Mass Effect 3 Ending Controversy
- Thread starter Shamus Young
- Start date
If our difference in opinion about evidence is mostly semantic, it's probably not worth arguing.Frankster said:
That said, as far as I know there's no such thing as "indoctrinated eyes". If you're referring to TIM's occular implants, he's had those since his first appearance.
Shepard gets some of his/her own at the beginning of ME2, you can hide them with surgery or by taking paragon actions.
Or you can rock the scars.
Na, I sure wont flame you. You are 100% entitled to enjoy the ending, and in many ways I am envious that you do. This means there isn't a bitter taste in your mouth, and you will enjoy playing the series over and over again. I agree 100% the series has been great. Its just for me and others that last 1% that spoiled it for me.Ken Sapp said:
I would like closure the most. The cookie cutter endings I could learn to live with. I can learn to live with what happens with the relays as well, as long as that is covered in a later game (because who are we kidding there will be more mass effect). The two things I can't live with though is the plot hole with the Normandy, and crew members aboard the ship. And two that there is no closure with the forces you built up, and the crew members who fought along side of you. If minimum they could do is fix those two points, then I could over look the other ppor writing.
Our difference in opinion about evidence does indeed seem mostly semantic xDBanZeus said:
But yeh TIMs eyes are what I was reffering to. Some fans have been saying this since me2 so is nothing new, guess it's just another way to insert fanfiction.
I honestly didn't know that Shep could get those implants too though, guess I hid mine and never noticed it throughout my games. So that explains that then.
Which means the only other argument that had me musing was the kid running into the building that explodes (same kid you talk to later and see in your dreams). And this could just be explained with bad writing or a simple oversight.
See, I don't consider the Normandy fleeing as a plot hole or an inconsistency. Joker fleeing the blast wave makes perfect sense particularly in light of the, at the time, known effects of mass relay explosions. For all everyone knows Shepard is dead already and I at least told him to take care of the ship and crew before I left. Alot of people assume he was heading towards the relay which does not make sense since that is where the blat waves are coming from and he is clearly heading the opposite direction.Daft Ghosty said:
The relays being destroyed is an inconvenience but FTL exists and is the normal mode of intersystem travel while the relays enable jumping long distances instantaneously but they are hubs between clusters and there are very few of them compared to the number of inhabitable systems. So the fleet in Sol is not actually stranded in Sol system and could make their ways home although it may take a lifetime or two to get back.
The one thing that was really lacking was the lack of closure for your teammates and the decisions that have been made through out the series. There are alot of points to take into account but simple text card swaps would have gone a long way.
See that's the thing. For one Joker wouldn't leave Shepard. From ME2, and ME3 joker made a few statements about being the fault for Shepard dying. I can see him coming down to find Shepard's body. Not scooping up all your companions, and beating it back to space. I can't get over the fact that people who were in my group when running to the beam, end up on the Normandy.Ken Sapp said:
Now that said, the point you make about the Normandy being in a normal FTL, and not a relay jump. That makes allot more sense. I always took the scene as Joker had made a mass relay jump, which made no sense. I even went back and looked at the Omega jump from ME2, and the time they were in the jump was really short, so the scene with the Normandy trying to outrun the wave front makes a bit more sense. Now I just need to understand his reasoning for leaving Shepard behind, dead or not. And why the companions would do the same.
Well the problem here is the amount of Ezo that would be needed to make the trek. The Milky Way is about 100,000 light years across. The Quarian seem to have the furthest distance to travel. They look to be about 80k light years or so away from earth. If you go by the wiki that says most ships can do about a dozen light years in a day. The Quarians are looking at about a 18 year journey. Assuming enough fuel that is =) So yeah I guess it isn't that bad when you look at the math. I personally hope they just rebuild the relays. Which begs the questions why have them blowing up in the ending if this is their solution with another ME game.Ken Sapp said:
Word. This I need above all else.Ken Sapp said:
After reading your reply, I think I understand better where you're at, and it seems we agree a little bit more than I thought. I just have a couple issues with what you're saying.SL33TBL1ND said:
Just to clarify, when I say that Mass Effect isn't really a tragedy, I mean it isn't strictly a tragedy. The game can actually play out as a sort of semi-tragedy, if you allow it to do so through certain decisions. In fact, I would have gladly taken an ending that resulted in outright, unambiguous tragedy, where the cycle of destruction continues unabated and with no sign of stopping, had the story I'd pursued followed that course through my various failures and missteps. Hell, I'd have enjoyed it if they punished you by deliberately snatching choice away in response to your failures, providing you only A, B, and C in varying shades of bleakness for your inability to overcome. The only thing about your position I took exception to is that it would be a good idea to perform a bait-and-switch to remove all options but failure, as some sort of meta attempt to deconstruct the series' premise. I just can't adhere to that idea, especially in the way it is applied here. The developers claiming, even after the game was finished and everything was chiseled into stone, that your choices will matter in the end and can earn you victory or defeat or some place in-between, then deliberately removing that concept of choice -- the very cornerstone of the series -- is just patently absurd and bizarrely dishonest to me, and I can't see any reason that the writers would do so except as a means to prove how "clever" they are and get people talking. Again, sacrificing the audience's satisfaction for authorial ego -- something a real and effective tragedy or deconstruction does not do.
You can feel free to do a deconstruction or subversion of a genre or theme, but you don't do it in the way Bioware appears to have done it, by cranking out a 100+ hour experience that pulls the rug out from under your feet at the last five minutes and then stands over you smirking, no matter how "well" it might have been pulled off. All that does is piss people off. You may be able to succeed with that in shorter works, but not in media that encompasses the amount of time and investment that this game does. After all, it's my opinion that these sort of devices work best as sucker-punches, building you up a bit then knocking you down to deliver the message. They don't work as effectively by trundling you up a mountain and then suddenly pushing you off the side. It may increase the impact to do so, but it will increase it to beyond terminal velocity.
I'd go so far as to say that the idea of exploring total player failure would work really well in shorter games, perhaps indie ones. Just not in a case like this. Absolutely not in a case like this.
As a matter of fact, I don't even believe it was a deliberate attempt to be subversive anyway -- I'm just responding to your position that you thought it was, without alleging you're right or wrong in doing so. People are coming up with all of these explanations and theories about the ending because it provides so little information to work with. It's a meatless, spineless nothing of an ending that gives no firm -- or even shaky -- understanding of just what happened. Some people thought it was bittersweet or hopeful, the majority appears to have found it nihilistic and confusing, and nobody is completely wrong or right because they have nothing to form these assessments with but wild speculation and conjecture.
In any event, going back onto the topic of the article: I mostly agree with Shamus about changing the ending not helping anything. The ending is pretty much a Pandora's Box that will now never close, as I see it, and any alterations or concessions are probably going to seem hollow and forced. I could, of course, be totally wrong, and they somehow end up knocking it out of the park this time, but after seeing how the developers botched things so horribly on a conclusion that was allegedly years in the making (like hell it was), I have little faith in their abilities to patch this up. Having said that, I still want nothing more than to see where they go with this and I fully support the idea of expanding or altering the ending, if for no other reason than sheer bloody-mindedness.
Yet another Mass Effect 3 ending rant that fails to mention Fallout 3. I Am Dissapoint shamus, shame on you
that ending was more broken than ME3's, I don't think its really necessary to mention.I_am_acting said:
OT: Good write up, I enjoyed it even if I didn't agree with everything in it
Another minor thing is that Bioware changed the look of Batarians. And if you have the official patch for ME1 it retcons them from having a head that looks vaguely like a hammerhead shark to more human shaped. Incredibly minor in the grand scale but worth mentioning that they have violated the principle of "unchanging artistic vision"jthm said:
Thanks for this. It's really helped me understand the position of people who don't like the ending. Some of the best discussion I've ever had on this site.ThingInTheCoat said:
Awesome speaking with you.
I really think that them writing about 1000 Dragon Age Origin (Animal House)style flash cards would do the trick for the broadest number of people.
It won't change how crappy the ending was but it will give closure to a ton of issues that were left hanging in the most half-assed way possible. (And honestly can you expect anything more from Bioware now days?)
I'll be happy if the Indoctrination theory is a real thing.
Maybe even happy enough to buy the next game you make Bioware. nudge nudge, wink wink. If anyone from Bioware is listening...
It won't change how crappy the ending was but it will give closure to a ton of issues that were left hanging in the most half-assed way possible. (And honestly can you expect anything more from Bioware now days?)
I'll be happy if the Indoctrination theory is a real thing.
Maybe even happy enough to buy the next game you make Bioware. nudge nudge, wink wink. If anyone from Bioware is listening...
Nah man, why would anyone flame you? If you truly enjoyed the ending as it stands then more power to you.Ken Sapp said:
We'd just like people to understand why we're unhappy with the ending instead of just skirting around the issue and shouting "ART!ART!ARTISTIC INTEGRITY!!!" over and over again and calling us entitled crybabies.
I mean that's the kind of thing that I'd expect but your run of the mill forum poster but now it's the stuff being said by numerous actual fucking journalists. It's pretty disheartening as far as I'm concerned.
I think this sums up my feelings nicely and my thoughts on this article. Now that I have calmed down from my hatred of the endings, I can step back and look at it as a little more objectively. I still think the endings are atrociously bad, but only because, as Shamus said, they don't do the three things you need to have a good ending.tautologico said:
Spoilers ahead, you have been warned.
I don't need the ending to be changed, I need it expanded show me a clip of Earth that shows how badly damaged it was based on my EMS. Show me if my companions survived, hell just a shot of them standing over Shepard's/Anderson's/Both flag-draped casket would be enough. Explain to me why the hell Joker, who has stood beside me, been unswaveringly loyal, and never gave up on me even when I was working with the ENEMY, suddenly turns tail and high-tails it out of system in the middle of the biggest battle of our lives.
But most of all, show me what the difference between the three endings I was given. That alone would have shut down a -lot- of the hate and anger that Bioware is receiving. I know I would have been perfectly content had each of the choices shown the -actual- result of that choice. For instance, if Control was picked, show the Shepard controlled Reapers (Reapards? Sheapers?) helping to rebuild Galactic society, repair the Mass relays, and undo the damage they've caused. If Destroy, Show the survivors dismantling the Reapers to clear them away and study them as they try and put their world back together. And for synthesis, maybe show some of your crewmates admiring/being horrified by their new upgrades.
But I am delving into fan-fiction speculation once again.. and should really stop that. So I'll close with saying that Shamus has definitely proved himself as being the most rational and objective opinion-piece writer who has yet sounded off on this debacle.
So, they changed the ending to Blade Runner, indeed the hole feel of the film. Most people seem to think that was a good change.
It occurs to me that the ending of Mass Effect 3 feels a lot like the ending to Neon Genesis Evangelion. For those of you who don't know, the show ran out of money and couldn't produce the ending they had planned so they instead made up some "cryptic" ending that basically didn't mean anything.
Everything up until getting hit by the reaper beam makes seance. It's just that last 20min or so. Personally I won't let that ruin the rest of the game for me but if they could make some different endings (not even remove the one they have just add a couple more) that would be grate.
It occurs to me that the ending of Mass Effect 3 feels a lot like the ending to Neon Genesis Evangelion. For those of you who don't know, the show ran out of money and couldn't produce the ending they had planned so they instead made up some "cryptic" ending that basically didn't mean anything.
Everything up until getting hit by the reaper beam makes seance. It's just that last 20min or so. Personally I won't let that ruin the rest of the game for me but if they could make some different endings (not even remove the one they have just add a couple more) that would be grate.