Mass Effect Movie

Today at Comic-Con, some of the people behind the "upcoming" Mass Effect movie discussed some first details about plans for the movie. They seemed really excited about the project and promised to not make the mistakes of other video game movies. Can they really promise such a thing? Video game movies are almost always bad (or at least middling) and there are only a few reasons I could see why this wouldn't follow that trend.

Quite a few video game worlds are somewhat dull and unbelievable. How many shooters (for example) are there with nondescript Eastern settings and predictable plots? Mass Effect at least has the advantage of being one of the most complex and interesting game worlds ever created, with plenty of room in the universe to expand new and different storylines. With the right writer and enough feedback from the producers at Bioware, it has one of the best chances at doing well I've ever seen.

The other main fault I see in game movies is the indecision the filmmakers have in their portrayal of the story from the games. Some crib heavily from existing stories while others choose to make entirely new ones, warping the fiction into something they think is more "marketable" for everyone. This rarely goes well, with disasters like Super Mario Bros. and Double Dragon. With Mass Effect, the story of the game is something that actually could be used to great effect (I kinda hope they don't though). Most of the strength of the games come from the amazing characters but a slightly more interesting story could be fleshed out from it.

We have to wait and see how this eventually turns out. The movie won't be out for years yet at least and has the distinct possibility of never coming out. So many game movies have fallen by the wayside in the last five years or so, disappearing into setback after setback. Mass Effect has a really good chance though, even if I think it doesn't really need to have a movie made from it.