It seems that we agree on the fact that the original ending have more possibilites of interpretation of the event after the choice.
Absolutely.
Well, my vision of the ending is affected by the whole writing of the game. I don't have problem with the EC and I actually love the refusal ending, but the other choices I prefer the original ending, that's why I deleted the EC. My interpretation of the original ending wasn't that dark, I think. It ended happily with hope, a new civilisation, I don't see anything dark in that. But with the original ending Bioware went further in their idea than in the EC. You seem to forget that the EC was made for people, Bioware listened the "fans" and made the EC. With the original ending you could think that the events (after the choice) would be like in EC but in the EC you can't think that the events are like in the original ending.
So you may ask why in the original ending I think that Bioware went further than in the EC? From Thessia to the end, it's clearly a non-glorious vision of the war, Shepard is tired of the war against the reapers but still fight. Priority Earth isn't liked by many people because they were expecting a fight with victories, a fight based on spectacle. Bioware clearly didn't make that, it has never been their intention, and Shepard said in a Mass Effect 2 DLC that he is tired. The closer we get to the ending the more desperate it seems. That's why the possibility of your squad mate dying fits with the game (there were sacrifices during the whole game!), if your squad mate survived, great, but why there's no longer that possibility of them dying during the rush to the beam? I'm not saying that I want my squad mate to die, I'm saying that it's a possibility that should have been accepted in the original game and that interpretation fits with the narration. But the details of the original ending lead to a very different interpretation of the ending.
I haven't forgotten that EC was made because fans complained. But I think the devs could have re-written the whole ending if they had wanted to do that so that there is no Catalyst and Shepard just presses the button in Citadel and everything ends there and/or there is one final boss fight. But instead of re-writing the whole ending they created EC which added more scenes to explain what happened such as how your squad members ended up in Normandy etc.
I think that the events after the choices can be the same in EC ending and in original ending. Because in original ending the game ends when the squad members step out of Normandy. Or maybe there was also something else? I don't remember exactly in what order the events happaned. But anyway. Mass relays can be repaired in both endings, squad members can repair Normandy in both endings. There is no evidence that it couldn't happen. The difference in those endings are that Catalyst says that mass relays are destroyed or that they are damaged. That has been changed. It's true that the universe seems to be a lot darker in original ending because it seems that mass relays are destroyed forever because Catalyst says that they are destroyed. You also see that Normandy is quite damaged when Joker is trying to escape that beam and Normandy is also more damaged on that unknown planet. However when the crew steps out of Normandy the scene is so hopeful that it's hard to believe that the crew will stay on that planet. Unless that scene was meant to be interpreted that they are so happy because reapers are defeated and they start a new life on that planet. But somehow I think that they will eventually leave that planet.
I believe that your squad members can die during the beam run if your EMS is low in EC ending. I don't know how you see your different playthroughs but if I get some information in one of my playtrhough then I think it's valid also in my other playthroughs. For example if I didn't see that my squad members stepped out of Normandy in my first playthrough I might have imagined that they were dead or that they were wounded on earth but if I noticed that my squad members stepped out of Normandy in my second playthrough then I adjust my interpretation of the events and I think that they were in Normandy in my first playthrough although they didn't stepped out of it. Because it's possible to see that your squad members ended up in Normandy then they didn't die in that beam run in original ending either.
No the ending of Blade runner isn't about Deckard being dea or alive, it's about his romance with Rachel. That example is clearly just like Mass Effect 3's ending. In the first american version, you hear Deckard saying that Rachel lives longer than what she's supposed to live. (the producers used some shot from Kubrick's Shining). Ridley Scott removed that part. Now the last words are "too bad she won't live, but then again who does?". Do you think that when you watch these two endings, you feel the same. Sure you can think that Rachel will live longer and they will live happily, but that's not what Blade runner was about. If Ridley Scott has removed it, it's because it doesn't fit. Blade runner is about life and death.
Sorry I've got to go, I'll develop later!
I really don't remember what happened in Blade Runner 
If the lines are what you just said then of course it changes the ending and I think it's similar situation when Catalyst talks about mass relays in original ending/EC ending. But not repairing the mass relays can ba a good thing and people can develop some other way to travel fast and then that solution is their own solution. Besides all those scientists who were building Crucible are somewhere and because they are the best then it's possible that they can develop that method.
Intention and interpretation are different things. They said very few things about the interpretation that's because their intention was to make the player think at the end. The player has to think and Bioware wanted him to make the story his story. As long as Bioware shows, it's Bioware the narrator and the story is Bioware's. The part after the choice is Shepard's (the players') decision, it's not Bioware's. And at the same time, Bioware wanted to end on a higher level of perspective. The problem of the closure is that it's strangely go from higher level (catalyst scene) to lower level ("human" scale of what happens after the choice) to meta level of perspective (stargazer scene). That's the problem that shows that the ending isn't supposed to be like EC : the ending is supposed to start at Shepard's scale to the catalyst's scale (higher level) to the storyteller scalewith the stargazer scene (meta level).
And actually, the story on a superficial level is not interesting. Advanced reader don't care about that level. Let's take Romeo and Juliet as an example. The story is very basic. Do you think that it's the story that makes it a masterpiece? It's the narration and the writing actually. And if we take Blade Runner again, Deckard being or not a replicant doesn't change the events. But it change everything : a human who has to stop some replicants and a replicant who doesn't know he's a replicant and who has to stop some replicants. Do you think that it's the same story?
Actually I'm not confusing interpretation with intention. I was trying to talk about how devs intended the endings to be interpreted. For example they could have thought that the endings should be interpreted as they are instead of happening in Shepard's mind like IT suggest. Because they could have said that IT wasn't what they intended then that could have given clues how the endings was supposed to be interpreted. I believe that Blade Runner was always intended to be interpreted so that Deckard is replicant but some people didn't get it. They didn't interpreted the movie in the way it was meant to be interpreted.
I really don't see what's the problem with different levels of perspectives in that ending. What does it matter?
The story is different depending on whether Deckard is replicant or not. But I believe that the story was always about a replicant but some people didn't get it. When somebody realizes that Deckard is a replicant then that person's interpretion of the events changes but the story is still about a man who actually is a replicant and it's that even though some people don't understand it.
Retour en haut
