One of the best parts of the
Mass Effect franchise is how expansive it is with it's huge cast of species, characters and content. Each game can be spanned over dozens of hours of content depending on how the player progresses through the story. The series has also been expanded through novels, comics and animated movies. Other than knowing that the film is
confirmed to feature a Male Shepard and center around the first game, we don't know much else.
While speaking to
Kotaku, Drew Karpyshyn (who was the one of the biggest creative forces behind the series) let loose his thoughts on the Hollywood adaptation.
“I think taking a video game and putting it into another form—book, movie, or whatever—is very complicated, especially a BioWare game. We have 30 hours of content!" Karpyshyn first noted. He then went on to say how most fans and players will be annoyed that their Shepard won't be featured in the film, saying
“Obviously, you’re going to have to define Shepard which is going to annoy a lot of the fans. ‘Hey, my Shepard was female.’ ‘Hey, my Shepard was Paragon.’ Or ‘My Shepard didn’t have a romance.’ That is something you just can’t avoid as a film.”. Karpyshyn also noted that one of the negatives of adapting
Mass Effect is that you'll have to remove many of the elements or fan-favorite characters.
"What you have to do, and I know fans don’t want to hear this, but you have to remove some of those characters. I think you just have to realize we can’t tell everything that’s in the game in a two-hour movie. Some of them are just going to be cameos. Sometimes, Hollywood doesn’t want to annoy anybody. But to make it work you have to say, 'OK, you know what? I don’t know, maybe there’s no Tali." he said.
Later on in the interview, Karpyshyn finally gave his thoughts on what's absolutely NEEDED in the
Mass Effect screenplay, so let's hope current scribe Morgan Davis Foehl is reading this.
“As far as what I think they really need to leave in, for me, [Mass Effect is] really about this idea that humanity is the newcomer and trying to prove themselves to the other races or trying to find their place. Humans as newcomers will allow you to have these different species and lets viewers react to them. [...]It’s important to see that element in there as well and really get a sense that everybody is watching what humans do and the humans are trying to figure out their place in the universe. For me, I hope that’s one of the things I really hope they’re able to capture in the film if and when it ever gets made.” Karpyshyn explained.
There is currently no tentative release date for
Mass Effect, but do you agree with everything Karpyshyn said? Do you think Mass Effect needs compression, and if so, who would you remove? Head over to Kotaku to read the interview in full.