23 réponses à ce sujet

[Remix-General Aetius]

If you were making your own movie - for example, recreating your personal playthrough of the trilogy into a live action film/series - what would you change, and how would you make it work?

*naturally, you would be playing Shepard*

For instance, there are those who would entirely scrap the catalyst, but what would you put in its place to make "your" ending plausible?

To give a better example of that:

- I wouldn't kill Jenkins off. "We" knew him for less than 5 minutes so I don't believe anyone gave a damn when he was killed by the geth drones. Stupid, cheap move in my view to create shock value......didn't work.

In my take he'd be seriously wounded, but would make a great comeback shortly before the battle of the Citadel, and by the time we roll into the ME2 events, he'd have upskilled and be somewhat respectable.

- The encounter with my old teammate on Horizon would be far more intense, with Shepard displaying great anger towards Kaidan's misguided assumptions, considering it a betrayal and wouldn't let him off that easy.

I would also tie the bonus powers into the backstory of the Lazarus Project upgrades, making Shepard capable of unleashing Flare in moments of extreme anger, and Kaidan would be the first to witness what the upgraded Shepard can do when he's pissed off, up close n personal.

I'm also entertaining the idea of sacrificing noone on Virmire, but rather critically injuring Ashley which would get her off the Normandy indefinitely, at the very least past Ilos and the Citadel battle.

Now that you have a better idea of what I'm asking about..........what would you change, and how would you make it work?

[SwobyJ]

Well hard to say what 'my personal playthrough' would be, so I'll just be unhelpful and go with what a movie should generally do, if going through the ME1+ deal in itself:

-I'd actually give even less focus on Jenkins. He was there and then he died. The end.
Or maybe have a whole (unnamed) larger squad of Alliance soldiers, one with a quick shot of his Jenkins tag, and have them all die.

-Yes Horizon should be more dramatic. However, I don't quite agree with you on the betrayal part...

-Bonus powers don't mean jack to me for a film. Useless to any potential plot. Have him a soldier with a degree of technical and biotic skill. No bonus powers. Keep it simple enough.

-Kaidan will die. Ashley must live to be 'sorta love interest' but it turning into Liara anyway throughout the trilogy. You know it'd happen.

-Catalyst would not be scrapped. I'll leave it at that.

[Han Shot First]

If the games were ever turned into films...

All side missions would need to be cut.

Ditto for stuff from DLC content. So no LotSB or Citadel

Anything not related to the main plot would need to be cut, so Mass Effect 2: The Movie would have to be very different from the game. All the loyalty missions would be gone.

In a film trilogy you also couldn't introduce an entirely new set of characters from the first film. So the surviving ME1 squaddies would carry over into ME2.

The cast as a whole would need to be trimmed as well, so some of those ME2 squaddies likely wouldn't make it into the film series.

The ending to the series would have to be very different. As it is, its not filmable.

Modifié par Han Shot First, 09 février 2014 - 08:42 .

[Remix-General Aetius]

@Swoby, well in cases like beloved games turned into movies/series, attention to detail creates immersion. otherwise it's just like sticking a bunch of cosplayers/lookalikes on screen with a pistol shooting everything around them.

Same response goes to Han, the LotSB would be an awesome live action piece. Side missions, meh I could always talk them, a couple fun ones but indeed the majority would have to go. Loyalty missions would be a must in my adaptation , they encourage character development.

Movies based on popular titles often get criticized or condemned for lack of character development. Look at Mortal Kombat Annihilation. Granted though, many people were extremely misguided in their criticism.
Yapping on about the "crap" storyline when it appeared that those same people never played the game, otherwise they'd have known that the movie was an accurate depiction of the Mortal Kombat Trilogy events, when Outworld invades the Earth realm.

judging from the lack of responses I can't help but feel that this one was too hard for the BSN. you're more used to simply complaining endlessly and at the same time being unable to add legit merit to your negative feedback.

kudos to Han & Swoby for trying

[SwobyJ]

I actually think some level of integration of LOTSB events could be mixed into the main plot. It wouldn't be this whole side adventure (impossible), but making the Shadow Broker part of the main plot could give it more meat.

[congokong]

The only way a movie will be interesting is if things go somewhat wrong. The more paragon Shepard is, the more things go perfectly in the series. It's one of the series' major flaws. Idealistic risks never bite you in the ass because if they did the galaxy would be screwed which would end the series. Ex: sacrificing reinforcements to save the council instead of focusing on Sovereign has to pay off for the games to continue. Losing the Council adds some interesting tension on the Citadel in ME2.

What's the worst paragon outcome? Sparing Ranos Thanoptis and getting an e-mail in ME3 about her killing some asari?

Characters beyond the essentials have to die. Shepard has to be flawed. Things have to go wrong and not smoothly.

Ex: Wrex (your old war buddy) and Eve leading the krogan is entirely too convenient. But Wreav leading really makes you really wonder if curing the genophage is right. Eve dying adds tragedy. Sabotaging the cure shows just how far Shepard has to go to get the support needed and how Shepard cannot keep his/her honor intact in the process.

Ex: The VS should die in the Citadel coup. It's foreshadowed since Horizon and is much more dramatic. I picture Kaidan as dying on Virmire because Ashley has more "character" and her opposition towards a resurrected Shepard makes more sense considering her attitude.

An idealistic Shepard that guns down dozens of mercs but hesitates when they reach the target/ringleader (Ex: Aresh, Sidonis, Maelon, Niket) isn't believable. How can a Shepard who has witnessed so much suffering and killed so many be a "white knight"? They should be more in the Jack Bauer of 24 mentality; a reasonable renegade.

Liara is the obvious LI. She's available to both genders, has a love scene in all 3 games, is the one who saves Shepard's body, never moves on after Shepard's death, and has the opening damsel in distress role.

[DeinonSlayer]

The Normandy would have a marine complement which would take part in missions. It wouldn't be a continuous parade of Shepard and two companions wherever you happen to set down. Everyone has a job to do - say, on Feros, while Shepard is going towards the ExoGeni building, Kaidan and Tali (your tech specialists) are trying to help Zhu's Hope get back on its feet. When the Thorian takes control of the colonists there, they don't have any idea what the hell is going on.

The extraction of Kirrahe and his team takes precedence over returning to the bomb site on Virmire. As a consequence, most of this marine complement would be killed when the bomb goes off. Shepard isn't upset about losing only the named squadmate - there are far too many empty seats in the Normandy's mess after that mission.

That's some of what I picture taking place anyway. I really don't want to see a Mass Effect movie because I'm not interested in watching someone else's Shepard doing things I wouldn't do or taking positions I disagree with for two hours.

I predict it would be Female/Spacer/Sole Survivor/Soldier/Paragon/Liaramancer who saves the Council, blows up the Collector base, cures the Krogan, either makes peace on Rannoch or sides with the Geth (because not everything can go right), blubbers over Thessia and the brat and chooses Synthesis.

Modifié par DeinonSlayer, 09 février 2014 - 10:54 .

[The Sarendoctrinator]

The ending, for one. I would cut out the Catalyst scene and Shepard's sacrifice entirely. The Crucible would only target Reaper signals, because it would have been created for the purpose of destroying Reapers - so Shepard's synthetic implants and other forms of synthetic life with no connection to the Reapers would not be targeted. 

It might also be a good idea to introduce the Crucible sooner. Maybe have Liara first mention it in ME2 and start gathering info from there, even if the major construction doesn't happen until ME3. I'd also prefer it if Liara was just a scientist/information broker rather than squadmate, and worked on the Crucible more directly. 

The final mission on Earth would show more of past squadmates and war assets, like a combination of ME2's suicide mission and DAO's different factions fighting the darkspawn in the end, with Shepard commanding them to defend different locations or assigning different tasks.

ME2's squadmates would have a bigger role in ME3, some as squadmates again and others helping the war effort in different ways (like Wrex leading the krogan). 

I would also change the geth choosing to side with the Reapers in the Rannoch storyline. It contradicts what Legion said in ME2 about most of them (or at least the group he was part of) wanting to evolve along their own path instead of using Reaper tech. 

There's more, but this is all I can think of at the moment.

[AlanC9]

Han Shot First wrote...


The ending to the series would have to be very different. As it is, its not filmable.

You sure? It's not very different from, say, any DS9 sequence with the Prophets. Or even The Last Temptation of Christ.... at the risk of giving aid and comfort to the IT guys.

Though obviously only one ending could be filmed. 

[Excella Gionne]

There's too much to consider and you can't satisfy everyone. But I guess a movie must be cannon'd.

[Mcfly616]

The only significant things I would change would be the number of supporting cast (way less squadmates throughout the series). And I would change the appearance of the Catalyst.

[SwobyJ]

All the 12 in ME2 could join but most would be relegated to montage/short scene/flashback/etc status. Only a few would have significant exposure, but I do think all could be squeezed in. Most sidequest activities would have to go though. In fact the whole Loyalty segment, really, as much as I hate that.

[dorktainian]

Making a mass effect movie....

Well first off i'd swap mass effect 2 and 3 around. They are imo in the wrong order. then the story structure would make some sense. so it would read like....

Act 1. Shep takes down saren, meets sovereign, saves the council
Act 2. Shep Visits earth, Earth is attacked, Shep is taken into the reaper concensus.
Act 3. Shep breaks free, Collects together a bad ass group of merceneries, goes to dark space and destroys the reapers.

Within that framework you could fit in everyone.

Modifié par dorktainian, 10 février 2014 - 06:08 .

[Maximillion46]

Interesting topic, I've been wondering how they would go about making a movie out of a trilogy with choices being imported (can't really have the movies being 'importable').

I can't seem to find any example of movies being adapted from games that feature a lot of important choices (closest thing is Pokémon having two movies for the two game versions and it uses the game trick (same one ME uses for small things) of switching out shots of the character that's different in both versions or slightly adjusting lines; don't wanna be the guy that had to do that double, largely pointless work).

Secondly, what would fans hate to see in a movie adaptation of their favorite work? That things are changed or cut. I feel sorry for the people who have to adapt any work into a movie, a live action adaptation most of all (notice the 'adaptation'), because most fandoms can be quite... harsh.
Even worse in the case of Mass Effect, people would hate it that one 'canon' playthrough is chosen as the template for the movie, even more so if the executives choose the white male protagonist to star in the movie. Then pick the female one? Executives deem it risky and with Mass Effect, you might alienate the people who enjoyed playing with Male Shepard. So how about we have two Shepards? Might be a bit more difficult with two main characters and their LIs (and how Liara would fit in this... Or as 'dull' as they are deemed by some, erasing or merging Kaidan and/or Ashley would probably incur the wrath of a lot of fans), but it would provide an interesting brother/sister dynamic and character focus. Then again, having two Sheps would change things on Virmire (which I personally find interesting) and it would make the movie stray farther from canon (don't touch the canon, guys!), since this isn't even possible in the games.

But do we want an exact copy of the games in film format? Probably not, because despite all its flaws, the three games have good stories (*slaps nitpickers because their services are not required here*). Perhaps an alternate universe with two Sheps? Or just do a story about something else, like a fan film about the discovery of the Prothean ruins on Mars or Paragon lost... Though I hear the last one wasn't particulary good... Is it because of Mass Effect being perceived as or just plainly being way better when Shepard is in it + the Reapers (and thus you have to make a Shepard story, which is hard to adapt because of choices like gender, paragon or renegade, etc.) or is it just too probable some rabbid Mass Effect fans will jump on every little thing the movie makers would decide on? And if Shepard and the Reapers (don't forget the scale) are a big part of making the trilogy as popular and/or loved as it is, that makes a second Mass Effect games trilogy all the harder to pull off and a non-Shepard story to work on the big screen...
Personal note: combining the best Paragon moments with the best Renegade moments through a Paragon Maleshep (Mark Meer sounds more heroic in his lines) and a Renegade Femshep (Jennifer Hale sounds smokey, rusky and intimidating even when ordering a coffee:p) would be awesome in my book.

Trimming down side missions would probably be the easiest as a lot of the side missions don't really have an impact on the main plot and those that do could be worked in (EDI's 'birth' on the moon for example). ME2 is a bit tricky since the loyalty missions are quite personal and move away from the Collector main plot like their lives depend on it (might be exaggerating, but still).

And the final thing for fans to nitpick on: who plays our beloved characters, if combining the voice actors' voices with the face and body model's appearance and acting doesn't work (lip-synching a whole live action movie? Dubbing in other languages is usually... just barely acceptable in my own personal, limited experience), we need other actors, who will undoubtedly be compared with the 'real' voices and faces of Shepard, Liara, Anderson, etc.

But sadly, most voice actors can't act (don't have the facial expressions or simply don't have a lot of experience with 'body acting') and a lot of the body models can't act (heck, Sheploo's body model is a model; I advice against recommending him to play Shepard in the live action adaptation, no offense). Then again, people on here have made interesting recommendations for actors to play certain characters in a possible live action adaptation (we can even get Miranda's actual voice and face actor:D Yes I'm a fan, I'm biased, still like the fact and her).

Edit: Oh, don't forget Seth Green and Keith David, naturally. *insert your favorite voice actor here who should play his/her own character even if he looks nothing like his character and he has little experience with 'body' acting*

Modifié par Maximillion46, 10 février 2014 - 10:42 .

[KaiserShep]

Right off the bat I would cut the Lazarus Project entirely from the story's midsection. The SR1 can be destroyed and effectively replaced without killing Shepard.

[CrutchCricket]

Meh, why not?

ME1 could be a movie as is almost, maybe simplify and streamline a few plot points.

Make ME2 a show like what Agents of Shield is to Avengers, except have Shepard still. Remove Lazarus nonsense, time skip with coma if you have to.

ME3- two part movie, almost completely rewriting the plot, keeping the major side plots (genophage etc) but removing the derp.
-ME3 part 1 focuses on Shepard after Arrival, not turning himself in like a ****** but using the Shadow Broker and other resources gained to begin forming alliances and preparing the galaxy for war. Get geth through Legion, Terminus fleet through Aria, rachni etc. Cure genophage to get krogan, broker or force peace with geth-quarians to get both at full strength. Introduce Crucible (not on Mars). Reapers arrive and war begins.
ME3 Part 2- Fight war, while trying to build the Crucible. Fight bat**** crazy Cerberus. Unite the final council races and join the rest of humanity in fighting the Reapers. Activate Crucible. No holokid, no bull**** circular logic, destroy likely most fitting. No Citadel or relay damage. Shepard presumed dead, post-credits teaser suggests otherwise.

[Derpy]

No crappy endings and no LIs.

Both are completely useless to the plot and need to meet the airlock.

And we all know that Liara's romance would be the cannon and it sucks IMHO.

Modifié par Nate_Assassin, 10 février 2014 - 06:25 .

[FlyingSquirrel]

Making a single feature-length movie out of the *trilogy* strikes me as near-impossible. If someone attempted it, I'd expect to see ME2 almost entirely ditched - no Shepard dying and coming back and no Collectors.

If I were making a movie out of ME1, here's how I would condense it:

Start with the Eden Prime mission similarly to how it plays out - the intro with Nihlus and Anderson actually works pretty well for introducing the ME universe (as long as Shepard doesn't ask stupid questions). However, Liara has already been quietly summoned to Eden Prime by the Alliance and the Council for her prothean expertise. They catch up with her when they find Nihlus's body and she returns to the Normandy with Shepard, Ashley, and Kaidan.

The Citadel investigation of Saren still takes place, but slightly condensed. Instead of a big shoot-out in Chora's Den, Shepard's team arrives there right as Fist as betraying Tali to one of Saren's agents; they take Tali with them and intercept Wrex, who was on his way there. Wrex is impressed at their effectiveness and knows Shepard is up for Spectre consideration and tells Shepard to "give me a call if you ever need an extra gun," which Shepard later does. The investigation concludes with the Spectre induction, and Garrus is assigned to the Normandy as a liaison for C-Sec.

Feros, Noveria, and Virmire kind of get rolled into one. The Normandy heads out to a colony where geth activity has been reported, but instead of the ExoGeni/Thorian conspiracy, the colonists are working for a corporation doing shady rachni research. Investigating the lab reveals plans for a second secret facility elsewhere on the planet where Saren is, and that leads to the discovery of Sovereign and the confrontation with Saren where somebody is left behind in the nuclear explosion. There would also be some indication of Cerberus involvement in the illegal research.

From there, the story could pick up with the return to the Citadel and the Normandy's grounding and subsequent escape. Ilos would be shortened quite a bit, with Saren already close to the Conduit and the squad getting into the prothean bunker right away, and then the big climactic action set-pieces would take place back on the Citadel after Shepard's squad goes through the Conduit. Before leaving Ilos, however, they download Vigil's data into their omntiools, and some of Vigil's revelations would be discussed after the battle instead. So the very end is pretty much the same, i.e. we stopped the threat for now but there's something even bigger coming.

[harmonator62]

If we're only talking a movie trilogy (no TV mini-series (I would personally go that route) or stupid 4 movie series) then we'll need to go with a very specific approach to keep both gamers and movie-goers interested. Before I start, Flying Squirrel has the basic idea I had for the start of ME1 (with the fantastic addition of Liara at Eden Prime):

FlyingSquirrel wrote...
Start with the Eden Prime mission similarly to how it plays out - the intro with Nihlus and Anderson actually works pretty well for introducing the ME universe (as long as Shepard doesn't ask stupid questions). However, Liara has already been quietly summoned to Eden Prime by the Alliance and the Council for her prothean expertise. They catch up with her when they find Nihlus's body and she returns to the Normandy with Shepard, Ashley, and Kaidan.

Let's not forget to have Shepard implanted with Prothean craziness. It can't be quite so much nonsense, but there'll still be some confusion. The Normandy heads to the Citadel, the council denies the claims against Saren; Liara, still hoping to prove herself, calls an old contact (Tali, who she met at before Eden Prime). Shepard and crew head into the wards to find her, managing to run into Garrus, who is also looking for evideence against Saren, and Wrex, who's been hired by Tali for protection. This sequence is akin to the cantina scene in ep. IV, giving the audience a feel for the alien galaxy humanity has joined.

The council, faced with the evidence, makes Shepard a Spectre, sends him off to hunt down Saren, and we finally get off the giant death trap...I mean Citadel.

We head to Feros (which will have elements of Noveria, so stay with me), where reports of a Geth attack on a private research facility reached the Alliance. On arrival, Shepard and crew (yes, all squadmates) end a geth attack on Zhu's Hope. Speaking with the colonist, Shepard discovers there is working Prothean tech at the main facility. Rolling out in the Mako for the first time, they make their way to the main facility, with a few explosions thanks to the Geth.

Saren and Benezia are inside. They fight (thanks George Lucas). Saren causes an explosion in hopes of ending our heroes and escapes. Shepard and crew are safe thanks to Liara's biotic bubble, but Benezia was caught in the explosion. Liara weeps as she dies, while Shepard finds another beacon and gets the rest of the message. (Note: we're cutting out the Rachni for simplification).

The crew is back in the Normandy, planning on chasing Saren and the Geth, but are called off by the Council and summoned to the Citadel. The Normandy is immediately locked-down, the Council saying they have Saren under survellance even though he's back in the Terminus systems and headed for Ilos. Anderson punches out Udina, unlocks the Normandy, and the crew heads out to Ilos. Joker lands the Mako, they chase Saren down the bunker, are stopped by Vigil to reveal the conduit is a backdoor to the Citadel, then race off to save the galaxy.

The end-game plays out much like in the game, save for: Hackett leads only the 5th fleet into battle (to match ME3's character bio on Hackett); the Council is saved by the fleet; Saren is controlled by Saren without an option to get him to stop himself; and Shepard is knocked into a coma with severe injuries when the bit of Soverein nails the tower. Instead of the glorious ending we know from the game, the galaxy is sober as it's hero sacrificed himself for it's survival.

I'll save details on ME2 and 3, but for those two it's about being willing to tweak storyline and characters to fit them in the time restraints the motion pictures have.

[FlyingSquirrel]

@harmonator62, your version sounds good too. Just to clarify, I assumed that Eden Prime would still end with the beacon activating and planting the fragmented vision in Shepard's head. Anyway, do Ashley and Kaidan both survive in your version or is one of them a casualty of the battles on Feros?

The one question I have is about Liara already knowing Tali and calling her in - would she be contacting Tali because of the quarians' past with the geth? Even if they did cross paths at some point during Tali's pilgrimage, neither Tali herself nor the quarians in general seemed to have a particular interest in, or knowledge of, the protheans.

Having Shepard in a coma would probably be a better lead-in to ME2 than what Bioware actually did (in retrospect, having the main character *die*, be rebuillt over the course of two years, and barely blink upon waking back up was pretty goofy). We might still get something closer to ME1's game ending for "business" reasons, i.e. they'd want a more upbeat ending in case the movie isn't popular enough to merit a sequel.

[xAmilli0n]

I probably wouldn't touch the main story. I'd either do a side story like LotSB, or some other equivalent standalone tale.

[Reorte]

If you're following the plot it's too disjointed to be one film, the game breaks make natural film breaks. I think that somehow the Crucible plans discovery would have to be shifted into the second one, and the timeline drawn out. DLC would certainly go, although you could have a few aspects of Arrival (namely that's where the Reapers turn up first). Maybe have some handwaving about Vigil's code stuill having some effect on the Citadel, so the Council has some limited control over the Reapers' progress - think up some excuse so that they can slip a few ships anywhere they want but not their whole forces.

[LeandroBraz]

TheGarden2010 wrote...

- I wouldn't kill Jenkins off. "We" knew him for less than 5 minutes so I don't believe anyone gave a damn when he was killed by the geth drones. Stupid, cheap move in my view to create shock value......didn't work.

 It worked for me. I knew squadmates could get killed, when he died I felt like my squads could die in any moment. I spend most of the game worrying about them because of how fast I lost a squad. Off course, it wouldn't work in a movie, but it was a good idea for a game where your squad can get killed. 


 Honestly, it's pointless to adapt the trilogy, the only way for a ME movie to work is doing a story only for the movie, with it's own character, but that happen in the same universe of the games, like they do with books and HQs. The first game might work, since it have a movie like structure, but the second will be problematic. The main plot isn't strong enough to hold a good film by itself and they can't compress all the squads side quests in 2 hours. They won't have time enough to give attention to all squadmate, wich will only p*ss off the fanbase (you know how ME fans are crazy about specific characters), so why do it?

 The truth is that ME fans will love any good story in the ME universe that respect the lore, so if they do something completely unrrelated to the trilogy they can easily please the fans. For the major audience it doesn't make a difference, all they need is a good movie, after all, who is Shepard for them? Nobody, they didn't played the game, they don't care about the trilogy as long as the movie is good.

 I would totally do a First Contact War movie, it's an excelent entry point for people thaty didn't played the game and fans would love it. You can show the ME universe slowly, with the time it deserve since we will learn about the universe by humanity perspective. The first movie would only present to the audience the protheans as a dead race, the Mass Relay technology, element zero and finally the Turian as enemies. They could give this part of the lore the attention it deserve, then show other races in the end of the movie, represented by the council ending the war. In the second movie we would explore the galaxy better, know other races and they could use the Batarian as enemies. From there they can keep exploring the role of mankind before the Reaper war. 

 Seriously, adapting the trilogy is the biggest mistake they can do. It won't work in 2 hours movies, fans will be p*ssed with characters getting little attention and with they adapting decisions that are compeltely different from what they did in the game.