D%&$ It, Bioware, I Was Using That Heart: Mass Effect Revisited

Hello hello!

So, my turbulent and ultimately ill-fated love affair with the Mass Effect trilogy is pretty well known at this point. In case you missed all that, you can find info here, here, and here. There are

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

 about the first three games at all six of those links, by the way. I've written about this series a lot, and one of the reasons I love Farscape so much is that it gave me what I was hoping for from Mass Effect, but without the most tragic backstory ever written.

Well, the release of the fourth game in the franchise has been revealed at--where else?--the San Diego Comic Con. I waited with baited breath as I clicked on the link, hoping for a reveal of the future of the universe.

 Source: Cheezburger.

The next game is going to happen concurrently with the events of the last one, ME3. You know, that game. The one that ruined a company's reputation, earned EA the "Worst Company of the Year" award in 2012, and was universally hailed as a clusterphuque of earthshaking proportions. The original ending was so universally hated, they ended up revamping it with extended narration and explanations of the consequences. More on the extended endings in a minute. But all the phuquerie that resulted from that terrible, cliched, tropey, backstabbing of an ending happened because gamers felt betrayed. I was even one of them, and I shed my tears with the rest. But why? And why did I get a bad case of feels when I finally watched the extended cuts today?

What went wrong?

I'll try to keep this short because it's been discussed elsewhere. The problems with the ending boil down to five things.

First, the ending felt too simplistic compared to the complex and multilayered games that preceded it. The endings of the first two games were heavily reliant on previous actions, with Mass Effect 2's ending being the best example of that. Perhaps all the storylines they had going ended up collapsing on their own weight, but I think most of us expected some sort of large final battle where the results were determined by resources and alliances accrued and accumulated during the rest of the games. That isn't what happened. Like, at all.

Second, Shepard dies unnecessarily...or lives, if you (possibly) sacrifice all Geth and Synthetic life. I'm not restating that blog post about why hero death is a stupid and borderline unhealthy trope, but here's another link to it.

Third, the Starchild is a stupid and unnecessary brat with terrible voice acting and worse writing. The Illusive Man, a Geth, EDI herself, a Keeper (you know, those plot device bugs who were never used for anything in spite of substantial build-up in the first games?), or even, why not, the Rachni Queen, would all have been better choices. Sure, you have the little weird kid running around in Shep's head through the first half of the game, but freaky children are a stupid cliche at best, and it didn't belong in this game. Add in all the stuff about madness in the excellent DLCs for the series and you have a sinister perspective on the little brat--who, we are somehow supposed to believe, is some kind of peaceful and neutral force. You choose the McGuffin or you epic-fail. I actually love the new fourth ending, but the last time I saw an ending this hamstrung was at a sex show involving bondage and oral pleasure. At least with the "refusal" option, the stupid storytelling bit at the end makes sense.

Fourth, your team crash lands on a random planet for no particular reason. Why? Why did this happen? Why did they get sucked into a portal? Sure, the extended endings fix that up a bit, but why does this even occur?

Fifth, that stupid damn storyteller ending. I love Synthesis, and I can stand Destroy because Shepard lives, but Control always felt evil to me. And yet all three of these end with a stupid cutscene after the credits that even Buzz Aldrin's cameo couldn't save. The Starchild voice actor returns (shudder) and an old man tells him he might go to the stars...in a way that implies all knowledge of space travel has been lost. That blatantly contradicts two of the three endings, and worse, the "tell me another story about the Shepard" bit teases us with the false promise of another game about our protagonist. You know, the game they promised they'd never make. This storytelling ending actually makes sense for the Refusal ending, which was the most coherent, but the fact that they left it in the extended endings felt like a slap in the face.

This is basically how I feel about the whole thing. 

Why are we rehashing all this?

Oh, there's a reason. The new game will be set at the end of the third. Are they going to retcon the ending? How will they deal with the incredible fame of Shepard's character if your character is just some scrub? Are you going to have somehow never heard of the most famous person in the galaxy, a.k.a. Space Jesus? It's going to focus on the multiplayer side of things, sure, but this feels like a stall for time. My partner called it a money-grab, and not the real sequel, and added, "unless I'm absolutely wrong, you can completely ignore this game." Did I mention that they explicitly promised the next game would be set in the far future?

Okay, fine; how could you possibly fix it?

Just abandoning the series--which would actually be wise--probably isn't a viable option. A jump backwards in time would have solved a lot of their problems, and quite a few fans have been hoping for something set during the human-Turian First Contact War. Jumping drastically far forward into the future would also be an option.

What I'd love to happen, as much as I will weep angry tears over the impossibility of it, would be a proper exploration of the Synthesis ending. The extended version hints that a golden age was dawning, but change is scary. There's plenty of conflict you could mine from the sudden friendliness of the Reapers, the ancient technologies gifted to the unprepared galaxy, the fact that all races and species have the possible opportunity to be immortal, and the equalization forced on everyone. Diplomacy games! New wars! Playing as a Reaper! Dealing with grieving! New conflict rising as unknown or rare civilizations are encountered! Religious conflict! All the ingredients of amazing story potentials are right there, and there is no way we'll get to play with those toys.

Synthesis in a nutshell. 

The lesson in all of this is that creating a series is hard, and kind of dangerous. It's hard to please fans at the best of times, but the more complicated your world gets and the more plot devices and plotlines you pile on, the easier it is to screw them up. Terry Goodkind's The Sword of Truth series is the only one even close to Mass Effect in terms of McGuffin implosions, and that was a mess too. The lesson is that introducing endless plot mechanics and shiny toys is a bad idea. And sometimes, you just have to pretend something didn't happen and move forward with the story instead of trying to fix an old problem that's basically unrepairable. Writing is not always fun and it's rarely "easy", but at least we can learn from the failures of others.

*****

Thanks for dropping by the nest once again. Don't miss any of the phuquerie. Find Michelle on Twitter, Facebook, and on Tumblr, and find her work on Amazon. Check back on the blog to see when one of the irregular posts has careened onto your feed. This is the one and only SciFiMagpie, over and out! 

Breaking Bad: A Brief Analysis, And--OH GOD MY FEELS (Part 2)

Hello hello!

Welcome back to my loose analysis and reaction to Breaking Bad. I'm just going to add the warning and get straight to the good stuff.

Last week, I mentioned SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS, so prepare for those. Now, with the warning over with, get ready for some thinky bits as I explain why the show was ultimately worth the journey, at least for me.

The ultimate villain's journey

Even the ending, which shows the only Walter White plan that ever goes properly, is beautifully symmetrical with the first episode. Walter's character path leaves him somewhere between the kind-hearted and hapless schoolteacher of the first season and the ruthless bastard we see in the final season. The journey to get there--through evil and worsening deeds, rising greed and ruthlessness--costs him everything, including his jobs, his friends, his family, and finally, his life. However, Walter dies as a complete man. If most shows follow a hero's journey, this is surely a villain's journey--through loss and through  the rising price of ambition, hubris and strengths that become faults exacting their toll. Walter was a mechanically adept man and a fine chemist, and his own reliance on his ingenious mind over the good advice or intentions of others was shown clearly throughout.

Another thing that's really interesting about Walter is that there is no Mephistopheles to lead him astray. He gets the idea of cooking meth on his own, and the series consistent, even ham-fisted, about showing that everything bad that happens is basically his fault. He involves himself with criminals. He sanctions the death of children. There's no dark angel talking him into it. At the end, the character confesses to Skyler that he did it all for himself, not his family. As a viewer, one is left with disturbing reflections on how often a noble intent is rationalized to be for someone else's sake when it's really selfish at the core. Hold on, folks; I need to make a note for future works...

There isn't much I can say about this character's path and portrayal--it really is close to perfect, and certainly gave me a lot to think about as it regards a simultaneously sympathetic and despicable villain. There were many times that I wanted to reach through my computer and strangle Walter White, especially when he was abusive towards Skyler. And speaking of strangling...

Source. You can practically see the devil behind the desk.

Holy crap, violence

I wasn't prepared for all the violence, I have to admit. The thing that really got me stewing was that the crimes perpetrated by Walter White and the people he hurt. There is a lot of collateral damage in this series. I have to say, it's probably one of the most effective anti-drug advertisements I've ever seen. The drug users get off lightly compared to the meth cookers. At best, a conviction and a bad drug habit; at worst, various forms of death could be expected.

And when it comes to death, there was a certain glee in the perpetration. Counting the jet, almost three hundred people die over the five seasons. And oh, what deaths--explosions, shoot-outs, a crashed plane, death by bike lock, ricin poisoning, ATM-head-crushing, death by turtle-severed-head bomb, being strangled with a chain, and, of course, death by jury-rigged machine gun in the trunk of a car. That's not counting all the cases of people being slapped, punched, turned into organ slurry with acid after death, or brutal beatings. I do love a black comedy, and I'm not scared of death or violence in general, but I really prefer reading about it to watching it. The unflinching brutality was very disturbing, even if it was somewhat realistic.

Societal commentary 

Other commentators have mentioned that it's a show about making meth, and many stations censored the word 'fuck'. I have to agree that the priorities there seem...confused, to be polite. I do think it's an interesting statement about America that so many people's attention was really captured by this show. There were a lot of similarities to American Beauty (a favorite of mine) in terms of the themes of an ordinary person snapping and changing their priorities, but the emphasis on evil was altogether different than any other 'mid-life crisis' movie or show I've seen or heard about.

It was dropped in the last couple of seasons, but I also really enjoyed the biting commentary on racial profiling with Hispanics. It was most prominent in the first season, but Hank's racist comments, the arrest of the janitor while two middle-class white guys got off scott free, and the looks Hank's partner Gomez gave him from time to time spoke volumes. It was a real shame that all the class stuff really fell by the wayside in later seasons; I missed the incisive commentary on insurance companies and the healthcare system, too. The dynamics of his family and the brilliant depictions of addiction in the first and second season really fell by the wayside after about the third; while Jesse's travails still show the progression, the show sort of lost interest in its earlier topics to focus on how badass Walter becomes. I disapproved.

Final thoughts

All things considered, it was a very enlightening show and very much worth the time. The finale, which I praised in the previous post, was definitely the icing on the cake. Is it the best show ever created? Well, my favorite series is still a toss-up between Farscape and Doctor Who (for the love of the gods, don't make me choose), with Sherlock coming in on their heels, but Breaking Bad does deserve its place in TV history. Give it a watch and weigh in, if you haven't seen it. If you have, I want to hear your thoughts in the comments.

*****

Thanks for dropping by the nest once again. Don't miss any of the phuquerie. Find Michelle on Twitter, Facebook, and on Tumblr. More interviews and witty commentaries are coming. Keep checking back to see those surprise posts, too. This is your darling SciFiMagpie, over and out! 

Breaking Bad: A Brief Analysis, And--OH GOD MY FEELS (Part 1)

Hello hello!

So, I should clarify something--I don't want TV. I really, really don't watch TV. I haven't had cable in...I don't know, at least eight years? On occasion, I will load a whole bunch of episodes for a series on Netflix, but that's it. This is fine with me, as I save a lot of time and end up reading quite a bit more.

Whenever a cultural phenomenon hits, though, I try to do some cursory investigations. I didn't bother spending time on Honey Boo Boo or Jersey Shore, apart from perhaps a basic summary on Wikipedia, but Breaking Bad was another matter. Intelligensia were flocking to the show, and a bunch of my close friends were losing their minds over it.

I waited for the series to finish, and then I binged on it, as is my preference. I really hate waiting for sequels to things I like. (And yes, the Harry Potter years were agony, thanks so much.) Breaking Bad, frankly, had me dubious. Crime isn't my thing. I like a touch of noire, and I like action, but The Sopranos and that whole genre always left me cold. Sure, I'm fond of Sherlock Holmes stories in all incarnations, and I had a childhood aspiration towards forensic science, but I prefer a nice mediaeval poisoning or a treatise on ancient weapons to a contemporary crime drama. However, writer pals kept insisting it was well-written, well-acted, etc, etc.

Well, I just finished the series tonight, and I'm still processing what I spent the last few weeks watching. I should probably stick a spoilers warning here. 

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

 Right. Now that you've had your freak-out, we can continue. So: let's talk basics.

Mechanics of the show

The acting was unquestionably top-notch, and the camera-work was quite good. The acting is, in fact, so perfect that I'm not going to talk about it. There's simply nothing to say about portrayals of characters that are so honest, you can't even see the actor bleeding through underneath .

As for the camera work, well, it was shaky when it needed to be shaky and steady when it needed to be steady. Shots seemed to be framed well, especially in the many desert scenes, and there was a lot of use of visual motifs in the shots. Use of the teddy eye as symbolism for Walter when he was still feeling moral qualms, the colour themes--there were a few times when one felt a bit hit over the head by it, such as the way the plane crash symbolized the breaking of Walter's world, but it was nice to see symbolism.

The other mechanics in the show were pretty good, too. No exploding cars, for instance. There were some factual issues and errors in the last season, but the understanding of addiction was certainly top-notch. The science of the show is something I can't comment on, because frankly, chemistry isn't my area of expertise, but it certainly seemed to be right.

Source.   Yeah, it's cheating, I know.

Literary structure and layers

 I'm reminded of Game of Thrones (which I've read but not seen) in a lot of ways. Most people are familiar with the phrase, "In the Game of Thrones, you win or you die"; Martin repeats it as often as the infamous "Winter Is Coming". The moral structure here reminded me of GoT, but mostly, I found myself thinking of Shakespeare a lot. In Romeo and Juliet, and quite a few other tragedies, there's a real emphasis placed on the accidental casualties who fall as a result of the hero's failure or the villain's machinations. However, this is no case of incompetence or madness, as in Hamlet, or mere cumulative misunderstandings, as in Othello. Rather, I think of Macbeth; Breaking Bad makes us cheer for the villain.

There are casualties and people who don't get what they deserve--the children who die, for instance, are as innocent as the princes of Richard III, and as undeserving--but most of the people who die, particularly in the bloodbath that is the final episode, really deserve what they get. Tuco Salamanca, Gustavo Fring, Todd Alquist, and Lydia Quayle stand out as examples of people who all fall by the hand of poetic justice. Others, such as Mike Ermantrout and Hank Schrader, fell because of their line of duty; then, too, all of the deaths mentioned are nicely foreshadowed and suggested as the characters commit moral crimes along the way. It's noteable that Jesse, like Horatio, does survive; he also consistently made moral choices that avoided the harm of innocents when possible, and that he showed repentance for his crimes far more than any other character.

What does draw my admiration, though, was the use of the proper five-act structure for the seasons, and especially for Walter's character. The seasons themselves--particularly most of three, apart from a couple episodes, and the first half of the fourth--were sometimes lopsided, but they still moved well. I have to complain a bit about Holly being a human McGuffin in a lot of cases, and the way certain elements from the beginning were just dropped (hello, Skyler's literary aspirations) haphazardly, but over all, most elements were tied in well and consistently. It's nice to see a story that follows most of its logical implications through to the very ending of character arcs.

Vince Gilligan, the writer, apparently intended a 'Biblical feel', but the clear themes of consequences didn't require deep analysis to discover. The storytelling was clear enough to convey his message without ham-fistedness (well, most of the time), and that's certainly admirable. Indeed, there were even winks to this--doubting Saul, for example, who hits the road, but never actually goes to Damascus--or becomes a believer, for that matter. If there's a message in Breaking Bad, it's that you must make your own redemption, and if you're lucky, it will work out.

A quick word on characters

As much as people praise the character for being a badass and scold his wife for discouraging his criminal activities (!), I also have to praise Skyler, Walter's foil. She constantly strives for the morally correct decision and actually reacts in a realistic way, the way an overwhelmed partner probably would. I have more than a passing familiarity with stress reactions--both academic and personal--and it was all handled in a very impressive way. She and Jesse Pinkman both count as foils in some respects, but they're dynamic characters, changing in response to circumstances handed to them and unwilling to take Walt's orders without question, especially as time goes on.

The use of other characters as foils for each other--Tuco, Gustavo, and Lydia, for instance--also reflects some of that biblical stuff with a trine structure. Clearly, Gilligan wasn't just sleeping through the board meetings, the way some writers seem to (which is the only way I can excuse some of Steven Moffat and Russel Davies' worst Doctor Who episodes). Mirroring was also evident, such as in Walter Jr's character--he does right by his mother, rejects the father he once adored, and becomes very independent. There are lots of quiet demonstrations of the way the son does not follow the sins of the father, which bodes well for the life of the character after the show, but also plenty of examples of mirror characterization between Jesse and Walter Jr. Even the 'foils' get their own lives and stories.

Now, I did mention feelings, and I'm going to briefly mention that this series will wreck you. It didn't make me cry, to my surprise, but it was quite evocative and disturbing. For more of the how and why, tune in next time!

*****

Thanks for dropping by the nest once again. Don't miss any of the phuquerie. Find Michelle on Twitter, Facebook, and on Tumblr. More interviews and witty commentaries are coming. Keep checking back to see those surprise posts, too. This is your darling SciFiMagpie, over and out!