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[Tim van Beek]

@ Tim Van Beek,

you already know it but I don't think that Vogler is talking about the essence of the hero...

Right, Vogler would probably argue that the "willness to sacrifice" of the hero is necessary to get both the hero and the story going, and in Achilles case this is the sacrifice of leaving his home, his family and face the plight of a sea journey, a siege and the possibility of death in combat (I try to emulate Vogler's point of view here).

Arguably the heros of old were considered heros because of their superiour fighting power. If one looks closer at medieval European heros, they are arguably powerful destructive forces of violence and mass murderers from the point of view of today's society.

 

Back to the OP and the topic of this thread: Shepard's death is certainly logic within the story of ME, it is even considered to be typical of the "hero archetype" (today), that was my point. MEHEM turns the ME ending into a formulaic action blockbuster happy end, which would be a kind of "dumbing it down", if only the original ending wouldn't be a stupefying collapse of narrative coherence in the first place.

 

Don't ask why Commander Shepard had to die! Ask why General Narrative Coherence had to!

 

Was it Cerberus? Was it EA?

 

As to the second stupid reason to hate the ending, the missing boss fight: I think the only boss fight that honors both the ME:3 story and the ending would be one against a writer's block.

[angol fear]

Well I don't really understand. You quote that from Vogler :

 

A hero is someone who is willing to sacrifice his own needs on behalf of others, like a shepard who will sacrifice to protect and to serve his flock. At the root the idea of a hero is connected with self-sacrifice.

 

So here the sacrifice is for the other, isn't it? Sacrifice of leaving his home, family etc... isn't the kind of sacrifice Vogler talked about or I misunderstand it. I don't see how Achilles, Heracles, Odysseus and many other Greek hero can be related to self-sacrifice.

[Iakus]

 

Back to the OP and the topic of this thread: Shepard's death is certainly logic within the story of ME, it is even considered to be typical of the "hero archetype" (today), that was my point. MEHEM turns the ME ending into a formulaic action blockbuster happy end, which would be a kind of "dumbing it down", if only the original ending wouldn't be a stupefying collapse of narrative coherence in the first place.

 

I would argue that the entire trilogy (ME2, the most popular of the games, in particular) was a formulaic action-blockbuster.  And thus MEHEM does little to dumb that down.

 

But it's totally worth it to take an ice cream scoop to the dumbest part of the game:  The Catalyst and its Insane Troll Logic which we have to go along with or get a "Nonstandard Game Over"

 

In addition, MEHEM is still a bittersweet ending, though the emphasis is more on sweet than better.  The galaxy is still as wrecked as it was in High EMS Destroy before.  Anderson is still dead (that's his plaque going on the memorial wall)

 

The only difference between MEHEM and Highest EMS Destroy is Shepard clearly lives (confirming what before was only implied) And EDI and the geth live.

 

Plus MEHEM has had a Low EMS version for quite some time now.  And it is pretty freaking dark.  

[Linkenski]

I tend to agree. Obviously the writers thought that created vs. creators is a theme of ME:3, and they put it like crumbles all over the ME story cake.

But if we try to formulate the theme of ME:3 in one sentence, does anyone come up with one that contains synthetics versus organics aka created versus creators? What if we try a five sentence elevator pitch? Even ME:3 itself does not do that in its own statement of its own premise in the opening (I don't mean just the text box of the beginning, but what Shepard and Anderson say about it during the Vancouver mission).

Compare this to "The Terminator": Is synthetics versus organics the theme of the movie? It is there, no doubt, in the background story and in the ongoing narrative (a synthetic is going after an organic). But no: The theme is the nightmare of an enemy coming for you, and running, hiding, fighting is to no avail.

Now I'm wondering if Casey ever handed a clear statement of the premise/the theme of ME:3 to his team and if yes, what was it?

Considering that Mac says in an interview from 2011 that "once Casey and I decided the theme was organics vs synthetics..." and how Casey talks about the "idea of Mass Effect and whether synthetic a will ever rival our intelligence... Should we incorporate synthetics more and more into our bodies? and... stuff like that." in Final Hours when asked about the "message of Mass Effect".

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Casey mislabeled the main overarching theme or message of Mass Effect to be synthetics vs organics.

[Tim van Beek]

Plus MEHEM has had a Low EMS version for quite some time now.  And it is pretty freaking dark.  

Oh? Somehow missed that, I'll go and look it up, thanks!

 

 

Well I don't really understand. You quote that from Vogler :

 

A hero is someone who is willing to sacrifice his own needs on behalf of others, like a shepard who will sacrifice to protect and to serve his flock. At the root the idea of a hero is connected with self-sacrifice.

 

So here the sacrifice is for the other, isn't it? Sacrifice of leaving his home, family etc... isn't the kind of sacrifice Vogler talked about or I misunderstand it. I don't see how Achilles, Heracles, Odysseus and many other Greek hero can be related to self-sacrifice.

Achilles and Odysseus leave their home for the sake of Agamemnon, to go to war. They sacrifice e.g. their comfort and safety to serve their king in a time of war. Heracles chose the path of the road, helping people, fighting dangerous monsters instead of celebrating his status as a hero and enjoying his fame. He too sacrificed his need of comfort for the sake of the people he helped.

Vogler does a better job of explaining the concept in his book     .

 

 

Considering that Mac says in an interview from 2011 that "once Casey and I decided the theme was organics vs synthetics..." and how Casey talks about the "idea of Mass Effect and whether synthetic a will ever rival our intelligence... Should we incorporate synthetics more and more into our bodies? and... stuff like that." in Final Hours when asked about the "message of Mass Effect".

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Casey mislabeled the main overarching theme or message of Mass Effect to be synthetics vs organics.

 

That's not uncommon. It is the reason why, as a writer, you should think about the ending and the last scene first, or, if that is not possible, at least somewhen in the middle of the project. It is the reason why, as a writer, you should constantly challenge yourself "what is my theme now", because that often changes during the writing process. If you don't notice that, you'll not be able to bring your story to a close.

This is also the reason why writers always test their stories with several layers of readers (children, friends, editors, executive producers).

This is not secret knowledge, I bet you can learn that in every "creative writing 101" class of every community college. What happened?

[Iakus]

Oh? Somehow missed that, I'll go and look it up, thanks!

 

 

No need, it's right here:

 

[themikefest]

Oh? Somehow missed that, I'll go and look it up, thanks!

Spoiler

 

edit lakus beat me to it

[Tim van Beek]

No need, it's right here:

 

Ha ha, nice! So the EC refusal ending can be put to good use  .

 

I would argue that the entire trilogy (ME2, the most popular of the games, in particular) was a formulaic action-blockbuster.  And thus MEHEM does little to dumb that down.

But I can understand why one would try to do something original and get people to talk about it. With hindsight, it would have been better to do a forgettable formulaic ending and get it right, than to try something original that blows up in your face like the citadel in the low EMS path of MEHEM above and gets people to talk about it for all the wrong reasons. At least for the sanity of many BioWare employees, it would have been better, I'd say . 

[angol fear]

Achilles and Odysseus leave their home for the sake of Agamemnon, to go to war. They sacrifice e.g. their comfort and safety to serve their king in a time of war. Heracles chose the path of the road, helping people, fighting dangerous monsters instead of celebrating his status as a hero and enjoying his fame. He too sacrificed his need of comfort for the sake of the people he helped.

Vogler does a better job of explaining the concept in his book     .

 

Achilles leaves his home for the sake of Agamemon? No, he is "forced" to go to war.  

Heracles killed his family that's the reason (from some Antic sources) why he has done what makes him famous. There's no self-sacrifice, there's a difference between hepling people and be prepared to die for other people. Moreover, Heracles had nothing, he never left some comfort. And Heracles killed more people than he saved. He killed people because they didn't pay him, I don't see anything like self-sacrifice. The story of Heracles is far from being bright.

That's why I like Greek mythology, it's not that moral.

I think you give a meaning of sacrifice that isn't what Vogler said. I will verify in his book but your quotation is quite clear : self-sacrifice, acting like a shepard to protect. If you think that once you leave comfort ,for instance, you are a hero, then even anti-hero and antagonist turn to be hero too.

[Reorte]

But I can understand why one would try to do something original and get people to talk about it. With hindsight, it would have been better to do a forgettable formulaic ending and get it right, than to try something original that blows up in your face like the citadel in the low EMS path of MEHEM above and gets people to talk about it for all the wrong reasons. At least for the sanity of many BioWare employees, it would have been better, I'd say . 

I don't think a dark ending for low EMS would've caused any complaints.

 

As for formulaic, dying heros is arguably pretty much that these days. It's also very, very hard to pull off the Jesus act convincingly for something of this scale (a sensible reason why the hero has to die to save the day), so it always felt rather contrived to set a desired mood.

 

It's safer to go for originality in the middle of the game I suppose. Then if it's bad the story will move on and it'll be overlooked (the also poor opening doesn't get anywhere near as much discussion). And I think that this has already been mentioned but there's a danger of just being different for the sake of it and trying to claim originality than actually having a good, original idea tha may work but is a bit of a risk.

[Tim van Beek]

Achilles leaves his home for the sake of Agamemon? No, he is "forced" to go to war.  

Heracles killed his family that's the reason (from some Antic sources) why he has done what makes him famous. There's no self-sacrifice, there's a difference between hepling people and be prepared to die for other people. Moreover, Heracles had nothing, he never left some comfort. And Heracles killed more people than he saved. He killed people because they didn't pay him, I don't see anything like self-sacrifice. The story of Heracles is far from being bright.

That's why I like Greek mythology, it's not that moral.

I think you give a meaning of sacrifice that isn't what Vogler said. I will verify in his book but your quotation is quite clear : self-sacrifice, acting like a shepard to protect. If you think that once you leave comfort ,for instance, you are a hero, then even anti-hero and antagonist turn to be hero too.

I'll stick to my representation of Vogler's characterization, I don't think I misrepresented that - but checking for yourself is of course better  .

I only read simplified translations of the adventures of the heros we are talking about here, and know of no antique secondary literature, so I can't say much about the original stories nor how they were interpreted in the past. But I'd still stay with Vogler that, at the core, the character needs to be willing to sacrifice his needs for others in order to be perceived as a hero by the audience. This does not contradict the aspects of the various stories you mention, because Vogler's concept is much more general and flexible than I may have presented it here (see above, best check for yourself).

 

 

I don't think a dark ending for low EMS would've caused any complaints.

 

As for formulaic, dying heros is arguably pretty much that these days. 

 

Agreed - the "original part" I meant is not Shepard's death, it is the attempt to explain parts of the background of the story and the reapers - the reason for the catalyst being an AI with dialogue. It would have been easier to just dodge that (and be more forgettable). The problem of the ME writers obviously was that they raised some very serious questions, like "what is the true goal of the reapers?" without preparing an answer. They are not the first writers to have that problem. "Then she saw the alien. It looked like..." dammit..."It looked like her father. I took this form to make it easier for you, the alien said". Phew! Or: "Then Andrew saw the vision of the ideal society as the ancient wise race of the Floggers had promised, it was like..." dammit...white light..."Sharon saw the enlightened smile on Andrew's face and knew that the final secret of the Floggers had been shared, as promised". Phew!

 

There are examples of open, mysterious endings that answer some questions that the story got the audience invested in, while leaving some open. I'm thinking about e.g. the new "Battlestar Galactica" series. Note that Ronald D. Moore said that the series just had to include the discovery of Earth, as that was promised by every trailer, so he clearly recocgnized that there were some promises to keep and also certain quesions to be answered, but not all. Especially the last lines of dialogue of the series finale are intended to get a "wait, what?!" response from the audience. And it works  .

 

I think this is an example for what Casey intended to achieve, which is confirmed by this quote:

 

 

There’s so much throwaway entertainment out there. I didn’t just want to make something that was essentially the videogame version of a popcorn movie. I wanted to make something huge and exciting and the biggest thing possible that felt like a blockbuster and had that big action science fiction feel.

...

I didn’t want the game to be forgettable, and even right down to the sort of polarizing reaction that the ends have had with people–debating what the endings mean and what’s going to happen next, and what situation are the characters left in. That to me is part of what’s exciting about this story. There has always been a little bit of mystery there and a little bit of interpretation, and it’s a story that people can talk about after the fact.

 

I learned about the Mass Effect series this year and of course haven't taken the time to read every single discussion thread on this forum about the ending, but this just seems to be wishful thinking / cognitive dissonance: The kind of discussion that he talks about certainly is what he intended to provoke, but seemingly quite far from what really happened.

[MrStoob]

Having Shepard alive at the end is not necessarily a 'better' ending, but it is a different ending - for the FFs, most would want to continue Shep's story because they like the character, rather than because they disagreed with or didn't like the ending itself - a lot write because they want to write, rather than for reasons of wish fulfilment.

 

Of the endings we do have in-game, I think I probably like refuse the most.

[Rhaenyss]

I'm glad MEHEM exists for people who didn't like the endings, but to me they are just too amateurish and generic. I know that was the point (making them generic by removing a bunch of stuff, something of a compromise for people who didn't like the Catalyst), but I'll take the EC endings over them any time, inconsistencies & all. To be honest, when I first heard about the bad endings, I though they would for sure end with Shepard destroying the reapers with the superweapon in a true Hollywood style, but they turned out to be a bit different & I was pleasantly surprised with it. Each ending left me with a bad taste in my mouth & I thought that was an interesting twist, because neither ending is an easy choice & each person can justify their choice in their own way. I don't think I would be satisfied if they went the generic obvious paragon or renegade route, because with them the choice would be quite obvious for a lot of people. And I shamelessly loved the music and the buildup, I get chills every time, and the Control ending gets me extra tingly just because of the voice

 

Would I love 37 different endings? Of course, that would be cool, but I never had these expectations in the first place, so I was never in a position to be disappointed as some people were (like with the devs lying about the endings) What I would've liked to see different? More Harbinger, replacing the image of the child Catalyst appeared as, Shepard being more reactive in the final conversation, more assets being visible in the whole "Priority: Earth" mission, fixing the stupid biology of Synthesis. I mean, the way I understood it, it's a biologic upgrade for organics (implants), and software upgrade for synthetics (to make them understand life, individuality etc), and not an actual synthesis -- though the lines are a bit muddled in the actual execution of the idea. I don't think all the races became one or lost their individuality, or became Borg or whatever. It's probably just "a fix" to remove disease, improve physical threshold etc.

[Goodmongo]

So I watched the high EMS MEHEM ending on Youtube (43:36 version) and have no clue how some things happened.  It is basically identical till about 19:36.  That means if you had complaints and didn't like things till that point you should still not like them.  It goes back to orginal from around 20:10 till 22:26 or so.  After this we get the HEA.

 

But at 23:21 the arms are opening once again.  We already saw the crucible dock with the citadel and the arms were already opened.  Who closed them and where is the crucible at?  A big rescue scene is next.

 

They go back to search for Shepard.  And then it takes less than 2 minutes to find one person in a station that is like 45 km long.  Not to mention how did the thing even fire?  Who pressed the fire button?  Remember all the ships got out of there before it fired.  Of course if you hate the space magic part of the beam going through the whole galaxy you should still hate this.

 

Basically all they did was remove all interaction with the AI catalyst and add in a Geth and Shepard lives part.

 

If people really do liked this ending then it proves my comment that a HEA is all they really wanted.  It had nothing to do with writing as this ending had even more plot holes since it never fixed the original ones and added new ones.  I think it proves my point very nicely.

[Dantriges]

The arms are going from the open into the flower configuration. You can see the crucible in the middle. It docked from behind and didn´t hug the tower like Sovereign. You are aware that it´s the original footage? The supposed plotholes would be part of the original ending, too.

 

How they found Shep? Ping his omnitool or so, like at the time in Grissom where everyone had to switch channels . If you want to complain about that, well it´s rather late. EDI could pinpoint your exact location in the collector cruiser and everywhere else in ME 2 after all. Perhaps they looked on the station plans where the controls for opening the arms were originally? The Citadel central controls never were in the wards, so you can exclude everything but the presidium.

We don´t know how long it took them to find Shep. We had a fade to black and a cut, unlike the Normandy evac scene where we stay with Shep the whole time from radio for evac till the Normandy landed (in 5 seconds).

It gets a bit problematic with the question who fired. You get a mail from Sanders on the crucible team that they have teams on the Crucible in case something doesn´t work. Clashes a bit with Hackett calling Shepard though. Doesn´t matter anyways, perhaps it´s simply firing on auto and going through different stages of the firing sequence. You don´t fire everything instantly without aiming. At least you really shouldn´t when operating artillery or similar stuff. So perhaps when Hackett called it was doing calibrations.

 

So let´s see: Citadel opening explained, Crucible os there, the ability to pinpoint Shepard´s location is established, the evac scene is fast but do you want to watch them looking around for 10 minutes? Firing a bit wonky but nothing that is in the stupid zone.

 

It´s ok if you don´t like it. The evac scene is not completely my cup of tea either but you are grasping for something to complain about. Perhaps I install the other mod without the whole evac scene. 

[Batarian Master Race]

it never fixed the original ones

 

I don't see a Catalyst. 97% of the original plot holes fixed.

[Goodmongo]

It doesn't fix any of the plot holes up and through TIM encounter.  It's the same so that means all the plot holes still exist.  Many didn't like the extended cut explanation for why the Normandy was racing ahead of the blast.  That still exists.

 

The only difference is the catalyst is removed and it's HEA for Shepard and the Geth.  But that raises question on how the wave didn't target all life or other synthetic life.  It opens new holes.  Shepard is in some place no one has ever accessed before.  Him and Anderson got there via the beam.  Yet for the first time in 50,000 years they land a shuttle to get him out.  No one even knew this area existed yet find how to get there without any delay.  That's a big hole.

 

Besides if they can pinpoint Shepard then why didn't they know who made it through the beam and where they are at?  Why not send in a squad to help?  As for the delay my point is the Reapers are not just standing around playing poker.  Even this ending shows issues and an Occulus attack.  So if it takes 10 minutes the Normandy is destroyed.  That is the real problem.  They need to find him super fast.  The supporting cruiser was destroyed and Normandy is under attack but hey spend a day looking for Shepard.  Even 10 minutes is too long.

 

The Citadel opening twice was an original hole and this uses the same sequence so if the original had a hole here so does this one.  Unless people want to admit that the original never had a plot hole about the arms.

 

Here's my problem with the firing of the crucible.  Shepard, Liara and Hacket previously discussed that no one knows how to fire the thing off.  How it will work.  How it targets things.  The catalyst at least explains this.  So where does the knowledge come from on how to fire it?  We know have to assume that connecting it to the Citadel makes it work.  But why the delay then?  Sorry but the whole arming, aiming, targeting and firing points are not explained or touched on in this version.  But that HEA makes it all OK.

[Batarian Master Race]

So, just to be clear... which plot holes were newly introduced?

 

And when was the speech about not knowing how to aim/charge/fire the Crucible?

[Dantriges]

It also removed the landing on the planet.
 
The Citadel didn´t open a second time. The opening sequence starts from the usual open position and switches to flower mode.
The Normandy wasn´t alone during the retrieval. Seems that the modders decided that disengage took a bit longer than just hit FTL button. I don´t know why but the fleet is stil there and I don´t see a problem with it, that they didn´t disappear in 5 seconds.
Why they couldn´t pinpoint him? Could be that the closed citadel interferes with that, Hackett reached Shepard only after the arms opened but it´s not really explained in the original or the mod.
Why send a squad to help? They already found him and the crucible works.
There are some mails that go into further detail. The crucible team had some more ideas how the thing works than in the original, at least enough for how to fire it. I think there are actually issues with that but finding the briefings with Hackett on YT is a pain.

But well, does it matter? Even if no one knows how to fire it, who says that you need someone to push a fire button? It seems that Hackett was actually expecting the Crucible to do his magic without someone pushing anything. There is nothing speaking against an automated firing sequence, as soon as the Crucible is docked and Hackett was just a bit hasty when he first thought that the crucible wasn´t doing anything. The lollipop docked only a minute ago or two after all.
 
And yes it doesn´t fix any plotholes up to and including the TIM encounter. Really? Yes it´s a modification to the ending, not the plothole erasing rewrite of the game. How should they do the TIM encounter? Ask Martin Sheen and Meers to voice their mod for free? Do the dialogue with other voices? Silent dialogue? And it seems the options in the dialogue wheel aren´t moddable. Modders are constrained by what´s actually moddable. MEEM does a complete new voiceover for the Catalyst scene but the mod still uses the original dialogue wheel (in the video I´ve seen).

 

So well, yeah the modders wanted a happy ending and made one. There are others, IIRC Vanilka uses an alternate MEHEM. AFAIK Chronoid mentioned that he didn´t play the game after the EC came out or so. Another BSN member uninstalled the EC, so he could shoot the starkid until he gets bored and exits the game. And it seems that quite a lot of people who didn´t like the ending still left it unmodded. I installed MEHEM after I was dissatisfied with the ending and a friend mentioned that it exists as an alternative. And well it´s ok for me, I can fill the blanks with headcanon.

 

In short, the existence of MEHEM doesn´t prove that everyone who dislikes the endings only wants a happy ending. MEEM is rather grim for example and the percentage of dislikers who actually installed MEHEM is unknown.

[Batarian Master Race]

You know, it's possible to want a happy ending AND dislike the endings for how they're written.

 

I do like my stories with happy endings, but I also had a significant problem both in-game and from a meta perspective with how the endings were laid out.

[Iakus]

It doesn't fix any of the plot holes up and through TIM encounter.  It's the same so that means all the plot holes still exist.  Many didn't like the extended cut explanation for why the Normandy was racing ahead of the blast.  That still exists.

 

The only difference is the catalyst is removed and it's HEA for Shepard and the Geth.  But that raises question on how the wave didn't target all life or other synthetic life.  It opens new holes.  Shepard is in some place no one has ever accessed before.  Him and Anderson got there via the beam.  Yet for the first time in 50,000 years they land a shuttle to get him out.  No one even knew this area existed yet find how to get there without any delay.  That's a big hole.

 

Besides if they can pinpoint Shepard then why didn't they know who made it through the beam and where they are at?  Why not send in a squad to help?  As for the delay my point is the Reapers are not just standing around playing poker.  Even this ending shows issues and an Occulus attack.  So if it takes 10 minutes the Normandy is destroyed.  That is the real problem.  They need to find him super fast.  The supporting cruiser was destroyed and Normandy is under attack but hey spend a day looking for Shepard.  Even 10 minutes is too long.

 

The Citadel opening twice was an original hole and this uses the same sequence so if the original had a hole here so does this one.  Unless people want to admit that the original never had a plot hole about the arms.

 

Here's my problem with the firing of the crucible.  Shepard, Liara and Hacket previously discussed that no one knows how to fire the thing off.  How it will work.  How it targets things.  The catalyst at least explains this.  So where does the knowledge come from on how to fire it?  We know have to assume that connecting it to the Citadel makes it work.  But why the delay then?  Sorry but the whole arming, aiming, targeting and firing points are not explained or touched on in this version.  But that HEA makes it all OK.

Keep in mind that this is a game that wasn't meant to be modded.  There's really only so much that could be done.  That MEHEM does as much as this is no small thing.

 

As for some problems listed:

 

I don't really consider why the Crucible doesn't target all life or synthetic life a problem.  Or at least not a new one.  We don't know why the original Crucible targets all synthetic life, or even what it defined as "synthetic".  Shepard is "partly synthetic" but others with cybernetics are not?

 

Shepard was in the Council chambers, using the same panel as was used in ME1 to open the Citadel arms.  MEHEM does not have the Magic Space Elevator.

 

In the EC, Hackett knows Shepard at least made it.  Why they didn't send help?  Dunno.  MEHEM lets Joker remedy that oversight 

 

MEHEM also shows a battle group staying behind both to help Joker and to cover all the other ships escaping.  They wait behind until the last possible moment to harry and distract the Reapers.  Thus why there are scenes from the Low EMS assault on Earth.  There's a lot fewer ships there, and start getting cut to pieces. 

 

I'll take "The Crucible needs time to power up" over "shoot this tube to make it work" 

[MrFob]

EDIT: Since I linked this post a couple of times now, for when I am asked why I dislike the endings, I am marking the MEHEM portion of this post blue, so feel free to jump over it and just read the normal colored text.

 

Hello guys, been following this thread for quite a while (some very interesting posts in here, some odd ones too ) but since MEHEM was brought into this, I thought I'd give my 2 cents on the matter.
 
First of all, concerning MEHEM itself, I am with Tim van Beek. I think it does dumb down the ending and I don't think it's a very good way to end the trilogy at all.In fact, I mostly made the mod as an experiment to see if I could change the memorial scene back in the day. My first mod - and the one I still like best personally - was MEEM (without the H), which not only retains the complexity of the original endings but IMO increases it and also changes the EC epilogues from slapped on happy outcomes to a much more uncertain outlook into the future, which IMO is much more appropriate to the morally questionable actions that Shepard performs at the end, no matter what s/he decides to do.
 
Of course, MEEM is technically much less refined than MEHEM and also, it needed new text and Shepard's VO does not match. So is MEEM perfect IMO? No, not by a long shot.
 
Most of the problems with the mods originate from a compromise on two fronts.
The first one being technical limitations. Goodmongo, you asked why the Citadel flowering was kept. Well, first I don't think it's a plot hole, it's just what the station does when the crucible docks so it never occurred to me to remove it but also, there are about 50 or so seconds of very spectacular CGI in the original ending, that show how the thing actually fires and in those, the Citadel is in flower configuration. It took me about 2 months to make the little Normandy flying scene and the shuttle drop scene, so naturally I wanted to use as much of the original material as possible and it had to fit. Also, we can't really make in-game cut scenes from scratch, so all of the new scenes are pre-rendered, meaning I couldn't use Shepard or any characters that might be dead (hence the focus on Joker).
 
The second front was a narrative one and that's the really tricky part. If we cannot change the entire game to really set up a new ending, we have to constrain ourselves to the last parts and there is only so much you can tell in this time. And let's face it, neither MEHEM nor MEEM nor the original endings were properly set up during the game.

 

Now this thread is about reasons why we hate the endings, so here are my reasons for feeling the need to change them (I hope I didn't forget anything. May edit something in later if I forget now):
 
1) The Premise is a rehash. People say that the Synthetics vs. Organics theme was foreshadowed during the entire trilogy. This is not true. It was a plot arc that was resolved. On Rannoch, we see the conclusion of it and it is explored in great detail. At the end, we even get to make a decision, based on our stance on the matter. Even worse, one of our decisions (peace) can directly contradict the catalyst's premise (yes, you can come up with reasons why they don't necessarily contradict logically but they do definitely contradict in terms of narrative and the fact that this contradiction is never even brought up makes it even worse). Also, see point 2d.
 
2) The catalyst conversation.
a) Shepard's character change: Shep (at least my Shep) was not himself in this conversation. He is weak, meek and gullible. He is no longer the forceful inquisitive questioning self-reliant character I used to play for 90+ hours. This is THE final confrontation that all the trilogy was about and he looses his mojo, never doubting the catalyst, never taking the initiative in the conversation, never challenging. Yes, he is injured, probably near death but making him so was also the writers choice and so was giving him this character change in this - the moist important conversation in the trilogy.
b ) The Catalysts appearance and voice pose a lot of questions that are never addressed. I could live with not answered but the topic of why it's the boy and why it speaks with Shepard's own voice never even comes up.
c) The catalyst's motives and its actions clash. Or in other words, why can I even choose destroy? The catalyst doesn't think it'll solve anything (the peace will not last) and it can shut down the crucible at will (see refuse ending). Apparently it willingly abandons its goals and commits "suicide by Shepard". So if it can abandon its initial reason for existence, why not just stop the harvest? And returning to point 2a, Shepard never even realizes this and asks about it.
d) The reapers are diminished to no end. They are now slaves to the catalyst, no longer the magnificent race of post-singularity machines where "each of them is a nation". Besides, their revealed purpose exposes that ultimately, they are enforcing stagnation on the galaxy because they are afraid of the future. They have no proof for their claims, they just continue the cycle on the hypothesis that they are right. Their entire problem is theoretical.
e) A new character and a whole lot of exposition happen in the last 10 minutes. Now this has been discussed to death already but for completion's sake, I'll put it in. They made the same mistake with Vigil in ME1 by the way but at least there, we are still at the relative beginning of the trilogy. Here, it really is inexcusable.
f) The choices: I know there is no such thing as original thought anymore and this is really a minor point but Deus Ex did this whole thing before and they did with much more elegance and style.
 
3) The EC slaps happy epilogues onto the endings after Shepard has to perform very questionable actions that may be considered war crimes, each and every one of them. Everyone is fine and happy with synthesis, in destroy everyone is so happy to rebuild that they kinda forgot about the geth and the fact that there is now a giant super-weapon in earth's orbit. Control gets a little credit for taking paragon/renegade Shepard into account but even here, looking at the slides, everyone seems perfectly contempt that God-Shepard reigns over them supremely and keeps order. Shepard's goal was to solve the reaper threat but with the endings, s/he solved all the troubles in the universe and it just doesn't fit very well. The original endings - in their horrible ambiguity - were still better than the EC in this regard IMO. Also, so much for the oh so important artistic integrity, that was not preserved at all.
 
4) A lack of variety that resembles the variety of moods within the series. Depending on whether you play paragon, renegade, paragade or renegon, whether you persuade a lot or not at all, you can actually change so much about the plot of this trilogy that its mood, its themes and maybe even its genre can change, depending on the player. A paragon may view it is a classic epic hero's tale, a renegade player may view it as a commentary on the dilemmas of leadership or maybe even view Shepard as an antihero. A non-persuading player may even view it as a string of tragedies where the protagonist is largely out of control. IMO, the endings do not offer choices that reflect all these moods and that variety. Some of them are catered to but some play-styles (my favorite ones included unfortunately) get left behind.
 
5) The reaction of the Normandy crew. I do get that they had no choice but to abandon Shepard but I am still disappointed that they would just leave him/her behind and then have a memorial without even going back apparently (at least in high EMS destroy) which brings me to what I call...
 
6) Schroedinger's Breath scene. Keeping Shepard in a limbo of ambiguity between life and death is cool for a cliff hanger. But this was the definitive end of Shepard's story as the devs said time and time again. Kill him or let him live (or her) but leaving Shep like this just looks like the writers had no idea how they wanted to end the story of that character.
 
7) A whole plethora of logical fallacies and weird unexplained occurrences. Some are fairly trivial in and of themselves but they do pile up. Here are a few examples
a) Thanix missiles
b ) The evac scene
c) Harbingers laser sucks
d) The Anderson Transportation Conundrum
e) The TIM Appearnce Conundrum
f) TIM's sudden control ever Anderson and Shepard that looks nothing like indoctrination

g) The crucible is just a power source (?!?) but also changes the catalyst?
h) Synthesis is "the final stage of evolution"?
i) The Catalyst and it's long sleep during the ME1 ending
j) The crucible wave spreads at all sorts of different speeds from a few kph to 10.000 light years per second
k) How did the Normandy survive the drop from FTL?
l) How did they get to that planet
I could go on but that should be enough for now. As I said, most of it is trivial and some can be explained away with enough head cannon but still, they do pile up.
 
8) Normandy's crash. Not only is it logically weird but since the EC, it also serves no purpose whatsoever. They might as well have taken that bit out and it would already have improved the ending (imagine JAM with a dead Shepard)
 
9) Refuse. The refuse ending has been criticized by many but I think a lot of people misunderstand it's intention and I think it goes to show how much the BW writers misjudged the impact of their own ending. After the original ending was out, a lot of people actually wanted a refuse-and-loose option just like the one we got (me included). It made sense at the time because it looked like Shepard - through his final choice - messed up the galaxy worse than the reapers would. So we'd sacrifice ourselves and leave it to the next cycle to defeat the reapers for real with the help of Liara's time capsules (there was a popular fan video of it, too). There were even devs in this thread asking if we'd have liked something like this as an option. Well, basically, they delivered and put exactly that into the EC. However, at the same time they also changed the 3 main endings and removed all the darker aspects from them (see my point 3). That made refuse not only irrelevant but made Shepard look stupid choosing it and thus the fans now perceive it as an insult. Though I doubt any was ever intended at all. Can't pull one string without moving the others.
 
10) Discontinuity and the pacing of the trilogy. Now this goes way beyond the ending but it is IMO the ultimate reason for all the problems that I mentioned before. The trilogy has fantastic characters, many amazingly told little side stories and an enticing and complex lore. Yet, it fails at the main plot consistently, at least starting with ME2. The plot of ME2 has nothing to do with the real issue of the trilogy. We don't learn anything relevant about the reapers until Arrival. Nothing about their background and nothing on how to fight, let alone stop them. One can even argue that ME2 actively destroyed a lot of the groundwork that was set up in ME1. In the end, ME3 had so much to catch up on, it's no wonder it had to take shortcuts like the crucible plans in the mars archives (layer 2). I like all three ME games but as a whole, they fail miserably at telling one cohesive story. That is the real problem and the ending is a symptom of that.
 
So in conclusion, can we "repair" this issue with a mod? No, and frankly, if anyone thinks I tried, they misinterpreted my intentions. The mods are just re-interpretations of the ending for people with different tastes. They are meant to add to the variety of the game, not repair or replace existing parts for good. You like them? Great! You don't like them? That's perfectly fine with me as well. In fact I am happy for everyone who is contempt or likes the original endings. I wish I could have. I think that I could have probably overlooked most of the points above if they were the only issue or even some combinations of subsets.
Unfortunately, all these points combine, there are even some synergy effects happening with this combination and that is what makes me strongly dislike the endings. Neither MEHEM, nor MEEM fixes all these issues but I do think that some of them are addressed.

[RZIBARA]

The people who dislike Shepard dying and hate the ending for that reason are manchildren. 

 

There are legitimate problems with the ending that make it terrible, but "Shepard dies!" is not one.

[Iakus]

The people who dislike Shepard dying and hate the ending for that reason are manchildren. 

 

There are legitimate problems with the ending that make it terrible, but "Shepard dies!" is not one.

The lack of survival options is part of the problem.  It's actually a symptom of a greater problem, the lack of choice in general at the end, the reducing of everything you did to an arbitrary number.

 

There should have been scenarios where Shepard lived, or died, or even toss in a couple of "lots of speculations for everyone" outcomes.  

[RZIBARA]

The lack of survival options is part of the problem.  It's actually a symptom of a greater problem, the lack of choice in general at the end, the reducing of everything you did to an arbitrary number.

 

There should have been scenarios where Shepard lived, or died, or even toss in a couple of "lots of speculations for everyone" outcomes.  

 

I agree with that, but still, there are much larger problems then even that, like just how nonsensical everything that happens in the ending is