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Goon Sirs and Gentlemen, now with actual content  let me first express my sincere appreciation for the tireless efforts of Bioware/EA to expand the Mass Effect franchise by „producing“ an „entertaining“ „movie“ as a tie-in to the game series.  Words cannot adequately describe the awe this clusterfuck of epic proportions inspires by failing to deliver almost up until the bitter end. BUT THE IMPORTANT THING IS NOT TO DWELL ON THE PAST; WE MUST LOOK TO THE FUTURE OF, um, HOAAH!  I am proud to share with you my impressions of the animated cinematic masterpiece known as Mass Effect Paragon Lost. Of course, it may not be my place to judge the first valiant effort of a video game company into the movie business, but… ah, who am I kidding, just look at this poo poo: Exhibit A: Elite Spec Ops Marines discuss their plan to strike back after  Marine 1: “... come up with a plan for attack” Marine 2: “For starters, how about we get ahold of some bigger guns?” Marine 1: Yeah, Nicky, check out our stores. See what we got that can take out that ship.  Civilian who totally doesn’t look like Joker: “Well, not to interrupt, but is that big cannon just for show?” (points at the marines' giant fuckoff space cannon)   So, anyway, the movie opens with a voiceover of “Out here, Our Choices Affect Not Only Our Lives”, “People we are sworn to protect”, etc. to a montage of a space frigate coming in through a mass relay before introducing us to the Three Stooges Delta Squad whose misadventures we are about to witness.  From left to right*: Lt. Milquetoast (a goon), Specialist Creep (a goon), Kamille McBoobs (female and therefore probably not a goon), Nicky Nerdface (a complete and utter goon), and James Vega aka the Manliest Man To Ever Happen To Mass Effect ™ (just look at those broad shoulders!). Not pictured: Captain Toni (gruff commanding officer with 2 minutes of screen time) and the Pilot “I’m totally going to quit this job, for realz!” Mason (McBoob's boyfriend. Not extra-goony, though, just bland). At this point, they already gave me the impression of something TVTropers would come up with during focused discussions of Trope-tan. *(not necessarily their actual names) While on the way to defend on the way to defending the mining colony of Fehl Prime which apparently mines medicine, they immediately make clear they’re paragons of humanity…  …before managing to loose two entire troop transports’ worth of redshirts to  ).  “Get off our lawn you DIRTY SPACE TURTELZ”   uh oh…  …organised crime sure seems to be on the upswing Also, the most effective way to bring down energy shields is not guns, artillery, or RPGs. It’s… suitcase bombs. Which you toss as hard as you can. Anyway, Delta Squad get shot down, too. By sustaining flesh wounds, double-wielding assault rifles, showing sheer manliness, shouting “We are not murderers! NOW THIS KROGAN IS A PRISONER OF WAR!” and making clear that “This was a team effort”, they prevail and manage to fight off the entire invading force of approximately while acting like clowns who failed boot camp (Do I quietly give you my gun while sneaking around the enemy or do I toss it full force so that it bangs against a rock and draws the attention of everyone in a three-mile radius? gently caress sneaking!).Everyone is a bunch of cardboard cutouts and complete dolts (“Does Command usually wait for the last possible minute to tell us who the enemy is, …sir?” – “You gotta be ready for anything. Like Commander Shepard always said, ‘nothing is ever simple’” – note that Vega keeps fangirling Shepard for 90 Minutes), the animation quality varies from ingame cutscene to normal animation. The entire movie up until this point is a wild jumble of war movie clichés thrown together haphazardly with out-of-place humor thrown in for good measure, but the worst is yet to come. We cut to a short sequence featuring Admirals Hackett and Anderson hamming it up before telling Vega to stay at the rock they just defended as security detail. Yes, in the future, your best troops are also long-term rent-a-cops. I’d like to think that they only pretend to shower Vega’s unit with praise for almost failing to defend Pharmaworld (remember 3 out of 3 troop transports getting wrecked by dumbfuckery?) and assign him to a dead-end job, but I digress… Two years later, Delta Squad are enjoying their rent-a-cop-existence on Pharmaworld and are surprised by completely unsubtle references to Mass Effect 2-events like entire colonies vanishing and big fuckoff defense guns being set up on not-yet-lost colonies like Pharmaworld/Fehl (by the way, expect to see more of this - the final mission in the movie is essentially the final mission of Mass Effect 2 with uncompleted loyalty missions). The research on Protheans taking place on Fehl (did you expect there to be no extremely rare Prothean artifacts on this backwater rock? Think again!) gets classified or something to be worked on so scientist Treeya is pissed about being unable to get into her office (for two loving years?). Coincidentally, she is an Asari like Mass Effect’s resident Prothean expert Liara. Even more coincidentally, she is Liara’s protégé. Also coincidentally, Vega has the hots for her. (Isn’t he gay? I think he mentions a husband in Mass Effect 3. No, wait, Asari are not actually women, they just happen to have tits. No, now I got it, Bioware is being progressive by introducing a bisexual male character). Also, McBoobs acts slutty for 10 seconds. She will die.  (Because she made a dick joke)  There won't be any fanservice in this movie. A random civilian traitor with a Baseball Cap is also shown in this picture. Delta Squad (like, all of them except Cpt. Toni) go out to investigate a signal jamming communications. Baseball Cap Guy also goes because Baseball Cap Guy has a Mako APC/tankette (Delta Squad’s vehicle broke down and they don’t have a spare…) which is seen in awe-inspiring shots that could have been recorded in Garry’s Mod.  This is the future. Since the source of the jamming could be a Prothean artefact, Treeya also tags along (note: discovering intact Prothean technology can make you a galactic superpower and is kind of a big deal). They blow up the artefact immediately. Treeya uses a rock circle/Prothean phone to ask Liara about the artefact and, after predictably being told “(mumble mumble mumble) Reapers  ” – this is Mass Effect, after all – she bemoans the fact that Liara keeps going  about Reapers and the end of civilisation as if those were real (We have dismissed those claims, haven’t we?  ). Cellphones and radios are overrated. Use ancient technomagic that is just as easily jammed instead  When they come back, Collectors from Mass Effect 2 have paralysed all the colonists and are loading them onto their space cruiser and we witness the glorious dialogue of fail shown at the beginning of this post. Naturally, there will be a rescue mission. After hamming it up again and being unsure about whether a rescue mission should involve shooting the kidnapped colonists with anti-ship railguns (they settle on shooting at half power), and after McBoob getting dragged off by collectors, and after finding out that Baseball Cap Guy is a Cerberus (Space Nazis, but the good kind) spy, Delta Squad look for a way to get aboard the ship and (Surprise!) find Brood, the Krogan POW they took in the dungeons of the colony. It is noted that he should have been shipped off for trial months ago. This doesn't appear to be an issue. After a short while and after seeing the only spaceworthy ship on the colony get blown up, and after running into Fluffy The Praetorian the body of which includes  Pictured: Fluffy’s torso. Brood the Krogan also has a working spaceship hidden away in the colony’s sewers. Fluffy downs the spaceship. The spaceship gets repaired to a semi-flyable state and conveniently avoids a collector beam spam to shoot its way into the collector ship for what everyone (including Cmdr. Shepard in Mass Effect 2, also when about to enter a Collector cruiser) calls a suicide mission. After a watchable series of explosions and flying Collectors going splat on windshields, Baseball Cap Guy shoots Brood in the face repeatedly just as they’re about to destroy the Collector cruiser Death Star II-style because (Surprise!) he was a traitor all along. After a jumbled mess of captures, rides on the same platforms as Cmdr. Shepard in Mass Effect 2, injecting an antidote to Collector poison into the colonist storage area, Baseball Cap Guy forcing Treeya to discover the same dirty secrets as Cmdr. Shepard in Mass Effect 2 via mind-surprise sex (Reapers ), Collectors telling Baseball Cap Guy that his usefulness has expired in English, over-the-top heroic sacrifices by Creep et al.… Giving faceless enigmatic villains action movie one-liners as subtitles sucks. Making them sound like Jabba the Hutt even more so. Making them speak English on top of this…  …Everything comes down to Vegas having to make a Hard Decision because, somehow, there is a human transport ship docked in the collector cruiser which he can use to save Treeya and her tits (and intel she got during the mind-surprise sex) or everyone from the colony he just woke up from coma by antidote. This is accomplished by the Collector ship having been disabled (so that it will burn up on re-entry) and Treeya having been ejected into space in a pod (that will burn up on re-entry).  “He promised to save us”  “Vega, it’s ok. (I have the intel, though)” Whom would YOU save? This is actually what I’d the movie’s high point: it manages not to reach a new low by trying to become dark and edgy, and even becomes merely mediocre with occasional bouts of watchability: the bleak situation of the colonists aboard the crashing ship and Treeya becoming an actual character manage to become semi-interesting at times. Anyway, Vega saves Treeya and the intel, gets promoted by Admirals Anderson and Hacket (who shower him with praise), and gets PTSD. Cue a Mass Effect 3 reference. We get shown how the colonists burn up during re-entry as he relives the situation and then, after having broken down, Vega, Milquetoast, and Treeya are sombre and then, it’s all HOAAH WE MUST CONTINUE FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT. Also, the pharma mine for treating Our Kids has to be rebuilt because the Collector ship crash cratered it. Cue the end credits. - disjointed plot elements put together like a bunch of random lego bricks are not a good thing. - making me think of perfectly fitting TVTropes articles for every scene is not a good thing. - I found the constant uselessness of Treeya (except for the end, but even then she stayed a damsel in distress) annoying. Couldn't have an interesting female character with much screen time, could we? - don't make your super elite troopers act like frat boys while being shot up. Also don't make them act terminally retarded (We need heavy firepower. We're totally not aware of our giant cannon on the rooftop) - the movie doesn’t seem to be sure whether it is trying to be serious or just hilariously over the top - I'd pay to have redlettermedia/Mr Plinkett riff this movie...  "Collect THIS!"
blowfish fucked around with this message at Feb 17, 2013 around 02:05 |
| # ? Feb 16, 2013 20:02 |
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| # ? May 20, 2013 17:10 |
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OH GOD THE SUSPENSE IS KILLING ME.
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| # ? Feb 16, 2013 20:36 |
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I can't even begin to guess what this thread will be about. Make us proud, blowfish. Make us proud.
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| # ? Feb 16, 2013 20:45 |
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This is the internet's version of walking into the kitchen, forgetting why you came in there, then making a sandwich anyway. Except here, you're just promising the kitchen you will make a sandwich someday, then leaving.
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| # ? Feb 16, 2013 20:48 |
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Mass Effect TV. At the end of the weeks episode all the viewers are given story threads to pick up on by vote on website and can leave video comments. Each has three options they can select per story thread and the writers must accomodate. E.g. Debate the alien or Shoot the alien or Bang the alien. Or join the bad guy and his orgqnization and go renegade undercover or Stay paragon and engage straightforwardly or Punch the informant in the balls and go drink a few with that tentacle race alien dude.
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| # ? Feb 16, 2013 20:53 |
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Gatts posted:Mass Effect TV. At the end of the weeks episode all the viewers are given story threads to pick up on by vote on website and can leave video comments. Each has three options they can select per story thread and the writers must accomodate. E.g. Debate the alien or Shoot the alien or Bang the alien. Or join the bad guy and his orgqnization and go renegade undercover or Stay paragon and engage straightforwardly or Punch the informant in the balls and go drink a few with that tentacle race alien dude.
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| # ? Feb 16, 2013 20:58 |
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A modern remake of Plan 9 from Outer Space was the first movie idea I ever had and I was convinced it could have made millions. To be 12 years old again...
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| # ? Feb 16, 2013 21:02 |
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I think the OP is about as good as it is going to get. It doesn't have much content, but neither did the movie.
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| # ? Feb 16, 2013 21:25 |
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If TV Tropes gets together to make a movie I think we may very well wind up with a film worse than Foodfight.
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| # ? Feb 16, 2013 21:32 |
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TrixRabbi posted:If TV Tropes gets together to make a movie I think we may very well wind up with a film worse than Foodfight. e: horribly written In a TV Tropes movie, there would be a Greek Chorus, singing out the name of the appropriate trope used after every line of dialogue, character development, or plot event in the film. CPFortest fucked around with this message at Feb 16, 2013 around 21:54 |
| # ? Feb 16, 2013 21:51 |
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The worst thing about TVTropes remaking Plan 9 is when the tropers start cross-dressing in an attempt to emulate Ed Wood.
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| # ? Feb 16, 2013 22:39 |
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I was hoping this would be a Kyoon thread when I clicked on it 
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| # ? Feb 16, 2013 23:36 |
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blowfish posted:Sorry, I just hit post accidentally. Actual post to follow soon It's been nearly four hours. Have we passed the threshold of "soon" yet?
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| # ? Feb 16, 2013 23:50 |
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Professor Clumsy posted:It's been nearly four hours. Have we passed the threshold of "soon" yet? Hey man, when you first discover TVTropes, you kinda lose track of time.
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| # ? Feb 16, 2013 23:51 |
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Getting some blue balls here guys, I might need to jerk it soon if the OP isn't going to take this any further.
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| # ? Feb 16, 2013 23:54 |
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mr.capps posted:The worst thing about TVTropes remaking Plan 9 is when the tropers start cross-dressing in an attempt to emulate Ed Wood. And I think we all know where that would end up.  Incidentally, this is what turned up when I googled for "mass effect paragon lost": quote:Mass Effect: Paragon Lost It's an anime. McSpanky fucked around with this message at Feb 17, 2013 around 00:04 |
| # ? Feb 16, 2013 23:56 |
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About the only character in the franchise nobody wanted to see more of.
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| # ? Feb 17, 2013 00:05 |
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You had me at Freddy Prinze Jr.
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| # ? Feb 17, 2013 00:18 |
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I posted about the movie in the ME thread in Games. My thoughts: shouldn't have been anime. The anime aspects of the movie look completely generic. The villains don't look like anime, though, they look more like crappy cartoons designed to sell toys. The backgrounds were were nice and the CGI stuff looked good. The story was not very engaging, but the choice at the end was actually pretty heavy and made watching the film worthwhile, for fans of the series.
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| # ? Feb 17, 2013 00:24 |
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The funniest thing about the movie is when Freddy Prince JR. called the movie "Japanimation" a bunch of nerds' panties got into a bunch. Link: http://www.stfuandplay.com/story/co...on#.USA6PKUsm-E Video of him saying Japanimation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfUGeBHaRRQ The apology video for saying Japanimation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WufvxQBsCOA LateToTheParty fucked around with this message at Feb 17, 2013 around 02:12 |
| # ? Feb 17, 2013 02:04 |
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LateToTheParty posted:The funniest thing about the movie is when Freddy Prince JR. called the movie "Japanimation" a bunch of nerds' panties got into a bunch. Brilliant.
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| # ? Feb 17, 2013 02:26 |
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LateToTheParty posted:The funniest thing about the movie is when Freddy Prince JR. called the movie "Japanimation" a bunch of nerds' panties got into a bunch. It was all worth it for this.
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| # ? Feb 17, 2013 02:36 |
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Aphrodite posted:About the only character in the franchise nobody wanted to see more of. Uhhh, Kai Leng?
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| # ? Feb 17, 2013 03:06 |
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Waltzing Along posted:The story was not very engaging, but the choice at the end was actually pretty heavy and made watching the film worthwhile, for fans of the series. Wouldn't fans of the series Know that the sacrifice was completely useless?
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| # ? Feb 17, 2013 03:15 |
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LateToTheParty posted:The funniest thing about the movie is when Freddy Prince JR. called the movie "Japanimation" a bunch of nerds' panties got into a bunch. This is...this cannot be. He's got grey hair and he looks old. For some reason in my mind he should be eternally young looking, making teen movies and helping high school girls become pretty for prom or something. I don't know what to think of a world where Freddie Prinze Jr. is old. What does it say? He is pretty cool though which is the opposite of how I felt in high school.
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| # ? Feb 17, 2013 05:10 |
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CPFortest posted:Uhhh, Kai Leng? Someone wanted more Kai Leng considering he was in books or whatever. I mean sure it was the writer who created him, but that's someone.
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| # ? Feb 17, 2013 05:12 |
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LateToTheParty posted:The funniest thing about the movie is when Freddy Prince JR. called the movie "Japanimation" a bunch of nerds' panties got into a bunch. He knows about nerds, he played the king of them in a Psych episode. (Great show BTW) I'm not surprised this movie blows, Bioware has been quickly turning to poo poo ever since Mass Effect 1 (which admittedly wasn't original at all but did the space opera thing very well).
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| # ? Feb 17, 2013 05:39 |
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EA's other attempt at making an animated movie spinoff of a game, Dead Space: Downfall managed to be awful in almost exactly the same way. It's uncanny.
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| # ? Feb 17, 2013 06:01 |
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...of SCIENCE! posted:EA's other attempt at making an animated movie spinoff of a game, Dead Space: Downfall managed to be awful in almost exactly the same way. It's uncanny. ...it's almost like making fanservice movies by trying overly hard to shove as much franchise-related stuff as possible into 90 minutes doesn't work out all that well What is it with video game movies that makes them almost universally horrible? Sure, there is Uwe Boll, but even films he hasn't touched turn out to be poo poo more often than not. Edit: Macdeo Lurjtux posted:Wouldn't fans of the series Know that the sacrifice was completely useless? I'm sure finding that out made Vega feel much better about it
blowfish fucked around with this message at Feb 17, 2013 around 09:27 |
| # ? Feb 17, 2013 09:19 |
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blowfish posted:
Video Games are to plots as Our Town is to sets - a skeletal framework that is sufficient for the particular production but in basically any other medium would be terrible.
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| # ? Feb 17, 2013 14:57 |
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...of SCIENCE! posted:EA's other attempt at making an animated movie spinoff of a game, Dead Space: Downfall managed to be awful in almost exactly the same way. It's uncanny. Oh, right, that thing. If you watch it by itself it's a crummy knockoff of Alien, and if you watch it as a Dead Space fan it just feels weird since everything in the movie is based off of second-pass concept art and early drafts of the game's story. The protagonist is interesting, however, in that she's an attempt to emulate Ripley that ends up as a degenerate, sociopathic version of Ripley. (Or, in other words, Vickers from [i]Prometheus[/].)
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| # ? Feb 17, 2013 17:24 |
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This and the Dead Space movie weren't actually written or directed by anyone at Bioware or EA.
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| # ? Feb 17, 2013 17:36 |
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LateToTheParty posted:The funniest thing about the movie is when Freddy Prince JR. called the movie "Japanimation" a bunch of nerds' panties got into a bunch. This is amazing. I'm actually surprised that I find him really likable in these videos, in spite of - or maybe even because of - the  he's got going on.
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| # ? Feb 17, 2013 17:58 |
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Aphrodite posted:This and the Dead Space movie weren't actually written or directed by anyone at Bioware or EA. Can you even imagine how bad that would be?
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| # ? Feb 17, 2013 17:59 |
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Aphrodite posted:This and the Dead Space movie weren't actually written or directed by anyone at Bioware or EA. I remember liking the first Dead Space film, that was an amalgam of the Dead Space promotional shorts, a lot more than the most recent one, which was done in a vignette style, by multiple directors and in multiple styles of artwork.
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| # ? Feb 17, 2013 18:30 |
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So if Mass Effect: Paragon Lost is TVTropes remaking Plan 9 from Outer Space, is the OP TVTropes remaking the MST episode of Plan 9 from Outer Space? Meta as balls.
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| # ? Feb 17, 2013 21:00 |
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MadRhetoric posted:So if Mass Effect: Paragon Lost is TVTropes remaking Plan 9 from Outer Space, is the OP TVTropes remaking the MST episode of Plan 9 from Outer Space? ...but MST never did Plan 9  Or so Google tells me.
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| # ? Feb 17, 2013 23:08 |
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There was a Rifftrax of it, if that counts.
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| # ? Feb 17, 2013 23:10 |
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That looks exactly like Zoids, which is quite impressive in an  way.
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| # ? Feb 17, 2013 23:27 |
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| # ? May 20, 2013 17:10 |
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Why is there an evangelion in that poster
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| # ? Feb 19, 2013 20:03 |
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