Mass Effect Movie: No Femshep, no Seth Green, Original Story.

[OmniscientOstrich]

Well a film incarnation of Mass Effect was inexorably going to be a failure anyway, but that really is a seriously stupid casting decision. I mean 2 hours really insn't enough time to flesh out the depth of the Mass Effect universe and loses the key strength of leaving the degree of exposition about everything around them down to the player's volition. There is no way a film version can possibly have the same depth and emotional resonance, so I really hope this thing falls through; we really don't need something to taint the name of the series like the shit they're doing with Silent Hill.

 

[Jenitals]

...This mistake would be the equivalent to casting Bruce Willis as Jack, very little cannot go wrong.

I hope they at least cast Shepard correctly, being the main focus of the story an' all. If I get some inclination that I'll be watching some guy with more than half a centimetre of hair calling himself hero of the Citadel I shall have to violently and mercilessly write a letter of complaint.

 

[Twilight_guy]

My thoughts? The fans can whine and ***** all they want, true fans are going to see it no matter what so why should the studio care? They're going to be more focused on maximizing their audience by including things to attract people who don't start salivating at the name alone.

 

[Proverbial Jon]

I disagree about game adaptions never rising beyond the level of "eh, 'salright." The "Prince of Persia" movie was awesome.

Granted, it may have been awsome as a stand alone movie... but as a Prince of Persia movie, it was kinda ridiculous.

OT: I used to get really excited for movies that were made out of my favourite games but now... now I just don't want it any more. We've been let down so many times that I've reached the point where it actually makes me sad that they're actively ruining beloved franchises. More often than not they miss the point of the game entirely. See Max Payne, Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Tomb Raider etc...

Please, please leave Mass Effect alone you monsters!

 

[Doctor Glocktor]

Male Sheperd? Of course, he's the face of Mass Effect 1 & 2.

An original plotline? Eeeehhhh, probably not.

Set Green NOT playing the character that was entirely modeled off him?

What the fuck?

 

[Lazarus Long]

I want to be mad. I kind of feel like I should. But I just can't. Sure, I'd love to see an ME film with Seth Green as Joker and Jennifer Hale as Shepard, if only because I want them to play in piles of money like Scrooge McDuck.
But I don't need that movie, because the games work for me. I'm starting to see Alan Moore's point about Watchmen, that some works are just not meant to be adapted to other media. I disagree with him about Watchmen, but that's another thread.
I wish the movie well. I'll probably watch it on video or on the Netflix (assuming it lives that long.)

 

[scorptatious]

I don't mind so much that they are using Male Shepard. It's really just one of those situations that damn you if you do and damn you if you don't. No matter which Shepard you choose, a portion of the Mass Effect fanbase will be upset. Unless they incorporate some new technology that allows you to use your saved game data to watch the movie in several different ways according to what kind of Shepard you made. (Which would be awesome.) But that would be asking WAY WAY too much for something like a video game adaptation.

Now not having Seth Green as Joker, I don't really understand why not. Have they asked him already? If he declined and they needed another actor I could understand, but if they didn't even think about the idea of casting him then they made a bad decision.

I personally would have wanted a story that centered around the First Contact War or maybe the Krogan Rebellion. You can have some leg-room to make a story without breaking the Mass Effect cannon and bring out a different perspective in the Mass Effect universe.

 

[MANIIC 8 BALL]

Why make a movie? I introduced a couple of people to gaming with mass effect 1 but now if the movie sucks people will be put off. mass effect works because its part of an interactive median
your choices make you care,like/dislike characters. The plot is basically generic making a film dosent make sense
anybody with me here?

 

[t3h br0th3r]

http://s3.amazonaws.com/kym-assets/photos/images/list/000/121/249/look-at-all-the-fucks-i-dont-give-theyre-just-falling-from-the-sky.jpg?1304870431

that right there sums it up

 

[MurderousToaster]

What were they meant to do about the gender thing? Shoot the film twice? A lot more people play a male Shepard than a female one. Your statistics are wrong (it's far less than 40%), and if people just can't handle the film's main character not being the same gender as the one they're playing in the game they probably need to rethink how they critique movies.

P.S - I play a female Shepard, before people get on to me about that.

 

[RobotZombieNinja]

I'm more disappointed that the movie isn't about the best character...


















BLASTO THE JELLYFISH!!!!!

 

[RobCoxxy]

I'm all for a Mass Effect movie, just not featuring anything to do with the fairly multi-directional games. Plenty of room for plots involving Cerberus, the First Contact War or experiments on Biotics.

I'm definitely not the only one thinking this.

 

[shadowmagus]

While I agree that not casting Seth Green as Joker is bollocks considering Joker looks like he was made for Seth Green, your MaleShep/FemShep argument holds no water. By deciding to use Shepard, they had to pick male or female. According to you OP, they risk alienating 40% of those who prefer FemShep, but by your own numbers again, that means that using FemShep could lose them 60% of MaleShep supporters. Since people who make more money then we ever will have their hands in this, they are going to use the one that would naturally bring in the larger market share.

 

[RatRace123]

What were they meant to do about the gender thing? Shoot the film twice? A lot more people play a male Shepard than a female one. Your statistics are wrong (it's far less than 40%), and if people just can't handle the film's main character not being the same gender as the one they're playing in the game they probably need to rethink how they critique movies.

P.S - I play a female Shepard, before people get on to me about that.

Yeah, I was corrected in that the statistic is closer to 20%. I pulled the original one off the top of my head, I should really correct it now that I think about it. (Which I did.)
And I play as a Male Shep, and the default Sheploo at that. I just knew that a lot of the people who do play FemShep are really passionate about Shepard as a female character and having Shepard be represented in the movie as a male is sort of a punch in the face to them (I assume.)

Though now that I think about it, the real punch in the face is going to be Shepard's personality. The way I play him in the game and the way other people play him/her in the game will be different and Shepard's personality is largely something that's made up by each individual player.

How the hell will he be represented in the movie? Shepard's essentially more of a character template than an actual character.

 

[blizzaradragon]

They shouldn't even focus on Shepard. No matter what they do with Shepard, it is going to alienate at least a good chunk of the audience by either being a different gender, having different morals than the Shepard they had in the games, or both. That is the major problem with having a main character that you make when you adapt it to a movie: there is no "right" character.

Instead what they should do is side stories for party members. One I could think of off of the top of my head would be Garrus going from squadmate to Archangel in between the two games. Hell, you could pretty much make a side story for any party member from either the first or second game(although Garrus or Tali would probably be best since they have the most to do in the series as squadmates).

 

[Zhukov]

Personally, I reckon they shouldn't make it about Shepard at all. It clashes with the whole custom character thing, and, let's face it, he/she isn't exactly the most interesting character ever.

No female Shepard? Yeah... no surprises there. I prefer female Shepard myself, but there was never the slightest chance of her making it into the movie.

As for Joker, you would think that casting Green would be a no brainer. Maybe he's busy with other stuff.

 

[DementedSheep]

Eh they are making it off the game? Pretty much all movie game adaptations suck. In fact I don?t think I have ever seen one that was actually good and they are even making it from a game with customisable main character. It is meant to be an entire universe. They could have made it about some of the history.

 

[Thaius]

I disagree about game adaptions never rising beyond the level of "eh, 'salright." The "Prince of Persia" movie was awesome.

The Prince of Persia movie wasn't a "game adaptation," it was an original film that borrowed the game's title for profit. Pretty good movie, but an awful adaptation.

That said, I agree that such a blanket statement simply cannot be made. There is absolutely no reason a movie based on a video game can't be good, and Japan has proven multiple times (Clannad, Advent Children, Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva) that filmic adaptations of a video game can be done extremely well.

But in this case, I admit this isn't looking good. The stories told when an adaptation doesn't stick to the source material are rarely as good, and there is simply no reason whatsoever why Seth Green should not be cast as Joker. It really doesn't make any sense at all. So... I've always been hesitant about it, but excited about its potential. This doesn't really help.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

Mass effect the movie...hmmm...sounds crap already.

So they are making a film based on a game and not having the story from the game in it at all lol. I'm confused. So it's not based on the game then...just another generic name tie-in space drama.

Lets hope it gets to a sequel so they can tear the guts out of it and stay true to the game franchise lol.

 

[JasonKaotic]

...A Mass Effect film?
Well, that killed one of my favourite franchises. Films do awful things to games. Playing Mass Effect will never feel right.