By Richard Cobbett on July 13th, 2012 at 4:00 pm.
Hurrah! It’s the first proper trailer for the upcoming anime prequel Mass Effect: Paragon Lost in all its glory. And by glory, I mean of course… oh good lord, you have to be kidding. It may have Production IG involved, but we’re not exactly talking Ghost In The Shell here. The fun series, I mean. Not the boring, over-rated movie and its even more tedious sequel.
Mass Effect fans, put down your plussedness. You shall need non of it today.
How do I dislike this awful trailer, let me count the ways. Firstly, I suspect the total will be slightly higher than the number of frames in this incredibly choppy action. Second, oh dear, that voiceover. Put down your damn cigar and copy of The Bumper Book Of Action Cliches and try again. I wonder how many times the actor accidentally said “the final frontier” instead of “the endless abyss”. Maybe he was distracted by the giant brain monster staring back at him from that nebula. It is quite distracting, with its giant eyes and gaseous smile…
As for it being James Vega, I’m not sure that we need the epic backstory of the guy who sat in my ship’s hold for the entire of Mass Effect 3, but never never mind. If he’s who Bioware wants to shill instead of someone, well, actually interesting, fine, whatever. I’m sure we’d have been bored by dark smuggling action on Omega or the Blasto movie anyway. It absolutely makes no sense to do lots of shorts exploring different corners of the Mass Effect universe, like Halo: Legends, only making them all really cool, unlike Halo: Legends. None at all. Sniff.
There is however no forgiving the line “Let’s get something straight. You ladies might be well-trained Special Forces, but you haven’t done squat.” Not only does that make me want to hear him cut off by the sound of Miranda, Liara, Ashley, Samara, Jack, Tali and Commander Fucking Shepard all walking in to take turns kicking this guy’s balls from Thessia to Tuchanka, I think we all know that this is how badass military talk goes in the Mass Effect universe.
Of course, this might just be an awful trailer, and the result might be another awesome animated game to video conversion like… uh… um… oh yeah. Sigh. Never mind. At least we’ll always have the official Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs movie to look back on.
13/07/2012 at 16:06 MythArcana says:
Chibis and Furries in Space. Just what we need. Yup, more PASS on the Emo Dilogy for me.
13/07/2012 at 16:07 coldvvvave says:
Gonna watch.
13/07/2012 at 16:07 magicwalnuts says:
Looks shit. Halo : Legends was shit too.
13/07/2012 at 16:07 Uthred says:
This looks like shit and I think the narration has made me actively stupider. Looks like Production IG had an intern bang it out in the shed. Doesnt even look as good as stuff several years older e.g. GITS:SAC
13/07/2012 at 16:10 JohnP says:
I didn’t realise they’d based the Mass Effect games off an 80s cartoon series.
13/07/2012 at 19:31 tossrStu says:
It’s true, they did!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOqHUa2LfNY
13/07/2012 at 20:28 Stickman says:
See, now I would watch that!
13/07/2012 at 22:42 Heliocentric says:
+1
14/07/2012 at 02:37 oansdffa says:
Also, time is clocked even when you’re not in a game, simply have the client up will track hours, and since it has in-built chat and friends lists, a lot of people just leave it running there.
http://www.japaneseemoticons.net/all-japanese-emoticons/
14/07/2012 at 14:29 cjlr says:
80s series, you say?
Man I am late with this one…
13/07/2012 at 16:12 Malawi Frontier Guard says:
Nice lipstick.
13/07/2012 at 16:13 Fincher says:
Shepard-kun, you needn’t be so forward uguu~
13/07/2012 at 17:16 Wooly says:
*vomits*
13/07/2012 at 18:18 Koozer says:
I’m not sure I want to know what you just said.
13/07/2012 at 18:36 Phantoon says:
Have you ever gigglesquee’d so hard you nom’d somebody’s head?
Sincerely, Nyoron~
13/07/2012 at 21:11 LionsPhil says:
That is so kawaii.
13/07/2012 at 23:20 BooleanBob says:
I was saying that I was starting again to remember why I left the Japanese animation club with Mort.
13/07/2012 at 16:13 westyfield says:
I liked James Vega. He stayed in the cargo bay as well, because I didn’t need another Soldier in my squad, but something about his character endeared him to me. He was refreshingly one-dimensional, just a rad dude and space marine who does 200,000,000,00 pull ups a day.
13/07/2012 at 16:53 Man Raised by Puffins says:
Yes, I’m partial to the big lunk as well. The shouted banter across the cargo bay between him and Esteban was a delight.
13/07/2012 at 18:38 Phantoon says:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5xhfCGcAYw Vega before he joined the crew.
13/07/2012 at 18:53 Memphis-Ahn says:
Biff McHuge.
13/07/2012 at 16:16 grundus says:
“Not the boring, over-rated movie”
I just gasped so hard I inhaled a spider, you owe me for this Cobbett. Overrated it may be, but boring? Slightly. Maybe my memories of both films, Innocence and two series are just merging together. This does, however, look like shit.
13/07/2012 at 16:20 Nailzcat says:
I too wish to register mild mannered disagreement about the 2nd GIS film. Even if I let “boring” slide, it looks so amazing that you should probably, er, look at it.
13/07/2012 at 16:20 JackShandy says:
Well, it did do that anime thing where the frame is totally still except for the mouths, which move in-between two states. For like fifteen minutes.
Edit, proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuTEGw3esok&feature=player_detailpage#t=2622s
13/07/2012 at 16:24 Richard Cobbett says:
The GITS movie is a dull clip-show conversion of a much better book which mistakes having long-winded conversations for actually saying anything interesting. Innocence is NyQuil in movie form. Ghost in the Shell 2.0 is just embarrassing.
But the series is really enjoyable.
13/07/2012 at 16:28 Dances to Podcasts says:
Ah, the old ‘the book was better’ argument. I’ll let it slide this time, Cobbett.
13/07/2012 at 16:38 Jesse L says:
Well, the book really is top-notch cyberpunk/transhumanism. If anybody reading this likes those genres/subjects and hasn’t read the Ghost in the Shell manga, look into it!
13/07/2012 at 17:50 farlander says:
It’s ceratinly not top-noth. Shirow himself admits in the afterword that GITS was pretty cursory as far as cyberpunk goes, and a little derivative. It was done fast – and it shows in the artwork and in flow of the panels. Still, it had likeable characters, it was not taking itself too seriously, and was for the most part, fun to read.
13/07/2012 at 16:41 farlander says:
Shirow is good with ideas but he is terrible storyteller. I like the comics, even “Man-Machine Interface”, but they are the weakest product in this franchise. GITS SAC is better than the comics and both Oshii movies are better than SAC.
13/07/2012 at 16:48 Richard Cobbett says:
GITS SAC always sounds like an old man’s testicles.
13/07/2012 at 16:50 Shooop says:
It’s definitely something to pick up sometime at a library. The movie only flirted with the theme of transhumanism (as cryptically, pretentiously, and poorly as humanly possible), but the book dives into it and the sociopolitical climate fairly well.
Haven’t seen the SAC series or the sequel. Sequel’s by the same director so it’s probably the same plodding self-indulgent bullshit.
13/07/2012 at 16:59 Icarus says:
SAC and Second Gig (and Solid State Society, the OAV) were utterly brilliant. The movie sequel didn’t thrill me in terms of story but it’s visually gorgeous and the soundtrack is fantastic. Worth a rental at least.
13/07/2012 at 19:25 Hematite says:
This is probably wasted breath in a thread about transhumanism literature, but everyone should definitely read Transmetropolitan. It’s mashed full of crazy ideas like a Charlie Stross book. I somehow went years without ever hearing of it until I picked it up at random on my own – I won’t let the same happen to anyone else!
13/07/2012 at 19:29 Dances to Podcasts says:
If you liked Transmetropolitan you should check out the Invisibles.
14/07/2012 at 01:09 Shooop says:
NOW we’re getting into the good stuff folks.
14/07/2012 at 11:59 Dilapinated says:
I think the GITS franchise in general does a very good job of the cyberpunk genre. The manga was good (fuchikoma! Also plot!), but you also had to plough through the author-appeal sections (“she’s a tough talking supermodel-lesbian-hacker-commando who talks guns, throws orgies and poses in skimpy outfits!”. See also Appleseed, though handled less transparently there iirc).
I liked the first GITS movie a lot. I’ll need to rewatch the second sometime. SAC was good, as was the OVA.
+1 to the “Read the Invisibles” crowd. Transmet is worth a read, but imo overrated.
13/07/2012 at 16:42 Shooop says:
This to infinity. That movie was pretentious, dull, and devoid of any purpose except showing off the animators’ skill. Nothing that made the comic good was in there.
13/07/2012 at 17:03 neonordnance says:
SIRS,
I am writing to relate my supreme disappointment in regards to your previous comments. Ghost in the Shell is, and remains, the best anime film ever made. Yes, it’s better than Akira. I found it to be tense, deep, well-acted and stunningly well-designed on the visual side.
It completely jettisoned many stale anime cliches in favor of telling a bold story, which brought up interesting questions and had several twists. Yes, it’s a bit pretentious. Yes, it’s a bit slow in parts. But the slowness builds tension, and the philosophical depth of some of the dialogue continues to be unmatched.
In addition, the plot rejects the tendency of anime, and action movies in general, to rely on huge setpieces, instead boiling down to small but messy confrontations.
I’m not a fanboy or anything. I don’t even really like anime, and I haven’t seen SAC. But I cannot in good conscience abide an attack on this fine film.
13/07/2012 at 17:08 Richard Cobbett says:
“As I stand here on this floating island of solitude, I stare through my cybernetic eyes at these citadels and hives of cybernetic corruption, and I wonder… am I human, or something else? Are the juices in my veins merely upgraded blood, or a network of canals from which I can never hope to climb out and regain what was lost. Is this progress, or merely being pushed forwards by cruel, uncaring fate? When I think, is it me who thinks, or a computerised program devised by cold science; the seneschals of transcendence guarding this uncertain future? Oh, woe. Cold. I am so cold. Sometimes, I wonder if I can even feel any more; feel anything except AAARGH MOTHERFUCKER YOU SHOT ME IN THE FUCKING LEG!”
“That’s one philosophical question down then. You’re buying the beer.”
13/07/2012 at 17:53 Shooop says:
It’s complete garbage.
It’s nothing but aimless meandering, sad attempts at waxing philosophical, and some nice eye candy. It’s like they took only one of several ideas the book explores (tanshumanism’s effect on individuals) and just had people pretend to talk about it for an hour, later fitting the sound clips into the movie. It’s pure pretentiousness disguised as an arthouse filck, a movie purposely written to go nowhere.
And as for stale anime cliches? How many times did Major take her clothes off and treat viewers to gratuitous tit-shots with the hilarious excuse that she needs to in order to use an advanced optical camouflage?
It’s the anime world’s Avatar: nice to look at, but under the shiny surface absolutely nothing there. Do yourself a favor and read the comic.
13/07/2012 at 18:25 farlander says:
The book does not explore anything interesting. It’s fluff. It was made to be fun, not deep, and it mostly succeds at that. The Ghost in the Shell book with ideas is Man-Machine Interface, but this one is only for hardcore Shirow fans.
13/07/2012 at 18:47 Shooop says:
Did you actually ever read it? It may have had a few panels of goofy humor sprinkled in it, but it did go into some interesting topics and politics.
The movie was shit, that fact is unavoidable.
14/07/2012 at 11:03 maninahat says:
Whilst I mostly agree with your criticisms (bland, pretentious and ultimately superficial movies, but something I find enjoyable all the same), I’m going to argue about the tit shots.
You’d have to have some crazy kinks if you, or anyone else, found the tit shots in GITS to be sexy. A Woman with muscles bulging out of the skin like coconuts in a stocking, tearing herself asunder through over-exertion is one of the least sexy things I’ve ever seen, and that’s kind of the point. The point is that in this future, emotions and desires are muted and nudity looks inhumane and mechanical (see also: opening).
The series, on the other hand, is crammed full of cheap tit and ass shots.
13/07/2012 at 18:53 Josh W says:
Glad to hear it! We watched the film, got the impression that this was like that portal live action thing, “at last that thing you like, but with people!” if you swap “people” for “big budget animation”. Lots of assuming that I knew who people were, and lots of lovely shots of something that presumably means something to the comics people.
It was ok, because I just went into non-linear story mode and imagined this was some kind of flashforward that the animes or whatever would fill out, but some of the other people I was watching it with were distinctly unimpressed.
13/07/2012 at 19:22 farlander says:
@shoop
Yup, I actuallly did. A couple of times at that. And I don’t find the politics interesting at all. And I didn’t find any ideas in it that weren’t explored in S-F before. I like it, I like the movie better. And they have very little in common, to be honest. Oshii just took a core story and made it his own. the movie is just as deep as the manga, i.e. not very, but I like it’s mood. Oshii was always good with that.
13/07/2012 at 19:53 Shooop says:
If by making it his own you mean making it pretentious, dull, plodding, meaningless, and pretending to be smarter than it really is, yes he certainly did. That “mood” is really just the slow creeping realization that the movie is going nowhere because it never knew where it was to begin with.
Hence why I won’t touch another Oshii flick with a 20 foot pole.
13/07/2012 at 19:55 SkittleDiddler says:
I don’t know why you’re bothering to debate some dweeb who says stuff like “The movie was shit, that fact is unavoidable”. It’s an exercise in pointlessness and troll-feeding.
13/07/2012 at 20:05 farlander says:
I’m sure that Oshii will cut himself when when he hears about that.
@SkittleDiddle
Bored. Will stop now.
13/07/2012 at 20:20 Shooop says:
It always lightens my mood when someone drops off a package of pure irony.
Today, delivered by a GitS fan who calls someone else a “dweb.” Excellent, where do I sign?
13/07/2012 at 21:25 SkittleDiddler says:
“…delivered by a GitS fan…”
Assumptions make an ass out of u. Me? I’m in the clear.
14/07/2012 at 01:07 Shooop says:
So you’re just white-knighting a movie you actually have never seen before just because an RPS editor and some other posters don’t like it?
So then you’re just trying to buck the trend for no other reason than you can?
That leaves you in a much, much more sad, strangle place you poor little one. The first thing to do when you’ve dug yourself into a hole is to stop digging. Or you can continue, it’s quite amusing. Let me know if you strike oil.
14/07/2012 at 07:16 SkittleDiddler says:
“So you’re just white-knighting a movie you actually have never seen before just because an RPS editor and some other posters don’t like it?”
You’re truly an idiot. Did I ever say I’ve never seen it? I have seen it, in fact it was a favorite of mine for several years until I grew up and started deciphering the flaws in it. GiTS is certainly not perfect, but it’s a far cry from the disaster you and your favorite RPS editor are claiming it is. What you two have is opinion, not fact, despite your puerile insistence otherwise.
You can’t even troll properly. Like I said: ass, u.
13/07/2012 at 17:11 Kilometrik says:
AAAAND the first writer in RPS that i’ll put in my “wont read list”.
A slow movie doesn’t even begin to mean a bad movie. Tarkovsky’s films are among the slowest films ever and the ones with the less plot and they are masterpieces. A slow pace is also a distinguishing quality among most eastern cinema. Loong stretches on which nothing happens. THat’s just who they are. Watch some korean, japanese, chinese and even russian films and you’ll notice that trend. Not stupid, loud, films which main purpose is to entertain but artful pieces which purpose is to make you think or to serve as a vehicle of expression to the author.
I would SO like writers to be requiered to read at least some books on aesthetic theory before even being allowed to give their opinion on art. Some tend to equate being a writer with automatically having an interesting and well thought out opinion.
I take it you are the kind of person who hates post modern books (YAY FOR PYNCHON!) and stories because they have no point and give no answers. But just don’t mistake personal taste with objective quality. I won’t say I know any objective qualities found in the GITS film save “it exists”, I’m not such a pretentious douche. I’ll just say i like it.
And also i believe you haven’t provided any criticism on the movie based on it’s cinematographic qualities, you just limited yourself to a few senseless criticism of it’s script and declared the whole movie bad. Wow. I think you may actually be one of those old fashioned people who think of movies sorely in terms of their storytelling. Or just not too bright. It’s not my place to decide.
13/07/2012 at 17:14 Richard Cobbett says:
“AAAAND the first writer in RPS that i’ll put in my “wont read list”.
Sounds like you’ve already started, since I didn’t say ‘slow’, I said ‘which mistakes having long-winded conversations for actually saying anything interesting’. That is not the same thing. To use another Oshii film, Patlabor 2 is also very slow, and deviates dramatically from the much lighter source material, but it’s a great film.
But thanks for playing!
13/07/2012 at 17:26 Kilometrik says:
I Edited the message and added further points to adress your criticism about dialogue. Again i say: Dialogue’s only function is no to transmit information. It can also transmit personality, style, tone, mood. Not all art is about delivering something to the one who watches. THere are tons and tons of books which thrive on speaking much and not saying anything. Like Pynchon, Burroughs and many others.
Hell, even before post modernism Style was an end on it’s own. With Faulkner and Joyce and others. Finnegan’s Wake is a whole book about saying a lot and not saying anything. Sometimes, the style IS the substance.
13/07/2012 at 17:32 Richard Cobbett says:
Wow, after being belittling and insulting over deconstructions of points that you yourself were the only one to make, you hold out even a smidgen of hope that I actually have any interest in what you think? Impressive!
13/07/2012 at 18:02 archimandrite says:
Poking at the Sacred Cows of Nerd-dom is always a good way to get page hits!
13/07/2012 at 18:43 Phantoon says:
As someone that entertains a conspiracy theory that Richard Cobbett is the reason I can’t post half the time, you’re really ridiculous, and need to calm down.
It’s not like he called you a hitler. He just said the he thinks that Ghost in the Shell isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. At no point does that mean you can go ahead and act like he questioned your parentage- that’s ridiculous.
Stop it. Stop it right now.
13/07/2012 at 18:46 Richard Cobbett says:
In fairness, that is true. I don’t even have a reason!
13/07/2012 at 19:32 subedii says:
Hey, Patlabor 2, man I loved that film.
Not necessarily quite free of plot holes, but I really loved it.
13/07/2012 at 17:21 Mrs Columbo says:
Kilometrik tried so hard to kick Cobbett into Pseud’s Corner he tripped over his own didactics and ended up in the net himself.
13/07/2012 at 17:23 Richard Cobbett says:
Ssssh. He’s deducing more from a couple of lines than Sherlock Holmes could get out of a signed confession and videotape of a bank heist. If we leave alone for a bit, we’ll have this week’s winning lottery numbers by eight.
13/07/2012 at 22:37 Zimdictive says:
“He’s deducing more from a couple of lines than Sherlock Holmes[...]”
I simply had to register to point out that perhaps Mr..Cobbett did not enjoy the philosophy contained within the GitS films because Mr. Cobbett does not understand philosophy, for anyone with a modicum of knowledge concerning the subject would know that what Kilometrik was doing, somewhat personal attacks included, was induction, and not, as Mr. Cobbett believes, deduction. This is such a schoolboy error that I must, through my own powers, of, ahem, induction, suggest that the dear RPS journalist has no formal education in the field of philosophy at all. For anyone who had would know that Sherlock Holmes mistakenly refers to one of his investigative talents as a power of “deduction” – and this being quite incorrect (for, crucially, nothing of what Mr. Holmes inferred from evidence, real or imagined, *must* have been true because of it; it only may have been true, or even been likely to have been true) was no mistake on the part of Conan Doyle, for he notes several times quite clearly that one thing Mr. Holmes knows nothing of is… philosophy. And Holmes amusing error is nothing but a little joke on the part of the author, a little irony considering how assured Holmes is of his judgements’ correctness… but, sadly one oft missed by the ill-informed… and one that has, invariably, led to a majority who are wrong at the absolute root of what they believe the correct usage of “deduction” to be…
13/07/2012 at 17:19 luckyb0y says:
Sure the first film has some dull, overwrought and unnecessary dialogs that only serve to spell out the underlying themes, but to claim it’s boring is going way to far. Opening scene action sequence is just jaw dropping, same goes for the fight with this big robot tank at the end, and these aren’t the only ones. Story isn’t that bad either. Sure it is fairly standard political thriller over the cyberpunk backdrop, but it so much more than the sum of its parts. If it wasn’t for the aforementioned chit-chat it would be up there with the Blade Runner. A rather funny coincidence if you consider the hated voice-over in the theatrical cut. Manga on the other hand is mediocre at best. The amount of fan service is just off-putting and the story is all but incomprehensible. At least we agree on the quality of the TV show.
13/07/2012 at 17:48 LionsPhil says:
Oh, Comrade Cobbett. Is there anything you’re not right about?
13/07/2012 at 17:51 Richard Cobbett says:
I try to make a point of being right about everything. Luckily, I always am.
13/07/2012 at 19:34 subedii says:
You’re wrong about the Ghost in the Shell movies.
There’s only one, and it’s called “Solid State Society”. The rest is a fever dream.
13/07/2012 at 19:56 SkittleDiddler says:
What’s he been right about?
13/07/2012 at 20:26 Shooop says:
Everything you’re wrong about.
Which is a very, very long list. It’ll take some time to compile it.
13/07/2012 at 21:26 SkittleDiddler says:
Ass-kissing is not a positive trait, Shooop.
14/07/2012 at 01:02 Shooop says:
No, but realizing when someone is right is.
Being a hopeless otaku (which is actually a derogatory term, think about that next time you proclaim yourself one) who’s so offended at the fact there are people who like movies who see through the GITS movie’s smokescreen of pretentious, self-indulgent bullshit is certainly not a positive trait.
Perhaps electroshock therapy is in order?
13/07/2012 at 20:01 Capt. Eduardo del Mango says:
“The series is really enjoyable.”
If you’re eight and can have your attention held by cuddly robots and don’t mind one page of plot stretched out to however many dozen episodes through delaying, dragging out and adding pointless filler.
13/07/2012 at 20:04 Richard Cobbett says:
Luckily I am, Mr. Poopy-pants.
13/07/2012 at 20:17 Capt. Eduardo del Mango says:
No, no, it’s a good thing. I like the people who made GITS, I’m sure they did very well from the plush Taichkoma sales that the series engendered. I bet ‘Taichkoma Babies’ would do well, too.
13/07/2012 at 23:04 Asyne says:
“The series is really enjoyable.”
The important thing to remember is that Kamiyama (SAC series) and Oshii (non-SAC films) took two different approaches in adapting Shirow’s manga.
Oshii made the film in his own style, source material notwithstanding. He changed GitS from a futuristic police drama (think CSI) into a grimdark art film, changing the focus from the politics and people to cyberspace and philosophy (the latter being entirely unexplored). Oshii’s adaptation was liberal, even inserting his own basset hound into Innocence because he liked the dog so much, and could do so because he had the authority of reputation from Patlabor and Urusei Yatsura.
Kamiyama, on the other hand, was more conservative. SAC fell back on the manga, only making a few changes, like removing some extraneous humor and revising character designs.
It is inevitably a matter of taste which is preferred, but should be remembered that ’95, ’04, and ’08 films are a severe departure from the original work.
13/07/2012 at 19:05 gwathdring says:
I watched it recently because I’m gearing up for running a cyberpunk RPG and I haven’t seen much in the way of cyberpunk films despite really loving the genre. Ghost in the Shell and Blade Runner were the first two I went for. Both disappointed me in different ways. I won’t go into Blade Runner because I think it was an incredible film in enough ways to count and it’s off topic.
Ghost in the Shell kept me watching. Something about it was compelling. The world and a few of the personalities kept convincing me there was more to be said and seen around the corner. I didn’t mind there not being a lot of action–that was fine. But I did mind that nothing happened. It felt like it had a very small amount of plot for the amount of film. It felt like it had a very small amount of plot for the sensation of in-world happening. It’s not like the story revolves around a simple string of murders and can afford to keep things … simple. It revolves around a rather intricate political power struggle, a string of murders, a mind-hacker, and the implications of a cybernetic world. Stuff should have been happening, preferably dialog and exploration rather than action (while there was plenty of dialog, little of it addressed anything but the philosophy of the world).
It also consistently avoided answering or exploring a lot of the questions it presented in dialog. So many of the pieces were in place, but they were left out on the table without proper assembly resulting in something that, were I to watch it a second time, would be a boring slog as I would be unable to convince myself the slow pacing was building to something as I did that first time. The characters also acted as mouthpieces far too often, stepping out of themselves to make long-winded remarks on society while they could have made the same commentary through shorter or at least more in-character dialog sequences.
GitS seemed to think it’s strong point was character and message, when it’s strong point where I was sitting was setting and tone. Going the more subdued route that, for example, Blade Runner took might have served it really well. Keeping the commentary and exposition to a minimum in favor of further world building and tone drama. A moodier GitS with more to say and less said would have been the movie everyone told me I was about to watch. What I actually watched ranks fairly low on my list of science fiction stories and low on my list of films.
13/07/2012 at 20:01 LionsPhil says:
I strongly approve of your third paragraph. It is why GitS is not, in fact, “deep”. Bringing up a point is not the same as exploring it.
13/07/2012 at 16:17 atticus says:
To get some insight into the ambitions Bioware have for the animated iterations of their games, please watch the newly released “Dragon Age – Dawn of the Seeker”.
Have some friends over for drinks while you watch it, to get the maximum amount of entertainment-value out of it.
Have fun!
Edit: I’m certain that a “Wot I Think” of said film by you mr. Cobbett would be a excellent read.
13/07/2012 at 16:25 Richard Cobbett says:
Is that out now? Awesome, I shall see if I can grab a copy.
13/07/2012 at 16:50 Casimir Effect says:
Sounds like it could become my new Dante’s Inferno: The Animated Epic. Get some buddies round and play the BEATRICE! drinking game, you won’t regret it.
13/07/2012 at 16:17 Schadenfreude says:
I can’t tell if the narrator is trying to sound like Anderson, Admiral Hackett or their unholy love child.
Either way it’s terrible.
13/07/2012 at 16:42 Vorphalack says:
It’s kind of like he was going for either the Fallout 3 intro guy, or the Bastion narrator, after they had been eating nothing but cigars for 20 years.
13/07/2012 at 16:18 Trent Hawkins says:
That “You ladies” line doesn’t quite work when there are ladies on the team.
13/07/2012 at 16:24 gladius2metal says:
+1 and they also look like teenagers…
13/07/2012 at 20:39 gwathdring says:
It is rather out of place in the relatively gender-neutral environment of Mass Effect. This isn’t a “no women on the frontlines” kind of military.
13/07/2012 at 16:22 Bluerps says:
” From the Writer of ‘Star Wars: The Clone Wars’ “.
The good Clone Wars, or the bad one?
… ah well, it’s probably the bad one. No one remembers the good one anyway.
13/07/2012 at 16:38 EPICTHEFAIL says:
There was a good one?
13/07/2012 at 16:42 Richard Cobbett says:
I didn’t see any because it’s Star Wars and that doesn’t interest me much, but I heard good things about the Tartakovsky made ones.
13/07/2012 at 16:58 Bluerps says:
Jup, I was talking about Tartakovsky’s.
That series was pretty much the last thing that had “Star Wars” in its name and that I liked.
13/07/2012 at 17:48 Voon says:
Just imagine Samurai Jack with Jedis. But really, everything’s better with ‘Tartakovsky’ and ‘Action’ put together
13/07/2012 at 18:18 stahlwerk says:
And now I want someone to remake star wars episode 1-3 as Tarkovsky would have envisioned them.
13/07/2012 at 18:55 Carra says:
They would take 6 hours a piece for starters.
13/07/2012 at 19:52 subedii says:
Tartakovsky managed to take 3 minute shorts, and with them craft more creativity and simple depth into them than George Lucas ever managed with 3 whole freaking movies.
The biggest disconect for me was General Grievous.
For those that don’t know what I’m talking about, basically just watch this and imagine watching it before having seen the official “movie” version of the character:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3OeWuzyQ1Q&hd=1
Basically the first series finished before Episode 3 came out. We didn’t know much about Grievous other than what he looked like and that he was meant to be a Jedi killing cyborg. So that’s what Tartakovsky ran with.
And it made me look forward to Episode 3 because General Grievous was such an awesomely menacing character. Come the movie and he’s a freaking joke, and in series 2 of Clone Wars Tartakovsky has to retcon in his whole “ailing health” thing.
13/07/2012 at 20:17 LionsPhil says:
Hunh. There was a version of wheezebot that wasn’t completely awful.
13/07/2012 at 20:26 subedii says:
Since that series ends with the start of Episode 3, they literally throw in “wheezebot” in the very last minute of the series.
Nothing could ever retcon the ridiculous personality though.
14/07/2012 at 00:30 E_FD says:
I’m glad to be reminded that I’m not the only one who always misreads Tartakovsky as Tarkovsky and gets confused expecting existential Soviet art films.
13/07/2012 at 21:02 gwathdring says:
Huh. This is pretty good. :) Thanks for recommending it, folks.
13/07/2012 at 16:24 Shinan says:
It looks like the animated space parody in GTA4. But this is supposed to be serious?
13/07/2012 at 16:25 EPICTHEFAIL says:
This is so incredibly awful I just vomited a little. No regard for the visual style of Mass Effect (krogan do not look like that), narration that makes Chris Paolini look like the most original writer ever, continuity fail (blaster beams? REALLY? And since when does Mass Effect have a fucking pump-action shotgun?). I sincerely hope this abomination and insult to the ME universe dies in fucking flames, hopefully before it is even released.
13/07/2012 at 16:26 BatmanBaggins says:
Looks absolutely awful. Well done!
13/07/2012 at 16:30 Bharg says:
But, but… I liked the first movie after watching the series.
Wow, imagine this would look anything like GitS… That would be an awesome series.
13/07/2012 at 16:30 Ateius says:
That exchange between the soldiers was absolutely the highlight of ME2 for me. A lot was rubbish, but those little incidental vignettes were great, they really were.
Unlike this new anime thing, which appears to be entirely rubbish with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. What was it one of the devs said back when they were announcing the DA anime/spinoff? They want to use anime because it’s possible to “tell more mature stories”? Yeah, I can really see you using the medium to its (arbitrarily claimed) full potential here guys.
13/07/2012 at 16:37 westyfield says:
“more mature stories”
THIS IS THE NEW SHIIIIIIIIIIIT!
13/07/2012 at 17:57 mlaskus says:
…I liked that trailer :(
13/07/2012 at 16:47 Phantoon says:
Yeah. The overall storyline of ME2 was dumb, but the small details were pretty great. The Sir Isaac Newton bit had to be my favorite bit of dialogue in the entire game, not that there was all that much to choose from.
13/07/2012 at 16:46 Phantoon says:
They should’ve just put “GIVE US ALL YOUR MONEY” on the screen with explosions behind it for an hour.
Same Effect.
13/07/2012 at 16:49 Vinraith says:
I’m playing ME3 as we speak, and I keep looking for the button that vents the shuttle bay to space.
13/07/2012 at 16:54 Iliya Moroumetz says:
All I can really say is ‘Oh dear…’ and just leave it at that.
13/07/2012 at 16:56 Apples says:
It’s like there’s two parts of Bioware: the part that at least tries to be inclusive and original, and the part that keeps commissioning terrible animes and insulting anime figurines and posting the word ‘glomp’ on the forums. But judging from the comments on facebook, most of the fans like the second part.
P.S. “Mass Effect fans, put down your plussedness. You shall need non of it today.” To be nonplussed is to be confused, not bored or uninterested! Just sayin’!
edit: ahahaha i thought it was my work computer being slow but it really is about 1FPS!
13/07/2012 at 17:12 SkittleDiddler says:
I’m pretty sure the marketing and promotional material for all of BioWare’s games can be blamed entirely on EA.
13/07/2012 at 17:04 Hmm-Hmm. says:
Looks like they tried awfully hard to make this really.. awful.
13/07/2012 at 17:11 Lukasz says:
the guy with glasses…. he is the nerdy one! the math boy. he was picked at school.
does remind me of daniel jackson tough.
13/07/2012 at 17:13 Delusibeta says:
After the Dragon Age anime (spoiler alert: it was shite), the only value this will provide is the blogs and forums reviewing this trying to extend an “it’s shit” post as far as they can go.
13/07/2012 at 17:17 Inverness says:
Why doesn’t BioWare understand that we’d much rather watch Garrus’s adventures as Archangel on Omega? He’s basically acting like Batman.
The trend of the games and comics makes be believe that BioWare is just bad at casting aliens as anything other than side characters. They were so surprised at how so many loved Garrus and Tali in the first game.
13/07/2012 at 22:04 gwathdring says:
:\
13/07/2012 at 17:35 Solidstate89 says:
I had a momentary glimps of hope when I saw the screenshot since I could tell from the animation style alone that it was Production I.G.
Than I saw the trailer – Boo Hiss. They’re capable of so much better. Delivering shows like Ghost in the Shell, Appleseed, Sky Crawlers, etc, etc and this is the best they can do for this?
Ahh well. Back to watching Solid State Society I suppose :)
13/07/2012 at 17:37 Richard Cobbett says:
Funimation/T.O really, from the credits on the website. Production IG on art, but this doesn’t look like anything more than a contract job to them. You’re not going to get their A-game on that.
13/07/2012 at 17:46 Keymonk says:
Wait… it’s a prequel to what exactly? I hope it’s not a prequel to the series, because that frankly wouldn’t make a lot of sense, given his ‘Commander Shepard once said’ line…
13/07/2012 at 17:47 Richard Cobbett says:
Mass Effect 3. You can see the Collector swarms mid-way through, so probably between Shepard’s death and rebirth, but focusing on Vega and his team.
13/07/2012 at 17:49 Keymonk says:
Ah, that makes more sense then. :D
13/07/2012 at 18:03 EPICTHEFAIL says:
Yup, that one mission where his squad got ganked by Collectors because he wanted intel. Then Shep came along…
13/07/2012 at 18:05 EPICTHEFAIL says:
Edit: nevermind, i`m an idiot.
13/07/2012 at 18:16 Yosharian says:
“Not the boring, over-rated movie and its even more tedious sequel.”
Oh no he di’nt
13/07/2012 at 18:19 casshern09 says:
I cannot believe they called Ghost In The Shell “boring and over-rated” There are no words to describe how wrong that is. Yes even though it’s personal preference, it’s still wrong.
13/07/2012 at 18:24 stahlwerk says:
I own GITS on VHS, watched it once, liked some scenes, but overall not too exciting. I’m not sure, though, maybe it’s the buyer’s regret edition.
13/07/2012 at 18:31 Richard Cobbett says:
“There are no words to describe how wrong that is.”
Sure there is. A very small one, in fact.
“Not.”
13/07/2012 at 19:03 farlander says:
“stupendously”?
13/07/2012 at 19:52 Richard Cobbett says:
“Stupendously not” works too, yes. Though it’s not as pithy.
13/07/2012 at 20:19 farlander says:
(doing kochamara impression)
Good one.
13/07/2012 at 18:58 Shooop says:
At least there’s one other person on the internet out there who knows the GITS movie by Oshii is a pretentious, dull, meandering, half-assed art house flick wannabe and not afraid to say it.
Why such a talented team of animators haven’t done anything since with a decent script instead is a mystery to me.
13/07/2012 at 19:01 Josh W says:
It’d be nice to have it be a different kind of prequel, where ever single character could be commander shepard, given that between them they hit every permutation of his/her background, and no-one is ever referred to by their last name.
13/07/2012 at 20:30 JethroD says:
Great (Mass Effect) + Awful (Anime) = Awful
13/07/2012 at 20:47 sinister agent says:
I assume none of these characters show up in the games, on the grounds that Mass Effect didn’t have any fifteen year olds running around playing soldiers.
13/07/2012 at 20:58 coldvvvave says:
So much hate.
13/07/2012 at 23:32 Theon says:
“Where you find soldiers, you’ll find heroes.”
Jeez, what a repulsive thing to say.
14/07/2012 at 00:38 Acorino says:
So, Richard, you didn’t like Jin Roh either?
14/07/2012 at 00:40 Richard Cobbett says:
It’s not my favourite anime by a long shot, but I thought it was okay. Set itself a relatively simple story with some good imagery and told it fine.
14/07/2012 at 02:31 equatorian says:
1. I like anime. Lots. Our culture is pretty saturated with it, what with more than half the shows running on TV coming from Japan and Korea and all. (I will admit, however, that the really stupid ones are incredibly stupid.)
2. This looks horrible. I’ve seen stuff from the 1990′s that looks better than this, and who the hell did they get to write the script? That’s really not Production IG’s usual style, they tend to err towards the understated rather than the hilariously, offensively brouhaha.
14/07/2012 at 13:49 Solidstate89 says:
Well according to Sir Richard Cobbett in the response he made to my post, it looks like Funimation is mostly responsible for this travesty. While Production I.G. is just paid so they can use their name and claim they had some hand in making it. When really it seems like they did the animation and nothing else.
14/07/2012 at 12:30 RegisteredUser says:
I knew it, I knew it, I knew it.
I was so hoping to see a fanboy(both of the movie as well as the Anime/Manga stuff overall) fight-fest in the comments section about the GITS comment, and boy did the threads deliver.
Both sides beautifully deconstruct-insulted each other.
Bravo!
15/07/2012 at 09:32 Colnakdc says:
i’d prefer a short about some geth talking. less boring, shorter, probably better executed.