Mass Effect Is Too Difficult To Adapt

If you’re a fan of the Mass Effect trilogy like moi, and are waiting for the live action feature film to come out, well then join moi, sit down and wait because it’s going to take a while. So far the adaptation has seen its fair share of problems, producer Avi Arad says he it will be a few years before it comes to the big screen, Legendary Pictures seems to be lost in the whole thing and doesn’t seem to know what to answer when asked simple questions like for instance:

Original:

“Q: Will it just be an adaptation of the first game, second game, or a completely new story?

A: It will be a completely new story”

Altered a few weeks later:

“Q: Will it just be an adaptation of the first game, second game, or a completely new story?

A: It will focus on Commander Shepard’s journey, centering around the story of the original Mass Effect game.”

Then they decided to scrap the script and the writer, Mark Protosevich (Thor) and replace him with “baby face” Morgan Davis Foehl (only wrote one script). So if you’re a fan of the Mass Effect trilogy like moi, and are waiting for the live action feature film to come out, well then join moi, sit down and wait.

In an interview to BD, former writer of the adaptation, Mark Protosevich said that he had done some drafts for the movie and admitted defeat because videogame adaptation are extremely hard, and so far none are very well made.

 “I wrote a couple of drafts and then they brought on a new writer… When I was on it I was definitely adapting the first game. That story, it was very much the first game. And that was the approach.”

“It was the first game adaptation I did and it will probably be the only one. They’re hard. I will freely admit it was hard. Because – especially with ‘Mass Effect’ - there’s just so much material. Narratively, with the game, you’re talking about nine, ten hours of narrative you’re jamming into two hours.

“I hope they pull it off. I’d love to see a ‘Mass Effect’ movie. I think I did some good work, but even I’ll admit I didn’t pull it off.”

Mass Effect is one though game to adapt, not only because of the choice aspect that it has, but because the whole story is massive. Putting aside the side missions and DLC’s, you have at least seven different villains in the franchise, and five of them are in the first game, Sovereign, Cerberus, Saren, Matriarch Benezia and the Thorian, and even if you take the Thorian out because he’s “less important” you still have four to worry about, and there are also in the first game eleven “good” characters and seven of them are lead characters, so if they are going to stick to the game, some important characters might be chopped off.

But the film could also go another way an be about things that are mentioned in the game but we never see, like the First Contact War between the Turians and Humans or even the Geth uprising against the Quarians, or something along those lines.

What do you think?   

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