858 réponses à ce sujet

[someone else]

master pillow spend a lot of time keeping his pajama bottoms from falling down around his knees, and the OP hopes we won't look too hard.

The author's attempts to display his erudition is just boring. He is the one who fails totally to understand why the ending is an epic fail.

I posted this in an earlier thread and I stand by it.

The ending is Bad.

Bad because it is dramatically disconnected from everything that preceded it.

Bad because the writing was clumsy, forced, and unnuanced.

Bad because the writing itself is drastically inferior to that in the rest of the game

Bad, because the information on the reapers, however interesting, is irrelevant to the choices offered Shepard.

Bad, because the "choices" turn the protagonist into a mere foil for SpaceBrat.

Bad because the choices invalidate the fundamental theme of player choice.

Bad, because even Bioware has been forced to admitted it is deficient and needs "clarification."

An ending need not provide "closure" or cut off controversy or even lead to a happily ever after to be great (The Sopranos is a perfect example.) Like it or not, no one ever argued that was crappy writing or a creative dodge.

Bioware' dlc needs to fix the ending - clarification will not cut it. They have made it clear, however, that defending Casey and Walter's egos are the paramount values.

and finally, Bad, because it encourages the kind of intellectual dishonesty that allows mere opinion to pass as critical thinking, and shoddy workmanship, defective execution and bad writing to claim immunity as "art."

Modifié par someone else, 20 avril 2012 - 12:44 .

[EagleScoutDJB]

Skirlasvoud wrote...



OP, you're a genius.

All we need to have in the extended cut for everyone to understand the endings, is Stephen Hawking rolling up next to the kid in a wheelchair and provide about 1- 2 hours of dry commentary on everything that's said.

That's the perfect conclusion to my storydriven, sentimental, fictional action-RPG! A stiff talking down to by a theorist! And after the genius crew is done with Mass Effect, maybe they can release a DVD discussing how unfeasible Lord of the Rings is. 

As bad as that sounds, it's still better then what we have now.

[japinthebox]

Comparing the ending to Shakespeare would be cruelest heckle. Ignoring certain plot holes that are "valid" [I guess you'll determine which ones they are] the end result is "why". Why ignore certain plots holes and not others? Why force the plot for it to make sense? Why use external concepts not introduced anywhere else in the story? Entertainment? The endin wasn't that entertaining. Inspiration? I'm inspired to avoid it. Introspection? I don't like the ****s... if somone gave me definative proof that antisemitism is th right way to go, i'd still not like the ****s, that's the only introspection I need.

You like the story... glad you like it. I don't, I hope they change it.

I said in the article that I liked the ending, but I didn't think it was absolutely spectacular. My problem is with the reception it got.

I also never compared Mass Effect to Shakespeare. You're putting words in my mouth. I just said that even good stories have plot holes -- many of them quite severe, as in Shakespeare's case.

I like the corruption stuff too. But Mass Effect is 100+ hours long. It can have more than one theme. And according to interviews, the synthetics vs. organics theme has been pointed out since before Mass Effect even had a name.

Apparently you're having problems understanding the point..: Corruption and defiance is WHY I liked the stories. If you take away the corruption and the defiance, then I. Don't. Like. It. Synths vs Organics... eh.

Defying fate is easy in a game just because you can start from your last save point. A lot of game characters mention how lucky the protagonist is. That wasn't too interesting to me, though I wholeheartedly accept that you liked it.

Apparently you're having problems understanding the point..: Corruption and defiance was the appeal of the game for a lot of people. If you take away the corruption and the corruption and the defiance [especially at the end when he's presented with a fanatic idea like Eugenics,] I. Don't. Like. It.

Sure, I don't blame you.

I don't like Sonic because I don't like the idea of a bipedal hedgehog. I don't like country music because I just don't. Doesn't mean that's why 90% of the audience hated the ME ending. There are other factors.

Actually, something nearly identical happened to a Japanese series called Astro Boy 60 years ago. The character's now as widely recognized as Hello Kitty, and he's a mascot for several prestigious universities and companies.

Not saying that'll necessarily be the case for Mass Effect, but it could.

I don't understand your point. Are you saying "astro boy" was a series that had a "final chapter" that a controversial ending and a lot of people thought it was bad, but the whole last episode/comic/season was a resolution of all the different earlier plots in an abrupt way?

Yeah. Here, I'll explain what actually happened in my next post.

It devalues the idea of a charity. A charity is something where you give something large to get back something smaller. It's not a fair trade, and the donor by definition gets the crap end of the stick because they're doing it on the principle that things will be better for someone else. It also brings awareness to the cause.

u get mad at them for giving money to charities.

Yes, because the way the money was given, many people actually insisted on having that money refunded to them.

$100,000 may seem like a large sum of money, but the bigger point of a charity is the principles and publicity that it carries. That's why Gabe of Child's Play was also upset about the situation.

Modifié par japinthebox, 20 avril 2012 - 12:45 .

[ConradShepard]

Rule #1 You don't introduce the main antagonist 10 minutes before the end of a story. To do it at the very end of a trilogy is the height of incompetence.

[japinthebox]

So there's a part that I left out of the article which will hopefully be up later tonight. Since I mentioned it in this thread, here it is:

About 50 years ago, there was a manga named Astro Boy written by manga
artist Tezuka Osamu, who is now revered as the “father of manga” in Japan.

Long story short, Astro Boy was a story about a robotic boy
Atom created by a scientist to help him cope with the loss of his son. Atom
fights crime and evil politicians and subservient-robots-gone-rogue-sentient,
among other things. Robots and humans end up in a lot of conflicts, mostly due
to humans discriminating against them and robots overpowering them. In one arc,
an alien species lands on earth in search of resources. Atom mediates, and the
humans and aliens agree to jointly colonize Venus.

Here’s the real kicker: in the last chapters, and the last
episode of the anime adaptation, Atom throws himself into the sun carrying a
rocket that wouldn’t change its trajectory away from earth no matter how many
times he tried to nudge it away.

The TV station ended
up with a ton of complaint letters (sorry the links are in Japanese).
People demanded that they take back the episode where he dies, and continue to
write more episodes. They complained that the show ended way too abruptly after
having run for 4 years. They complained that it made kids cry. And they
complained about apparent plot holes – something about the effect of radiation
from the rocket. Many people insisted that the TV station just killed off Atom
to make room for a new show “Goku no Bouken”, which took Atom’s time slot. What
those fan didn’t know was that the manga, which had already ended its
serialization as well, ended the same way.

Tezuka said in an interview that he felt bad for his fans,
but that at the same time it was the most meaningful ending.

The complaints kept rolling in, so he ended up writing an
alternate ending where Atom gets saved by aliens. Then he got
even more complaints, saying he just pulled it out of his ass.

So there you have it. History repeats itself.

The show ended up winning an award from the Japanese Health
and Welfare Ministry, and another from the Japanese Council for Better Radio
and Television. Atom’s also a prominent mascot character now, all the way up
there in recognition with Hello Kitty. A lot of tech companies and prestigious
universities in Japan associate themselves with Atom. Apparently he’s even
registered as a resident in my hometown Niiza in Japan…

Modifié par japinthebox, 20 avril 2012 - 12:49 .

[JPN17]

Another one of these "you didn't get it explanations." Just once I'd like to see a pro ender tell me why the ending is good without going into speculations about what probably or could have happened via their own imagination. I'm still waiting for that one. What it really comes down to is if you have to create your own version of the story to fill in the details, then the original author didn't do it right.

Modifié par JPN17, 20 avril 2012 - 12:46 .

[Dendio1]

great read. Lots of links and information learned here. I disagree with javik and tali's accent being something we have to suspend disbelief for. Everyone on the normandy has their own accent more or less.

Bioware really needed to ease the transition from type 1 to type 2 storytelling

During the game and the game series shepard was asked what he fought for by javik (his friends or to kill the reapers). He was asked by Liara what he fought for...once again personal love interest or kill the reapers. The entire game is framed around type 0 and type 1 civilizations. We see through shepard type 1 eyes.

Sure  type 2 and 3 may be more important, but we never get to understand the importance until the last moments. We players see the majority of the game series from a type 0-1 perspective. Thats why its so jarring when they decide to suddenly end the game from the reapers perspective.

Sure the ending tells the story of the reapers, but its really disorienting to suddenly have your perspective switched from type 0-1 to type 2-3 with almost no warning and in the last 5 mins. You start to question things that type 2-3 take for granted. Many people neglected to jump into type 2-3 way of thinking at the end because up until the last 5 mins we never had to. From a type 0-1 perspective the ending is all space magic

The excuse for Indoc theory is it was all indoctrination

The excuse for this theory is the reapers and the crucible are sufficiently advanced tech. Just accept it.

Modifié par Dendio1, 20 avril 2012 - 12:59 .

[Cody211282]

sp0ck 06 wrote...

LucasShark wrote...

This ending is worthless, period. It violates the very themes and design choices of ME1 and 2, end of story.

Reading that article might change your mind about that.

If you need to write a multi page paper to get even close to the ending making sence then it just proves what a peice of **** it is.

Also this didn't change my mind at all.

[Kreid]

pikey1969 wrote...

Creid-X wrote...

I'm really astonished at the number of people here who are surprised to find scientific theories in science fiction.

By that logic, I should be surprised that yet another science fiction re-colors scientific theories with crayons.

Fiction is based on reality, it will discard plausibility at certain points to provide entertainment but it doesn't invalidate the fact that real world logic still apllies.

Modifié par Creid-X, 20 avril 2012 - 12:53 .

[DarkShadow]

Ok, I don't wanna write another wall of text, so I'll try to keep this as short as possible. I've got quite a lot more to say to this article, but I'll only cover the most important stuff. Oh, and before anyone asks, I read the whole article, and it was a good read. But the content wasn't really much that I don't know already.

First of all, thanks for posting this article, and thanks to the person that wrote it. Especially because you didn't talk like some pro-enders (hurr durr, you're just too stupid to understand the ending), but you added this article to show why you liked the ending, and for the chance that some people would get a chance to see the ending in a brighter light.

Now, to some of the problems the article has, and why it CAN'T change the opinion of the majority.

The author makes one big mistake, he uses hypotheses to answer questions. I don't know if he didn't know you shouldn't do that, or if he mixed up hypotheses with theories (which I doubt, he looks quite clever), but this simply reduces most of his explanations to pure fan fiction. Still, I'd like to talk about some points.

The relays. From a scientific standpoint, I agree to what he said about the "explosions". The relay in the arrival was destroyed, and this resulted in all its energy being released uncontrolled. In the endings however, the energy is used/transformed into something different, so there's no energy to be released uncontrolled.

From a storytelling perspective, this is a big problem. Up to this point, the audience only knew that the destruction of a relay destroys a solar system. If this isn't true this time, you have to tell the audience exactly why it's different this time. However, this is just a failure of writing, and something that actually can be fixed in the EC DLC.

That a lot of people understood this and still say it sucks (and I agree with them) is a completely different story...

To 3.13: Sorry, but that analogy/explanation is simply wrong. The reapers need a lot of DIFFERENT DNA for creating a new reaper, which is stated numerous times. In contrast to that, the more you think about the synthesis ending, the less sense it makes.

While the author shows quite some knowledge in physics, he shows little knowledge of storytelling. Due to this, we come to the biggest problem: The article doesn't really address the real problems with the ending.

First one, closure. Sorry, but what he said is simply wrong. Closure CAN'T happen in the middle of the game. It HAS to happen in the denouement. If it doesn't it'll simply not work for the majority. This doesn't mean that the conclusions for the most important arcs have to happen after the climax (that would be stupid), but it means that they have to be addressed in the denouement. And that simply didn't happen, or was horribly implemented (Normandy crash scene).

Second one, and I'd say this one is the biggest problem. The scenes after the magical elevator completely destroy the narrative coherence of the story. The moment the elevator appears, the Mass Effect 3 story stops. It doesn't end, it stops (there's quite a difference in these words). At this exact moment, the player is filled up with tension he needs to release, that's what the denouement is for. The problem is, at this scene, the central conflict of ME3 is replaced by another central conflict, and there's no way to release this tension. Now, this tension will change to confusion and then to frustration. Ok, now before you state that you were not frustrated, I'll simply point out that humans are different. Stories follow rules because those rules work for the majority. Doesn't mean they work for everyone.

Well, damn. Looks like I did create a wall of text. And btw, this text probably shows that it didn't change my opinion on the ending at all.

Modifié par DarkShadow, 20 avril 2012 - 12:52 .

[katamuro]

read it, still have the same viewpoint. the ending still sucks and i am still disappointed.

[xsdob]

Everyone just cut out this flamewar crap right now. This post ran out of relevance a good 4 pages ago and now everyone just going back and forth and getting no where fast.

Take a breath and move on, no matter who your arguing against, no matter what your arguing in favor of, your just playing this out the same as this video.

[Crimson Shame]

As someone who really wanted to like the ending, and has read most of Michio Kaku's books (I thought I had read them all, but an Amazon search turns up a new one that I haven't read yet), I found that link pretty underwheliming. It's a bunch of conjecture and pesudoscience that was never central to Mass Effect's plot line.

I can't speak for everyone, but the reason that I felt let down by the ending wasn't that it didn't make sense or that there were plot holes. I simply didn't like the fact that all endings were essentially a loss. No backwards-rationalization will change that. It's not fun to invest so much time and emotion in an experience, and then have the game tell you that you have to lose at the end. If I want to philosophize on the similarities and differences between synthetic and organic life (and I frequently do), I have more appropriate mediums for that. I don't need it hijacking my awesome space opera.

[x-Killision-X]

To OP,

     I have read the book "Physics Of The Impossible", which talks about class 0, I, II, and III civilizations and their technological capabilities (funny that everthing in the book is speculation on non existing tech). I also read the article in your link. I still think the ending to Mass Effect 3 is a blatant rip off of the original Deus Ex ending (check it out for yourself, even the choices/colors are the same). In their current state they are a disaster that I personally think need to be spaced and re-written.

     No matter how many articles are written about the ME3 ending, or how to view them, it's still lazy and poorly written.

[Kulthar Drax]

If I have to read an extremely long (I read most of it) article to "get" the ending, it totally failed on every level of storytelling. I shouldn't need to read an essay which essentially tells me that I "didn't get it", and that I should "just go with it, man!" and suspend my disbelief. It is because my suspension of disbelief got utterly destroyed in the last five minutes that I'm having a problem with the ending. The plotholes, the narrative suicide, the nonsensical drivel that gets spouted, the space magic etc. I love space and astronomy and astrobiology is interesting and stuff. But I still thought the ending was crappy.

Then you get the typical "artistic integrity" bollocks scattered throughout the entire essay, particularly towards the ending.

I just wanted to add that throughout this article, it continually says things like "There’s no reason not to simply accept that a technology even more grand than that of the Reapers and the Catalyst could graft machine to man
instantaneously." and stuff like "It makes sense to simply suspend disbelief and appreciate the fireworks, the same way we don’t bother to complain about laser beams being visible in movies and in games (and indeed in Mass Effect)", basically saying we should just suspend our disbelief and go with the flow. And to my knowledge, laser weaponry generally isn't used by anyone anywhere in the Mass Effect universe anyway. It is all mass effect field accelerated slugs and molten metal/plasma bolts and stuff like that, all of which would be visible.

Think about it: the Mass Effect story is about a hundred hours long, and the ending is proportionately long, because Mass Effect 3 is the ending.

Then at the end he writes this, and this argument always annoys me. No, Mass Effect 3 is NOT the ending. The ending of Mass Effect 3 is the ending. The third game is the grand finale, sure, but by no means the end until you actually reach the end of the game itself. THAT's the damn end.

"Oh yeah, you're playing the ending right now. But don't worry, you still got a real ending because you're playing that Tuchanka level. That's the ending! The stuff at the actual end of the game is...well..I don't know. We had some budget left over and decided to sling some crap that nobody would get in there. But you already had the ending. It was the rest of the game. No, no, I understand that the concept of traditional stories have the ending at the end of the story, but you had the ending before the end of the game"

Modifié par Kulthar Drax, 20 avril 2012 - 12:57 .

[nwj94]

Just like in politics if you have to explain why your losing than you've already lost.

The ending should make sense within the context of the ending. If everyone (And it was everyone there is plenty of evidence from a huge number of polls indicating that 80-90% of the community is upset,) gut reaction upon finishing the game was disgust than you did it wrong.

And as a final note this condescending attitude of the pro ending movement is exactly why your treated so badly on this forum. You don't "Challenge me" to do anything, you offer a polite view point.

[zennyrpg]

"3.16 The ending discards important philosophies and themes

It does, but it doesn’t do so without very good reason. Unfortunately, Bioware assumes familiarity with some rather esoteric concepts. I explain these concepts in the “scientific basis” section."

Maybe the ending sucked because stuff like this wasn't foreshadowed or introduced through game play. Of course if it was, Mass Effect would have been a very different series. After all, the true enemy is US, our ability to create machines that will eventually destroy us.

[XTR3M3]

guess what, I still hate the ending and still think BioWare purposely misrepresented what the ending would be. I also highly doubt they were getting anywhere close to that deep while writing it. That author talks about "Definite errors in the ending" in 2.0. Was BioWare even aware these were errors? or were the errors part of their "artistic vision".

Here it is bottom line. No matter how you explain it, I thought the ending sucked, all 3 of the crayola endings. Not because I didn't "get" it, but just like how I don't like chick flicks, I don't like this ending. It is possible to "get" the ending and still hate it.

Modifié par XTR3M3, 20 avril 2012 - 12:59 .

[Ariq]

You still haven't explained why it was okay for Bioware to drop the thematic ball and dispense with narrative cohesion so they could focus the entire trilogy onto those last ten minutes. You're right, that was the central decision that led to the vehement reaction to (some) otherwise minor plotholes. The disintegration of the central narrative in the last ten minutes lenses every other problem, nit, and disconnect within the game to epic proportions. The suspension of disbelief was shattered by the pseudo-profundities in the bare 14 lines of dialogue spouted by the Catalyst. "But Science!" just doesn't answer that. Yes, I'm aware of the theories you mention; yes, they are interesting. But understanding them doesn't fix the narrative train wreck of the Catalyst. You admit it was done poorly. You admit there are gaping plotholes and inexplicable problems tied into the final sequence of events. Well...those problems, which you try to sweep under the rug, those are the cracks that led to suspension breaking into a million little pieces.

[JyrikGauldy]

Mass effect was straightfoward until the last ten minutes. If they wanted the story to be all "deep" and stuff they should've not waited until the final moments to throw all of this crap at us.

[nazgul1x]

someone else wrote...


I posted this in an earlier thread and I stand by it.

The ending is Bad.

Bad because it is dramatically disconnected from everything that preceded it.

Bad because the writing was clumsy, forced, and unnuanced.

Bad because the writing itself is drastically inferior to that in the rest of the game

Bad, because the information on the reapers, however interesting, is irrelevant to the choices offered Shepard.

Bad, because the "choices" turn the protagonist into a mere foil for SpaceBrat.

Bad because the choices invalidate the fundamental theme of player choice.

Bad, because even Bioware has been forced to admitted it is deficient and needs "clarification."

An ending need not provide "closure" or cut off controversy or even lead to a happily ever after to be great (The Sopranos is a perfect example.) Like it or not, no one ever argued that was crappy writing or a creative dodge.

Bioware' dlc needs to fix the ending - clarification will not cut it. They have made it clear, however, that defending Casey and Walter's egos are the paramount values.

and finally, Bad, because it encourages the kind of intellectual dishonesty that allows mere opinion to pass as critical thinking, and shoddy workmanship, defective execution and bad writing to claim immunity as "art."

Pretty much sums it up

[japinthebox]

From a storytelling perspective, this is a big problem. Up to this point, the audience only knew that the destruction of a relay destroys a solar system. If this isn't true this time, you have to tell the audience exactly why it's different this time. However, this is just a failure of writing, and something that actually can be fixed in the EC DLC.

Stipulated. They may have been better off "damaging" the mass relays or something -- not destroying them and showing them in huge explosions, especially when the prior destruction of a mass relay was so spectacular.

First one, closure. Sorry, but what he said is simply wrong. Closure CAN'T happen in the middle of the game. It HAS to happen in the denouement. If it doesn't it'll simply not work for the majority. This doesn't mean that the conclusions for the most important arcs have to happen after the climax (that would be stupid), but it means that they have to be addressed in the denouement. And that simply didn't happen, or was horribly implemented (Normandy crash scene).

I fail to see how the story about the quarian/geth, the genophage/mordin/krogan, and everything else that matters could have possibly fit in an epilogue. The choices you make throughout the game are so numerous that there's simply no way it would fit.

It's not ideal, of course, but then again, nothing's ideal for a 100+ hour game.

Keep in mind this is one of the few games out there that retain your saves over a hundred hour period.

Second one, and I'd say this one is the biggest problem. The scenes after the magical elevator completely destroy the narrative coherence of the story. The moment the elevator appears, the Mass Effect 3 story stops. It doesn't end, it stops (there's quite a difference in these words). At this exact moment, the player is filled up with tension he needs to release, that's what the denouement is for. The problem is, at this scene, the central conflict of ME3 is replaced by another central conflict, and there's no way to release this tension. Now, this tension will change to confusion and then to frustration. Ok, now before you state that you were not frustrated, I'll simply point out that humans are different. Stories follow rules because those rules work for the majority. Doesn't mean they work for everyone.

I can't say that the story "stops" or that the central conflict is replaced in any way. It's framed in a new way, sure, but it doesn't stop.

By the way, I'm human, and I know of a lot of stories that end with a sudden "stop" and an epiphany at the end.

You may have a point though -- all the examples I can think of are Japanese -- Tezuka and Hagio Motoo's works, Akira... It could be a cultural thing.

Modifié par japinthebox, 20 avril 2012 - 01:01 .

[fle6isnow]

japinthebox wrote...

From a storytelling perspective, this is a big problem. Up to this point, the audience only knew that the destruction of a relay destroys a solar system. If this isn't true this time, you have to tell the audience exactly why it's different this time. However, this is just a failure of writing, and something that actually can be fixed in the EC DLC.

Stipulated. They may have been better off "damaging" the mass relays -- not destroying them and showing them in huge explosions.

First one, closure. Sorry, but what he said is simply wrong. Closure CAN'T happen in the middle of the game. It HAS to happen in the denouement. If it doesn't it'll simply not work for the majority. This doesn't mean that the conclusions for the most important arcs have to happen after the climax (that would be stupid), but it means that they have to be addressed in the denouement. And that simply didn't happen, or was horribly implemented (Normandy crash scene).

I fail to see how the story about the quarian/geth, the genophage/mordin/krogan, and everything else that matters could have possibly fit in an epilogue. The choices you make throughout the game are so numerous that there's simply no way it would fit.

It's not ideal, of course, but then again, nothing's ideal for a 100+ hour game.

Keep in mind this is one of the few games out there that retain your saves over a hundred hour period.

Second one, and I'd say this one is the biggest problem. The scenes after the magical elevator completely destroy the narrative coherence of the story. The moment the elevator appears, the Mass Effect 3 story stops. It doesn't end, it stops (there's quite a difference in these words). At this exact moment, the player is filled up with tension he needs to release, that's what the denouement is for. The problem is, at this scene, the central conflict of ME3 is replaced by another central conflict, and there's no way to release this tension. Now, this tension will change to confusion and then to frustration. Ok, now before you state that you were not frustrated, I'll simply point out that humans are different. Stories follow rules because those rules work for the majority. Doesn't mean they work for everyone.

I can't say that the story "stops" or that the central conflict is replaced in any way. It's framed in a new way, sure, but it doesn't stop.

By the way, I'm human, and I know of a lot of stories that end with a sudden "stop" and an epiphany at the end.

You may have a point though -- all the examples I can think of are Japanese -- Tezuka and Hagio Motoo's works, Akira... It could be a cultural thing.

Yeah I sorta explained this in one of my threads about why I think ME3 had a kishotenketsu structure with how it opens up a lot of new questions at the end.

[Hjelsao]

A well written piece, but I feel it attacks the problem from the wrong angle. NoBrandMinda describes this problem perfectly in the comments section: "You seem to forget that Mass Effect is a work of fiction. Real world concepts only apply if they are supported by the narrative.
The only “rules” that apply to a fictional universe are the ones that are established in the narrative. This is especially true in a science fiction or fantasy story where the laws of the real world may not apply. Our idea of what is “normal” in this universe is shaped by the narrative."

You can be as scientifically sound as you want; it doesn't matter if it doesn't enter into the internal logic of the fictional universe.

[Sublyminal]

Read it, the ending is still horrible.