At 8:00PM Saturday night during New York Comic Con 2012, Funimation aired the yet to be released Mass Effect: Paragon Lost in its entirety. I managed to get a front row seat to this highly anticipated anime installment in the now expansive Mass Effect franchise. While I was too busy enjoying the film to worry about taking pictures and the like, below follows a brief synopsis of my impressions.
Mass Effect: Paragon Lost. Property of Bioware, Production I.G.
The film explains what happened to James Vega before making his appearance in Mass Effect 3. I have to admit, I didn't like him when I first played the game; however, his simple outlook and down-to-earth nature eventually grew on me. Paragon Lost takes that very same character and makes him infinitely more epic than he ever was in the game: this film places him on par with Commander Shepard himself. I clearly don't understand the physics that operate in Mass Effect like I thought I did, because in this film James was flipping in the air as nimbly as Spiderman, rolling and dodging Krogan attacks like a dancer. He comes off as a complete Shepard fan boy (like he does in ME3), but it seems Shepard can stand to learn a thing or two from the immortal, unstoppable James Vega.
Mass Effect: Paragon Lost. Property of Bioware, Production I.G.
The film takes place during the Fehl Prime incident Vega never stopped crying about in ME3, where the Collectors invade and nearly everyone in the colony dies. Because fans of the franchise already know the story's outcome, the questions becomes, “How can audiences still feel bad for all these characters who we know are supposed to die anyway?” Character development wasn't stressed beyond embellishing Vega a bit, and this might be considered a negative aspect of the film. Paragon Lost depicts Vega as a strong and compassionate soldier who puts himself on the line for the sake of his closest friends, occasionally sprinkling sentences with random Spanish words. His party is a motley band of soldiers, with members such as the hardcore Kamille (voiced by Laura Bailey), sniper/tech infiltrator Milque (voiced by Todd Haberkorn), and eventually Asari scientist Treeya (voiced by Monica Rial). Their interactions were quite humorous; the film could not have succeeded without a few laughs because if it took the comedy out, the entire story would be unbelievably depressing. Literally, almost everyone dies, including an awkwardly cute, toothless child April, who adorably claims that she and Vega are married.
Mass Effect: Paragon Lost. Property of Bioware, Production I.G.
Fans of the series who aren't too interested in anime will be pleasantly surprised: Paragon Lost doesn't unfold like your standard anime at all. Several days ago I spoke with Chris Priestly (Bioware Community Specialist), who confessed that he was blown away by Paragon Lost despite his usual disinterest in anime. The animation isn't too exaggerated and character designs are quite simple, which I at first disliked until considering that Mass Effect is a story mainly aimed at Western audiences that have a completely different conception of what cartoons should do and look like. If Production I.G. made Paragon Lost into an FLCL-type of animation, people would get scared.
Mass Effect: Paragon Lost. Property of Bioware, Production I.G.
The tackling of mature themes is another reason why Paragon Lost should appeal to Western audiences. The film opens up with a bloody fracas between the Krogan Blood Pack mercenaries and Vega's squad. Those incredibly ugly vorcha are blown into smithereens several times, and at the end of the battle a krogan's head is sniped clean off. The action is fluid, exhilarating, and most of all, violent.
On a similar note, at the end of the film Vega goes through something like a psychological breakdown as he remembers how the colony was destroyed. Hell, I almost cried with him and Treeya.
Mass Effect: Paragon Lost. Property of Bioware, Production I.G.
All in all, I think this film is a darn good one, but ultimately succeeds as a work that caters to fans of the Mass Effect franchise. As I told Justin Rojas in a brief interview after the film, “Paragon Lost has beautiful animation and music, and a tearjerker ending to literally die for. I think it's greatest appeal will be to those who really know about Mass Effect, because there are some details and jokes that aren't too easy to spot otherwise (asari all look the same and everyone likes them; krogan are always packing weapons; the impressive attention to detail the weapons have, mirroring their in-game counterparts)."
The film was originally slated for a November release, but was pushed back to December 28th not too long ago. Mass Effect fans need to buy this for sure. Those who haven't played the games or read the comics or books already may just find their motivation in this film.
Keelah se'lai!
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