232 réponses à ce sujet

[inko1nsiderate]

Mdoggy1214 wrote...

inko1nsiderate wrote...

No offense, but you picked some really bad movies. I haven't seen Gladiator and Braveheart, but I would pretty much never use the other ones for any sort of analysis. Movies like Apocalypse Now, the Seven Samurai, or Yojimbo (or the almost shot for shot western 'remake' A Fistful of Dollars) would probably work better.  Maybe throw in Horatio Hornblower for good measure.

I will let you slide for I Am Legend and 300. But Terminator 2? Are you mad? If you didn't like it then fine, but don't go calling that a bad movie. I have never ever heard anyone bad mouth that film until now.

It is gimicky as hell.  A little kid teaching a killer robot to have feelings and give a thumbs up?  Please. That **** is lamer than Ewoks.  It has some of the most iconic action scenes ever, but the story is just so full of cheese I can't believe I ever loved that film.  Thanks to nostalgia I can still enjoy it thoroughly, but I would hate it if I saw it today.

Modifié par inko1nsiderate, 18 octobre 2012 - 07:36 .

[Iakus]

OP, a really good essay showing a big part of the reason why the ending to ME3 was awful and the EC only helped a little.

You did good, son, you did good.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

Sorry OP, but I disagree with Shepards death not being fulfilling. Bravo on the film anaysis though. I loved almost all those films.

[Brhino]

inko1nsiderate wrote...

-12 Monkeys

- Night of the Living Dead

- Saving Private Ryan

- Sparticus

12 monkeys I considered but rejected because, in my mind, it doesn't fit the mold of a heroic action adventure quest movie.  It's more of a strange mind@#$%-mystery film.  I think we come in with pre-set expectations about a certain genre of fiction, and if the author wants to jump from one genre to another he runs the risk of alienating the audiance unless he does it very well.  I feel like that was a mistake the ME3 writers made.  They fed us 30 hours of classic heroic quest story and then all of a sudden switched gears to... something else.  Not exactly sure what you'd call it.  It'd be putting on 9 rounds of a 10-round heavyweight boxing match and then switching in ballet instead of the tenth round.  Not saying boxing is good and ballet is bad, you just... want to get what you came for.

Saving Private Ryan I considered including but ultimately I didn't feel sure who the main character hero was.  Captain Miller?  I guess so.  Let's run down the list real quick.

• Hero's quest is great and total success: check.  Mission is to save Private Ryan.  Private Ryan is saved.  Took on an additional mission of defeating a german attack and that was successful too, although with heavy losses.
• No grieving lover: Captain Miller DOES have a wife.  She's not actually in the film though, he just talks about her briefly a couple times.  So we've established that there is going to be a grieving widow, but it's not a character we get to know and care about, and we're not really going to share her feelings of loss.
• Some friends die, others survive to enjoy victory.  Lots of death, few survivors, notably Private Ryan who bookends the film as an old man having lived a good life.

So apart from the minor discrepancy regarding his nearly-theoretical wife, I'd say Saving Private Ryan reinforces the rules quite well.

Haven't seen Night of the Living Dead or Sparticus, unfortunately.

[Humanoid_Typhoon]

I hated the death because it didn't feel like a sacrifice, it felt like suicide based on an assumption.

It was like a game show, kill yourself in one of three ways, but choose wisely, if you don't have enough points saved up you'll destroy the Earth!

[HK-90210]

Brhino wrote...
I really wanted to use Alien 3 because that would have been the only movie on the list with a female hero, but sadly I haven't seen that one either.

One problem with Alien 3: Hicks and Newt are killed of in the opening credits. An abomination to all the struggles in the previous film. Everything after that is just....bleh.

Modifié par CastonFolarus, 18 octobre 2012 - 09:07 .

[Tootles FTW]

The choices that lead to Shepard's possible death feel like a compromise with the enemy as opposed to defeating them. The problem here is the Catalyst and Shepard being forced to choose from his selection of endings, instead of earning our own (Refuse is debatably the only "earned" ending, but since that ends in a gigantic middle finger from Bioware...yea).

I very much disagree with your point about the LI being alive, though. I don't want to see Garrus die because of Shepard's sacrifice. Unless there is some super ridiculous scene in heaven with your ghostly LI running into your arms (DO NOT WANT) it is pointless and sad and a kick in the gut when I'm already reeling from the loss of my PC. At least then I can still headcanon Garrus loving my dead!Shepard until the day he dies.

...not that I will ever choose an ending besides Destroy w/ breath scene.

[Brhino]

CastonFolarus wrote...

Brhino wrote...
I really wanted to use Alien 3 because that would have been the only movie on the list with a female hero, but sadly I haven't seen that one either.

One problem with Alien 3: Hicks and Newt are killed of in the opening credits. An abomination to all the struggles in the previous film. Everything after that is just....bleh.

that, and I guess Alien 3 might be excluded on the basis that it's generally not considered a very good film, especially when compared to the first two.

[Grubas]

Brhino wrote...

[*]Haven't seen Night of the Living Dead or Sparticus, unfortunately.

Spartacus is basicly a refuse shepards. He keeps his selfdignity, fails his goal and dies. But its a heroic death as compared to, you know what... 

Modifié par Grubas, 18 octobre 2012 - 09:07 .

[Brhino]

I very much disagree with your point about the LI being alive, though. I don't want to see Garrus die because of Shepard's sacrifice.

I'm not saying anyone WANTS to see their LI die.  I'm just saying it would work in the story better, and Shepard's death would make more sense.

Imagine this: femShep and Garrus renuite on Palavan, rekindle their romance.  Later, garrus falls in battle against hordes of reapers.  Shepard mourns his loss, becomes possessed by an even more grim deterimination to defeat the reapers at any cost, including that of her own life.  Eventually does so. 

Now I realize the mechanics of killing off a love interest early in a game where you can chose a love interest throughout the game are not really going to work, but wouldn't that make for a much better story?  Instead it's

HEY SHEP LETS KILL THESE REAPERS AND MAKE HYBRID BABIES THAT WOULD TOTALLY WORK OOPS YOU DIED IS IT TOO LATE FOR ME TO GET WITH TALI?

Right in the feels.

[HK-90210]

Brhino wrote...

CastonFolarus wrote...

Brhino wrote...
I really wanted to use Alien 3 because that would have been the only movie on the list with a female hero, but sadly I haven't seen that one either.

One problem with Alien 3: Hicks and Newt are killed of in the opening credits. An abomination to all the struggles in the previous film. Everything after that is just....bleh.

that, and I guess Alien 3 might be excluded on the basis that it's generally not considered a very good film, especially when compared to the first two.

True, very true. It was so bad that David Fincher, the director, has disowned it(a reason I admire the man's work nowadays).

Also, forgot to mention, GREAT OP. Sums up the reasons why people didn't like Shepard's death very nicely. Glad you didn't endorse it one way or another, just nice to see someoene else sees how remarkably badly it was done, and presents a solid agrument to that effect(pun intended?).

One thing I would add, however, is that the loss of a protagonist in a video game, one whom people have actually played as and whom they actually identify with, brings about a loss of connection to the universe they are presented. This can be offset by a great many things, but if you cannot keep a solid connection between the player and the galaxy Shepard saved(which is hard to do in Control and Synthesis, since it's greatly up to player interpretation as to how those two endings pan out), then the players don't care nearly as much. I think this is what causes a lot of hate for those two endings. Not only did Bioware change the galaxy in ways that are hard for players to accept or interpret, but they also took away the player's primary connection to the universe, and their main method of understanding/interpreting it.

For instance: if Shepard had lived in the Synthesis ending, and romanced Garrus, it would be cool to see human/turian babies, now that the two species share te same type of DNA, right? Not endorsing this idea, necesarily, but it is something that would enter the minds(strange, though they may be). But the thought of hybrid-species isn't likely to occur to players very quickly if they don't have that kind of connection to the new universe that Shepard saved.

Edit: Spelling.

Modifié par CastonFolarus, 18 octobre 2012 - 09:13 .

[jakal66]

Alien 3 is much better than what you make of it...I think it's even better than Aliens in terms of how it was written, even more faithful to the original Alien.I love all three but I believe aliens was the typical action pop corn sci fi seller. Which I love but what they did in Alien 3 took a lot of balls.Thank god they didn't go with a direct sequel of Aliens...

You also have to have balls to kill the main character....thank god for cloning right? Or the Lazarus project hehehehe

[grey_wind]

A BIG reason Shepard's death fails on an emotional level is because Shepard was never even a character to begin with. He's an avatar for the player to experience the world through. The only way to actually make the death of such a "character" emotional is to show the effects it has on the people you actually cared about.
This is where DAO succeeded, showing your party mourning over your loss and what they thought of you after you died. ME3 failed here entirely by virtue of the endings cutting to black about 5 seconds after you decide what colour the galaxy will glow in.

[AlanC9]

Spartacus blatantly violates a couple of these principles. Spartacus is defeated and crucified, and leaves behind a grieving wife and child -- those two sneak away to freedom, which is a moral victory of sorts. However, Spartacus is arguably not a "heroic action adventure quest movie" in the first place, but more of a serious historical drama which just happens to have a bunch of gladiators in it.

[AlanC9]

As for the theory, I'm not sure it tells us much of anything except for what the expectations are for a particular genre of film.

[Iakus]

AlanC9 wrote...

As for the theory, I'm not sure it tells us much of anything except for what the expectations are for a particular genre of film.

But the goal has always been to make games more and more "cinematic" right?

[Mr.House]

By killing Shepard off once, they already diminished this feeling for many players, which is why the beginning of ME2 is horrible and a massive mistake.

Also going out like a chump and a tool also does not help.

[Eterna]

I was satisfied with my Shepards Death in Control, it was very in character for her.

[MegaSovereign]

I only hate Shepard's death in ME2 intro.

[blueumi]

terminator 1 and 2 did the heroes death well and even though it's a self fulfilling time paradox it was so good I really did not care about the logic issues

mass effect 3s ending just was not written or presented well I think bioware made a huge mistake adding so much new and strange settings and characters that you can no longer be immersed thats why the ending is a failure

shepard being alive or dead was never the problem

it's that it is unrecognisable to what we were used to in all three games

bioware also made the mistake of wasting time trying to make us care about some random child instead of focusing on the characters we already know and love

the child the dreams and star brat are all out of place so we end up hating the child for being there

[Massa FX]

If Shepard remained dead in ME2, I would have been on these forums years ago biaching and moaning about Shepard's fate.

The outcry would have been bad enough to prevent funding for a 3rd game.

Good points OP.

[Spectre Impersonator]

I just skimmed it, but well done!

I think that with the trendiness of being "edgy" today that it is far less expected to actually give us a happy ending where the hero lives. Hero dying is absolutely predictable. I'm tired of it.

[jtav]

I think romancing Miranda did a lot to make the ending palatable for me. Sure my Shep dies, but I see the future he won for her. She goes from be hunted by just about everyone and someone the Alliance would shoot on sight to someone they listen to and who is an active part of rebuilding. My life was worth that.

[christrek1982]

thank you OP this explains a lot would love for a member of the ME team to waigh in on this topic but at the same time I know that they have to tow the Bioware line weather the agree with it or not.

PS I agree with all of what you said most notable the stuff about the LI or the squad mate in general having you talk about what shepard hopes are with the LI and crew only to have shepards death all but forced upon you in the final moment is just cruel.

[Hudathan]

Who said Terminator 2 wasn't good?!