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[Scorpion1O1]

Thanks for sharing, this is gold.

[Auld Wulf]

CynicalShep wrote...

Does going for the "cool" really sell more copies?

There's some real and very obvious dissonance, here, though. The organic-synthetic conflict story was clearly absolutely not the cool choice. It was the damned interesting one. See, the cool choice is the one that people just herd around in massive droves; that's what makes it cool. The dark energy idea is a boring, one-dimensional idea with a very predictable plotline and an equally predictable ending. That's the definition of "cool" these days, because what sells well in the mainstream media is predictability. People want to be able to understand fully what's going on, and they want the ending to be a one-dimensional thing. It's like we've all regressed to pre-teens, sometimes, I feel.

I'm going to pull a random example out of my butt. Look at the X-Men comics; the best writers were clearly Morrison, Whedon, and Ellis. They wrote comics for mature adults, for people who wanted to be treated with respect enough to understand them, and they didn't pull any punches. And yet they're not what sells, what sells is the '90s Iron Age style of writting as penned by Chucken Austen and Brian Michael Bendis. What do you get from the latter? Predictable plots with predictable outcomes. It's what people like, that's "cool."

The organic-synthetic thing, the reapers, the catalyst, even the starchild were unpredictable, and therefore "uncool" to the majority. So the organic-synthetic plotline was the "uncool" option, the dark matter plotline was the "cool" option. The levels of predictability of each betray the truth of this. It's down to imagination or a lack thereof, I think. I think that as a race, we're grooming ourselves to become less and less imaginative, less and less creative all the time. Amongst my friends (artists and writers alike), the organic-synthetic plotline is better, and more meaningful.

What meaning would there have been in the dark matter plotline? How would have impressed you? Would it have been able to make you feel? The dark matter plotline is a predictable A-to-B romp. Oh noes, dark matter is consuming the Universe, so ROBUTTS are made to consume all of the people into hard, oyster-like shells which will protect them from the EBIL dark energy! Yup. That's going to have so much meaning. It's going to make you feel.

I'm sorry, but the dark energy plotline is bloody boring. I'm glad they didn't use it.

What we had, instead, is a story that conveys the idea that there's no evil in the galaxy, and that everything is merely a matter of perspective. The reapers, as evil as they seemed, weren't so at all; they were just badly programmed by an apex race that was too arrogant and short-sighted to know better. That, to me, has more meaning than the other alternative. And yet it's uncool. It's uncool because it challenges people, it challenges them more than a sideboob on the TV. It actually makes them think about what the heck just happened. I welcome this, if you seek my other posts you'll share in the understanding I've reached. I enjoy the challenge, I like things being metaphorical, and emotional, rather than a clear-cut, plodding, A-to-B-to-C plotline.

So how you can think the unpredictable, emotional, and intelligent storyline that did make it into ME3 was the "cool" one is beyond me. I was pleasantly surprised by it, because I thought that the mind-numbingly dull dark matter plotline would have been the one they'd opt for. See, that makes a lot of people happy due in no small part to its entirely predictable nature. Therefore, the dark matter plotline was the "cool" one.

I'm happy that every now and then we have a studio brave enough to pick the "uncool" option.

[Rasofe]

Greylycantrope wrote...

That's assuming I was open to other ideas to begin with and wasn't shouting "contradiction" before hand. A narrative is based upon previously establish material, when a new writer takes a different approach it is a contradiction of the previously established material not just me wanting to force an interpretation.
Let me put it like this way:
Grey: I've read/watch this material and arrived at a certain conclusion
Someone else: I've arrived at another conclusion
Grey:That conclusion doesn't seem to be reflected in the material.
Writer: I've written the material with an intent that reflects Grey's conclusion.
Grey: Well fancy that. *Smugly enjoys previously drawn conclusion*

Which is almost certainly an unfair advantage. Anyway, my point is that this contradiction was subtle before and it's called evolution, a concept can be developed and changed. But when a writer comes in and says "nono, this stuff is all wrong, I never meant it to develop this way" you can easily start dismissing the new development of the concept instead of giving it a chance.
It's basically a poor approach to literature to ask the author what he meant. You should always be open to new developments and not shout contradiction unless the Narrative Cohesion is stretched past the acceptable limits, which it wasn't until the last 15 min of the game.

Modifié par Rasofe, 20 janvier 2013 - 05:51 .

[Rasofe]

"What we had, instead, is a story that conveys the idea that there's no evil in the galaxy, and that everything is merely a matter of perspective. The reapers, as evil as they seemed, weren't so at all; they were just badly programmed by an apex race that was too arrogant and short-sighted to know better. That, to me, has more meaning than the other alternative. And yet it's uncool. It's uncool because it challenges people, it challenges them more than a sideboob on the TV. It actually makes them think about what the heck just happened. I welcome this, if you seek my other posts you'll share in the understanding I've reached. I enjoy the challenge, I like things being metaphorical, and emotional, rather than a clear-cut, plodding, A-to-B-to-C plotline."

That would be fine if it didn't contradict everything we saw about the Reapers. This isn't about things being unpredictable, it's just illogical. Predictability has nothing to do with "coolness", nonsense storytelling is POOR storytelling, anyone who studies literature will tell you that. Things need to be foreshadowed. The quality is how subtle the underlying tones are, and the red thread in this case was so subtle it went unnoticed by an overwhelming amount of people, that the Synthetic - Organic conflict had been a sidetheme in ME1 and ME3, with only ME2 being mostly devoid of it.

The thing is, what they did go with, showing "there is no evil in the galaxy" was not the main theme of the story, and neither was "creations will destroy creators". The theme was a much more mature "What do you do when your horizons expand? How do you behave in the face of a complete and utter paradigm shift?" There were two paradigm shifts in the opening of the series, and they were the focus of the games for the most part - 1 humanity is not alone, and 2, there are BIG THINGS that will kill everyone.
What does Shepard do? You decide. How do others react? Wait and see.
Then the Catalyst comes in and says "no, the ending will be about synthetics vs organics and not the idea of how people should act when faced with a world-turn". If they respected that theme, rejection would be a potentially succesful ending. It isn't.

Also, imagination and logic are not mutually exclusive. But you can't start going for one at the expense of another.

Modifié par Rasofe, 20 janvier 2013 - 06:02 .

[SpamBot2000]

"There's no evil in the galaxy, everything is a matter of perspective"?

Uh... so a perspective of not giving a good goddamn about the suffering of life forms you deem inferior just makes everything morally acceptable then?

If what the Reapers do is not evil, not much is. That is our perspective, because it is done to us. That perspective is nothing to be transcended. If you do, you're right up there with "a million deaths is a statistic".

Funny it's always the ones spouting off about "intelligence" who miss these basic points.

[Rasofe]

There is absolute evil but there's no absolute good.
And absolute evil is a much more thorough crime than "not caring about suffering" or "deeming others inferior". Those are symptoms of a problem, not the problem itself.
And if the intention of the reapers was to preserve all life within Reaper form, than it is possible to construct a frame of morality where this would be a good thing.
Absolute evil can't be that way. An evil that is absolute must be an evil in ALL frames of reference or morality. It must be outside perspective. And though it exists, the Reapers are, unfortunately, no longer an example of such.

[Ajensis]

Auld Wulf wrote...
(snip)

I'm happy that every now and then we have a studio brave enough to pick the "uncool" option.

I fully understand what you're saying and where you're coming from, but the problem is that you can't just arbitrarily ram this kind of content in anywhere you feel like. It has to make sense in the broader picture, and Mass Effect has spent hundreds of hours on building a stage that simply doesn't support this ending. Mass Effect is a straight-forward good vs. evil-universe with characters you love and the fantastic ability to explore dozens of worlds that we can't see in real life. It's great entertainment, and not a whole lot more. Taking such a drastic turn at the end destroys the narrative and whatever meaningful thoughts were offered are simply lost to anyone who can't ignore this huge shift.

I like being challenged to think about stuff. But this is Mass Effect and its focus has never been of such philosophical matter as the ending tries to serve. I'm not dissatisfied because my Shepard didn't get to live happily ever after, I was fully expecting a death, but to me, the ending doesn't work because it's a round piece in a jigsaw puzzle of square pieces; it just won't fit in anywhere and allow me to look at the finished picture with a smile on my face.

Also, just want to add that I strongly dislike predictability. I didn't want a predictable end to Mass Effect - but that doesn't mean it should aim to be so unpredictable that it has to be wholly inconsistent with the rest. There has to be some kind of middle ground.

[ZLurps]

Ajensis wrote...

I like being challenged to think about stuff. But this is Mass Effect and its focus has never been of such philosophical matter as the ending tries to serve. I'm not dissatisfied because my Shepard didn't get to live happily ever after, I was fully expecting a death, but to me, the ending doesn't work because it's a round piece in a jigsaw puzzle of square pieces; it just won't fit in anywhere and allow me to look at the finished picture with a smile on my face.

Also, just want to add that I strongly dislike predictability. I didn't want a predictable end to Mass Effect - but that doesn't mean it should aim to be so unpredictable that it has to be wholly inconsistent with the rest. There has to be some kind of middle ground.

I think L'Etoile tried to bring something fresh and challenging in old synthetic vs. organic conflict cliche by deconstucting it. Richard K. Morgan touched the subject in his novel Altered Carbon and it's IMO really a pity that we got 2001 with delivery that IMO left a lot to be desired instead.

Ultimately, I think the question is if watering down your idea and choosing the "safe route" and not trying to challenge your audience is a solution we can apply everywhere and take that it works for granted.

Modifié par ZLurps, 20 janvier 2013 - 01:03 .

[GreyLycanTrope]

Rasofe wrote...
Which is almost certainly an unfair advantage. Anyway, my point is that this contradiction was subtle before and it's called evolution, a concept can be developed and changed. But when a writer comes in and says "nono, this stuff is all wrong, I never meant it to develop this way" you can easily start dismissing the new development of the concept instead of giving it a chance.
It's basically a poor approach to literature to ask the author what he meant. You should always be open to new developments and not shout contradiction unless the Narrative Cohesion is stretched past the acceptable limits, which it wasn't until the last 15 min of the game.

And you're again missing the point that I've reached these conclusions before reading anything about the authors intent.
New developments should be established within the proper context, someone going back and doing the exact opposite of a previously established idea is still a contradiction, even if the narrative cohesion isn't completly destroyed it's still weakened, because it becomes fairly clear that this is just something being made up as we go along with no overarching premise for the actions taking place aside from what seems like a cool idea at the moment. So actions don't take place because there was a concpet that was being comunicated through the literature but because the writer wanted a character to do something just for the sake of doing it whether that's appropriate within the established context of the character or not, which in my opinion is a bad approach to (writing)literature and should be commented on.

Basically what I'm saying,in referance to your original comment, is this would be meta if I was using the author's comments to form critisims now, however my ciritisms originated from my independent evaluation of the narrative beforehand, the authors comments merely reinforce the idea that my critisms are not without merit.

Modifié par Greylycantrope, 20 janvier 2013 - 03:02 .

[Sajuro]

Robhuzz wrote...

Haven't read the entire interview yet, just these quotes, so he may have mention it. But I wonder how he felt about the direction the ME3 team took with synthetics. He must have shook his head in disbelief when he saw what the writers did. About the exact opposite of how Chris wrote them.

My view is that the Geth in ME2 were all well and good but the problem with sharing your intelligence is if a third of you are blown away you are that much dumber. The Geth can still have a consensus, but each is their seperate intelligence that don't have to be linked up to the geth wide web to reload

[Sobkou]

txgoldrush wrote...

CronoDragoon wrote...

HomerIsLegend wrote...

The evolution of the series is pretty damn clear in my eyes... ME1 they cared about the story/characters and their interactions within a beautifully crafted universe and you can tell that was it's top priority. In ME2 they shifted to having the gameplay/action being the forefront while not completely ignoring the story/characters/rpg aspect. The mix actually was very well done and didn't completely do away with what made the first game so special in the first place.


...and then we got to ME3. While it definitely has it's shining moments it's pretty evident that whatever had made the series special in the first place was completely ignored in favor of cinematics/dramatization and complete focus on the action/shooter dynamics... story be damned.

They might have planned that from the beginning so who knows... but ME1 will always be the game I love the most and for good reason -- writing/story were given top priority over everything else.

ME1 is the game with the most underwhelming characterization. Half your squadmates are walking codex entries. It's only in ME2 and 3 that the characters begin to flesh out and evolve.

THIS...by a mile.

In fact Wrex is the only real character with characterd evelopment.

Hell, look at Joker...who had ONE talk tree in ME1...but gets more fleshed out in ME2 and mE3.

Good riddance to Drew Karpyshyn...he sucks at characterization and involving characters into the plot. If only Bioware can hire Chris Avellone and pair him with the better ME writers.

Look at what Drew K did with Revan and the Exile...wow...good riddance.

Yeah, all that what you just said was complete bullsh@t .

[AlanC9]

Jeez..... a three month necro for that?