Mass Effect: Paragon Lost (2012)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

before i get into this review id like to state the difference between paragon and renegade in the mass effect series as a whole. paragon and renegade choices aren't supposed to be simply as good vs evil. paragon represents Idealism a.k.a. the Socrates school of philosophy and Renegade represents Pragmatism a.k.a. the Machiavellian "Ends Justify The Means" or in simpler terms for you numnuts out there, paragon is lawful good and renegade is chaotic good. when playing the mass effect trilogy as commander Shepard i usually mixed these up and played as either a paragade or a renagon, essentially a mix of both moralities to make both a realistic and idealistic protagonist.now onto the review, first of all the story:(SPOILERS AHEAD)this film is essentially part of the backstory of alliance marine James Vegas deployment on a colony planet and his encounter with the collectors from mass effect 2. one thing you will notice about James is his good leadership skills and combat expertise. another noticeable trait from James is his admiration and idolization of commander Shepard from the mass effect trilogy, going so far as to wear a badge commemorating the remembrance of the ssv Normandy. members of Vegas squad, his captain and even admiral Hackett mention this. either teasing him for it or warning him that "greatness like that comes at a great price". the other characters were well created and felt like real people in a terrible and life threatening situation. tough not everything was combat and action, there were both fun and lighthearted moments between Vega, his squad and the colonists and some very emotional and heart breaking moments such as the death of one Vegas squad member and James final decision near the end of the film. id say that this was a 10 out of 10 for me, being a fan of the mass effect franchise as a whole i loved it. the animation was very good and the soundtrack was phenomenal.also the reason why the movie is called "paragon lost" is because James Vega himself is a very paragon character. its the reason why he admires and looks up to commander Shepard because Shepard saved the galaxy against impossible odds in mass effect 1 and became regarded as a true hero around the galaxy. near the end of the film Vega had the choice of saving the colonists or saving the intel on the collectors. James made the renegade choice, he saved the intel at the cost of the colonists, as such he lost his paragon. even tough James greatly admires Shepard and wants to follow in his footsteps, he has no idea what its like to be Shepard. when playing as commander Shepard in the mass effect trilogy i had to make dozens of tough choices and decisions both good and bad and live with the consequences. when James went trough the exact same ordeal it emotionally destroyed him, ironically making him experience what its like to be Shepard. when you meet him in mass effect 3, he still admires you but after experiencing firsthand what its like to be him Vegas idolization has been replaced with respect and relief of not being commander Shepard who he sees as a "loco"AKA crazy. for the things that the commander has done. its a very a mentor protégé like relationship between those two and part of the reason why i love his character.

Mass Effect: Paragon Lost is by no means the worst video game movie adaptation I've seen in my life, but it's the only one we have of the Mass Effect universe, a game series published by Bioware. The problem is the quality of that game series. Mass Effect is all about the story. It is a vast, epic saga of galaxy in peril and is to be counted, at least in my opinion, among the greatest of space operas, along with Star Wars and Star Trek. So you can imagine that in my honest opinion a cheap anime-style direct-to-video tie-in doesn't quite cut it.Taking place during the events of the second game and telling the backstory of one James Vega, an eventual teammate in the third game, the movie admittedly has a few good things going for it. The character animations and designs, for one, are mostly pretty good. They look like the characters from the game, the facial expressions are evocative and the action scenes work. I have no idea why they made the krogans and the collectors appear almost twice as big as they are in the games, but that's a nitpick.The ending is also surprisingly good, capturing the essence of the Mass Effect games and their tendency to make you face extremely tough choices, usually between the good of the individual and the good of the society.But then, the downsides. While the characters are animated decently enough, given the budget, the backgrounds are pure guano. They're cheap CGI garbage, clash horribly with the actual characters and don't convince for a second. Every single background in the actual games was more convincing than anything in this film. And the first one of those came out five years before this film.The story is also lame, aside from the ending. It shows us nothing new of the Mass Effect universe, thus failing to please the existing fans, and it is pretty much inscrutable by anyone who has not played the games. There are few cutscenes to the previous events, and they're so quick that they don't help much. And it's not like it would have been hard to include a brief segment in the beginning. Like: "In 2147 humanity found a cache of alien technology on Mars. A decade later they managed to join the larger galactic society, which had flourished in the ruins of the civilization that came before them, the Protheans. Later this new galactic society was threatened by an ancient threat, known as the Reapers, led by Sovereign, a dreadnought spaceship of vast technological superiority and might. It was eventually beaten by the joint taskforce led by Commander Shepard, but his warnings about the eventual Reaper invasion were dismissed. And now he is believed dead." See? Not that hard, and would have made the whole movie infinitely more watchable to newcomers.So yeah, while Mass Effect: Paragon Lost is not as bad as it could have been, it's certainly not good either. That's mostly due to the limitation of the budget, I believe, but it still means that I cannot in good conscience recommend this to anyone. Not fans or newcomers. If you're a die-hard fan of the Mass Effect universe, you're going to see it anyway, in which case I can say that at least there's some good in it, but trust me, it's not worth it.

Okay as someone who has completed the first game and about three quarters of the second one that as a narrative the universe is very well thought through, the characters are very interesting - almost to a point of them feeling like real people and while the stories are simplistic, there is still a lot to work with. When I saw this anime, I bought it. I wondered how it can possibly be screwed up... Well, I have seen SOME video game to anime transitions that worked (like Resident Evil and Halo)... but this isn't one of them.Okay so the plot, after a bunch of characters which I have never seen nor heard about save a Human colony from The Krogan Blood Pack they stay and upgrade their defenses. 2 years later they find an unknown alien artifact and when they return they find that The Collectors are trying to take the humans away from the colony.Onto what I didn't like. These characters are some of the most generic washed up characters I have ever seen. I mean in Halo Forward Unto Dawn I didn't mind it as much because - It's Halo, that's an expectation. But I had no reason to care at all. I mean Vega's defining character is "I wish I could be like Shepard", that and the tools used to care about the colony - Sorry the little kid he befriends and her mother. I mean if the kid had more of a character then I might have cared about what happened at the ending but I didn't.The other complaints are that the animation is sub-par at best (at worst it's the frame rate changing), The movie borrows twists used in the game and plays them out in exactly the same way (when the only people I'm sure who would watch it is fans of the game) and that's around about it.Onto what I enjoyed - The last 10 minutes. I really enjoyed how it gets across the importance of choice and how sometimes these characters are between a rock and a hard place. I also think while the voice acting isn't anything on the games - it's decent enough and The Collectors is also something I think the movie does well. And the first action scene in the movie (The one where Vega and his squad to tactical maneuvers to outwit the enemy) is very well done.If you are a fan of the video games, there is a small chance you'll like this. If you aren't a fan of the video games then this will have you saying "What? Who? Why? Huh? OKAY WHAT JUST HAPPENED!" I admit that the first and last 10 minutes of this movie are really well done. I just think that there are a couple of things that falls short. If it had characters from the original Mass Effect and just Chronicled the 2 years in-between games then I would have enjoyed this a lot more.

This movie is about James Vega, for those who don't know him he is a companion in Mass Effect 3 video game, you don't know much about him. But he loves earth and he is just as loyal as Shepherd and he wanted to make a difference so he decided to join the best, The N7, he stands for the earth's greatest contribution just like Shephard for humanity. This movie made me respect him a lot more and I decided to always take me with him, the more you progress in the game and the more you talk to your companions the more you hear about their background stories and what they've been through. He was not my favorite companion to bring along to missions but after have seen this movie it built up a lot of respect for him so I decided to take me with him even more and he suddenly became my favorite companion, he only hints small information about his background story and you can guess it was something terrible that happened to him and his squad, but you never knew what it was until this movie came. Now when I've seen it I could never have guessed how tragic it was for him to experience what he did. I'd say this movie represented his background story to the fullest. I gave it a 7/10, I had no problem with the cgi/animation and I loved the story, Mass Effect is about tough choices, what you believe is to be the best possible outcome, sacrifice and gain. The movie title speaks for itself. James Vega has my respect, thumbs up for this movie, bring us more Mass! Effect!