Please Let There Not Be a Mass Effect Movie
I don’t think they’re making one just yet, but given how successful the series is, I often fear that they will someday. And when that day comes, I will cry softly.
First thing, allow me to make it absolutely clear how much I love and adore the Mass Effect series. The third game isn’t even out yet and I already know that it’s one of the best video game series of all time, bar none. By the way, this is coming from someone who usually gravitates towards fantasy over sci-fi and is way too obsessed with a series of ancient computer games based on Dungeons & Dragons. Space operas are not usually my bread and butter. But Mass Effect is just that good. It resonates with me in emotional places I didn’t even know I had, it has utterly masterful plotting and characters, it’s visually stunning, and it’s even making its creators bushels and bushels of money.
That said, here are three reasons why nobody should ever, ever make movie versions.
1. They Won’t Be Any Good
It’s no secret that video game movies are bad. They just are. We all know it. Somewhere between the fun of watching a hero have adventures, and the fun of guiding an avatar through adventures, is an unfun wasteland of lame where all movies based on video games dwell in misery.
Why, we all are! We're all video game movies, and I am your king.
Many of the problems here are obvious. A person playing a game finds it fun to do certain repetitive tasks, but that same person watching a movie would get bored and frustrated if the film’s hero did the same. I wouldn’t watch an action movie where the hero just hides behind cover and spends their time alternately shooting at people and throwing glowing things at them, but I’ll spend hours doing that myself in Mass Effect. Which is as it should be, because the fun of the game is that you’re doing it.
Time is another stumbling block. A movie is designed to take up about two hours, while a game is designed to take up weeks of real time. No movie could cover the same ground a game does. Bioware games have excellent stories and rich characters, which might seem to make them suited to cinematic adaptation. However, the problem is that they have too much of both for a single movie to handle. Sure, if Hollywood made it they’d probably make it a trilogy, but the game’s already a trilogy, so you’re still stuck trying to stuff dozens of hour’s worth of content into a tiny two-hour thimble. You can, of course, cut out a lot of the game’s filler (Mako, anyone?), but the fact remains that the plot and characters were designed with the intention that they would have plenty of time and space to grow. Movies don’t have that luxury, and trying to shoehorn in a story originally created for a longer-running medium almost always results in a mess.
Case in point.
I just don’t have faith in Hollywood to make a video game adaptation that doesn’t fundamentally misunderstand what people liked about the original franchise. They just don’t get video games, they don’t want to, and as long as the people who make games and the people who make movies exist in two entirely different camps, there won’t be much of a marriage of the mediums.
2. Canon Shepard is a Dumpster-Faced Lunkhead
This reason could technically be part of the first one, but I’ve singled it out as it’s likely the most important. I know Bioware constantly insists that there’s no “canon” Shepard, but that’s bull. We all know that if they make a movie we’re going to end up with this guy, probably played by Christian Bale:
See what I mean? The bald head, the five o’clock shadow, the dead eyes, the neck like a ham haunch? He’s a Space Marine. Invented specifically so that 14-year-old white boys can pour themselves into him and vicariously shoot aliens and touch boobies, he has no personality. He is not my Shepard. He isn’t a lot of people’s Shepards.
It’s not just that I’m upset that there’s no way they’d make a Shepard who resembled my female space warrior of justice, the Shepard who means so much to me. Well, that does really get to me. But it would also bother everyone else who has played the game. Because the beauty of the original game, something lost in film, is the fact that each of us gets the opportunity to make Shepard our own. Every person who has played Mass Effect has played a Shepard who was the true reflection of their inner hero, whether male or female, white or black, subtle or forceful, kind or ruthless. Make Shepard “officially” someone else and you take that away from us. It taints our experience of this story to paint some meathead in the place of the person we chose to represent us.
While I didn’t mean for this to turn into a rant about how much I hate Space Marine protagonists, it does apply here, as movie Shepard would indeed be a dumpster-faced lunkhead. You know they’d do it. They’ve been doing it to everybody lately. But applied to a video game hero who was initially customizable, it would be egregious.
3. It’s Just Not the Right Choice
I don’t count myself among the naysayers who proclaim that no good video game movie will ever exist under any circumstances (although I find myself inching closer to them on a regular basis). I think that there are some video games that could lend themselves well to film interpretation.
A story of deep conflict and tragic loss. --NY Times Film Review
Mass Effect, however, was already created to have a cinematic feel to it. The cut scenes, the dialogue, the way the camera moves during character conversations-–all of it was supposed to invoke a feeling of a seamless story like that of a film. It makes the games great, immersive to play and incredibly fun. It’s also the same thing that makes a movie adaptation pointless. What could a film version hope to bring to a story that was already told with all the style a movie would have, plus the player choice and interactivity a game needs? It could only possibly take away excellence from the story as it was told before.
People are excited about the Bioshock movie, and you know what? That could actually work. From the original game, you have a story that’s simple enough to fit a movie’s running time, but unique enough to hold interest. You have a fantastic world chock-full of iconic imagery and great opportunities for characterization. There are places where a movie could tell you more, where the game left some blank space that a film interpretation could expand on. It’s a good choice.
Not that I’m convinced it will be good. The history of video game movies is a history of failed ideas, whether or not those ideas could have worked in theory. But enough about the Max Payne movie. I really need to get lunch.
Stupid Max Payne Movie
It was too much to hope that this movie would be good. But dammit, if any video game movie was going to be good, this one would have been it. Coming from the original, there’s actually a story friendly to the cinematic format, and angles left to be explored that the game left up to the imagination. The movie could have really expanded on the juicy concepts from the game itself, as well as reliving all the cool noir pulp that Max Payne always heaped on with a spoon.
Instead, the movie had a formulaic action film plot in which everything creative about the game it was based on was very carefully avoided (Danger: Spoilers Ahead). Max Payne, our rugged everyman hero, is a good cop thrust into a bad situation, trying to root out the corruption that seems to have seeped into every corner of his life. In this, they stuck to parts of the original story. You still have a dangerous psychotropic drug, Valkyr, circling the streets. It’s still connected to the deaths of Max Payne’s wife and child, and is still being circulated for all the wrong reasons after being covertly developed as a super-soldier drug for the military. But the movie only touches on these plot points as though it’s obligated to, rather than have Max Payne slowly discover the pieces one by one as he goes on his journey of revenge. Sure, he shoots a bunch of bad guys, fights an intimidating super-soldier villain, and discovers that his boss and old friend was the one responsible for his family’s death all those years ago. But that’s all there is to it: good man fights bad people. It’s just boring as hell.
It’s nothing you haven’t seen before, but that’s the problem. What bothers me is that anyone watching this film will think that the game has exactly the same theme. It can line up with all the other reasons people think games are an inferior storytelling medium. You can enjoy the story if you have the right mindset, but in the end you’ll just say, “Oh, our hero goes out and shoots everyone who ever wronged him. What a childish fantasy.” And as far as the movie is concerned, that would be correct. Making the bad guys so eeeeeevil that you can then kill them with impunity is indeed a childish fantasy. But without playing the original, a viewer watching the film would have no way of knowing how ironically the game makers portrayed that idea.
In the original Max Payne, you, the player, indeed step into the shoes of a tough-as-nails cop out for revenge. You mow down hordes of faceless thugs, all in the service of discovering the next clue that will lead to the people behind the cover-ups and dirty, dirty corruption. You fill bodies with bullets and you smash faces with baseball bats, and by God you enjoy every minute of it. But the game is made in such a way that, in between each of your raging bloodbaths, you are forced to question your own motives. With every drug-fueled dream sequence and every vanquished enemy pleading for his life, the game drives a little nail further and further into the back of your mind. A voice appears, while you kill and kill and kill, a voice that seems to keep getting louder, always whispering: Maybe you’re not a hero exacting righteous vengeance. Maybe you’re just a psychopath.
Please, Max! No! No, Max, I'm sorry!
Hear your dead wife, begging you to stop doing…something? Hear your crying baby? Who killed your family again? It was those guys, right? Those guys you’re going to shoot and maim and beat to a bloody pulp. Who are they again? Oh, right, they killed your family. At least, you think they did. But they did, right? I’m going to kill those bastards. I’m going to kill them! I’m going to kill all of them!
And that’s video game Max Payne. That would have made for a kick-ass movie. And the one good thing about the Max Payne film was the way they portrayed the effects of Valkyr, so I know they could have done Max’s self-questioning dream sequences to great, maybe even iconic, effect.
But as usual, the chance was squandered. I honestly believe that Hollywood purposely half-asses its video game movies because it has no respect for them and wants video games to stay in the gutter where they belong. They’re okay with making money off their franchises, mind you, but they’ll never put any effort into truly adapting the spirit of a great game into what can be a great film. Instead, we just have Max Payne, another lackluster entry in the hall of shame that is video game movies. Games are never going to drag themselves up at this rate.
I Review Dragon Age: Origins
Actually, I won’t. Because someone with exactly my opinion has already done so. This person is, of course, as big of a Baldur’s Gate fan as I am, was as excited about Dragon Age for the same reasons I am, and liked the new game just as much as I do. We even have more or less the same caveats about it, as well as the guilty reasoning that most of the issues we have regarding it are more related to our nostalgic obsession with Bioware’s first games than DA:O’s actual flaws.
But we can’t help it, you see. I, for one, have never played a game where the developers endeavored to inject as much atmospheric, entertaining content into every corner of their work as much as BG2. Here is one of my favorite examples. In most fantasy games, if there is an inn mechanic, the PC walks up to the innkeeper and initiates dialogue. The Standard Fantasy Innkeeper is invariably fat, bored, and boring. He asks for a few coppers and sends you up to bed, with nary a second glance. If you’re lucky, you can squeeze a rumor or two out of him. Whereas in BG2, this happens:
Vincenzo the Innkeep: ’Allo to you an’ a good day! I am Vincenzo and I offer you all the services of me humble l’il inn!
Willet the Stableboy: There’re a lot o’ things t’ be said about yer inn, Vince … but “humble” ain’t the one I would be pickin’, aye?
Vincenzo the Innkeep: Hush, boy! An’ keep callin’ me “Vince” an’ I’ll have ye strapped o’er a log! The name’s “Vincenzo!”
Willet the Stableboy: ‘At’s a lotta rot. Ye hears that name from a Sembian trader an’ suddenly yer puttin’ on airs. Pfeh!
Vincenzo the Innkeep: Never mind the boy. He’s an ignorant lout I took in out of pity. A simpleton who doesn’t know his place. Is there aught I can do for you, my good Lady?
This is what I mean. These NPCs, who continue to argue with one another every time the player interacts with them, serve no further use later in the plot. There is no purpose to their conversation other than to delight me, and the game is chock full of this stuff. And some people think a good RPG is about damage per second and item harvesting.
Do I think Dragon Age lives up to this game in sheer richness of detail? It doesn’t, but frankly, no modern game could. Nowadays developers have too much other stuff to worry about, like creating character models that don’t resemble Polly Pocket dolls. Making each and every NPC into a quirky character and creating fantasy cities that seem alive with real individuals would take time and energy that they simply don’t have.
Sexy.
And really, DA:O is still damn atmospheric, more than any RPG I’ve played for a long time. I still love you, Bioware. Call me.
I Hate You, Melissan!
Bitch, quit hiding behind all your summoned monsters and your elemental prince and fallen solar friends and your globe of blades and come and face me! Scared? I, the most powerful of the Children of Bhaal, Lord of Murder, shall be your end this day! Do you hear me? I’ve had more than enough of you. This ends here.
Ow! Hey, that’s mean! You’ll pay for that, just as soon as I’ve finished guzzling all sixteen potions of healing I have right here. You have got to be the sorriest foe I’ve faced thus far, you gigantic strumpet! You’re pathetic.
You’re not even an interesting villain. What, blind lust for power? Is that all you’ve got? Sure, Jon Irenicus was a bit of a crybaby, but at least he had motivations other than an “I Heart Murder” license plate. At least while I was chasing him across, through, and literally under all of goddamned Faerun I could occupy myself with contemplating how, beneath his snobby British mad scientist exterior, he was really an emo MySpace kid with pictures of the elven Queen taped to the inside of his locker.
Whereas you had nothing but your stupid twist. “Oh, I’m Melissan and I guide you to each Bhaalspawn you have to kill and I’m real nice, but then it turns out I’m going to slay you and steal your essence.” As if we all didn’t know you were a fucking bitch from the beginning!
Oh my god! You killed all my friends, you filthy whore! Quick, resurrect them! Minsc! Jaheira! Imoen! Haer’Dalis! Well, okay, maybe not Haer’Dalis, but I’ll still get you for killing him. It’s the principle of the thing.
What kind of a name is Melissan, anyway? All it is is Melissa with a goddamned random consonant on the end of it. What is that, supposed to strike fear into my very soul? And don’t think that putting it back to Amelyssan the Blackhearted changes anything. We’re always going to remember that you sucked at choosing aliases.
Melissan Joan Hart, fucking Priestess of Murder.
I don’t care if you are a Deathstalker and Bhaal’s formerly most trusted servant. Your history is probably so lame that Bioware didn’t even bother to make it up for you, and you’ve lived your whole life in the shadow of people who were born to be better than you at the one thing you’re good at: killing. That’s right, my Dad is the owner and CEO of Murder Ltd., and I’m his bratty kid that lounges by the pool and gets bitchin’ cars for my birthday, and you’re nothing but his fucking secretary. Chew on that while you’re ripping my intestines out from my eye sockets, you fat cow!
Ouch! Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!
It’s Amazing What a Little Video Can Do
I’ve been excited about Alpha Protocol. Not only does it look like a good, choice-heavy RPG, it’s an stealth/action spy thriller, which in games is a genre dominated mainly by shooters. Although fantasy tends to be my favorite, when I get frustrated with its foibles (see here) I rather enjoy an excursion into espionage territory. I find it heartening that there will finally be a modern game of that kind aimed at RPGers like me, when it would be so much easier to make several maps, litter them with enemies and different kinds of guns, and call it a day.
And the RPG features that Alpha Protocol will have sound quite intriguing. Apparently it will have real-time, unrepeatable dialogues, a rather daring and exciting break from role-playing game traditions. You’ll be able to dress your little man up different outfits that can make a difference during gameplay, which is compelling because as we all know, deep down, everybody who loves RPGs — no matter how macho — also loves paper dolls. You’ll make choices that actually change the course of the game, and it appears that you can build up meaningful relationships with NPCs. This last one is especially important to me, since I consider it to be a core component of any RPG even though most of them tend to throw it out the window.
Hello there. Would you like a quest?
On the other hand, Alpha Protocol is the only game I know of that I wanted to play and whose previews made me want to play it less. They seem to be rather generic copies of what goes on in spy movies and action shows, although it sounds rather like this is what the developers were aiming at. I’m a little worried that my immersion might be ruined by what appears to be mediocre voice-acting and a complete lack of expressions on any of the characters’ faces, especially when they’re talking.
It’s not that it makes it look like a bad game. All its good features remain, and I’ll definitely still try it. But the video did serve to dampen my enthusiasm significantly. The reason I favor RPGs over, say, shooters is because I care about the emotional state of the character I’m playing, and of the NPCs, as well. I want more than to just look like a badass while I shoot or slice people (although I want that, as well). I want to be able to explore my character’s inner world. And it seems to me that maybe the makers of Alpha Protocol have fallen into the trap many game-makers fall into: thinking that cool is enough.
Girls & Games
I came across this post in my internet wanderings while I was trying to find out what percentage of players of The Sims 2 were female (about 60 or 65 percent, by the way), and it got me thinking. What draws the female audience to games like The Sims? What qualities could a game have that attracts women in general?
I’m in agreement with Ms. Knight that games can be made to cater to a wide female audience without having to be “pink” games that nobody with a penis would be caught dead with, and that women who are potential gamers are a market widely untapped by the industry. And the differences in the way these games were made could be a lot more subtle than the hammer-hitting done by the toy industry:
I’ve always been what I consider to be a feminist, but I was turned off to it for a while in high school when I found out that it can also involve a lot of screeching and the annoying denial of any innate differences whatsoever between men and women. A while ago, however, I came back to it, determined to find a more reasonable way to believe in rights and respect for women. My sister, who went through the same process, calls this “born-again feminism.” I think that young women of my generation (and the generations to come) are going to learn to stand up for themselves without being shrill. In many ways, they already have. And hopefully, the games the corporate world is trying to aim at us will highlight the ways men and women can communicate with one another and not rely on further division between us.
