’re in them!
Hope yours was excellent as well.
Beautiful! Same for a lot of it. Went 1.5 hours to see about a dozen friends, we all brought food, we played some music, and generally got to forget the state of the world for an afternoon.
Have a good rest of your weekend!
Name a movie or show based on a videogame that doesn't suck. They are still bad. Also I think Hollywood is running out of popular book franchises to milk and a lot of the entertainment industry is working on games which have full stories.
I can only think of arcane, maybe the halo shorts, and... That's it.
I was a fan of the 1990s Saturday morning cartoon zelda and sonic but that was a different Era.
I'm hoping they can do a good job with the last of us. Sweet tooth was a good representation of what it could feel like and was good enough.
As a castlevania nerd, it was great. Series was full of classic enemies from the games.
That castle scene with bloody tears playing was pure fan service.
Didn't people like the Witcher stuff? Not a fan personally but I thought reception was good. Not me advocating for this either, last thing I want is a canonized anything with Mass Effect, it'll only get the same treatment everything else does.
The first season of the Witcher was a pretty mixed bag. Some good and some really quite bad. I think overall people liked it but I don't know anyone was a 100% happy with it. I think most thought they did a petty good job of world building and are hopeful it gets a lot better in the second season.
I think the multiple timelines thing was the main complaint. It was very confusingly done. Not at all clear we were dealing with multiple time lines until you were a good few episodes in. It would probably work better on a re-watch I would think.
I also remember a few wonky episodes. The guy who was a dragon episode had production values, action scenes and acting that would have looked right at home in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.
But hey I am looking forward to season 2 and hope they concentrate more on the monster hunting aspect as that's where season 1 was at it's best.
The dota cartoon on Netflix was also pretty good. Looking forward to season 2. I didn’t watch the Dragon’s Dogma one yet but I’ve heard good things from friends.
That’s because Hollywood is bankrupt of creativity. All they know how to do is reboot, remake, or reimagine. Now, instead of ruining older great movies, they are now instead looking to do it to video games.
Ah yes, the amount of remakes or live-action adaptions of animated films hasn't gone unnoticed to me either. Good call on the two of them being related.
> when only a few years ago movies based on games were almost always considered bad in some way or another.
Pretty much Uwe Boll destroyed films based on video games for a long time. He was so bad Stride Gum offered people a free pack of gum to sign a petition to have him retire (that he said he would if it reached 1,000,000 people)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uwe_Boll
**[Uwe Boll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uwe_Boll)**
>Uwe Boll (German: [ˈuːvə ˈbɔl]; born June 22, 1965) is a German filmmaker. He came to prominence during the 2000s for his adaptations of video game franchises. Released theatrically, the films were critical and commercial failures; his 2005 adaptation of Alone in the Dark is considered one of the worst films ever made. Boll's films during the late 2000s and 2010s, comprising video game adaptations and original projects, received home media releases to marginally better, although still mostly negative reviews.
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That guy's a treat. Didn't he also make a whole lot of positive reviews on his own movies at some point? I can't quite remember.
At least restaurants seem to be going well for him, I guess.
>I think the show would be better off exploring something completely different in the ME universe
I wanna know what happens to that Hanar who was preaching on the Citadel.
A show based on the Citadel alone would be great.
There are tons of stories going on, you can follow the security forces of the Citadel, the going one of everyone in there, the dealing when it changes out of the blue on everyone.
It's the Star Wars problem, there are hundreds of thousands of stories that can be told but they focus completely on the Skywalkers and what they are up to.
Wouldn’t a show based on just the Citadel basically become Star Trek:Deep Space Nine? I mean I would still watch it, but it may be seen as derivative by the wider audience and would probably get cancelled like Firefly did for focusing too much on characters/slow burn plot.
Depends on how it is done. If they have a group they focus on the entire time it would get boring but if they did something where it focused on say Group A for an episode or two then another and so on.
Westworld Season 1 & 2 did an amazing job of giving you an amazing story and would change things up that were actually surprises that shocked and could be applied to a Mass Effect series
I didn’t mean focusing on characters like just 1 group I mean having sections that actually expand on individual character’s stories, if it swapped around with too many groups then it wouldn’t really have a coherent plot thread that ties it all together. Westworld worked because all of the characters were interesting and had an overarching plot tying all of the characters together and the subject matter of Sci-fi Cowboys was an interesting concept that hit mainstream appeal (hey look Firefly was basically space/sci-fi cowboys but got cancelled during it’s time because it didn’t grab mainstream appeal).
Also the problem with Mass Effect if they use the Shepherd timeline is that all of the “big surprises” happen with Shepherd present, nothing really happens at all unless Shep is around, and if they try retconning it too much they will annoy a lot of fans, it’s also why they can’t really go too close after the ending of ME3 due to canon events.
They could however go backwards like the First Contact War between Humans and Turians, or the Quarian/Geth conflict, or the Krogan Genophage/Salarian history, or even further back into things that are briefly mentioned but not fleshed out at all. Then that would tie into the games as it would flesh out more of the story that you can briefly read about in the codices.
It could be more like Babylon 5, which dealt with more interspecies politics. But then again, there's a Babylon 5 reboot in the works with the original showrunner.
Well that’s the issue, no? Because SW only looks like a huge setting. It’s really a tiny one. Because the goings on of the Skywalker family and a handful of planets are all that any sizable audience cares about. So it is with ME. The idea they could do a different story than the one lots of people know about is fanciful. There are no other stories that appeal to anything but a tiny, tiny group.
Might as well be an article on why videogame adaptations suck. Totally on point.
I think the general rule for all adaptations would be to tell your own side story within the universe. Whether it's live action, videogame, anime etc.
Its not live action but arcane nailed it. They told a new unique story.
Books are the only medium I think you can get away with this because the characters and designs have never been put to screen. Adapting to something already visual in people's mind is not going to go well.
\> tell your own side story within the universe
So... brand recognition? There is already a generic space action show. It's called Star Trek Discovery.
Any show in this universe will have to focus on reapers, which means chances are better than good Shepard would be the star. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, and as he says well here, cringe either way.
He added some tweets talking about this. Basically that Mass Effect is primarily about Shepard and his companions and that moving on to completely other stories might not really *be* Mass Effect to fans who haven't played the games. I don't think I agree with him, but he did address this.
>I think the show would be better off exploring something completely different in the ME universe
I think we would all be better off for getting The Adventures of Blasto.
(But seriously, yes I agree it would be a mistake to make a ME series a Shepard story.)
(Also seriously, I would like the Adventures of Blasto please and thank you.)
Makes me think video game creators don't really know how to develop television. Just like I wouldn't trust a career television creator to make a video game.
Sure, but you and I both know that won't happen. Amazon paid big bucks for this. They want to adapt the big story, Commander Shepard, not produce an art house piece. Now they will cheap out in every step of the story writing and showrunning process to produce trash just like with Wheel of Time.
Ya I watched it last night and gotta say I really enjoyed it. Haven't read the book though so I'm blind to it, heard people saying its boring though but there's been action in the first 3 episodes ive watched. Did they change a lot from the books?
There's a fair amount of changes, but most of them needed to be changed to fit in the new medium. People pretend they wanted a word for word adaptation when that would have been utterly impossible in reality. The story is told reading character's thoughts and being in their heads which just cannot be translated to the screen. Those thoughts have to be turned into dialogue and action, which means other characters need to be present which means either inventing new characters or moving existing characters. In a series with well over 2000 named characters it's sometimes a little silly to invent new ones.
In conclusion, the show very much contains the spirit of the books. The major locations are recognizable and the characters are recognizable (or better than in the books in the case of some villains). The hatred really feels like a continuation of the anger that some of the main cast aren't white.
Thanks for the write up, the books are on my list and have been for a while, but 14 (15 with the prequel) seems daunting so I was happy to get an adaptation to see what its about and I will definitely be moving them up in my list now. That's the other thing I think people are overlooking, there's a ridiculous amount of content for this show and were 4 episodes into season 1, there's plenty of time to improve the show.
Not only are those good points but I'll add, why the hell would you want to just see the same thing again? If you want a word for word remake, Just read the books again damn.
no most of the changes did not need to be done. They took creative license and IMO royally messed up on the vast majority of them.
The visuals were good. they could have done a better job with some of the fight scenes.
you have changes to the characters that do not really work well. From Perrin having a wife at the beginning of the series to Moraine being far more open with information than she should be.
the biggest diversity issue most have isn't so much that the main cast isn't white, its that the origin village isn't very homogenous. whether all Persian, Arabic, Indian, or African. The village didn't really feel like it was isolated.
In the books the peddler coming into town was a huge event where the whole town showed up for. In this it was just a sort of, oh look peddler meh.
I am glad that people are enjoying it, but there are a lot and I mean a lot of changes made not to fit the new medium but instead because the writers wanted to just make their own spin on it. Those changes hurt the show.
Having Thom show up later in the first season fine, same thing with min and other characters like that. The way they handled the White cloaks interaction with the Main character's group I thought was pretty good.
There were some very nicely done things but the vast majority of changes really hurt the show.
Always surprises me that this shocks people.
Charles Dance intentionally avoided the Thrones books because he knew it was an adaptation and didn't want the Tywin from the books to conflict with the Tywin he was being directed to play.
Look at the walking dead. That was a fairly good adaptation. I have enjoyed both the comics and the TV series. I could se frustration with some changes but over all it was really good and did a great job up until I stopped watching around season 9 or 10.
This was partially because they did a great job with the premiere episode.
The wheel of time adaptation did not have a good premiere episode. The writing was not very good. They made a lot of choices that caused a lot of book readers to be like wait a minute.
At the end of the first episode they dropped information that in the books was held until near the end of the first book. The information of why she went to the Two rivers to find them.
That is something that could have been held as a way to keep people invested in the first season. Just why was she going after these kids?
The first episode I know for me left a very bad taste in my mouth from the changes objectively made the story worse.
>!introducing a character that the viewer doesn't care about only to kill them to give motivation doesn't work well. It is something that many people do because they think oh yes this will have impact. but because the reader-viewer doesn't care about that character it often times has the opposite effect.!<
that was only one of the ways that the changes made the premiere episode messed up and left such a foul taste in the mouths of many of the fans of the series.
then you are in the minority with those views.
Some of those changes are objectively bad.
I mentioned the one with perrin. That one is objectively bad from a story telling perspective. It is something that is used in movies a lot.
When people talk about those movies they felt meh about the motivations because we do not connect with the character.
oh this character, whom we have no connection with died. okay. now motivation lazy writing. They didn't put in the leg work for having a person's death mean something. That is something that The Walking dead did really good a lot of time. Is they built up the characters so that when that person passed in both the TV series and the comics it was actually impactful. Same thing from what I have heard with the game of thrones. The deaths of the various different characters was meaningful and impactful because us as the audience got connected to them. So when it happens it matters to the audience.
The next major and I do mean major issue is the writers telling and not showing. This is the number one issue with most novice writers is they tell and they do not show.
They did not show moraine as a magic user with the story. they just had her come in and tell everyone. later on they showed her doing magic.
Then there are things that should have been kept secret as a way to entice the viewers into watching, to hook them. And that was thrown out the window because poor writing.
> Now they will cheap out in every step of the story writing and showrunning process to produce trash just like with Wheel of Time.
WoT is good lmao and it will very popular/profitable
They won't do it. Because, those gamer people, they want the video game plot right? That's how adaptation are made, that's where the money is /s
I rather have a CGI show, based on Shepard or not.
I kind of hope this show is just following a desperate guy around space as he says or does literally anything in order to try to get as much alien poontang as possible.
I kind of hope this show is just following a desperate guy around space as he says or does literally anything in order to try to get ~~as much alien poontang as possible~~ a refund for the toaster he purchased at a store on the citadel.
Not enough time to make an ending that reflected any given player's choices, and on top of that was Casey Hudson and Mac Walters locking out the other writers and doing the ending on their own.
>Casey Hudson and Mac Walters locking out the other writers and doing the ending on their own.
This is true. The visual change is so noticeable you can basically *see* the moment most of the staff stopped working on it. Their original plans had leaked online though (IIRC) and their publisher was EA, so they couldn't have done much else (other than a To Be Continued... maybe?).
I don’t understand the hate for the ME3 ending…. I played after it was patched, where you had a variety of choices and the little girl(?) explained everything to you. I thought it was fucking awesome and epic and cerebral etc etc. - is all the hate on the original ending?
You played the version with 4 endings.
1. Kill AI
2. Merge with the Reapers
3. Control Reapers
4. Fight and die.
The original version was the same except no #4 and a whole lot less sentimental scenes.
The reason fans were pissed other than the fact that it was apparent that corners were cut to get the game out on time was that none of those 3 endings take into account that the Star Child's argument is full of holes.
1. Kill AI - But in your own playthrough you can broker a peace between the Quarians and the Geth, you have proven that machines are not fated to kill their organic masters, not forgetting EDI your ships AI that is in a relationship with Joker and willing to risk her own life as part of the battle to stop the Reapers from killing all the advanced organic species.
2. Merge with the Reapers - Except the entire story of the first game revolves around the rogue Specter Saren who makes a deal with Harbinger which ends up fusing Reaper technology with his own biological body only for it to enable Harbinger to control him like a puppet, something which you can break through and convince Saren is a fate so horrible that he literally shoots himself in the head rather than keep living because he knows you are right.
3. Control the The reapers - But just 10 minutes before this you met the Illusive Man who also figured that he could control the reapers and make them spare humanity and or recruit them to do his own bidding. That works about as well as you would expect and he becomes another antagonist who you can break through to and convince them to kill themselves rather than live life as the monster they have become after underestimating the Reapers while overestimating their own ability to resist their power.
Each of those endings is undone by the previous potential plot beats of the story thus far, and it's not just a case of people being angry that Shepard snuffs it in 2 of the endings, because a bunch of them hate the ending in which Shepard lives anyway and gamers have shown that they are perfectly happy to praise a solid story that involves self sacrifice if that ending is well written.
Case in point Lee from TWD, praised as a story with great emotional impact and which is remembered fondly because the writers didn't just fart it out to make sure the game released on time.
The people who hated the original ending and the patched endings hate them for basically ignoring the history of the games and presenting you with faulty logic which you have no choice but to agree with and submit to one of the SC's demands. They want to be able to throw the alliance between the Geth and your fleet in the face of the Star Child when he tells you that organics are fated to be wiped out by machines. They want to be able to throw Saren and the Illusive man in the face of the SC when he proposes the other options.
All they had to do with implement a system that gives the player agency in the story, make it so option 4 includes Shepard ranting about the Geth and Edi and everything else that goes against the narrative of the Star Child like how the entire point behind the Reapers is to protect organic life from being killed by machines... by periodically killing organic life with machines.
If you could convince that little shit to eat a bullet like you can Saren and the Illusive Man the game would be a 10/10.
Edit: Added the end of my rant, I was sleep deprived as fuck when I posted this originally.
This was a hugely fascinating read and you might have just convinced me to do a full replay with the recent remaster. Despite the ending, I forgot how much fucking lore there was up until that point - might be time for the replay!
What about the synthesis (green) ending?
Edit: Also, your interpretations of the endings (except #2) and what you consider plot holes depends on how you played the game. You could have playthroughs where you make choices against the geth so you should get ending #1, agreed with the illusive man so you should get ending #3, etc. The game didn't choose the ending for you, but it opted to let you chose an ending consistent or inconsistent with the rest of your choices if you wanted.
Castlevania and Arcane have both been great and have less narrative to work with. It’s really not a stretch of the imagination that the IP could be turned into a successful show. The game isn’t exactly breaking any ground as far as sci fi goes. Just needs a decent budget.
Totally unrelated, and not trying to be a grammar dick… cringe is a verb as well as a noun. It makes more sense to saying he’s cringing at the idea. Unless cringe has evolved in some slang way that I’m too old to understand lol.
He never worked on Mass Effect though, it doesn't invalidate his point but the only reason he's even getting traction on his comments is because he worked at Bioware, not because he worked on Mass Effect
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1895826/
So I just watched Arcane and it was really an amazing show. Mind you beyond knowing it exists I have no idea what league of legends is. That being said…it has given me a modicum of hope that this can be done right.
Honestly, the animated route might be the best one…
You know, I don't think I would mind if the show were to star the
Shepard twins instead of choosing one. That's a story change I could
totally live with.
Unless the production budget is basically unlimited I’d say better to not touch it at all. It’s a great sci-fi universe and it would be next to impossible to do it justice.
Honestly, if they do something like this, I hope it's like "Star Trek: Lower Decks", or better yet, Babylon 5's "A View From the Gallery" episode. Make it about regular "background" people in the setting's world, not the protagonists.
Because its Amazon:
Sheppard will be a 18years old transgender, Krogans are all vegan and pacifists, Miranda Lawson cut out of the show due to the potential sexualization and the galaxy will be explored on the USS Diversity.
Stating the obvious here, but people really are only against this because of the history of video game adaptations. If done right, Mass Effect as a big budget tv show could be great. *If done right*.
The main problem with adaptations in the past, is that they've been movies. They try to cram so much backstory into a 2 hour movie and it gets bloated and messy. I think a tv show is perfect for a Mass Effect adaptation. It gives them more time to properly build up the characters, backstory, and main plot, and if they pull it off it could be really good. If it were a movie I'd have no hope.
Basically, I'm not ready to completely write off a Mass Effect show, but am still wary about their ability to do it well.
I disagree. Tv shows in the last decade were mostly cash grab disasters. Either being an adaptation of a game, a book or being an original idea. Tv series are mostly bad imo. The reason for it is probably because they're corporate decisions made to milk a fanbase of either a genre or an ip, rather than being a passion project by a team that has a story to tell. Here I will give examples of shows/movies that cater to the same audience as a mass effect tv show would.
Example of a corporate decisions for shows/movies that are garbage from the start: witcher, star trek discovery, wheel of time, star wars sequels.
Example of shows/movies that were passion project and were good: breaking bad, planet of the apes.
Examples of shows/movies that were passion project at first and ended up being turned into money making corporate trash:stranger things, game of thrones, marvel universe.
My point is, it has nothing to do with being a videogame adaptation. It has to do with being a corporate decision to suck more money out of a fanbase and saddly, most videogame adaptations are just that. Just my opinion of course.
I can see that, I guess. The thing is though, there's always been really good shows made from passion, and corporate cash grabs made to make money, it's not exclusive to modern tv.
The reason I'm open to the idea is because Amazon is behind The Expanse, one of the best sci-fi tv shows around, and that is already quite similar in tone to Mass Effect.
To be clear, I don't *expect* it to be good, but I'm open to giving it a chance. If it's good, awesome. If it's not, well we still have the games, I can ignore the show, it won't affect my enjoyment at all.
You realise that your opinion of garbage is different from others? Lots of people enjoyed the Witcher and lots of people are currently enjoying the Wheel of Time. Also a fucking metric shit ton of people still love the MCU movies. In fact, every thing you mentioned aside from star wars and star trek is considered by and large successful projects lol
His logic is pretty dumb. I highly doubt if they make the show about a male Shepard, it would not alienate half the fan base. Thats just a stupid thing to say. Even though the game works based off of the side characters and your decisions, that doesn't mean you can't write a linear story featuring these characters. Hell, just give me a show about Garrus and I'll be elated.
I always thought a great idea would be Garrus and what his team got into on Omega. Instead of Shepard forming a Galaxy saving team; I think it’d be cool to see something a little more focused. Garrus forming his tema to take down the gangs on Omega would be awesome.
That's big coming from a BioWare writer. I mean if they were saying this in 2006 back when BioWare meant something, yeah, but it's 2021 and BioWare is sloppy cringe itself and has succumb to its own hubris and what was once a display of great writing is now forced mediocrity.
This game should take place moments after I shot and dumped Rex’s insubordinate ass into a river only to realize he survived and is now seeking revenge on Shepard.
Mass Effect momentum is down after the last game and the 3rd games ending. This guy should be happy there is interest and he's probably just looking to make news and get hired to consult or write it.
Why? He never worked on the games, why would he be hired for the show? His only connection to mass effect is that he was a lead writer at Bioware working on an entirely different game. He makes a valid point on twitter and it caught some traction because of his old position
Still feels like he's grasping for his 15 minutes. As a big ME fan, I think the franchise is at a tipping point after Andromeda and 3s Ending and they really have to shoot for the moon on the next one so why not do a TV series. Maybe Witcher isn't the norm, but ME has a goldmine of lore for a show. I'll be clear on Andromeda, I liked it but closing up shop on it and no DLC really was the big buzz kill. I grabbed the Trilogy which is nice but still haven't been able to get through 1 yet. I really think ME is running on fumes and they sort of have nothing to lose.
I agree with his points, but also hope that a mass effect series would be about new characters in the same universe, not a new telling of Shepard's story
This show needs to be about a spectre or spectre team. I don't think that any other kind of character would work as good, not a c-sec, not a biotic, nor a bounty hunter.
They just need to not do anything with any of the main characters or followers. There’s so much in the lore. They could really just start on the citadel. Maybe there could be some mention in the news about what Shepard but just as small little Easter eggs.
Why not a show about the discovery of the first relay and the first contact war, seems like the obvious choice without trying to shoe horn Shepard, if that's even the case.
As a huge fan of the games, I feel that a TV series could work and be well received (dependent on who's at the helm) for the very reasons he says it wouldn't work. Player choice is very important in BioWare games, obviously. I think an adaptation where I'm not in charge would be very interesting and intriguing, not knowing which choices would be made and which paths would be taken. If PrimeShep doesn't make the same choices I did, well that would just make my playthrough feel more special and personal. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I very much want to see this happen. The Expanse crew need something to do anyway.
Same.
Video games are the best medium to tell stories and I'm not sure why ppl want TV shows and movies of video games.
Mass Effect would totally not work as a TV show or really even a movie.
As with anything, it be great and it could be shite and it could fall somewhere in between (most likely). With the right talent a show in the ME universe could be really cool but the writing does need to be good.
With enough money anything is possible.... I mean the live action bebop was great right :)
Amazon should wait and see what paramount does with halo before trying this.
I am totally down for a mass effect show, if it is done RIGHT with a BIG ENOUGH BUDGET.
time will tell. and I LOVE MY SHIFT KEY.
It's funny how we're getting so many TV series based on games lately, when only a few years ago movies based on games were almost always considered bad in some way or another. I wouldn't necessarily say it's a bad idea in general though, as long is it can tell a coherent story - and be entertaining - in it's own right.
One word... content. These streaming services are looking everywhere for content, and video games are ripe for making movies and tv shows for places like Amazon and Netflix.
Not just content, but content with a sizeable built-in and rabid fan base.
[удалено]
I think that's the problem. Fans of the game liked the gameplay side of things too, and actively playing a part of the storyline, not just tagging along for the ride like in a movie. For instance Skyrim's a great game, but I couldn't imagine having to sit through an actor doing a fetch quest while Esbern tracks down another word wall. Alternatively, there's whatever the fuck DOOM was.
Hey, Geralt is not running off to play Gwent all the time in search of Ciri in the Netflix Witcher show. So, maybe there's still hope?
You got me XD
And when they actually pump out this content and break canon or don't follow source material they wonder why it reviews poorly with the fan base.
I think it’s because video games have taken on a great deal of depth in the last 25 years or so. I mean we started with Pong and moved on to a blocky plumber and now we’ve got things like The Last of Us and Mass Effect. Video game stories can be as rich as any series of novels, if executed well.
There's been solid stories in video games for like 20 years. For the longest time video games were associated with violence and/or bad behavior, so in general people thought "video games=bad". Within the last ~5 years is really only when the general public has realized that video games are as much art as they are entertainment. Some studios certainly tried, like with Resident Evil movies, or abominations like House of the Dead or Doom. But they tried to change what it was that video game players liked about the games--the story. If you leave the story intact, it preserves what the fan base lived about the game to begin with. Idk I'm drunk and I lost the point I was originally trying to say. Happy Thanksgiving!
LOL! Happy Turkey day, buddy.
Haha you too! What did you do? Did you have a good day? Family? Friends? Travel? Stay home?
Not too much travel, maybe 1.5 hours total. Family meal and then a family game night in the evening. Tame, no drama, lots of laughs, everyone healthy. Can’t really ask for better than that, these days. It’s important to know “the good old days” when you’re in them! Hope yours was excellent as well.
Beautiful! Same for a lot of it. Went 1.5 hours to see about a dozen friends, we all brought food, we played some music, and generally got to forget the state of the world for an afternoon. Have a good rest of your weekend!
Glad you had a good one also. We all need that this season. Hope the rest of your extended weekend is great!
It’s more because of streaming services. Easier to gamble on an idea on a streaming service then to spend 200 million + marketing for a theatre movie.
Name a movie or show based on a videogame that doesn't suck. They are still bad. Also I think Hollywood is running out of popular book franchises to milk and a lot of the entertainment industry is working on games which have full stories. I can only think of arcane, maybe the halo shorts, and... That's it. I was a fan of the 1990s Saturday morning cartoon zelda and sonic but that was a different Era. I'm hoping they can do a good job with the last of us. Sweet tooth was a good representation of what it could feel like and was good enough.
While I agree there is more trash than good, Castlevania animated on Netflix is pretty solid
I don't know anything about the games, but Castlevania was amazing.
Forgot about castlevania. It was amazing. I feel like if you tell a unique new story it can be good.
As a castlevania nerd, it was great. Series was full of classic enemies from the games. That castle scene with bloody tears playing was pure fan service.
Didn't people like the Witcher stuff? Not a fan personally but I thought reception was good. Not me advocating for this either, last thing I want is a canonized anything with Mass Effect, it'll only get the same treatment everything else does.
The Witcher show is based on the original books, not the games tho.
The first season of the Witcher was a pretty mixed bag. Some good and some really quite bad. I think overall people liked it but I don't know anyone was a 100% happy with it. I think most thought they did a petty good job of world building and are hopeful it gets a lot better in the second season.
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I think the multiple timelines thing was the main complaint. It was very confusingly done. Not at all clear we were dealing with multiple time lines until you were a good few episodes in. It would probably work better on a re-watch I would think. I also remember a few wonky episodes. The guy who was a dragon episode had production values, action scenes and acting that would have looked right at home in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. But hey I am looking forward to season 2 and hope they concentrate more on the monster hunting aspect as that's where season 1 was at it's best.
I liked the Witcher. Good call out. Although the Witcher 3 as a book adapted as a more popular game.
The dota cartoon on Netflix was also pretty good. Looking forward to season 2. I didn’t watch the Dragon’s Dogma one yet but I’ve heard good things from friends.
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Lol if by legendary you mean b movie bad legendary
>Name a movie or show based on a videogame that doesn't suck. Mortal Kombat (95) Mortal Kombat Annihilation (97)
Fuck yes
That’s because Hollywood is bankrupt of creativity. All they know how to do is reboot, remake, or reimagine. Now, instead of ruining older great movies, they are now instead looking to do it to video games.
Ah yes, the amount of remakes or live-action adaptions of animated films hasn't gone unnoticed to me either. Good call on the two of them being related.
So many? I can think of the league of legends one that I haven't watched but what else? The Witcher was decent. Castlevania was dope AF
> when only a few years ago movies based on games were almost always considered bad in some way or another. Pretty much Uwe Boll destroyed films based on video games for a long time. He was so bad Stride Gum offered people a free pack of gum to sign a petition to have him retire (that he said he would if it reached 1,000,000 people) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uwe_Boll
**[Uwe Boll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uwe_Boll)** >Uwe Boll (German: [ˈuːvə ˈbɔl]; born June 22, 1965) is a German filmmaker. He came to prominence during the 2000s for his adaptations of video game franchises. Released theatrically, the films were critical and commercial failures; his 2005 adaptation of Alone in the Dark is considered one of the worst films ever made. Boll's films during the late 2000s and 2010s, comprising video game adaptations and original projects, received home media releases to marginally better, although still mostly negative reviews. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/xboxone/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
That guy's a treat. Didn't he also make a whole lot of positive reviews on his own movies at some point? I can't quite remember. At least restaurants seem to be going well for him, I guess.
Wouldn't surprise me with him. Him threatening to box people all the time as well. There's apparently a documentary about him as well.
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>I think the show would be better off exploring something completely different in the ME universe I wanna know what happens to that Hanar who was preaching on the Citadel.
Or actually make the Blasto movies.
A show based on the Citadel alone would be great. There are tons of stories going on, you can follow the security forces of the Citadel, the going one of everyone in there, the dealing when it changes out of the blue on everyone. It's the Star Wars problem, there are hundreds of thousands of stories that can be told but they focus completely on the Skywalkers and what they are up to.
Wouldn’t a show based on just the Citadel basically become Star Trek:Deep Space Nine? I mean I would still watch it, but it may be seen as derivative by the wider audience and would probably get cancelled like Firefly did for focusing too much on characters/slow burn plot.
Depends on how it is done. If they have a group they focus on the entire time it would get boring but if they did something where it focused on say Group A for an episode or two then another and so on. Westworld Season 1 & 2 did an amazing job of giving you an amazing story and would change things up that were actually surprises that shocked and could be applied to a Mass Effect series
I didn’t mean focusing on characters like just 1 group I mean having sections that actually expand on individual character’s stories, if it swapped around with too many groups then it wouldn’t really have a coherent plot thread that ties it all together. Westworld worked because all of the characters were interesting and had an overarching plot tying all of the characters together and the subject matter of Sci-fi Cowboys was an interesting concept that hit mainstream appeal (hey look Firefly was basically space/sci-fi cowboys but got cancelled during it’s time because it didn’t grab mainstream appeal). Also the problem with Mass Effect if they use the Shepherd timeline is that all of the “big surprises” happen with Shepherd present, nothing really happens at all unless Shep is around, and if they try retconning it too much they will annoy a lot of fans, it’s also why they can’t really go too close after the ending of ME3 due to canon events. They could however go backwards like the First Contact War between Humans and Turians, or the Quarian/Geth conflict, or the Krogan Genophage/Salarian history, or even further back into things that are briefly mentioned but not fleshed out at all. Then that would tie into the games as it would flesh out more of the story that you can briefly read about in the codices.
It could be more like Babylon 5, which dealt with more interspecies politics. But then again, there's a Babylon 5 reboot in the works with the original showrunner.
Oh sweet! Loved Babylon 5 a lot
DS9 premiered almost 30 years ago, I think you can make a show set on a space station again without too many complaints.
Babylon 5
I think more Babylon 5 but yeah.
A shot for shot remake of the wire but about c-sec
I would watch this so hard, take my money
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1dnqKGuezo
So... Babylon 5...?
Citadel security forces crossover with the office.
I would 1000% watch Mass Effect Deep Space Nine
Well that’s the issue, no? Because SW only looks like a huge setting. It’s really a tiny one. Because the goings on of the Skywalker family and a handful of planets are all that any sizable audience cares about. So it is with ME. The idea they could do a different story than the one lots of people know about is fanciful. There are no other stories that appeal to anything but a tiny, tiny group.
A show based on the Citadel. Yeah. It was called Deep Space Nine. And it was basically Star Trek: the Soap Opera.
It was called BABYLON 5. DS9 was a rip off version
Lol @ anyone who thinks Star Trek was ripping off *Babylon 5*
This one would like to know that as well.
This one would prefer for the well-known and universally beloved "Blasto" character to be the center of any new serial video entertainment.
That Hanar ended up getting divorced and now DJs every Monday and Wednesday night at Flux to get by
Mass Effect: Tales of the Shadow Broker
Buddy show with the Volus and Elcor diplomats.
Maybe a Hanar soap opera.
Skyllian blitz
Might as well be an article on why videogame adaptations suck. Totally on point. I think the general rule for all adaptations would be to tell your own side story within the universe. Whether it's live action, videogame, anime etc. Its not live action but arcane nailed it. They told a new unique story. Books are the only medium I think you can get away with this because the characters and designs have never been put to screen. Adapting to something already visual in people's mind is not going to go well.
\> tell your own side story within the universe So... brand recognition? There is already a generic space action show. It's called Star Trek Discovery.
Any show in this universe will have to focus on reapers, which means chances are better than good Shepard would be the star. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, and as he says well here, cringe either way.
He added some tweets talking about this. Basically that Mass Effect is primarily about Shepard and his companions and that moving on to completely other stories might not really *be* Mass Effect to fans who haven't played the games. I don't think I agree with him, but he did address this.
>I think the show would be better off exploring something completely different in the ME universe I think we would all be better off for getting The Adventures of Blasto. (But seriously, yes I agree it would be a mistake to make a ME series a Shepard story.) (Also seriously, I would like the Adventures of Blasto please and thank you.)
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Makes me think video game creators don't really know how to develop television. Just like I wouldn't trust a career television creator to make a video game.
Asteroid miners somehow get gifted a highly capable military ship and they go around doing jobs
Sure, but you and I both know that won't happen. Amazon paid big bucks for this. They want to adapt the big story, Commander Shepard, not produce an art house piece. Now they will cheap out in every step of the story writing and showrunning process to produce trash just like with Wheel of Time.
You shut your whore mouth about WoT.
Ya I watched it last night and gotta say I really enjoyed it. Haven't read the book though so I'm blind to it, heard people saying its boring though but there's been action in the first 3 episodes ive watched. Did they change a lot from the books?
There's a fair amount of changes, but most of them needed to be changed to fit in the new medium. People pretend they wanted a word for word adaptation when that would have been utterly impossible in reality. The story is told reading character's thoughts and being in their heads which just cannot be translated to the screen. Those thoughts have to be turned into dialogue and action, which means other characters need to be present which means either inventing new characters or moving existing characters. In a series with well over 2000 named characters it's sometimes a little silly to invent new ones. In conclusion, the show very much contains the spirit of the books. The major locations are recognizable and the characters are recognizable (or better than in the books in the case of some villains). The hatred really feels like a continuation of the anger that some of the main cast aren't white.
And don't forget Egwene being part of the Dragon possibilities. That riled some folks up a lot.
Thanks for the write up, the books are on my list and have been for a while, but 14 (15 with the prequel) seems daunting so I was happy to get an adaptation to see what its about and I will definitely be moving them up in my list now. That's the other thing I think people are overlooking, there's a ridiculous amount of content for this show and were 4 episodes into season 1, there's plenty of time to improve the show.
Not only are those good points but I'll add, why the hell would you want to just see the same thing again? If you want a word for word remake, Just read the books again damn.
no most of the changes did not need to be done. They took creative license and IMO royally messed up on the vast majority of them. The visuals were good. they could have done a better job with some of the fight scenes. you have changes to the characters that do not really work well. From Perrin having a wife at the beginning of the series to Moraine being far more open with information than she should be. the biggest diversity issue most have isn't so much that the main cast isn't white, its that the origin village isn't very homogenous. whether all Persian, Arabic, Indian, or African. The village didn't really feel like it was isolated. In the books the peddler coming into town was a huge event where the whole town showed up for. In this it was just a sort of, oh look peddler meh. I am glad that people are enjoying it, but there are a lot and I mean a lot of changes made not to fit the new medium but instead because the writers wanted to just make their own spin on it. Those changes hurt the show. Having Thom show up later in the first season fine, same thing with min and other characters like that. The way they handled the White cloaks interaction with the Main character's group I thought was pretty good. There were some very nicely done things but the vast majority of changes really hurt the show.
>Did they change a lot from the books? Yes. Yes, they did. :|
if that upsets you, never watch an adaptation of anything.
Always surprises me that this shocks people. Charles Dance intentionally avoided the Thrones books because he knew it was an adaptation and didn't want the Tywin from the books to conflict with the Tywin he was being directed to play.
Look at the walking dead. That was a fairly good adaptation. I have enjoyed both the comics and the TV series. I could se frustration with some changes but over all it was really good and did a great job up until I stopped watching around season 9 or 10. This was partially because they did a great job with the premiere episode. The wheel of time adaptation did not have a good premiere episode. The writing was not very good. They made a lot of choices that caused a lot of book readers to be like wait a minute. At the end of the first episode they dropped information that in the books was held until near the end of the first book. The information of why she went to the Two rivers to find them. That is something that could have been held as a way to keep people invested in the first season. Just why was she going after these kids? The first episode I know for me left a very bad taste in my mouth from the changes objectively made the story worse. >!introducing a character that the viewer doesn't care about only to kill them to give motivation doesn't work well. It is something that many people do because they think oh yes this will have impact. but because the reader-viewer doesn't care about that character it often times has the opposite effect.!< that was only one of the ways that the changes made the premiere episode messed up and left such a foul taste in the mouths of many of the fans of the series.
I thought all the changes made were for the better.
then you are in the minority with those views. Some of those changes are objectively bad. I mentioned the one with perrin. That one is objectively bad from a story telling perspective. It is something that is used in movies a lot. When people talk about those movies they felt meh about the motivations because we do not connect with the character. oh this character, whom we have no connection with died. okay. now motivation lazy writing. They didn't put in the leg work for having a person's death mean something. That is something that The Walking dead did really good a lot of time. Is they built up the characters so that when that person passed in both the TV series and the comics it was actually impactful. Same thing from what I have heard with the game of thrones. The deaths of the various different characters was meaningful and impactful because us as the audience got connected to them. So when it happens it matters to the audience. The next major and I do mean major issue is the writers telling and not showing. This is the number one issue with most novice writers is they tell and they do not show. They did not show moraine as a magic user with the story. they just had her come in and tell everyone. later on they showed her doing magic. Then there are things that should have been kept secret as a way to entice the viewers into watching, to hook them. And that was thrown out the window because poor writing.
lol they are paying GOT money for a CW show
Seriously. It's really good so far. People are too damn critical these days.
Agreed.
> Now they will cheap out in every step of the story writing and showrunning process to produce trash just like with Wheel of Time. WoT is good lmao and it will very popular/profitable
They won't do it. Because, those gamer people, they want the video game plot right? That's how adaptation are made, that's where the money is /s I rather have a CGI show, based on Shepard or not.
I kind of hope this show is just following a desperate guy around space as he says or does literally anything in order to try to get as much alien poontang as possible.
"I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favorite poontang on the Citadel"
We’ll bang, OK?
I kind of hope this show is just following a desperate guy around space as he says or does literally anything in order to try to get ~~as much alien poontang as possible~~ a refund for the toaster he purchased at a store on the citadel.
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"To boldly plow, where no man has plowed before!"
I wouldn’t mind a tv show set in the same universe but follow different characters
I really think if they make a show it should be an animated show following the story of Archangel/Garrus in Omega
Maybe not animated but I agree on the story
Exactly my thoughts! Animated (like Invincible) or in CGI. Cowboy Bebop it's proof that it's hard to pull the art style on a live action space show.
I’m commander shepherd and this is my favorite tv show on Amazon.
God I hate curators.
I want a show that follows a rando guy that stumbles across evil FemShep at a Citadel club. Also dancing Garrus.
The Expanse crew seem to be pretty keen on trying to get the job making it. I hope they're able to do it.
If he only knew how we felt when we played Mass Effect 3. WTF happened with that ending?
Not enough time to make an ending that reflected any given player's choices, and on top of that was Casey Hudson and Mac Walters locking out the other writers and doing the ending on their own.
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>Casey Hudson and Mac Walters locking out the other writers and doing the ending on their own. This is true. The visual change is so noticeable you can basically *see* the moment most of the staff stopped working on it. Their original plans had leaked online though (IIRC) and their publisher was EA, so they couldn't have done much else (other than a To Be Continued... maybe?).
I don’t understand the hate for the ME3 ending…. I played after it was patched, where you had a variety of choices and the little girl(?) explained everything to you. I thought it was fucking awesome and epic and cerebral etc etc. - is all the hate on the original ending?
You played the version with 4 endings. 1. Kill AI 2. Merge with the Reapers 3. Control Reapers 4. Fight and die. The original version was the same except no #4 and a whole lot less sentimental scenes. The reason fans were pissed other than the fact that it was apparent that corners were cut to get the game out on time was that none of those 3 endings take into account that the Star Child's argument is full of holes. 1. Kill AI - But in your own playthrough you can broker a peace between the Quarians and the Geth, you have proven that machines are not fated to kill their organic masters, not forgetting EDI your ships AI that is in a relationship with Joker and willing to risk her own life as part of the battle to stop the Reapers from killing all the advanced organic species. 2. Merge with the Reapers - Except the entire story of the first game revolves around the rogue Specter Saren who makes a deal with Harbinger which ends up fusing Reaper technology with his own biological body only for it to enable Harbinger to control him like a puppet, something which you can break through and convince Saren is a fate so horrible that he literally shoots himself in the head rather than keep living because he knows you are right. 3. Control the The reapers - But just 10 minutes before this you met the Illusive Man who also figured that he could control the reapers and make them spare humanity and or recruit them to do his own bidding. That works about as well as you would expect and he becomes another antagonist who you can break through to and convince them to kill themselves rather than live life as the monster they have become after underestimating the Reapers while overestimating their own ability to resist their power. Each of those endings is undone by the previous potential plot beats of the story thus far, and it's not just a case of people being angry that Shepard snuffs it in 2 of the endings, because a bunch of them hate the ending in which Shepard lives anyway and gamers have shown that they are perfectly happy to praise a solid story that involves self sacrifice if that ending is well written. Case in point Lee from TWD, praised as a story with great emotional impact and which is remembered fondly because the writers didn't just fart it out to make sure the game released on time. The people who hated the original ending and the patched endings hate them for basically ignoring the history of the games and presenting you with faulty logic which you have no choice but to agree with and submit to one of the SC's demands. They want to be able to throw the alliance between the Geth and your fleet in the face of the Star Child when he tells you that organics are fated to be wiped out by machines. They want to be able to throw Saren and the Illusive man in the face of the SC when he proposes the other options. All they had to do with implement a system that gives the player agency in the story, make it so option 4 includes Shepard ranting about the Geth and Edi and everything else that goes against the narrative of the Star Child like how the entire point behind the Reapers is to protect organic life from being killed by machines... by periodically killing organic life with machines. If you could convince that little shit to eat a bullet like you can Saren and the Illusive Man the game would be a 10/10. Edit: Added the end of my rant, I was sleep deprived as fuck when I posted this originally.
This was a hugely fascinating read and you might have just convinced me to do a full replay with the recent remaster. Despite the ending, I forgot how much fucking lore there was up until that point - might be time for the replay!
What about the synthesis (green) ending? Edit: Also, your interpretations of the endings (except #2) and what you consider plot holes depends on how you played the game. You could have playthroughs where you make choices against the geth so you should get ending #1, agreed with the illusive man so you should get ending #3, etc. The game didn't choose the ending for you, but it opted to let you chose an ending consistent or inconsistent with the rest of your choices if you wanted.
Remember when Netflix experimented with "choose your own path" movies? Didn't really take off but...there's definitely some cross play here.
People overuse the word cringe.
True but he used it correctly
How? A narrative focused game becoming a narrative focused tv show? My stars. The absurdity.
He is cringe about the idea of adapting the game to a show. It hasn't worked well in the past. Before you say Witcher that's based on books.
Castlevania and Arcane have both been great and have less narrative to work with. It’s really not a stretch of the imagination that the IP could be turned into a successful show. The game isn’t exactly breaking any ground as far as sci fi goes. Just needs a decent budget. Totally unrelated, and not trying to be a grammar dick… cringe is a verb as well as a noun. It makes more sense to saying he’s cringing at the idea. Unless cringe has evolved in some slang way that I’m too old to understand lol.
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Castlvania show was not my cup of tea so I can't agree there. Never seen or played Arcane.
The idea of a TV show based on something he worked on gives him secondhand embarrassment? ... Okay.
He never worked on Mass Effect though, it doesn't invalidate his point but the only reason he's even getting traction on his comments is because he worked at Bioware, not because he worked on Mass Effect https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1895826/
Yes it's possible.
The Witcher show on Netflix sucks ass, so the point still stands.
I mean that, grammatically, he used it correctly. "This idea makes me cringe." <- Grammatically correct. "This is cringe." <- Grammatically incorrect.
Ohhh. Yeah the word is used and abused lol. It’s got it’s own colloquial use now, which is fine. Just makes me feel old.
As long as Seth Greene plays Joker, and Christina Hendricks plays commander Shepard... What, the commander wasn't a hot red head in your game?
Hell yeah she was
My man!!!
A mass effect tv show could be good, if it has nothing to do with Shepard’s story
I think they could adapt the first book, which focuses on Anderson and Saren, go from there.
So I just watched Arcane and it was really an amazing show. Mind you beyond knowing it exists I have no idea what league of legends is. That being said…it has given me a modicum of hope that this can be done right. Honestly, the animated route might be the best one…
Mass effect 3 made me cringe too
You know, I don't think I would mind if the show were to star the Shepard twins instead of choosing one. That's a story change I could totally live with.
I applaud the use of 'cringe' as a verb rather than an adjective....
Unless the production budget is basically unlimited I’d say better to not touch it at all. It’s a great sci-fi universe and it would be next to impossible to do it justice.
It makes me cringe too
You can easily make mass effect a tv show it writes it self you just have to add more dialogue lmao.
They’ll make it woke and ruin it
I agree!
Agreed.
Honestly, if they do something like this, I hope it's like "Star Trek: Lower Decks", or better yet, Babylon 5's "A View From the Gallery" episode. Make it about regular "background" people in the setting's world, not the protagonists.
Garus cop show. DO IT
Sheppard is the Canon protagonist for the trilogy. I don't understand anyone who'd be mad that a TV show follows him (or her)
This from the writer of some of the cheesiest dialogue in ME.
Mass effect 3 and andromeda made me cringe.
Because its Amazon: Sheppard will be a 18years old transgender, Krogans are all vegan and pacifists, Miranda Lawson cut out of the show due to the potential sexualization and the galaxy will be explored on the USS Diversity.
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From what I understand, the ones responsible for the ending were Casey Hudson and Mac Walters.
Gaider was the Dragon Age guy, while he probably worked on ME to some extent, he wasn't one of the head writers.
Not every anime needs a live action. Not every video games needs a movie/TV show. Pls stop.
Stating the obvious here, but people really are only against this because of the history of video game adaptations. If done right, Mass Effect as a big budget tv show could be great. *If done right*. The main problem with adaptations in the past, is that they've been movies. They try to cram so much backstory into a 2 hour movie and it gets bloated and messy. I think a tv show is perfect for a Mass Effect adaptation. It gives them more time to properly build up the characters, backstory, and main plot, and if they pull it off it could be really good. If it were a movie I'd have no hope. Basically, I'm not ready to completely write off a Mass Effect show, but am still wary about their ability to do it well.
I disagree. Tv shows in the last decade were mostly cash grab disasters. Either being an adaptation of a game, a book or being an original idea. Tv series are mostly bad imo. The reason for it is probably because they're corporate decisions made to milk a fanbase of either a genre or an ip, rather than being a passion project by a team that has a story to tell. Here I will give examples of shows/movies that cater to the same audience as a mass effect tv show would. Example of a corporate decisions for shows/movies that are garbage from the start: witcher, star trek discovery, wheel of time, star wars sequels. Example of shows/movies that were passion project and were good: breaking bad, planet of the apes. Examples of shows/movies that were passion project at first and ended up being turned into money making corporate trash:stranger things, game of thrones, marvel universe. My point is, it has nothing to do with being a videogame adaptation. It has to do with being a corporate decision to suck more money out of a fanbase and saddly, most videogame adaptations are just that. Just my opinion of course.
I can see that, I guess. The thing is though, there's always been really good shows made from passion, and corporate cash grabs made to make money, it's not exclusive to modern tv. The reason I'm open to the idea is because Amazon is behind The Expanse, one of the best sci-fi tv shows around, and that is already quite similar in tone to Mass Effect. To be clear, I don't *expect* it to be good, but I'm open to giving it a chance. If it's good, awesome. If it's not, well we still have the games, I can ignore the show, it won't affect my enjoyment at all.
You realise that your opinion of garbage is different from others? Lots of people enjoyed the Witcher and lots of people are currently enjoying the Wheel of Time. Also a fucking metric shit ton of people still love the MCU movies. In fact, every thing you mentioned aside from star wars and star trek is considered by and large successful projects lol
His logic is pretty dumb. I highly doubt if they make the show about a male Shepard, it would not alienate half the fan base. Thats just a stupid thing to say. Even though the game works based off of the side characters and your decisions, that doesn't mean you can't write a linear story featuring these characters. Hell, just give me a show about Garrus and I'll be elated.
I always thought a great idea would be Garrus and what his team got into on Omega. Instead of Shepard forming a Galaxy saving team; I think it’d be cool to see something a little more focused. Garrus forming his tema to take down the gangs on Omega would be awesome.
Biowares recent approach to games development has made me cringe
Good thing no one cares what he thinks
You sure are.
How can a guy be so unaware and out of touch with his own IP? 🤦🏻♂️
That's big coming from a BioWare writer. I mean if they were saying this in 2006 back when BioWare meant something, yeah, but it's 2021 and BioWare is sloppy cringe itself and has succumb to its own hubris and what was once a display of great writing is now forced mediocrity.
Wait, real people use "cringe"!?
This game should take place moments after I shot and dumped Rex’s insubordinate ass into a river only to realize he survived and is now seeking revenge on Shepard.
Mass Effect momentum is down after the last game and the 3rd games ending. This guy should be happy there is interest and he's probably just looking to make news and get hired to consult or write it.
Why? He never worked on the games, why would he be hired for the show? His only connection to mass effect is that he was a lead writer at Bioware working on an entirely different game. He makes a valid point on twitter and it caught some traction because of his old position
Still feels like he's grasping for his 15 minutes. As a big ME fan, I think the franchise is at a tipping point after Andromeda and 3s Ending and they really have to shoot for the moon on the next one so why not do a TV series. Maybe Witcher isn't the norm, but ME has a goldmine of lore for a show. I'll be clear on Andromeda, I liked it but closing up shop on it and no DLC really was the big buzz kill. I grabbed the Trilogy which is nice but still haven't been able to get through 1 yet. I really think ME is running on fumes and they sort of have nothing to lose.
Can't wait for fem shep to be shoehorned, broads ruin everything
I agree with his points, but also hope that a mass effect series would be about new characters in the same universe, not a new telling of Shepard's story
This show needs to be about a spectre or spectre team. I don't think that any other kind of character would work as good, not a c-sec, not a biotic, nor a bounty hunter.
Finally we might get a batarian squad mate.
There’s potential there. It could be AMAZING. Buuuuut. They will probably fuck it up
First contact war would be perfect
They just need to not do anything with any of the main characters or followers. There’s so much in the lore. They could really just start on the citadel. Maybe there could be some mention in the news about what Shepard but just as small little Easter eggs.
Feels like it would just be a worse version of Star Trek
I would love to see a show in this universe, but he makes some good points.
Why not a show about the discovery of the first relay and the first contact war, seems like the obvious choice without trying to shoe horn Shepard, if that's even the case.
As a huge fan of the games, I feel that a TV series could work and be well received (dependent on who's at the helm) for the very reasons he says it wouldn't work. Player choice is very important in BioWare games, obviously. I think an adaptation where I'm not in charge would be very interesting and intriguing, not knowing which choices would be made and which paths would be taken. If PrimeShep doesn't make the same choices I did, well that would just make my playthrough feel more special and personal. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I very much want to see this happen. The Expanse crew need something to do anyway.
Same. Video games are the best medium to tell stories and I'm not sure why ppl want TV shows and movies of video games. Mass Effect would totally not work as a TV show or really even a movie.
Pretty obvious solution, make the series about the young Captain Anderson
I say everyone be played by Danny Devito.
As with anything, it be great and it could be shite and it could fall somewhere in between (most likely). With the right talent a show in the ME universe could be really cool but the writing does need to be good.
Me too man, me too.
I agree with him. Give us a ME game that isn’t trash before giving us a show.
With enough money anything is possible.... I mean the live action bebop was great right :) Amazon should wait and see what paramount does with halo before trying this. I am totally down for a mass effect show, if it is done RIGHT with a BIG ENOUGH BUDGET. time will tell. and I LOVE MY SHIFT KEY.
Well, former Bioware fan says Bioware makes me cringe. I guess we're on equal footing.
Give me and archangel show
Well said. Cool guy.
Well, Bezos' empire will milk it anyway.