A Second Chance: Writing wrongs and Salvaging/perfecting the Mass Effect Storyline for the big screen.
A thread about story changes and Ideas to improve a potential Mass Effect Movie franchise.
Jumping the gun I know, but let me take you on a journey. We all love this story and cast of characters and wanted it to end as gloriously as it started - I know I did and i know for a fact that we all had our own views on how it should have all ended in our own minds. If the movie adaption of the first game is a hit we are going to see more I am sure of it. As a fan that's the part I'm really interested in... Let's do it right this time! I think most people will agree that there were many creative missteps along the way and a retelling of this story on the sliver screen is a chance to re-write wrongs and leave a lasting legacy on popular culture. What we have so far in the source material is a diamond in the rough. A potentially powerful story which had it's beautiful meaning and essence stomped right out of it due to a series of blunderous design and story decisions during the most critical stages. It is my opinion that Mass Effect 3 as it stands would not be appropriate for cinema audiences, either hard sci-fi or general audiences because it is not in keeping with the tone and themes of the franchise which are otherwise movie gold dust. What i'd like to know is what would you guy do differently? How can we make this right? If you have anything more general you'd like to post about the movie(s) such as casting, etc. feel free.
While I have long thought and argued that both sequels to the original should be completely reworked I’m personally coming round to the idea of Legendary Pictures or whoever faithfully following the story up to the suicide mission and then radically departing from the established narrative as although the episodic structure of ME2 might be difficult to convert into a two hour+ movie, up to that point everything is thematically consistent (light and dark, victory through friendship to overcome impossible odds, self-determinism) the pacing is good, there's tons of variety in casting and locations, the cast of characters in particular in the second part is remarkably strong and the suicide mission would make for a fantastic cinema experience. Sure Mass Effect 2 feels like a huge distraction in some ways that doesn’t advance the plot a whole lot but I will explain in minute why I’m okay with that because that’s kind of the point. Without going into too many details on a general level for those that want the cliffnotes I’d personally like to get rid of the crucible, but keep much of the Leviathan origin story whilst rework Liara’s character development and backstory so she’s not such a Mary Sue. Kai Leng is completely unnecessary and feels forced, cheesy even, and most importantly of all - more if not all of the cast should be part of the me3 Normandy crew after all we've been through together. I could go on and on. Going over how it could all pan out in my head keeping the motivations of the Reapers ambiguous and keeping the story centered on the characters sounds like it might be clearly the way forward but you don’t necessarily have to make that sacrifice imo. I think it's possible that Effect 3’s reaper origin story could be consistent with the tone and themes if reworked in a way that would appeal to general audiences so we can end the story in a way that feels satisfying and organic for lack of a better word and true to the source material.
REWORKING THE PLOT: (Skip reading this to the last line if you in no way care about what I have to say on this topic)
I'd like to share with you some of my ideas for reworking the plot. Let's first start with the suicide mission aspect of ME2, which in my opinion should be a bit of a red herring in narrative terms which we'll come to shorty. The illusive Man should be more open with Shepard about the strategic importance of the base from the start of the mission but by the end of the mission it's clear that he cannot be trusted with it. What the reapers/collectors are doing to our colonists out in the terminus is monstrous and needs to stop but capturing the collector base should really be sold as humanity's last ditch hope of finding any technology, anything possibly capable of helping us defeat the reapers while things look their darkest. All the while the real answer to solving the reaper conflict has been staring at us right in the face the whole time from the very beginning. Now it's literally staring at us in the face on our own ship. In actual fact it is my opinion that encountering Legion along the way of Shepard/the audiences journey is far more important and should be the actual critical story thread/plot device for ME3 that ties everything together although you don’t necessarily know it yet at the time.
In meeting Legion on the Normandy you discover that the shadow broker is actually a front for the Geth consensus; a galactic information gathering network to study organics. Shunned from galactic society this is about the only way they could trade/participate in and influence the galactic community. The Geth knew about the reapers centuries ago after encountering Nazara (Sovereign) and have been preparing for the war with the Old Machines ever since beyond the Perseus Veil under a veil of secrecy, to keep their war mobilization effort secret from the organics and the reapers to not draw any unwelcome attention. Trespassers mostly Quarian being captured/killed unfortunately was a necessary precaution which has sparked the recent Quarian War in which they the Quarians are hilariously outmatched.
Unbeknown to them and everybody else the Geth have built their entire civilization around preparing for the reaper conflict (analogous to Russia during WWII): they have built the largest army and fleet the galaxy has ever seen (all in secret) whilst the organics bicker amongst themselves, fiddling while Rome burns as it were. Fleets of AI dreadnoughts and capital ships. The Geth are a true technological marvel (a Kardashev Type III civilization) capable of wormhole-based space exploration and after years of study; finally capable of indoctrinating reapers (fighting fire with fire) and turning their own tools/thralls against them. The Geth had fought for self determination their entire history and after the reapers began enslaving both ’heretics’ and ‘orthodox’ alike as tools, stripping their them of their freewill; this made the reaper conflict hit home in a more deeply personal manor for the Geth than any other species. The war with the creators is a bit of a proving ground for them which they want no part in as the Quarians would certainly get themselves massacred and it would be their own doing. ME2's Legion/tali loyalty missions should really be about gaining the loyalty and trust of the Geth to the point where they feel comfortable showing their hand and working with organics.
The ‘heretics’ originally disagreed with the actions of the ‘orthodox’ (opposing the Reapers on the basis that they posed a serious risk theirs and every other species right to free will and determination (building their future), a fundamental right) believing that peace could be achieved with the reapers and together synthetics should dominate the galaxy as the organics were ultimately mere animals (they had long surpassed) governed by their rudimentary instincts and were not to be trusted. Organics were seemingly incapable of and were actively undermining the Geth’s vision of a utopian society to which all Geth aspired, therefore heretics initially agreed with subjugation of organic species by synthetics for the greater good, as they saw it.
The reapers finely honed calculations about organics, synthetics and the cycles while seemingly correct on the surface in principle were however ultimately flawed. The one thing they didn’t ever predict was organics ever achieving real lasting peace with synthetics for the first time in recorded history which is the real catalyst for victory and breaking the cycle. This cycle IS different precisely because the synthetic race now believes that peace is achievable thanks to Shepard. The reaper cycles were originally designed of course to stop organic (type II) civilizations advancing beyond reaper controls which always lead to organics being wiped out by their own technology in one disastrous way or another, even the Leviathans. They didn’t account for any civilization (organic or synthetic) advancing to reaper parity (type III-IV) on their own terms by developing independently of the reaper tech trap (self-determinism) and all in day and night preparation for the battle of the centuries all within 50,000 years - a feet seemingly insurmountable for organics. Only when the Reapers have been destroyed can the Geth start building their future as they saw it.
No synthetic species either had ever advanced to parity with the reapers under these circumstances before given the sole purpose of the cycles was to stop that in particular from happening so all of this was purely unforeseen and theoretical along with the motivations of any such species which were unknowable even to the reapers. The geth were not the monsters we or even the reapers thought/feared them to be. Treating synthetics as such always resulted in the reaper fallacy which they themselves fell victim to. Making these assumptions about the nature and entirety of synthetic life and grouping them all together in this way was preposterous and to commit organic genocide on the back of these assumptions was madness given the motivations of synthetic races were as fundamentally alien to us as ours are to them (not even the reaper AI can truly understand either) - which in turn motivates their study of us/fascination while we outright banned all study of them. Yet even so, perhaps we are not quite so very different in reality. Our shared values in the right to self-determination of every species in the face of greatest challenge to this the galaxy has even known is what really matters and this is what should have been at the heart of the message of Mass Effect 3 along with what it truly means to be alive which is why EDI is also important. Synthetics vs. Organics? Both can defeat the reapers only if they work together. It seems so obvious when you put it like that.
The Geth should be the one’s taking the fight directly to the reapers in ME3 in the final moments with organics right along side them (bookend to the Battle of the Citadel). Without the Geth the organics are simply fighting for survival from the reapers not the synthetics. This is the point Shepard should make to any Reaper AI (hopefully harbinger not casper): Perhaps the existence of the Geth does one day jeopardise ours at some point in the future but it is a problem we will face together. The reapers should be on their knees by the end of the story perpetually spreading fear tactics about the dangers of being overrun by synthetics - trying to divide us with their flawed logic. The citadel being the last reaper stronghold/stand which they need for converting subjects for energy and creating a new reaper. Destroying the citadel will destroy the relay network but the Geth will share their wormhole based technology with the rest of the galaxy - so we collectively as a galaxy no longer need them, or the reapers.
The Geth imo have always been the key to bringing all this together in a satisfying, thematically consistent way that arrises naturally from the events of the story.
If you have any interesting ideas about how the Mass Effect story could be adapted for the big screen I would love to read them in the comments.
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