I have been lurking around this thread for a while now and I would like to share my opinion on the OP's point and several other points brought up already and still others I have about the ending.
WARNING wall of text inbound.
First of all I do agree with the OP's opinion of the ending. I also dislike how the story changes from a character driven narrative into an abstract pseudoscience fiction based on the inevitablity of machines rising against their creators in the last five minutes of the game.
As it was stated earlier in this thread, humanity places more priority and emotional attachment on people and things we are acquainted and familar with, and it is true. My family and friends are more pressing to me than starving people in Africa.
Does that make me a racist?
Am I a bad person because I feel no emotional attachment to those individuals?
No, it does not, it simply that I am a human being and that I feel more attachment to those I have lived with and grown up with than I do to a random person that I have never met.
Do I think that what those people are going through is bad?
Yes, but it is not a priority in my life, if I was given the choice to save the life of a stranger vs the life of a family member I would choose family, choose familar, choose emotional attachment every time.
That is why I dislike that particular part of the ending; there are other parts to be sure (Plotholes, Change in literary consitency, ect.); but this part of the ending more or less forces the player to see these two random people, part of a random society, that we have never until that point met as more important then the characters I have spent the past three games with.
And while I am on the subject of the of the Star Gazer scene I would like to bring up another reason why I don't like the ending. "The Shepard" the title that the man and child use to describe the main character, envokes one of two possible outlooks on the Mass Effect universe, both of which in my opinion, are bad.
The first outlook, is that the society that the old man and child live in has regressed so far that it is about the same as Warhammer 40K's Imperium of Man. A culture were so much information has been lost, that (as the Imperium of Man would have it) finding a blueprint for a tank or gun is the same as finding the Holy Grail. A society that can not move forward but instead has stagnated and can only "rediscover" what the previous civalization had already achieved.
I base this first outlook on the the fact that the old man tells the child that much of the details have been lost to time, and how he is telling the tale of "The Shepard" as a myth. Now some could argue that 10,000 years is a long time, and indeed it is, but 50,000 years is longer and while the Prothans's (sp?) society was not known, the races of the galaxy did see their existance and technological prowess as a fact, not as a a bedtime story to tell children.
The second outlook, which is more likely considering the previous scene with Shepard sacrificing his/her life to stop the Reapers, is that "The Shepard" has become the messiah to this culture. This point has been made by other posters thoughout the forums, that Commander Shepard is a parallel for Jesus, that the sacrifice made in stopping the Reapers (aka The Devil) frees future life from their oppression.
This outlook is worse than the first in my opinion for a number of reasons:
1. It has been used in almost every popular science fiction story out there. Anikan Skywalker in Star Wars, Neo in the Matrix, John Conner in the Terminator series, the God-Emporer of WH40K (admittedly they were at least up front with this fact), ect. The sheer number of times a science fiction story has pulled the "Jesus" card makes the Mass Effect ending into an overused plot point, not an original, edgy, artistic twist.
2. It doesn't fit with Shepards's character in the previous 2.99 games. Sure, s/he has had to make big chocies in the games; choices like saving or killing the council, rewriting or destroying the geth heritics, curing or not curing the genophage, ect but those chocies never hinged on the fact that only Shepard was the "choosen one".
Now it is true that TIM (The Illusive Man) says that Shepard is the only one that can stop the Collectors in ME2 but that was only based on the fact that s/he had the most experience in fighting the Reapers and their minions and was a natural leader. Not because Shepard was the one and only one destined to deafeat the Reapers.
Likewise, Legion's deferment to Shepard during his loalty mission was based on his/her experience in dealing with the Geth not because Shepard was the prophesied messiah destined to bring an end to the Quarian / Geth war.
Only during the final five minutes of the game, during the scene with the catalyst, does the game pull the "Jesus card". It is during this brief dialoge that Shepard is told that only s/he could break the cycle, only s/he could could control the Reapers, only s/he could synthisize the galaxy. Requiring Shepard's death in order to facilitate breaking the cycle, just sceams of a messianic parallel. A blood sacrifice (in control and synthesis, and an implied one in destroy) having to take place in order to defeat the Reapers is too similar to not draw a comparison.
3. It is annoying and offensive, to me as a Christian. I mean it is hard enough to find a science fiction universe that doesn't treat my faith with outright contempt.
In most sci-fi settings the religious groups (ie Christianity) are portrayed as the antagonists, or at the very least ignorant roadblocks that the protaganist has to circumvent to achieve his goal. Most of the storys view Christians in one of several ways:
"Oh your a Christian, you must have been one of the people that belived the earth was flat, and people like you have hindered the growth of science. Why without you and your religion we would be all better off!"
or
"We discovered alien life in the universe therefore it disproves the exisence of God, and if you continue to belive in God, well then you are a xenophobe and are not open to others beliefs."
or even
"Can your God make something that is soo heavy that even he can not lift it? No? Then God does not exist because he should be able to create something like this if he is God. And if he can not pick up said object then God does not exist because he should be able to do anything. Therefore I have disproved your God's existence through
SCIENCE and
LOGIC!"
Granted those statements are exagerated pharaprases, but it does not change the fact that science fiction is typically hostile to believing in something other than science. With that being said, I would like to point out that I am not close minded , and view anything God related as "off limits" in literature. Metaphors, parallels, and underlying themes are completely fine with me.
When you say a charater IS Jesus however is when I begin to draw the line, especially when said character exhibits some non-Jesus behavior in the literary work. Things such as holding grudges, having sex outside of marriage, and in the case of Renegade Shepard is a raciscist SOB with homicidal/genocidal tendenciies.
I loved in Mass Effect 1, when Ashley asked my Shepard if I believed in God, and the game gave me the option to say yes or no. I could decide if I wanted my Shepard to be an athiest or a believer (Christian for me), and the game respected that, I was free to shape my character.
Not so in the ending, here we are told that Shepard is Jesus and that using special space mag.... I mean science we will now play God with the rest of the galaxy which is offensive not only to me as a beliver, but I would imagine to athiests as well.
Phew! Sorry for the long post, just wanted to get my point across. If anyone is willing to read my wall-o-text I would be interested to read your thoughts on the matter.
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