1. Normandy Crash-landing's Logical flaws
As many members of the forum have said, the part where the Normandy is in the middle of mass-relay transport contains numerous logical problems. First of all the Joker as portrayed wouldn't leave the battlefield unless there was a clear reason to do so. Over the course of the three Mass Effect series, he has distinguished himself to be a fearless and able pilot. Also, considering from the scene where EDI from the Normandy assisted Shepard in destroying the reaper blocking path to the conduit, that heavily suggests that the Normandy was at least present in the Earth's vicinity as I believe EDI have said that its body still needs to be close to its central mainframe; the Normandy's AI-core after the Mars mission. Also, the Normandy was one of those few ships in the entire united fleet equipped with cannons enough to destroy the collector's reaper-technology based ship, and considering that the ship is also equipped with stealth technology which enable the ship to land on places like Thessia or escape from the Earth without being under fire suggests that in all tactical sense Normandy shouldn't have even been near the mass-relay. Furthermore, it was implied that the crew of the Normandy was all on Earth's ground and fighting, why would any one of them escape to the Normandy from the first place? It was clear as day that the crews will rather die on the battle than escaping the place. So why are they ending up in some god-forsaken jungle planet instead of being somewhere on Earth's surface after the ending?
2. Abrupt Introduction of Gigantic Story-Element at Thessia
I've sensed a trouble brewing in the Mass Effect 3's fictional integrity the moment Shepard and co. have reached the Thessia's Asari-Prothean temple where the Prothean VI uttered the story of how every galactic civilizations from the past have shown virtually a same pattern and this isn't the work of the reaper alone and mentions the possibility of higher-power being involved in the galaxy. First of all, this element is huge, up to this point from the Mass Effect 1, it was clear from the Bioware that even though Sovereign have claimed that thier intention is 'incomprehensible to organics' that the main goal of the stroyline was to make players understand the reason behind the reaper's repeated mass genocides, and that took the entire span of three series. So why introduce this idea in such a late-game part in Mass Effect 3 where there's little room for users to make sense of it? And what is the logic behind reaper's rambling about their ideals being incomprehensible to the organics when the storywriters themselves are 'organic'? I believe that there's more reason to assume that the storywriters have tried to introduce a very vague and alien subject into the story and tried to emulate such element as best as they can, but those kind of subjects are severely detrimental to the integrity of the story if it isn't handled over a significant chapter of the story. Take Halo for an example, almost every single element they've introduced; the flood, the covenant, the forerunners and the USNC were discussed and refined over the course of four Halo games and everytime a new idea was introduced in the series, the storyline took generous portion of time to explain and enable users to interact with them for the sake of coherence and familiarity. (introduction of the flood signifies my point) And for Mass Effect, I believe that's where the storywriters have failed tremendously to the point where most of us felt completely alienated by the time the story has ended.
3. Reaper & Guardian Problems
One thing I have absolutely trouble grasping the idea is the reaper as both the tools of destruction and the massive gene bank of the exterminated advanced species. Numerous times over the course of three series, it was clearly demonstrated that reaper isn't absolutely impervious to any attacks, so if the main purpose of creation of the reapers were to ascend and protect the gene bank, why risk losing billions to trillions of genes by exposing these units to the attack? It would've been more logical to differentiate between different roles as the gaurdian have suggested that the protection of those gene pool is more important then anything else. So from my perspective, there's a huge logical problem with this.
Also in the end scene the gaurdian itself have said to be the one of the reapers and heavily implied that all synthetics including the reapers cannot happen before the emergence of organic life-forms. So logic dictates that the original reaper would've been created by some organic life beings from millions of years ago. And certainly the vent-boy isn't some form of god as it have said that by killing all reapers, it itself will be killed as well. The truth is that no matter how long the first reaper has been created, they are still a creation of an organic mind with limited logical capacity. We can only comprehend things that falls within the logical boundary. With all that information I find it hard to believe that the reaper's motivation is absolutely incomprehensible to the organic minds.
Another problem is the original purpose of reapers which I believed this series would've answered with much greater detail. Were they created by the organic minds to serve this specific purpose? or were they a part of rampant AI that destroyed all organic life-form in the galaxy? There is no reason to believe the first part would be plausible as nobody wants to destroy themselves unless there was some kind of historical event that forces their hand to create the reapers; but this detail wasn't even given. The second would be outright problematic as if rampant AI in control of the galactic system there is no reason for them to give up all that and start out the cycle of genocide over millenia.
4. Philosophical suggestion without any sense of direction
Some members of the board seems to believe that the ending suggests heavy philosophical elements appropriate to the storyline, but I disagree as I firmly believe that the philosophy is about making direction, not throwing different kind of suggestions without any tangible argument attached to it; that's just garbage philosophy practised by the hermits completely disconnected from the reality. And this I believe is the primary root of the sense of discontent with the ending. Based on the paragon storyline, the element of 'hope' was greatly emphasized over the course of three series and this 'hope' wasn't the 'hope' for the entire civilization's survival, but 'hope' that the characters themselves will get through the ordeal with the people they carry deeply about. But as we've seen from the ending, only notion that was satisfied was the 'hope' that the entire specie will continue forever at the cost of utter destruction of individual 'hopes'. Human being, is a creature of society. But at the same time our own psychological and physical well-being along with those closest to us matters deeply. From the teachings of Socrates and Plato, to the introduction of the Existentialism in the post World War II, we've tried to balance between understanding our own mind between our need for society and our personal needs. Whenever the balance was broken; tragedy happened. Same problem happened with the Mass Effect 3's ending where one element was simply shot down and rubbed all over the dirt for the sake of making us feel the 'horrors of war'. That's why we are discontent with the ending, it lacked important human elements for us to be able to accept and appreciate the ending even if it was universally tragic. If I have to give numerical percentage of how much it lacked, considering what I've said and the deep logical fallacy that was present in the ending, I would say between 80~90%.
5. Conclusion
All good stories were made while the author gave equal attention to its beginning, middle and the end because all three elements are equally important. Most of the time the failure at the beginning can be accepted by us because there's still plenty of time for the author to amend the failure by concentrating on the next part, but the closure demands perfection. Lord of the Rings wasn't extremely famous because of its happy ending, the wealth of information that was given over the course of the entire series was tied, and closed with almost perfection at the ending. That's why even after the battle of Mordor and the fall of Sauron, tremendous number of pages were dedicated to make that closure. Yet for Mass Effect 3, closure only took over the 15 minutes while claiming itself to be the last trilogy of the Mass Effect chapter or at least Shepard's chapter while fumbling over in rather spectacular fashion. This game should've ended with the scene of united civilizations fleet advancing toward the Earth and leave the rest of the chapter for the next installment, yet the Bioware insisted themselves to limit the storyline in three series. And by that the story have been dealt with great injustice. This is very clear to me, and I have to say I wonder how the storywriters in Bioware can sleep peacefully at night knowing this collection of gigantic mistakes they've made.
The notion that this is just a game isn't true anymore. While the general game-play is certainly important and will be true for a very long time to come, the video-game industry have evolved to such point where the game's story-line is becoming a legitimate form of literature. This is why there are several books concering game-universe is flooding the sci-fi fantasy market. I find this change acceptable as it is part of a human progression. Therefore there is no reason not to value Mass Effect 3 from both the video-game perspective and literacy perspective. Lots of emotions were involved from the first two installments and the third one took us one hell of a unforgetful emotional rollercoaster until the last 15 minutes of the single-player campaign, therefore there is no reason to undermine those who are severely discontent from the literacy point of view, this element made Mass Effect worthwhile playing rather than the combat systems and limited multiplayer contents they've introduced to us.
Personally I believe the best course of action for Bioware should be either re-introduce the ending as different pathway in form of DLC, or announce that they are disowning the chapter beyond right after the fall of Cerberus and will work on briniging more story element in the next installment or over the multiple DLC. Financial standpoint of view this would be beneficial for both them and EA and they would do great justice to not only to their own story but the fan-base who's been their royal customer over the course of 5~6 years as well.
Modifié par HKR148, 10 mars 2012 - 10:56 .
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