or: What Filmmakers Already Know And Game Devs Yet Need To Realize
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon may be one of the most important games for the game industry. Not because it did something new and experimental, but because it was one of the first major game releases in years that put more focus into the game's style and atmosphere than its plot and plausibility - without being silly for the sake of being silly.
Now let me tell you a little about some of Blood Dragon's final moments - don't worry, I won't spoil any details, I'll just talk about tone and feelings and stuff like that. In the final cutscene of the game, I was genuinely engrossed in what was happening, even though that cutscene directly followed the (objectively) most implausible and ridiculous part of the entire game. That is because style is just as important to the plot of a game (or any medium for that matter) as plausibility is.
I believe tropers call it the "Rule of Cool" - which essentially states that the awesomeness of something can eliminate suspension of disbelief. Though I wouldn't say that's covering it, a generally strong style is what's important. If something is just incredibly well made, has a strong enough tone and/or is very creative, it can make you (temporarily) forget about inconsistencies - or make you simply accept the inconsistencies and enjoy the plot regardless.
That is something many talented filmmakers (and the film industry as a whole) already know and have been using actively in their films - namely being Quentin Tarantino, the Coen Brothers, Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan, Robert Rodriguez (the few films of his that aren't just schlockfests) among many others. Also pretty much every surreal film ever does that, too.
For illustration, let me quote the deceased Roger Ebert's view on Taxi Driver's rather implausible ending segment:
"The end sequence plays like music, not drama: It completes the story on an emotional, not a literal, level. We end not on carnage but on redemption, which is the goal of so many of Scorsese's characters."(source)
Bioware also followed the Rule of Cool (though I doubt they knew at the time) when they made ME2, and again with Citadel DLC. I believe this is the real reason why so many people (myself included) were fine with ME3 Citadel's hokey plot. In fact, I would have enjoyed the entirety of ME3 much more if it had Citadel's level of wackiness - well, three or four fewer degrees on the wackiness chart would have been ideal, but I'd have definitely preferred it over ME3's jarringly realistic and drab portrayal of a war against an army of giant robot squids.
Which is not to say that a realistic and drab portrayal of war is bad. But there has to be some kind of pay-off or message to it. One also has to judge whether it's appropriate for the setting. Bioware did a good job pulling at all the heart strings with ME3's war (to large parts amateurishly obviously so), yes, but was all that really necessary or appropriate? And what good did it do other than making you feel bad and depressed? You see, just because they did a good job at making you feel that doesn't mean it was good they did that.
Now, many people argue that it's just the pop culture references (especially for Tarantino's movies) or the fan service (in Citadel DLC's case), but that isn't the entire truth. That adds to the style, but it doesn't make the style. If you want to see/play something that's really almost completely just pop culture references, look no further than Retro City Rampage. It's a good game, but the amount of references in the story mode and how the plot bends at every turn just to deliver another pop culture reference is almost baffling. That's nowhere near the case with Tarantino or Citadel DLC.
Heck, let's talk Star Wars. The Death Star had a stupidly open weak point. In hindsight, everbody makes fun of it, but it doesn't hurt your viewing experience one bit. I argue that if the Reapers had a similar weak point it wouldn't have hurt the plot either - Mass Effect might've even become this generation's Star Wars. Now it's just an ultimately depressing experience I don't even want to think about.
Oh well, I guess it's up to JJ Abrams now to deliver this generation's Star Wars. Which brings me to my final point: Screw Bioware, screw Mass Effect, there's plenty of better storytellers around. Wait, what am I doing here?
Modifié par Sauruz, 16 mai 2013 - 12:43 .
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