hay guise another paragon lost blog

just watched it.

wtf. i expected better, considering it was frikkin Production I.G who made this. i'm guessing bioware DIDN'T throw enough money on the project and the animators simply decided to parcel out the meager budget wisely. read on for more opinionated nonsense.

audio

• thematically appropriate music for what's shown. fairly reminiscent of series fare but with a bigger feel.
• bonus points for featuring actual ME soundbytes like weapons fire or varren growls (although i'm guessing that's pretty much standard fare for all such cross-media adaptations).
  • minus points for occasionally putting the wrong sounds on stuff
    • mattocks firing full auto avenger sounds? we now have proof zaeed isn't the only one who can do that.
    • praetorian harvester? wut.
• minus points for hiring voice actors on the cheap. can't get keith david, lance henriksen (and possibly ali hillis) etc? oh my. their substitutes (and everyone else) did passable performances but it just doesn't feel the same without the ones we're used to.
  • freddie prinze does a real good job being muscles mcsteroids though.
• collector alien language. woot. (even though it's just gargles)
• elcor-sounding collector "general"(? looked like one) when it deigned to speak english. dunno if intentional or not but amusing nonetheless.
• makes me wonder how the film sounds like in japanese.

video

• off-model. LLLOTS of off-model. i understand some penny-pinching must be done since the quality sections of the film really show (the CGI parts and a couple of action sequences) but when the crap segments come up, they're so blatantly conspicuous you'd ask yourself just how much money (or care) went into the visuals and you'll always arrive at the most logical conclusion: not much.
  • giant collectors. literally giant. then magically scaling down when plot demands. goes for some weapons too. lol.
• surprisingly detailed collector ship compared to the ME2 model.
• good idea on curving up the kodiak. we all can't be boxxy in the future now could we.
• great idea on a linear prothean flashback for a change.
• green bolts of light from collector weaps? well, ok. a little deviation's ok from time to time.
• no mako that can climb and climb for days. just a mako. :(
• alt varren designs. yay variety. and krogan for that matter.
• fail vorcha. looked like blobs of color at best.

lore

• we all know big mclargehuge's backstory in broad strokes so it's no spoiler most everyone dies. the question is in what order and who. spoiler: it's irrelevant. you wouldn't really find yourself emphatizing much.
  • toni was "a hard-assed sonovabitch" ? didn't really show during his few minutes of screentime.
  • kamille - asskicking fanservice for the males. who sometimes fail in the latter regard.
  • nicky - heroworshipping genius younger brother archetype.
  • brood - bloodknight but honorable krogan.
  • treeya - defrosting ice queen.
  • mason - redshirt. who happens to shack up with the human fanservice. also black.
  • milque - cold sniper. made of iron.
  • essex - chivalrous pervert. who goes nowhere with the human fanservice.
  • archuk - redshirt.
  • 
    april - morality chain.
  • messner - smooth talker type. if you're more cynical (or paid more attention to vega's shepard sessions) you'd probably figure out what he is from the start.
    • i'm quite surprised about treeya's fate. but at least we now confirmed the motivation behind vega's comments after thessia falls.
• citadel over a planet. lulz. but hey, we do know it can be moved so who are we to scream "lore break".
• intact sovereign. heh.
• battery-powered biotics. uh, wat? i'd like to think of this as battery-augmented biotics. maybe essex is just a pisspoor biotic without em.
• N7 Defender-type armor. maybe we're seeing a crappier variant for terminus-bound grunts even in 2183? when even almighty shep is stuck with the ugly colossus and predator armors?
• heavy weapons. woo.
• 
  full-auto mantis. well the game cutscenes themselves are often guilty of ignoring such restrictions.
• they fought as a squad, not in threes. realism! (although circumstances reduced their fighting power from time to time)
• N7 commendation. ME3: someone recommended him for N7 the day the reapers attacked earth. paragon lost: presented during hackett and anderson's congrats. wat again? ok, let's try to reconcile these disparate events. all my opinion of course.
  • there's a more "official" n7 commendation. what hackett and anderson presented is sorta like that diploma you get handed on at graduation: it has no real power but it has the words. what vega got the day earth got attacked was the "official" one.
  • vega wearing n7 armor with some other marines wearing n7 armor. so when's the timeframe for this event?
    • this one will appeal to the indoctrination crazies: vega (re)training for n7 happens after destroy or control since he doesn't exhibit the glowing green eyes and circuitboards.
    • alternatively, it's all in his head. which brings up a crackpot theory: everything lore inconsistent in the movie can be attributed to james being the POV character and us viewing events through his recollections/memories/imagination. :p
• if you count james making giblets of collectors every now and then as "carnage", then it probably is.

bits

we know from ME3 vega's actions basically amounted to nothing. final scenes for paragon lost show him being congratulated by hackett and anderson for the intel. then having a BSOD on fehl prime. well, we have to cut the guy some slack. he chose the intel over the colony, and given how the film depicts that critical juncture of choosing you can't really hammer it in by getting the admirals to say "hey dawg you slagged a colony for nothing shep already blew up the collector base."

that'd be too cruel.

although in my opinion maybe they should've. or that's just the sadist in me.

that said, that agonizing moment of truth is what's probably the main draw of the film. everything else, his decisions and mistakes, the lack of connectability of everyone, is simply lead-up. there's really not enough time on 1 1/2 hours to squeeze fully-fleshed personalities on everyone since this is a story about vega, not them. add to that they spend most of the film gunning down one threat or another. what matters is that those people mattered to james, who probably knew them as more than what we're shown on the screen, and that he had to realize the complexities of leadership the hard way.

tl;dr: good addition to the lore, but not exceptional. though you'll end up wishing it was. blame the budget if anything.

PS i don't have the movie yet in 1080p so no caps from there for now. there's no hurry anyway. Had them since almost 2 years ago and only decided to necro this post on a whim.

oh yeah, and merry nondenominational greetings to all.