"Empire" for Grownups

     With all this talk about The Mouse That Roared devouring Lucasfilm, I was taken back to the bygone era of my childhood...specifically reminiscences about my experience with the original trilogy. Unlike today's children, many of whom will probably remember only being able to consume the six films on DVD or Blu-ray (no file-based versions exist yet, save for tech-savvy parents who make their own iTunes or MKV versions), my experience was even more foreign: ABC network showings on Sunday night. It was a one-year event, and cause for much anticipation and staying up until the wee hours of the night (well, 10pm usually). This was back before VHS became truly ubiquitous, and even then, Star Wars on VHS usually cost about $30 (in 1980s money, mind you) per movie.
     The first film was the easiest to get into. Its basic plot, colorful characters, and amazing special effects appeals to children wholeheartedly. It was great fun. But The Empire Strikes Back? That was a completely different experience.
     I won't even begin to pretend like I'm fully in touch with my 5-7 year old self, watching Empire because it was Star Wars, without really being able to appreciate it. I have faint memory snatches, most of which center around the Millennium Falcon on the docking platform in Cloud City. The entire look of the film was different, and I think that memory stands out because it typifies, to my mind, the biggest contrast between Empire and A New Hope/Return of the Jedi.
     Empire is slow. There's an exciting open with Hoth, Luke getting attacked by the Wampa, and culminating in the invasion. Very exciting stuff. But then the movie slows to a crawl. The Millennium Falcon ducking and hiding from TIE Fighters (though the asteroid chase sequence is indeed thrilling), Luke's training on Dagobah, the arrival at Cloud City, ect. And the whole feel of the movie is different. The palette is darker, the world dirtier, and the pacing more methodical. The plot is still basic, Chewbacca is just as appealing as ever, and Boba Fett was a terrific addition to the universe, but even so, Empire was never my favorite as a kid. Return of the Jedi felt, to me, like it meshed much better with the first film. It was more light-hearted and had more action set-pieces. It felt more like Star Wars to my kid mind, and thus I always preferred IV and VI.
     Frankly, I watched this movies so much as a kid that I rarely have a desire to sit down and watch them as an adult. My first year of college, for one reason or another, I popped in the VHS tape of Empire (the last release of George's Original Unaltered Trilogy or GOUT on that format) and gave it a full viewing.
     I was blown away.
     I had always paid lip-service to Empire (as I got older of course) of being the best Star Wars movie. Once you get old enough to appreciate drama as opposed to solely action films, it becomes the default "best of the trilogy" film. But it didn't resonate with me as anything in particular.
    But sitting there in my dorm room, watching a VHS tape on a 19" CRT television (remember those?), I was struck by how good the movie was. It still feels very different than any other film that starts off with a receding Star Wars typeface, but in a way that's a disappointment that it's the only one like itself. Revenge of the Sith doesn't even begin to come close. Though it, by far, was not my first viewing, I felt like I had discovered the film all over again.
     I haven't had a moment like that since then. I watch Star Wars like I'm sure most people who grew up with it like me have watched it. Bits and pieces here and there, or maybe played straight through as some background for the house/apartment. But never sitting down to watch as a film.
     Because of reasons I will not get into, I have never seen any of the original Star Wars films on the big screen, either in their original/re-released theatrical runs, or the Special Editions. Even with the butchering of the Special Edition version, plus a 3D conversion, I hope to experience something like that again in 2016 (if the 3D release schedule holds up). Will Empire contain to hold that special magic even with all the fiddling?
     One can only hope.

Hey, Mosaic!

     In one of those "Why didn't I think of that?" moments, Mosaic offers the ability to create a "picturebook" from photos you can select from your iPhone (I would assume it will work with iTouch and iPad even if it's not explicitly supported). This seems like a very cool product, and is already causing my brain's gears to churn away with birthday and Christmas gift ideas. A very nice product (hopefully the resulting book will be every bit as nice as the promotional video/pictures show it to be).

     At only $20 per book, seems like a good deal to me.

To Twitter, or Not to Twitter

     Ever since Twitter went on the warpath to isolate itself from the rest of the web, I've found myself using it less and less. Before it started to go dark, I would use Twitter as an almost "command hub" for information dissemination: I would link it to all the sites I wished to broadcast to and then write my 140 character message to spread out amongst my friends in different places. In fact, I was really annoyed that Google+ didn't support updating via Twitter as it made it one of the SoNet hubs I couldn't reach via on simple site, which is why I rarely do much of anything on that platform even now.
     I was a fan of the short messaging service, mostly because it felt like e-mail in reverse. Instead of opening an new e-mail, pasting in the link I wish to share, and selecting the people I want to share it with, I can, instead, blast it out into the open for any of my followers who might be interested in what I'm sharing. It used to be more of an issue with links, given that the full length of the URL would count against your limit, but thankfully that was updated to where it's no longer a problem (which necessitates far less trips to bit.ly). The only aspect of sharing where Facebook (and Google+) has an edge is in the preview thumbnail of the link you are sharing, which I find useful (sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words after all).
     The first glimmer of the enveloping darkness came when I could no longer update LinkedIn via Twitter. Not only was I seemingly never going to get the option to update Google+, but now nothing I was tweeting showed up in my LinkedIn feed. It wasn't until I read a post about Twitter cutting off that access that I realized it wasn't a simple technical problem somewhere in the pipeline.
     So now I'm faced with the growing realization that it will probably be Twitter + Facebook together forever (it would be a kiss of death, in my opinion, for Twitter to cut that off). That's generally fine, it won't be the end of the world for me to only be able to update Facebook from Twitter, but with the loss of LinkedIn connectivity, probably no way to ever easily integrate Google+, and the general malaise of the official client software on all platforms (whilst cutting off access from third-party clients), it makes me want to use the service less and less. It was bad enough with people using it to basically shill advertising at me, which resulted in some culling and looking for more informative accounts to follow, but now I'm just soured on the whole experience.
     I still love the whole "brevity is the soul of wit" idea that 140 character status updates subtly put forth, but I think Twitter needs to do more to signal what it's ultimately planning to do and how it intends to remain useful for me, once its "sharing command hub" status is truly over.

Why Francis Coppola Was Wrong

     I just watched Hearts of Darkness, a terrific documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now. I greatly respect that movie, and the work of Director Francis Ford Coppola during that period of his life. They are terrific examples of some of the best that American cinema has to offer, and I could only hope that one day I would be able to deliver one film of any quality within sighting distance that same ballpark.

     But the documentary ends with a statement from Coppola that I'd heard tossed about plenty of times before I saw the source: that a fat girl from Ohio could use her father's 8mm camcorder to make a film and thus destroy the "professionalism" of movie making forever.

     Bullshit.

     First, let's review some history. When Coppola made this statement, it had some ring of validity to it. After all, before you could even begin to think about rolling film, you'd be in the hole tens of thousands of dollars already. A typical film was made in either 16mm or 35mm, depending on budget, Only a handful of manufacturers built cameras of that type, and combining the niche market for a motion film camera along with the costs of purchasing film magazines to use with the camera and then having hundreds of feet developed and either projected or telecined to video tape, the barrier to entry was not insignificant. While cheap 8mm film cameras existed, it wasn't considered to be much of an option for use as an A camera on a film set. Evil Dead was originally going to be shot in 8mm as a cost saving option (and also due to the crew's familiarity with the format) but that idea was scrapped after a test screening in a theater demonstrated a lack of quality.

     Coppola specifically mentions an 8mm camcorder (not the film variety), but let's just bypass the fact that the camera he's probably referring to shoots 240 lines of resolution at a rate at 59.97 interlaced fields per second vs the 35mm film he used to shoot Apocalypse Now which was digitized into a 4K 24 frames-per-second progressive digital file for the Blu-ray mastering. This is 2012 anyway, and anyone can far surpass 8mm camcorder quality with a GoPro Hero HD, let alone a Canon T4i or Panasonic GH2.

     In fact, lets remove the camera from the equation entirely. That barrier to entry is no more, has been blasted into oblivion. And it shows. Almost everyone with a smart phone or cheap interchangeable lens camera thinks they are a filmmaker. The term has been abused to the point where I would never use it as anything other than a derogatory term applied to those who make pretentious, terribly crafted video that a mere handful of people will ever see, let alone watch all the way through 'til the end.

     So our hypothetical Ohio fat girl has her Canon T2i and kit lens, a couple of batteries, and a 16GB SD card. She's all ready to make that film that's going to destroy the professionalism of filmmaking forever, right?

     Well, hold your horses little Ohio fat girl. What kind of film are you going to make? Are you going to stick it on your tripod, hit record, and then run around to the opposite side and act out the scene? Well, probably not. Not to say that can't work, but I've never seen it in feature length, and I fail to see how that could hold anyone's interest for 80-ish minutes. On top of that, she's constantly having to run back to the camera and playback the scene just to see what it looked like. That will really slow things down. No, to keep it simple, our budding filmmaker probably needs more than just herself to be in the film.

     Okay, so now we have a couple of additional actors for this film. How long will they be needed? It's a feature film, so six months over a span of long weekends? That's quite a long haul, so I hope everyone's dedicated. And what happens if one of the crucial actors decides he or she has had enough and never comes back? Yeah, you might call that "unprofessional", but since our little girl is destroying the "professionalism" of the film industry, does that term have a place for such an action? After all, our filmmaker is asking this person to give up weekends for an entire six months, and unless the work is rewarding and the actor can easily see that what they are working on will be worth their while in the end, is it not somewhat understandable? Obviously, we hear a lot about those movies that shot for a year on weekends, and know that it can work, but then we only hear about those movies that are finished. We never hear of those countless films that were abandoned and never finished.

     But lets move on from that. I, as the God of Filmmaking in this scenario, has granted Cecilia (our Ohio filmmaker as I have now decreed her name to be) with a stable of "meh" actors (maybe one or two who are decent) who will stick with her through thick and thin. But is she going to film all 80-ish minutes of this feature in her room? Around her house? In her yard? Hopefully she's aspiring to something a little more open location-wise, so now she'll need to spend the time scouting for places, asking permission, giving out directions, driving to location, and setting up. I don't know about you, but in my experience, a lot of locations aren't exactly film-worthy right from the outset. So she'll also have to spend time set dressing, finding props (even purchasing some) and making it look like the idea she has in her head. And she'll probably only get a portion of the way there.

     Wow, that's a lot of work for Cecilia!

     Okay, she's on location, she spent the last day dressing it, the actors arrive and are ready to act and she has the camera on the tripod and presses record.

     It went fine, but it looks really flat and lifeless. It's exposed properly, but the actors and the background are all merging into each other. The actors should stand out more, separated from their background. It looks more like a home movie than it does like a film Cecilia sees in her local theater or on cable. What's going on?

     Oh, she needs some lights. That will do the trick. But now she has to figure out which lights, and some of them cost a lot of money, thus increasing that barrier to entry. And once she has lights, now she has to cart them around to her locations and then set them up. And heaven forbid a bulb is broken or finally dies. And what if a power source isn't easily available? Now it's more expense in extension cords, possibly even a generator, but that's not the sort of thing you can just purchase when you find out you need it. Your actors can't be sitting around on set while someone runs to Home Depot. You need to have purchased that beforehand, even if you end up not needing any of it, involving more time and upfront cost.

     I think I've run that point sufficiently into the ground now (and I haven’t even gotten into the sound aspect!), so I'll just be blunt. Not everyone can do it all and do it all well. Sometimes you can be a great director, but a terrible writer, meaning someone else has to toil on a script for you to shoot. Sometimes you can be great with camera/lighting, but know shit-all about talking with actors, meaning you need someone else there who can coax good performances. Maybe you're not a good actor, meaning you rely solely on the goodwill of others (in our “work for free” scenario) to bring the script to life, and you may not be friends with these actors beforehand where you can easily call in favors.

     The barrier to entry may be cheaper for some of the technicals, but it's still high for everything else, at least to do it well. One can always try to be that Wunderkind who can do it all, but very, very few can actually pull it off.

     And that's why the professionalism of filmmaking will never be destroyed. Do we all just want mumblecore drama that takes place in someone's apartment? That would be really boring, wouldn't it? And yet you need proper permits, crew, equipment, ect. to continue to bring variety to the film content that we consume. There's nothing wrong with mumblecore drama, but it doesn't need to be everything.

     Making a film requires a lot of people that have different specialties all coming together for the good of telling a story in a way that is satisfying visually, audibly, and emotionally. It relies on strangers who are hopefully good at what they do, but even in the best of circumstances, there can be key components that aren't up to snuff. And that's why, in my opinion:

     "Art is the happenstance byproduct of a film."

     When I think of art, I think of a creative process that is dictated by one overriding talent. Writing, for instance. While there are definitely writing teams, editors, ect. it isn't unheard of for it to be one writer controlling everything in the work like a puppet-master. Cecilia can sit down in front of her old Lenovo Ideapad and write the Great American Novel without ever having to bother anyone. She can do it all by her lonesome. She can also stand in front of an easel and create a painting that causes grown men to weep and old ladies to swoon.

     All by herself.

     The same can be said of sculpture and music too (band and symphony pieces being exceptions obviously). Cecilia can pull out her $99 Best Buy guitar and craft herself a piece of music without needing anyone or anything else (well, maybe some staff paper and a pen for posterity).

     Film is nothing like that, it's more akin to a trade, like fixing an automobile, installing pipes, or welding. You can't just up and do it, it takes a certain know-how, a certain skill set, and a set of proper tools. It also often makes sense to have others you can rely on for the larger jobs. Occasionally, a perfect storm of talent, skill, and the right people can come together and allow a film to transcend mere product and become art, but that happens almost outside of anyone's control. Of course, a lot of people set out to "make" art with their filmmaking, but how often is it generally recognized as having succeeded?

    I do agree with the first half of Copola's statement. I think it's great when someone who never thought about making a film has an idea and does so, but I question if that's something that's actually a problem. If you look at a lot of modern filmmakers, seems like there's definitely a share that never expected to get into that industry. There are a number of those who didn't pursue any path related to filmmaking in their educational pursuits, yet ended up in the industry anyway. And I don't think at that moment in time, that he could comprehend the utter noise that would result from more people jumping into the fray to try to make their million dollars just like he did. The barrier to entry may be lower for the tech now, but the barrier to getting noticed has escalated dramatically. You're just now one lone voice in a sea of utter shit. Even if you're doing good work, how do you differentiate it from wave after wave of terrible work out there?

     If Cecilia wants to be a filmmaker one day, more power to her. There are plenty of opportunities to try, to fail, and to make herself better and better with each attempt, hopefully to one day make something that succeeds, perhaps even finds a sizable audience. But Cecilia destroying the “professionalism” of the film industry?

     Won’t happen.

Digital Magazines vs The Web

     Translation between media types is always messy, and despite coming across as appallingly short-sighted, it always seems that the default route is simply the mimicry of one media format being overlaid upon another. It should not come as any surprise, as forging ahead with new, and untested, ways of presenting content is not the "safe" option. Resorting to what has worked in the past is comforting to pencil pushers, and yet the Internet has completely altered the way people consume their content, including those people who are trying so hard to perform a direct translation of their analog format into the digital realm. Trying to put new wine into old bottles flies is simply not sustainable, and dangerous as well. Failing to innovate, those with the courage to do so will outpace their competitors who went with less risky options.
     That was a lot of English prose to use in what is essentially an idea that says that duplicating the magazine experience on an iPad is goofy. Not to single out Apple's table device in particular, the thought holds true for the Android/Windows 8/ OSes, but I will stick with the iPad as my example platform of choice because a) I own the new iPad and b) it has Newsstand, which, yes I'm sure the other tablets will also have something similar, but I don't use them on a daily basis. And that's that.
     I get The Economist in print, and as such I have access to the iPad version through Newsstand. When I first got access to it, I tended to read it on the iPad exclusively, unless I happen to be sitting at the kitchen table as I'd prefer any potential food/drink damage to happen to the throwaway print version. But reading The Economist has become more of a breakfast table affair now, as my primary consumption during the day has been from content on the web itself, as opposed to the more traditional magazine format. My use of the digital version has grown less with each passing day.      
     Everyone was very impressed when Wired released their iPad app, and for good reason; it was sleek, sexy, and tried to do something new with a format that has been with us for over one hundred years. But, at the same time, it was lipstick on a pig. It was still a magazine, still in the same layout, and no amount of media you could throw on a page would change the fact that it didn't really do anything new or different with the format. And, let's be honest for a moment, is there really a huge, untapped audience that has ever read a magazine/newspaper and thought to themselves, "Wow, there's a lot of great content here, but if only there was some video." Not that having video buttressing an article is a bad thing, just that its usefulness is grossly overrated in my opinion. The biggest problem with Wired on the iPad had to be that you had to download a hefty app every time a new issue arrived.
     Newsstand sought to alleviate that last issue, but it's just a hidden "app" for magazines. Nothing has really changed since Wired tried out their experiment with the birth of tablet computing, it's just been slightly modified to be contained in its own little space as opposed to taking up home screen real estate (and, oddly enough, The Economist exists as a separate app on my iPhone even though Newsstand is an option). Like updating the Wired app with each new issue, you still have to download new content as it is issued.
     The alternative is simply a straight web site optimized for iDevices/competing tablets. The walled garden of Apple's App Store was sealed off for Playboy magazine, so they circumvented the lack of having their content on the iPad by doing just this. Instead of loading up an app, you simply launch Safari and navigate to the appropriate URL, which you can bookmark on the home screen and use it just like another app if desired. Decidedly less sexy? Of course, and its missing some of the glitz and glamor that is available to those who code their magazines as apps, but it works, and it's completely useable and bound to get better as HTML5 matures.
     Outside of Safari, I also consume "magazine"-type content via Flipboard and Instapaper. I use Instapaper more, as I'm always coming across articles I want to read, just not at the moment. I see a lot of potential in Flipboard though, and on the plus side it actually feels like a magazine, however the content is culled from a variety of different sources, and this is where it seems idea to me. Rarely do I personally spend any length of time on one news site. I'll bounce around, seeing which articles and headlines interest me. The magazine format on the iPad feels limiting because I'm within one particular magazing and have to jump between different apps to see anything different.
     So what if Newsstand was Flipboard and simply aggregated stories from all the magazine sites that you have an interest in? It would be updated over the web as you browsed, no need to download "issues" or install an updated app on the device. You could add all the feeds you wanted and then have it displayed to you, perhaps being able to easily switch to an entire feed all at once in case you want to peruse more from a particular source? To my mind, this is a much more elegant solution, and the reason I'm starting to incorporate Flipboard more and more into my daily consumption habit.
    The only big "if" in using something like the Flipboard process is how does one make money for the content that they generate using that system? Making money on the Internet has been the biggest question poised to humanity since the technological revolution began, and I cannot even begin to form an answer to that question. I just know that the format as it is now cannot continue, and is waiting for some daring innovation to disrupt the entire market.
     Don't get left behind.

Mass Effect: Extended Ending DLC

Note: spoilers follow for both the Mass Effect series and Battlestar Galactica.

     In no way do I intend to write solely about Mass Effect here, but having listened to the soundtrack heavily over the last two days, I've been thinking more about the ending to the series and what Bioware my potentially have in store for their "extended" DLC that has been promised to only clarify the ending with some additional cutscenes and no new gameplay. This is very disappointing because if the beloved "Indoctrination Theory" of the ending was found to be correct, it seems like there must be new gameplay of some sort because the game otherwise ends with Shepard unconscious amongst the rubble of London (or just waking up depending on how much your "Effective Military Strength" rating was at the end).

     I am a fan of "Indoctrination Theory", and find the concept behind it to be fascinating and supported by enough evidence in the game to be feasible, but at this point I'm seriously doubting if that's what Bioware had in mind. At the time of this writing, Mass Effect 3 has been out for almost a month and a half. If Bioware intended to troll players with this ending, they are seriously taking a long time to reveal an actual conclusion to the storyline. "Summer" has been the announced release date for the ending DLC, and that could potentially mean date between June and September. It will likely be at least three months since the game's release date. I think trolling the players with a false "Indoctrination" ending would have been a masterstroke, but given that timing would be everything in this idea, I highly doubt that this is what Bioware had in mind now.

     Secondly, the Mass Effect 3 script was leaked last November, and it included the ending as we know it, only a bit more concrete with the Catalyst's dialogue. Additionally, the script makes it pretty clear that "synthesis" is the ideal ending (the ending I originally picked at 4am when I first played through the sequence), and though I agree it seems to fall right in line with Saren's goals from the first game, it's still in concordance with the Battlestar Galactica-ripoff ending that Casey Hudson was apparently channeling. "Controversial" was a goal that was apparently desired for the ending, and while Daybreak certainly was that, it was also not Ron Moore's finest hour, and the "big question" of synthetics and organics living in harmony was more than adequately handled by the Geth/Quarian storyline by that point.

     I think the in-game evidence for Indoctrination is both accidental and inadvertently intended. At one point, Indoctrination was going to figure into the gameplay mechanics, but was ultimately scrapped. How far into the process did this idea get? Was it part of the actual game at one point or just on paper? If the former, then perhaps there simply wasn't enough time (or an oversight) to remove all of the elements from this sequence, resulting in "evidence". Perhaps the ending was originally different enough that the elements that make up Indoctrination Theory were actually correct, but then it was changed sometime in production at the point where there were enough clues implemented in-game, but the change in script turned them into red herrings.
  
     We'll find out what Bioware has in mind in the near (-ish) future, but ultimately, I don't think it'll be enough to really turn opinions around on this game. It will suffer the same fate as BSG, with potential new players having to determine if the journey is worth an ending that doesn't do the storyline justice. It can be a hard decision to make (much like watching the entire season of Odyssey 5 knowing that there is no ending and the last episode is a cliffhanger).

     Perhaps the "real" ending will be Mass Effect 4?

Mass Effect 3: Indoctrination Vacation

Note: spoilers ahead.

     The 2001/Battlestar Galactica ending of Mass Effect 3 has left a few gamers feeling a bit bummed. Some of them, with the power of multimedia technology at their fingertips, took the time to produce videos that detail a theory concerning the meaning behind ME3’s climax.

    
     For those who want to get right to it, the gist of this theorized ending is attempted indoctrination. Harbinger’s beam cuts down the Alliance soldiers rushing towards the Citadel transport beam, Shepard is knocked to the ground, unconscious, and the ultimate war for control, the control of Shepard’s mind, begins.

     I rather like this concept, and if Bioware’s forthcoming “clarification” of the ending includes it, I think that would be a smart move. If they actually intended this all along, then they are geniuses. The only caveat is that any expansion concerning this ending should be free. Charging anything for this DLC would be a dick move.

     If the indoctrination angle turns out to be correct (whether originally intended or not), it seems like there should be more gameplay left. As far as the narrative goes, no one makes it to the transport beam, meaning that Shepard is still unconscious amongst a pile of rubble and the Reapers are still pummeling Earth and the arrayed galactic forces. The game even shows you this scenario if you are maxed out on war prep. Unless there’s more to play, the Reapers successfully rid the galaxy of advanced organic life. The only positive being that they are robbed of their intended trophy, a fully indoctrinated Commander Shepard.

     The ending to the Mass Effect series had to have been tough to work out. The previous two games ended well, but this is (supposedly) it for the series, and it’s only appropriate that it goes out with a bang, or at least with an out loud “WTF?!”. Assembling the galactic fleets and wiping out the Reapers with good old-fashioned firepower would be trite. The game builds up the idea that, while the Protheans ruled the galaxy and were a mighty Empire, they still succumbed to the Reapers in the end. This time around, however, the races are united instead of subjugated, and this difference can mean the ultimate victory over the Reapers. I’m not sure I buy that.

      The salvation of the galaxy is also not even due to the amount of ships Shepard can gather to attack the Reaper forces in Sol. The Crucible is the magic bullet that will solve everything, and let’s be honest; it’s a really stupid concept from beginning to end. First, it’s an idea that was cooked up solely for Mass Effect 3. The previous two games are ignorant of such a device. Second, it’s suddenly “discovered”, in the nick of time no less, in the archives of an alien race that has been extinct for 50,000 years. A race that has been studied intensely ever since the first traces of their civilization had been uncovered. Third, the device has been supposedly constructed piece-by-piece throughout each cycle and then finished by the Protheans who discovered that they needed to use the energy from the Citadel as a catalyst. However, in the Prothean cycle, the Citadel was the first thing the Reapers took over when they attacked. By the time Javik is around, the Citadel itself is almost considered a myth. Where in the hell did the Protheans get the idea to use it as the Cataylst in the first place? And how did they engineer the Crucible to interface with the Citadel if it was fully under Reaper control from the very beginning?

     No Starchild is necessary: the deus ex machina of the story is the Crucible, a massive weapon, hundreds of thousands of years (at least) in development, and built in record time under heavy attack from a sentient machine race that doesn’t need to sleep or eat.

     With the exposition about the Crucible harnessing a massive amount of energy and that no one has a clue as to what it would actually do, I started to theorize that perhaps it wasn’t a weapon at all, but instead single-use time-travel device.

     Imagine this: the Crucible is fired up and, instead of wiping out the Reapers, it ends up sending a selected target a thousand years into the future (when the Reapers are surely finished with harvesting and have returned to dark space). To me, this is a much more elegant solution, especially since it would be unexpected to everyone involved. That salvation lies in escape to the future, with the knowledge of what lies ahead so that there is time to prepare. This would have matched up perfectly with the Protheans attempt to place their top people in cyrostasis on Ilos to wait out the Reapers.

     Imagine a scenario where Shepard and his/her two selected squad members have to fight their way to the Citadel (the plot hole with that idea notwithstanding), and activate the Crucible, only to discover its true purpose from a Prothean VI. There would be a choice as to what Shepard could target to send to the future. Picking, say, the Normandy, would result in the Crucible firing a beam of powerful energy that seems to disintegrate the ship. The Crucible then powers down completely, all of its energy spent, and the Reapers converge on the Citadel, destroying it and the Crucible. Cut to the future, the Normandy flashing into existence, ready to rebuild and prepare their ancestors for the end of the next cycle.

     And you can still end it with Buzz Aldrin.

Mass Effect 3: A Review

Note: This review contains plot details from my own personal playthrough of all three Mass Effect games. You have been warned.

     I enjoy the Mass Effect series for its world, not necessarily its story. As a plot, it’s rather thin and hinges on a lot of science fiction tropes. I am a sucker for a good “powerful aliens arrive to wipe out all life as we know it” tale, but will be the first to admit that it’s already passed its expiration date. However, the world that Drew Karpyshyn and his fellow writers crafted for the first Mass Effect game was nothing sort of extraordinary. It feels alive, lived-in, in a way that all proper world building should.

     Properly continued on in the sequel, the world really comes full circle by the end of the trilogy in ways that left me satisfied, even when the emotions associated with the latest development wasn’t positive. Yes, more than once during Mass Effect 3, I felt myself profoundly moved, and there are even greater moments to be discovered depending on the choices made in the first two games. Once I headed into Quarian space, the game’s storyline suddenly enveloped me and I ended up playing until 5am. I just had to know what happened next.

     As the last game in the series, and concerning no less than a galactic Apocalypse, I was ready to see a narrative that would really push the bar in regards to the world and the characters during this galactic upheaval, and expected apainful dismemberment of the Normandy crew. That wasn’t the case. Starting off, I had saved everyone up to that point with the exception of Ashley (it’s either her or Kaidan and I couldn’t get over how much Kimberly Brooks sounds like Mila Kunis) and Mordin (who, tragically, was the sole casualty on board the Collector Base). By the time ME3 had “finished”, I had only lost two of my former squad mates.

     I really liked Thane Krios. A hired assassin who had a picture-perfect memory, Krios would re-live events from his past during conversation. It was a very inventive character. But Krios was already dying during the events of Mass Effect 2, a disease was slowly eating away at the time he had left. Thus, his death in ME3 comes as no surprise, though the storyline gives him the opportunity for one last bit of heroics beforehand, and he ends up dying from a wound, not from his disease. Thane’s character was already handled well in the previous game, and so the heroic sacrifice for the safety of the Salarian councilor comes off as a little trite, as if simply dying in a hospital while a disease overtakes him isn’t good enough.

     Tali’Zorah commits suicide after the Quarian fleet is destroyed, depending on your response to Legion’s request to upload Reaper data to the Geth. It’s a shocking moment, even more considering the entire Quarian race is literally wiped out when they refuse to cease fire on the enhanced Geth. It was a bit frustrating because choices in the Mass Effect series are usually clearer. I had no idea that the Quarians would force the Geth’s hand. And I had earlier brokered a successful alliance between the Krogan/Turians/Salarians! Even stranger is that if you allow Legion to begin the upload, and then stop him in the middle of it, dialogue options become available that might allow you to save and align both races. It was very frustrating to have that dialogue choice that ended up going wrong in every conceivable way. Thank god I decided to return to Liara for my romance option.

     How Cerberus is portrayed is also a mixed bag. I really enjoyed how Mass Effect 2 placed Cerberus in an ethical gray area. In the first game, they were mostly human cannon fodder for those times when you got tired of shooting up members of other species. ME2 changed that and offered some interesting situations in which Shepard works with Cerberus in order to stop the collectors. You never really got a sense of where the Illusive Man really stood on issues, and I thought it added a nice depth of complexity to the storyline and world. In ME3, Cerberus is painted with the broad brush of evil. You never question whether actively opposing them is a good idea. None of the Cerberus missions do anything but display them in the worst light possible. I would have enjoyed it more if you were forced to make a decision at times in which Cerberus seemed to actually be doing some good.

     Near the end of the game, when you make your assault on the main Cerberus, you find a bunch of terminals that playback log entries from before the events of Mass Effect 2. The very first of these hints that Cerberus may not have actually been able to rebuild Shepard. My first thought was “my god, what if he’s a clone or a synthetic or something?” The storyline chickens out, though, and we find out stuff we really already knew in ME2, making the log entry discoveries kind of pointless. The only big revelation is EDI being the rogue AI from the Luna mission in the first game. Interesting, but hardly life-altering. I was really hoping for something juicy from Shepard’s time on that operating table.
   
     Speaking of EDI, I felt that her character arc was handled well and provided a nice juxtaposition of the organics dealing with a cybernetic humanoid lifeform that wasn’t a previous enemy (Luna mission notwithstanding). While Joker’s obvious infatuation with EDI could have easily become corny, it was handled well both with the script and great voice acting by Seth Green and Tricia Helfer.

     Where Mass Effect 2 went a little overboard with the number of potential squad mates at your disposal, ME3’s selection is sane. You can rebuild a lot of the old crew, but certain characters are only available during specific missions or after their mission arc is completed, which is fine, but dumping two new characters into the mix was a poor choice. I can understand it from a game design perspective, but given the storyline, it just didn’t appeal to me.

     Javik is the last remaining Prothean, rescued from a state of suspended animation on Eden Prime. Javik was a source of controversy because he is only included with the “From Ashes” DLC that was released alongside Mass Effect 3, thus could have been a part of the core gameplay experience. Frankly, I could have done without Javik. The first game instills a sense of wonder concerning this ancient race that ruled the galaxy and was suddenly wiped out, and “From Ashes” obliterates this mystery and makes the Protheans the West African version of Jar Jar Binks. This is even referenced by Liara dealing with the upheaval of having to adjust her own mental image of Protheans and Prothean society. I would have preferred to leave that society a complete mystery. We know them only as having been re-engineered into the Collectors by the Reapers, and there are no Collectors to be seen this time around.

     James Vega was added to provide the perspective of a new player starting off with the third game in a trilogy. Never mind how ridiculous that notion is of someone starting their experience with the series at the end, but outside of that, James is a very one-note character. There’s not a whole lot of backstory (that he’s willing to talk about at least) and when it came time to pick a squad mate, I always preferred to have someone at my side who I had been through hell and back with in the previous two games. Kudos to Mass Effect 3 for making that a consideration in the first place, but that always left James on the bench. I always preferred to have Kaidan or Garrus watching my back.

     As a side note, I was really moved by Kaidan’s arc, especially in the friendship with him and Shepard. It felt very natural, especially in how it grew starting from the very first mission in Mass Effect. I did find Kaidan’s distrust of Shepard due to his involvement with Cerberus in ME2 to be a bit annoying, but thankfully it was dealt with soon enough and ceased to be an issue after the Citadel coup attempt mission.

     And from there we slowly glide to the topic of Donnel Udina, who also gets something of a shaft in this storyline. Though having a prickly personality from the outset in the first game, his betrayal of the council and attempted coup at the behest of Cerberus should have been setup more. It was a great mission, and had a great showdown as he attempts stall everyone until Cerberus goons could show up, but there could have been more “oomph” to that moment. Had there been some indication of “I don’t trust this guy” in the previous games, Udina’s betrayal wouldn’t have felt like it came out of nowhere.

     Another character that feels off is Kai Ling. The way characters react to Ling, I was thinking that he had been in a previous game as a character I failed to remember, but no, Ling’s prior appearance in that world was in the Mass Effect novels. I don’t think it’s necessarily an issue to reference characters and situations from extended universe type media (books, comics, iOS apps, ect.), but in my dealings with him, I felt like it made sense to know more about his character in the context of the goings-on.

     While Mass Effect 3 is a dark game and definitely exudes the feeling of a galaxy going to complete shit, there is almost no backstabbing, especially not to the level that I felt it should be. Nothing bad happens for trusting anyone. Javik is especially antsy about Geth involvement in the final battle, but his warnings ultimately mean nothing. I would have really liked to seen the game allow a Paragon response that turns out to be a poor choice. As it stands, being nice to everyone always pays off in a good way (with the exception of never stopping Legion from uploading the Reaper data, but the Quarian extinction doesn’t directly stem from a betrayal of Shepard’s trust). Dealings with the Reapers themselves are also passed over. In the first two games, Shepard has moments in which he/she speaks directly with the Reaper personality of the game, but here they are just a “faceless” foe, no Sovereign or Harbinger to spice things up. The latter does make an appearance, but only to wreak havoc at the very end, a function that any generic Reaper ship could have provided.

     Nothing pleased me more than to see an end to the Mako planetside driving sequences from the first game when Mass Effect 2 came out, though in its place was a monotonous sequence involving sending out probes to pick up resources on random planets. That game mechanic is even more simplified here, but with the added complexity of having Reaper ships invade the system whenever you scan for items to pick up. Thankfully, there’s only one item per discovery instead of having to mouse over planets again and again, but this is only marginally better. The Reapers are more of an annoyance than an actual threat during these sequences. Just scan around, avoid the Reaper ships, and if they get too close, navigate to the edge of the system, then return immediately for more time to search around. It still causes the narrative to grind to a screeching halt every time.

     Scanning planets for “War Assets” is a tertiary mission conceit. These are problematic because you mostly get these missions by eavesdropping on people talking as you wander around the Citadel, and the Journal display is buggy when it comes to highlighting these missions and marking them as completed. Often, you’ll be told that you need to check out a planet which is not currently found on your Galactic Map and which won’t become visible until certain missions are played. Then, after you’ve scanned and discovered the necessary item to complete this assignment, you return to the Citadel to wander around, trying to find the person to whom the item is of most importance. It feels like a step back from the previous two games, especially given that none of the quest interaction ever take place in a cutscene moment, so they can be easy to miss. It just feels like busy work.

     And now, the ending. About a third of the way through the game, I started to hope that the ending that I was hearing was riddled with controversy because it was dark instead of confusing. I could almost see the end being that the Reapers win and everyone dies, thus making it a pointless exercise of Shepard running around uniting the galaxy, only to find it all for naught: the Reapers are really unstoppable, and no amount of heroic acts would change that.

     Once you reach Earth, you have to fight your way across the rubble-formally-known-as-London. This sequence is pretty long and employs a different style than what has come previously. You inch forward across the ruins, with wave after wave of enemies throwing themselves at you. It’s somewhat frustrating, but redeems itself only because it really feels like Earth is nearly a lost cause.

     The final rush to the transport beam is quite exhilarating, dodging in and out between exploding debris and Harbinger’s energy beam. It’s the same epic scale that I remember when I played the first game, traveling up the side of the Citadel to stop Saren. This is way more intense, though far shorter.

     I wasn’t expecting to get caught in Harbinger’s beam, and I certainly wasn’t expecting to end up playing as a wounded Shepard. It was quite a different experience, and a welcome one after much of the sameness with ME2. The encounter with the Illusive Man, as I mentioned before, is something of a letdown, and then, the Starchild.

     First, I don’t think that this is the actual form of what Shepard is speaking with. It seems that it simply pulled the image from Shepard’s head to resonate with him. It’s a very “Architect”-kind of moment from the Matrix Reloaded. Shepard’s given a choice: take over the Reapers and withdraw, saving the galaxy, but destroying the Mass Relays in the process, trapping the galactic fleet in the Solar System. There’s also the ominous threat of a mere postponement of judgment day instead of anything permanent.

     The second is to change the “solution”: merge synthetic with organic, save the galaxy for all time.

     And a third: destroy all machine life, including the geth (possibly including EDI too).

     So, at 4am, I picked the option to merge synthetic with organic life. My default-looking male Shep took a long run off a short pier and ended with Joker and EDI stepping out of the crashed remains of the Normandy to start their new life together as man-machine and machine.

     The end.