Hollywood Interested in Mass Effect Movie

[HyenaThePirate]

Quite frankly, some mediums are only GREAT in their original medium...
Star Trek was a great tv series... but the movies became very hit and miss.

The bigger problem is the translation from video game to FILM seems destined to fail because the story has already been told usually in a visually, exciting media arguably with scenes that would rival anything a movie could show. I mean, I've PLAYED Mass Effect... what else could they include in a Movie to make it better... In the video game version, I'm satisfied with Shepard because I MADE HIM. In a movie, they'd have to cast some actor, probably someone I don't like or who doesn't fit my idea of Shepard. Thats going to be a let down immediately.

Second, they would have to have Shepard make decisions that you would not have made if you were playing the GAME, and for a property based on a game that GAVE you the freedom of this choice, this would be a bad idea. It would be like the studio giving you a big middle finger by choosing what THEY would have done, putting it into a sort of "new Canon" where Shepard actually DID make that decision, instead of the one YOU made, robbing you of the feeling that the role was yours.

Thirdly, do we need it? I mean seriously? This reminds me of the first Final Fantasy movie, The Spirits within. Visually that movie was a Square-Enix fanboy's wetdream. But it illustrates the main problem with this sort of thing... Final Fantasy games are KNOWN for their fantastic visuals and cgi cutscenes... so a MOVIE comes off as being like a cutscene but without the payoff of being able to take control of a character afterwards.

How much better and how happier would people have been if FInal Fantasy Advent Children had been an ACTUAL sequel GAME to final fantasy VII? Keep all the characters, keep all the cutscenes, but break them up in between some side quests, a decent combat system that is an updated version of the materia system, and some text based dialogue to flesh out some of the nonsense, and it would have gone down a storm.

 

[Disembodied_Dave]

I think a movie would be to short. Now a TV show would be really wonderful.

 

[Red Albatross]

No. No no no no no no no no no.

FUCK no.

A movie would remove the interactivity, remove the personal element of making choices that effect the future...basically, it would remove the entire spirit of the game and make it into a soulless attempt at money grubbing.

Hollywood, keep your hands off of Mass Effect.

 

[Manji187]

Bollywood is the only one capable of making a decent Mass Effect movie.

BWAHAHAHAHAH... I like your sense of humour. I can already picture the giant dance off at the end.

 

[Soxafloppin]

I think that if its made it will just be another space movie.

 

[squid5580]

Ehh whatever it takes to make sure they don't have to put any effort into thier poroducts. Isn't that their new motto?

 

[gamefreakbsp]

Am I the only one who is somewhat optimistic about the Bioshock adaptation?
Considering Gore Verbinski left the project to be replaced by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo...there might be something substantial to salvage.

I want to be optimistic, I just can't bring myself to do it though.

 

[AgDr_ODST]

this one hopefully will end up like Halo, because to do it properly theirs gonna be a need for everything across the board to be fantastic(which means a BIG budget will be neccesarry) which I don't see happening so Im just gonna say for the sake of the fans(which I am not among) don't do it if you won't do it right

 

[Earthmonger]

I hope they can get Uwe Boll on this one. We've already seen the sort worthless crap James Cameron and John Moore churn out.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

I don't care what they do to with Shepard and Ashley. If they wanna win me over with a movie on Mass Effect, they will need to get Wrex and Joker right.

 

[SomeBritishDude]

I don't know, isn't Mass Effect heavily based on Star Trek and Star Wars?

I doubt a Mass Effect movie could stand on it's own.

Basically this. Mass Effects lore is interesting, but that doesn't stop it being a rehash of whats come before on the big and small screen.

Plus you have the whole problem that Mass Effect is a game that revolves around choice which can dramatically change the story. That just couldn't happen in a film.

I suppose it'd be interesting to hear a different story in the same universe, but it's still a big fat no.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I'm not saying that because it's a lot like Star Wars/Trek that the game is bad. I'm just saying it wouldn't work as a movie. Just as Uncharted and MGS are great games that wouldn't work as movies.

How on earth would Uncharted not work as a movie? It's written as a movie, it's played by actors like a movie. It's as close of being a movie as you can get this side of Dragon's Lair.

Seriously, people in this thread seem to have been brainwashed into thinking "Hollywood" as in "the terrible, terrible monster that kills movies" never does anything right but somehow has also been responsible for all their favourite movies.

It's not about Hollywood. I don't have anything agaist Hollywood other than it's monstrously ultra-liberal ego.

Uncharted wouldn't work, because it would be to derivative of movies like Indiana Jones or National Treasure (wich it is very much structured after). It works as a game because you're playing it, you're experiencing all these epic set pieces, but turn it into a movie and the whole interaction is gone.

And like you said; it's already very much a movie. So why make a movie out of it?

 

[CAW4]

Why does Hollywood think games will work well as movies? They're completely different mediums. It's like saying "Hey, kids like yo-yos. Lets turn it into a video game!" Ignoring the fact that Nintendo would probably do that, think about it. Movies don't work well as Video Games (Arkham Asylum doesn't count since it's not based directly off of a movie), we all already know that, so why the hell do we think it would work well the other way around?

 

[UnravThreads]

The Resident Evil films did quite well for themselves, but I really don't think Mass Effect would make a great film/series.

It's a little too cut and dry.

 

[EdgeyX]

wouldn't this just be the like star trek but with different characters ?

 

[GBlair88]

No.No,no no no no no no no no no no no.NO!

Mamma mia, mamma mia, mamma mia let me go......oh sorry, force of habit. Hollywood could make a film based on the Mass Effect universe that isn't tied into the main story. Which would stop it from being a bad re-hash but could cause it to become a generic action movie with no story. Or it could fill in the two year gap between ME and ME2.

There are quite a few possibilities and if it was done well it could be good but if done badly it would be absolutely rubbish.

 

[CrazT]

If M.E. does get turned into a film (ok, lets be honest, WHEN M.E. gets turned into a film), the only thing I can see working is a prequel. Something like the discovery of the Mass Relays, or Shepard's history (although, considering there are a number of variations of the backstory, it probably won't work), or how about the death of the Protheans, or the war between the Quarians and the Geth?

But, ultimately, this wouldn't work.

 

[TarkXT]

No.No,no no no no no no no no no no no.NO!

We can not let this happen.Hollywood fucks EVERYTHING! up.

I reiterate this statement and add my own.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooo......... *breathe* OOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo........

Seriously.

 

[Avatar Roku]

I don't know, isn't Mass Effect heavily based on Star Trek and Star Wars?

I doubt a Mass Effect movie could stand on it's own.

Also, I keep hearing this. What the h*ll? Where did this idea come from? Star Trek and Star Wars are very different takes on sci-fi, and they're the biggest. Not only is Mass Effects world very unique, but if I DID consider it "based" in those worlds, then I would have to do the same for damn near every sci-fi in the last 20 years that wasn't written by Philip K. Drug-Addict.

No, it's true, Mass Effect is Reconstruction of a bunch of major Sci-Fi tropes. That's not a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination, as it's well written enough that it uses those tropes the way tropes are meant to be used: to create expectations, either to fulfill them or to dash them.

For example, look at the Rachni. A hive-mind race of space-faring insects who attack and are wiped out, only for there to be a single, repentant queen left. Gee, where have we seen that before? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enders_game] But the fact that we've seen it before doesn't stop your encounter with the Rachni Queen from being incredibly powerful, it's handled so well that it would be powerful even if you didn't have to choose her fate.

Meh. The story wouldn't translate that well. Shephard is a huge Mary Sue and it only works out when he/she is your Mary Sue. Would at least need a lot of work with character dynamics, seeing how there's any only between the PC and the rest of the cast and it's honestly speaking not that believable thanks to the choice-play system.

Not to mention that there is no one, set canon for how Shepard acts, if I've heard right (which I may not have), if you start a new game in ME2 without having imported a save, you choose from one of several canons. Shepard is clearly meant to be our character, but that doesn't mean that a movie adaptation of, say, the First Contact War wouldn't work.

 

[Blind0bserver]

Do any of you guys actually realize that all these gripes about the game being about effecting the story is pretty much meaningless in relation to a movie being made if it gets made? Bioware has always had their "canon" story with their own Shepard, including his own established back story, his actions and exploits and, of course his version of events including the ending of Mass Effect 1.

So, Bioware has their version of what happened during the trilogy's storyline and if a movie gets made that's probably what the story is going to be. No need for any of this prequel nonsense to make it work.

And yes, I realize that the transition from game to movie means that it isn't the story of your Shepard, which is sad, but hey, it just wasn't meant to be.