I think what we might get is a movie set in the Mass Effect Universe that isn't about Sheppard directly or about the events of Mass Effect 1 or 2.
There was an Ipod game called "Mass Effect Galaxy" that had Jacob and Miranda try to stop a terroist plot against the Citidel. The allude to the events in Mass Effect 2.
You also have the "First Contact War" and also how humanity was given an embassay in the Citidel. (Not a council seat, which was the ending of Mass Effect 1)
Here's the big problem I see with a Mass Effect Movie: Odds are Mass Effect 3 will come out first and also what the "canon" resolution of the three games will ultimately be. From what I understand it's entirely possible the "default" character in ME3 won't enven be Sheppard, unless you import the ME2 save file.
Odds are the story won't be the "Save the galaxy" plotline of the games. It'll be a smaller scale story, but you could make a movie work with a smaller plot.
"Many sci-fi fans are going to think they've seen this before."
Sci-fi is all about warm familiarity. All genres embrace tropes, but sci-fi wallows in them. The number of sci-fi films that aren't based on existing media or a remake is very, very small, and even when a "new" franchise comes out, it is drowning in tropes to make it familiar to the audience (Avatar, frex).
Hollywood seems to think it needs to be familiar to get asses in seats. That's what Mass Effect brings you, apparently. And best of all, it lets them use all those ideas while shielding themselves from potential lawsuits ;-)
True, though I do love a refined idea that gets a little more polish (like the indie time-travel film "Primer").
On a side note, the depressing thing about sci-fi these days comes from the sci end of the spectrum. More and more science writers are telling us how it's pretty much impossible for us to travel to other systems, at least in spaceships as we currently understand them. If they're right, that's going to make all of those hours I poured into "X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter" a waste of skill points.
I've read a summary of Primer, and now my head hurts. It does, at least, work the way the most plausible time travel devices in fiction work (described as "more like a highway than a car"; you can only travel to where the machine exists). The jury is still out on whether or not machines of this type could actually be built; they require at least two major assumptions about the physics and at least two major assumptions about the engineering. Usually they're used for FTL drives rather than time travel (equally difficult, and two aspects of the same problem
( ... )
FTL seems to come in three general flavors if it's magical:
1. Warp Drive, like Star Trek, which is useful if the plot/writer wants fairly long times between destinations with the possibility of ship-to-ship conflict en route.
2. Hyperdrive version 1, which is kind of like Warp Drive, except most of the time you don't have ships able to intercept each other while in transit. There's also usually a chance of hitting a star (gotta calculate before you jump!), getting lost, etc.
3. Hyperdrive version 2, which seems to be the BSG and Isaac Asimov version. It's basically insta-travel, and if someone explains it, it usually involves folding space and punching a hole or somesuch. But it's almost like a galactic teleportation system.
It never ceases to amaze me how much people push the connection between games and movies, either by trying to make movies out of games or trying to make games "cinematic." The way an audience interacts with a movie is completely different than the way a player interacts with a game. Trying to make games movie-like is another word for making them not games anymore.
Heh. And every so often they try to combine the two. I think it was in Germany they had a theater where the audience had some control pad/joystick where they could vote on where they wanted the film to go next at key moments.
Granted, that just puts the movie a step above a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book, but it's a step. :)
As admittedly intriguing a Mass Effect movie would be (I'm looking forward to the tie-in game. What?)
FFN's plotline is developing farther with the superhero game than I thought it would go, and I'm wondering what's up with Lewis. I'm horribly tempted to apply it since I'm going to be starting a DM run next week, though.
It's an idea I had about superheroes and biology. If one assumes that superpowers are developing because of the environment, then I'd figure there would be "stealth" powers that would develop designed to keep non-combat metahumans alive via some kind of method that made their survival a bonus to the more powerful metas.
And having any reason to care about an NPC is just so counter to Lewis'... um... "ethos" might be too grand a word. "Idiom?"
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There was an Ipod game called "Mass Effect Galaxy" that had Jacob and Miranda try to stop a terroist plot against the Citidel. The allude to the events in Mass Effect 2.
You also have the "First Contact War" and also how humanity was given an embassay in the Citidel. (Not a council seat, which was the ending of Mass Effect 1)
Here's the big problem I see with a Mass Effect Movie: Odds are Mass Effect 3 will come out first and also what the "canon" resolution of the three games will ultimately be. From what I understand it's entirely possible the "default" character in ME3 won't enven be Sheppard, unless you import the ME2 save file.
Odds are the story won't be the "Save the galaxy" plotline of the games. It'll be a smaller scale story, but you could make a movie work with a smaller plot.
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...and then try to make a sequel. :)
Reply
Sci-fi is all about warm familiarity. All genres embrace tropes, but sci-fi wallows in them. The number of sci-fi films that aren't based on existing media or a remake is very, very small, and even when a "new" franchise comes out, it is drowning in tropes to make it familiar to the audience (Avatar, frex).
Hollywood seems to think it needs to be familiar to get asses in seats. That's what Mass Effect brings you, apparently. And best of all, it lets them use all those ideas while shielding themselves from potential lawsuits ;-)
Reply
On a side note, the depressing thing about sci-fi these days comes from the sci end of the spectrum. More and more science writers are telling us how it's pretty much impossible for us to travel to other systems, at least in spaceships as we currently understand them. If they're right, that's going to make all of those hours I poured into "X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter" a waste of skill points.
Reply
Reply
1. Warp Drive, like Star Trek, which is useful if the plot/writer wants fairly long times between destinations with the possibility of ship-to-ship conflict en route.
2. Hyperdrive version 1, which is kind of like Warp Drive, except most of the time you don't have ships able to intercept each other while in transit. There's also usually a chance of hitting a star (gotta calculate before you jump!), getting lost, etc.
3. Hyperdrive version 2, which seems to be the BSG and Isaac Asimov version. It's basically insta-travel, and if someone explains it, it usually involves folding space and punching a hole or somesuch. But it's almost like a galactic teleportation system.
Reply
Reply
Granted, that just puts the movie a step above a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book, but it's a step. :)
Reply
FFN's plotline is developing farther with the superhero game than I thought it would go, and I'm wondering what's up with Lewis. I'm horribly tempted to apply it since I'm going to be starting a DM run next week, though.
Reply
And having any reason to care about an NPC is just so counter to Lewis'... um... "ethos" might be too grand a word. "Idiom?"
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