I remember hearing that first exchange: 'What's the plan?' / 'We fight or we die', and similarly thinking that Shepard might have gone a little mental. It's the first time I've ever agreed with anything the council says when that one guy responds: 'That's the plan?!'
I found myself thinking, 'Yeah, that's kind of vague, Shep. You might want to get a whiteboard and do some spit-balling or something, because – damn.'
I liked Shepard's plan in this video
www.youtube.com/watch (those of you with a strictly mature sense of humor might not find it amusing).
Ah, but I disgress. Let me speak seriously for a moment. As SHARX said, moments like these can be overlooked.
Note: This thread has almost 200 pages worth of posts, if this has been iterated before, then I apologize, I haven't become involved in this paticular discussion until recently.
However, Extended Cut or not, the ending fails to stay narratively consistent with the rest of the story. The Extended Cut cannot fix this, I don't think anything short of rewriting the last hour of the game can fix this. Forget about thematic consistency for the sake if this post, I am going to focus solely on narrative.
When watching a story unfold, whether it be a novel, a film, or a video-game, the audience expects the story - the narrative, to stay true to itself. The narrative is supposed to follow its own established rules; the acknowledgement of past events and lore, these types of things. Minor plot holes/confusions/inconsistencies can be overlooked, and they can be forgiven if they serve a purpose to the story. For example, at the end of the Rannoch story-arc Legion must sacrafice himself for the rest of the Geth to achieve true intelligence. There is no explanation for this, why a "personality-dissemination" is necessary, no exploration of alternatives and so on. However, it is a dramatic and touching moment where the player gets to say good-bye to a great character, a friend. It is emotionally satisfying to see Legion and Tali part ways, to see the irrational walls of animosity between two unique races come crashing down as they begin a new future together, to see them co-exist, understand and accept each other.
Another example is Thane's death, which also felt contrived. Why did Shepard and his squad just stand around, gaping at the ninja-fight between Thane and Keanu Reeves? Why didn't they do anything about it? Thane had a gun, why didn't he shoot Keanu Reeves instead of charging at him (bringing a gun to a knife fight is just as foolish as vice-versa)? But again, while less meaningful than Legion's sacrafice, Thane's death is another opportunity to create drama and provoke emotion in the player. It worked on me, Thane was my favorite character from Mass Effect 2, I was already teary-eyed when he was on his death bed, I started silently sobbing when I found out he was praying for my Shepard (I'm getting choked up just writing about this). There are other wierd instances, like Thessia, or why the Reapers never attacked the Crucible. But the point is, all these little, occasional hiccups in the narrative aren't going to ruin the story for somebody.
But when we get to the end of Mass Effect 3, all these hiccups and contrivances begin to pile up. The quality of the narrative and the writing quickly begins to degrade, ultimately obscuring and tainting the image of the story. There are so many plot holes (and their ilk) at the end, that Mass Effect 3's narrative consistency is completely destroyed. How does The Illusive Man contact the Reapers? How did the Reapers move the Citadel? How did the Reapers move the Citadel through a the much smaller Mass Relay to get to Sol? If the Reapers knew the galaxy was going to use the Crucible against them and the Citadel was a key component, why did they move it to Earth instead of destroying it? How did the galaxy's top minds manage to build the crucible yet were unable to discern what it did and how? Why is the Catalyst in the form of another person Shepard knew, instead of something more similar to Vigil? How does the Conduit/Beam work? How does it transport people directly to the Citadel? Where did it come from, and why is it so poorly defended? Why is Shepard wearing different armor? Why does Shepard have a bullet wound around his kidney area when he was shot in the shoulder? How did TIM end up on the Citadel? How did Anderson get there? If he did, why did Harbinger leave immediately after wiping out the initial wave of soldiers, causing the beam to be suseptible to infiltration again? There were no other reapers there. Why does TIM look so strange (not like Saren at all) when and how did he get Reaper implants, and how can he control Shepard and Anderson? The list goes on. We finally have our encounter the Catalyst, and we can add all the flaws of the Catalyst and its logic, the cheapening of the Reapers' and Harbinger's persona, and all the questions raised from the endings (How did Shepard end up back on London in Destroy, what will happen to partly synthetic people like biotics and the quarians, how will VIs be affected, how the **** does synthesis work, etc) to our list of narrative inconsistencies.
The ending is so contrived and non-sensical, there are innumerable things wrong with it. It's as if they hired a completely different group of writers with almost no foreknowledge of the Mass Effect trilogy or universe.
However, there is one good thing that has emerged out of this. The Indoctrination Theory. The Indoctrination Theory takes a proportionate amount of these plotholes and inconsistencies and uses them as an explanation for an alternate ending. Aside from Bioware wanting the fans to headcanon the ending that they failed to write, they are not denying the Indoctrination Theory because it gives a portion of the fanbase an excuse to justify these plotholes, and hold the writers and studio in a higher regard. If you believe in IT, I am glad for you, but in the end, the endings are ultimately the product of poor writing.
At this point, the words 'narrative consistency' have as much meaning to Mass Effect as the word 'integrity' does to EA. This is what I feel is the game's biggest mistake. I also believe that atleast some of the people who liked the Extended Cut are forcing themselves to like it because they have been told that it is all we are going to get. They have deluded themselves into liking it because they don't want to accept just how badly Mass Effect was ruined. I don't blame theme. I envy them, because I cannot do the same. Mass Effect 3's endings are an insult and betrayal to the fans. This isn't about being entitled, the endings are a '**** You' to anyone who has ever emotionally invested themselves in this franchise. Two selfish writers, two pseudo-intellectuals, have used the ending of an epic, unique video-game franchise as an excuse to cram their own philosophical bull**** down the fans' throats.
This is the sad truth that haunts me. This is the reason why there is an N7-shaped hole in my heart
Retour en haut
Nice Renegade act.
