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awesome post! bioware should have hired you to shore up their script.
i don't understand how a team of professional writers would think that the endings were great or even passable. just going by poll results .. 9 out of 10 people in the writers meetings should have said...uh...this is a terrible idea.
Musings of a Screenwriter: The Ending Thread
Débuté par
Eternalsteelfan
, mars 15 2012 11:27
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#503
Posté 19 mars 2012 - 09:38
DoubleHell
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The mid-game sequences that conclude major story arcs (e.g. end of the genophage, quarian/geth peace etc.) all seem to have been done reasonably well. I can only guess that they ran out of time/money for the end sequence and were forced to hash together what we have now.
#506
Posté 19 mars 2012 - 01:40
Ravennus
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Just wanted to say thanks for writing this. It was a great read and very insightful. Thanks!
HOLD THE LINE!
HOLD THE LINE!
#507
Posté 19 mars 2012 - 01:48
beserker7
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Very good post that brings up most of the end story elements that fail or are absent, in the ending to ME3.
I guess I'm still in shock that what you've written is not "rocket science" in terms of storytelling mechanics. Nearly everyone whos just reads books/stories, movies, games etc know what issues need to be addressed when dealing with endings and yet the Bioware writers who have worked on this series for years throw it all away for what purpose other than shock value?
Thier reputation is trash, imo and I won't be buying anything Walters and Hudson are involved in,.. ever again.
I guess I'm still in shock that what you've written is not "rocket science" in terms of storytelling mechanics. Nearly everyone whos just reads books/stories, movies, games etc know what issues need to be addressed when dealing with endings and yet the Bioware writers who have worked on this series for years throw it all away for what purpose other than shock value?
Thier reputation is trash, imo and I won't be buying anything Walters and Hudson are involved in,.. ever again.
#508
Guest_Paulomedi_*
Posté 19 mars 2012 - 01:49
Guest_Paulomedi_*
Guest_Paulomedi_*
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Paulomedi wrote...
Paulomedi wrote...
fastjetjockey wrote...
Paulomedi wrote...
This game was about good story and immersion. All it reminds me now is about how a nonsensical deadline can destroy five years of hard work. Real life lesson. Thank you Bioware / EA!
Blizzard, while apples to oranges, have got this **** down. Release a game in their own goddamn time, and it shows.
I wouldn't mind playing mass effect 2 for another year or so. I would still buy Mass Effect 3, and I am sure that the game overall would be better. Not just the ending, but the whole story as well.
Now that the ending made the game fall flat on its face, we start to see all the bad writing that lurks around the third installment.
Again, I must say:
1-Where is the Dark Energy?
2-Where is the big metaplot from the first two games i.e. the Reapers were delayed in this cycle by the Prothean Mass Relay on the Citadel, so they had to change the plans.
3- The reason why they are so interested in humans in the second game. Answer: Human-Reaper could stop the Dark Energy!
4- Where is the big suicide mission on Earth?
5- Why use the Crucible, a Deus Ex Machina?
All in all, it appears that they had a change on the writing due to a script leak, and half-assed the story. To make things worse, all the good parts of Mass Effect 3 were about the relationship that you built from the first two games, so we are not really playing Mass Effect 3, but Mass Effect: Closure. To prove this, the biggest plot of the third installment is about the Cruicible, the weakest part in the Mass Effect lore.
Mass Effect 3 would be about the war, yes, but finding out the ultimate reason why the reapers exist, and discovering all this amidst the war. Not in 10 minutes of rainbow disaster.
I am very disappointed how can a serious company doing a serious business can make such disastrous choices.
I disagree with the part of The Cruible not being a Deus Ex Machina. It is. It's plans are not Prothean, each cycle built and develop it a bit more, but in the end, no one knows how it works.
I repeat. The biggest plot device of Mass Effect 3 is the weakest from all the series. It would be easily forgivable, but the ending shows how weak it is, story-wise.
Modifié par Paulomedi, 19 mars 2012 - 01:49 .
#509
Posté 19 mars 2012 - 01:49
beserker7
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beserker7 wrote...
Very good post that brings up most of the end story elements that fail or are absent, in the ending to ME3.
I guess I'm still in shock that what you've written is not "rocket science" in terms of storytelling mechanics. Nearly everyone whos just reads books/stories, movies, games etc know what issues need to be addressed when dealing with endings and yet the Bioware writers who have worked on this series for years throw it all away for what purpose other than shock value?
These guys reputations are trash now, imo and I won't be buying anything Walters and Hudson are involved in,..EVER!
Modifié par beserker7, 19 mars 2012 - 01:50 .
#510
Posté 19 mars 2012 - 02:36
Eternalsteelfan
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Paulomedi wrote...
Paulomedi wrote...
Paulomedi wrote...
fastjetjockey wrote...
Paulomedi wrote...
This game was about good story and immersion. All it reminds me now is about how a nonsensical deadline can destroy five years of hard work. Real life lesson. Thank you Bioware / EA!
Blizzard, while apples to oranges, have got this **** down. Release a game in their own goddamn time, and it shows.
I wouldn't mind playing mass effect 2 for another year or so. I would still buy Mass Effect 3, and I am sure that the game overall would be better. Not just the ending, but the whole story as well.
Now that the ending made the game fall flat on its face, we start to see all the bad writing that lurks around the third installment.
Again, I must say:
1-Where is the Dark Energy?
2-Where is the big metaplot from the first two games i.e. the Reapers were delayed in this cycle by the Prothean Mass Relay on the Citadel, so they had to change the plans.
3- The reason why they are so interested in humans in the second game. Answer: Human-Reaper could stop the Dark Energy!
4- Where is the big suicide mission on Earth?
5- Why use the Crucible, a Deus Ex Machina?
All in all, it appears that they had a change on the writing due to a script leak, and half-assed the story. To make things worse, all the good parts of Mass Effect 3 were about the relationship that you built from the first two games, so we are not really playing Mass Effect 3, but Mass Effect: Closure. To prove this, the biggest plot of the third installment is about the Cruicible, the weakest part in the Mass Effect lore.
Mass Effect 3 would be about the war, yes, but finding out the ultimate reason why the reapers exist, and discovering all this amidst the war. Not in 10 minutes of rainbow disaster.
I am very disappointed how can a serious company doing a serious business can make such disastrous choices.
I disagree with the part of The Cruible not being a Deus Ex Machina. It is. It's plans are not Prothean, each cycle built and develop it a bit more, but in the end, no one knows how it works.
I repeat. The biggest plot device of Mass Effect 3 is the weakest from all the series. It would be easily forgivable, but the ending shows how weak it is, story-wise.
It's introduced at the beginning of the game, we know it's purpose is to stop the Reapers all along, aside from gathering allies it's construction is the most important goal of the protagonist, and at the end (regardless of which flavor) it stops the Reapers. The best argument for Crucible as deus ex machina is that of it's role in the scope of the trilogy, but even then there's a good 20-40 hours where we know it's purpose. The Crucible is just a plot device, a bad plot device, but just a plot device.
#511
Guest_Paulomedi_*
Posté 19 mars 2012 - 02:47
Guest_Paulomedi_*
Guest_Paulomedi_*
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Eternalsteelfan wrote...
Paulomedi wrote...
Paulomedi wrote...
Paulomedi wrote...
fastjetjockey wrote...
Paulomedi wrote...
This game was about good story and immersion. All it reminds me now is about how a nonsensical deadline can destroy five years of hard work. Real life lesson. Thank you Bioware / EA!
Blizzard, while apples to oranges, have got this **** down. Release a game in their own goddamn time, and it shows.
I wouldn't mind playing mass effect 2 for another year or so. I would still buy Mass Effect 3, and I am sure that the game overall would be better. Not just the ending, but the whole story as well.
Now that the ending made the game fall flat on its face, we start to see all the bad writing that lurks around the third installment.
Again, I must say:
1-Where is the Dark Energy?
2-Where is the big metaplot from the first two games i.e. the Reapers were delayed in this cycle by the Prothean Mass Relay on the Citadel, so they had to change the plans.
3- The reason why they are so interested in humans in the second game. Answer: Human-Reaper could stop the Dark Energy!
4- Where is the big suicide mission on Earth?
5- Why use the Crucible, a Deus Ex Machina?
All in all, it appears that they had a change on the writing due to a script leak, and half-assed the story. To make things worse, all the good parts of Mass Effect 3 were about the relationship that you built from the first two games, so we are not really playing Mass Effect 3, but Mass Effect: Closure. To prove this, the biggest plot of the third installment is about the Cruicible, the weakest part in the Mass Effect lore.
Mass Effect 3 would be about the war, yes, but finding out the ultimate reason why the reapers exist, and discovering all this amidst the war. Not in 10 minutes of rainbow disaster.
I am very disappointed how can a serious company doing a serious business can make such disastrous choices.
I disagree with the part of The Cruible not being a Deus Ex Machina. It is. It's plans are not Prothean, each cycle built and develop it a bit more, but in the end, no one knows how it works.
I repeat. The biggest plot device of Mass Effect 3 is the weakest from all the series. It would be easily forgivable, but the ending shows how weak it is, story-wise.
It's introduced at the beginning of the game, we know it's purpose is to stop the Reapers all along, aside from gathering allies it's construction is the most important goal of the protagonist, and at the end (regardless of which flavor) it stops the Reapers. The best argument for Crucible as deus ex machina is that of it's role in the scope of the trilogy, but even then there's a good 20-40 hours where we know it's purpose. The Crucible is just a plot device, a bad plot device, but just a plot device.
I see what you mean. It doesn't "pop" from nowhere. So no Deus Ex Machina.
Yeah, the end was so horrible that the bad story choices apeears bigger and uglier.
Modifié par Paulomedi, 19 mars 2012 - 02:47 .
#512
Guest_Paulomedi_*
Posté 19 mars 2012 - 02:52
Guest_Paulomedi_*
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Expanding further, I will always remember seeing and reading 2001: A Space Odissey. Showing us and telling us by different media, in different ways. Both masterpieces.
I was not expecting such grandeur, but honestly, this is all they had in their minds??
I was not expecting such grandeur, but honestly, this is all they had in their minds??
#513
Posté 19 mars 2012 - 02:59
Bobamelius
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If Bioware reads only one post about the endings, this should be it.
Great job putting the ending flaws into basic literary/storytelling terms. Anyone who thinks we're just whining and nitpicking should be directed to read this.
Great job putting the ending flaws into basic literary/storytelling terms. Anyone who thinks we're just whining and nitpicking should be directed to read this.
#514
Posté 19 mars 2012 - 03:02
Vhalkyrie
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Mighty_BOB_cnc wrote...
Vhalkyrie wrote...
Unless Bioware comes out with a DLC fix, this is the ending I'm going to pretend happened.
This shows that the entire Starchild scene was unnecessary. The same open ended questions still exist, but it is more emotionally satisfying because we aren't left with the question: "Why is the starchild here?" The explanation the starchild gives does not answer the questions we're left with. Thus, it could have been omitted entirely without affecting the outcome.
Link broke.
Sorry. Had problems getting the forum to link it. Hopefully fixed now. www.youtube.com/watch
#515
Posté 19 mars 2012 - 03:36
dbl219
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As a fiction writer, I simply want to applaud you, Eternalsteelfan, for your thoughtful and comprehensive analysis. Only someone who knows their craft intimately could dissect the ending (and the storyline as whole) in such a clear fashion. I do not think I could have articulated this anywhere near as well as you have. Kudos to you. Casey Hudson and the writers at BioWare could learn a thing or two (or ten) from what you have to say.
I finished the game only last night. While I didn't experience the intense rage that many others have succumbed to (though perhaps this is only due to being aware of all the ending backlash before seeing what all the fuss was about), I knew that it bothered me for reasons I couldn't yet express. You've illuminated exactly what it is that doesn't sit right with me, and for that I thank you.
I also want to add that I'm flummoxed by some of the information emerging via the Mass Effect 3: The Final Hours app, which serves to confirm the fact that Hudson and BioWare did not have the ending planned out at all. One would think, with so many years between the release of the original Mass Effect and late 2011 that the writers would have taken the opportunity to figure out explicitly how the series was supposed to end. For me, one of the primary things that empowers me to write a narrative to its conclusion is the conception of the final "completion" - the full trajectory of the story and character arcs, the way the ending is the companion, the perfect complement to the beginning. That the writers were driving the series forward without any vision of that completion - the last moment or image they were driving it toward - is simply mystifying, and truly amateurish. If you're going to come up with a bunch of cool stuff and throw it all together, you'd better figure out what it all means before the last minute.
I finished the game only last night. While I didn't experience the intense rage that many others have succumbed to (though perhaps this is only due to being aware of all the ending backlash before seeing what all the fuss was about), I knew that it bothered me for reasons I couldn't yet express. You've illuminated exactly what it is that doesn't sit right with me, and for that I thank you.
I also want to add that I'm flummoxed by some of the information emerging via the Mass Effect 3: The Final Hours app, which serves to confirm the fact that Hudson and BioWare did not have the ending planned out at all. One would think, with so many years between the release of the original Mass Effect and late 2011 that the writers would have taken the opportunity to figure out explicitly how the series was supposed to end. For me, one of the primary things that empowers me to write a narrative to its conclusion is the conception of the final "completion" - the full trajectory of the story and character arcs, the way the ending is the companion, the perfect complement to the beginning. That the writers were driving the series forward without any vision of that completion - the last moment or image they were driving it toward - is simply mystifying, and truly amateurish. If you're going to come up with a bunch of cool stuff and throw it all together, you'd better figure out what it all means before the last minute.
Modifié par dbl219, 19 mars 2012 - 03:45 .
#517
Posté 19 mars 2012 - 03:40
Brakxel
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I approve this thread. Thank you for sharing.
#518
Posté 19 mars 2012 - 03:42
NReed106
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the more people I see verbalizing the reason the endings are failures, the more I can't understand how Bioware thought that these endings were good (as evidenced by the Last Hours app)
#519
Posté 19 mars 2012 - 03:48
Fingertrip
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Because analyzing and writing, constructing and adapting to a franchise you've built is really two different things. It's easy to criticize something. If you end thinking you've crafted a masterpiece, someone will find a way to be nitpicky and make it seem like it has more plotholes then there is sand in the sahara desert.
Simple & common sense.
Simple & common sense.
#520
Posté 19 mars 2012 - 03:53
Bobamelius
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In this case "someone" is, conservatively, 70%+ of the players.Fingertrip wrote...
Because analyzing and writing, constructing and adapting to a franchise you've built is really two different things. It's easy to criticize something. If you end thinking you've crafted a masterpiece, someone will find a way to be nitpicky and make it seem like it has more plotholes then there is sand in the sahara desert.
Simple & common sense.
Might warrant a second look.
#521
Posté 19 mars 2012 - 03:53
Fingertrip
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Bobamelius wrote...
In this case "someone" is, conservatively, 70%+ of the players.Fingertrip wrote...
Because analyzing and writing, constructing and adapting to a franchise you've built is really two different things. It's easy to criticize something. If you end thinking you've crafted a masterpiece, someone will find a way to be nitpicky and make it seem like it has more plotholes then there is sand in the sahara desert.
Simple & common sense.
Might warrant a second look.
Feel free to find me statistics, or are you just making that up?
Might warrant a second look.
#522
Posté 19 mars 2012 - 03:55
ph34r-X
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I read the entire thing. As a writer myself, I agree.
#523
Posté 19 mars 2012 - 04:03
dbl219
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Fingertrip wrote...
Because analyzing and writing, constructing and adapting to a franchise you've built is really two different things. It's easy to criticize something. If you end thinking you've crafted a masterpiece, someone will find a way to be nitpicky and make it seem like it has more plotholes then there is sand in the sahara desert.
Simple & common sense.
By your logic, any and all criticism is rendered invalid.
The very fact that there are films, books, games, and other works of art that are both universally praised and universally reviled proves the fallacy in your reasoning.
#524
Posté 19 mars 2012 - 04:05
Eternalsteelfan
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Fingertrip wrote...
Because analyzing and writing, constructing and adapting to a franchise you've built is really two different things. It's easy to criticize something. If you end thinking you've crafted a masterpiece, someone will find a way to be nitpicky and make it seem like it has more plotholes then there is sand in the sahara desert.
Simple & common sense.
Storytelling is storytelling, regardless of medium. The points in the OP argue that the narrative failed in the last ten minutes or so, that was the purpose and remains the purpose.
Just saying "this is a masterpiece" doesn't make it so.
#525
Posté 19 mars 2012 - 04:08
blehblah123
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i 
this thread...should be on the 1st page..should be sticky-ed
this thread...should be on the 1st page..should be sticky-ed
