The Prothean archives have been on Mars forever. It’s the first alien ruin humans discovered before joining the galaxy. Now, though, as desperation kicks in, archaeologists, including Liara, give this site another look. Hidden here are plans for a Reaper-defeating weapon. The Protheans were so close to finishing it. We are to join with Liara and get this plan back to Alliance command.
However, Cerberus is after the same thing. They’re dressed as commandos, and they fight us for the Prothean information. When we lift the faceplate on one of the dead, we see he’s part-husk. At this point our old crewmate (Kaidan or Ashley) asks Shepard if she’s just a puppet, too, for Cerberus. They did rebuild Shepard, after all.
Aang wakes before everyone else, excited that he will finally begin to learn earth bending.
Sokka grumbles and rolls over in his sleeping bag.
THREE
A rock explosion, and Toph cheerfully bursts from her stone tent, ready to teach. Sokka moans, and Toph earth bends his bag into the air. Mumble-cursing, Sokka hops away.
Maguire’s Spiderman is like a retriever who always brings the slimy tennis ball to drop in your lap. The dog is so cheerful, so proud, and so annoying. And if you shoo the dog away you’ll feel terrible because you broke its heart.
Maguire is the Pity Peter. He’s nice and he’s trying really hard to take down the villain. However, he went petty and nasty once and got his Uncle Ben killed. No amount of smiles will change that fact. Even Aunt May, after he confesses, has to leave the room and reorient her mind before she can look at him again. He’s so busy bringing the rancid dog toy back that MJ gives up on him and becomes engaged to someone else.
Lol, wow. Time has moved on and Peter, to me, has aged very poorly. I didn’t know I had such a harsh verdict within me!
You know what it is? I might hate the moment when Peter lets the robber leave. I mean, from a writing perspective. It’s not him. He’s so ingenuous at every other scene, so open and trusting and fair. The writers did him wrong here. He’s otherwise so vulnerable I want to say he’s a Two. That’s a mistake, though. Look at his brainy introversion! Peter is a Head Type; that’s why his spidey swings are so joyous. It’s nothing he’s ever experienced before or even knew he wanted. That’s also why — lol — he looks like he’s going to miss the next grab while he flails about.
He’s a Six. Rules, even rules about his own fear, are important. That’s another reason the robber scene is wrong. A Six wouldn’t break the rules, but he would cower. Overcoming his timidity would be a crucial step. Uncle Ben still dies, but it’s not because Peter was callous. A Six, someone stuck in his head, would never do that. The situation catches him by surprise and he fails. He chooses inaction and a default position of fear. It’s early in his career and he hasn’t embraced all that Spiderman can do. When we see this Peter again in No Way Home he’s mature, calm, and assured. It’s a great arc. However, it’s grounded in a man who lived in fear and overcame that weakness. It’s not based on a moment of petty revenge.
The Reapers invade. Since the events of ME2, Shepard has been under house arrest. The Normandy was confiscated and Shepard’s been relieved of duty after she returned the hardware to the Alliance military.
At least, I think that’s what happened. We only learn this through subtext while Captain Anderson brings Shepard up to speed now that her services are needed again. Her condition and reinstatement could’ve been told more traditionally, but instead we get the bang. As she addresses the Defense Committee, the Reapers arrive at Earth and blow everything to hell. Shepard and Anderson are on their own to — well, have a tutorial, lol — get to a shuttle. The graphics are astonishing.
Humongous claw ships decimating the world make for emotional footage.
As Shepard follows Anderson through a building, something in the duct work catches her eye. It’s a boy, hiding. When she tries to coax him out, he says, “Everyone’s dying. You can’t help me.” A beat as she looks away, and he’s gone when she turns back. Actually, I’m going to name him Boy. He seems at this point like a twee ploy for feelings, but I remember that he’s more. I remember, honestly, that I hate his role in this story.
After a bit of fighting practice, Shepard arrives at the shuttle. Anderson stays behind to help with the battle for Earth. Shepard is to go on and convince the Council to help defend our homeworld. As the shuttle lifts off Shepard looks down at the other humans loading into other shuttles. There’s Boy, squinting up at her. He climbs aboard, and the two shuttles lift off.
Shepard watches as both shuttles are cut by a Reaper beam and explode. Boy, assuming he’s a real person rather than a metaphor, is dead. Evocative music plays. (Why it’s the exact chord change as Rammstein’s “Wo bist du”, released years earlier, is a coincidence, I assume. Nice choice, though, if you’re going to accidentally borrow an existing work.)
This is an emotion-driven Spiderman. He must be a Four, lol.
First of all, The Amazing Spider-man is a particularly grim version of the story. The world is darker than in other iterations. Stylistically, this movie has a touch of the horror genre to it. Certain Character Enneagram numbers are more suited to this kind of storytelling. We need someone resilient. Peter is beat down a lot in this film. A Four will rise back up again.
The plot to this version is sparse. I won’t try a breakdown, but it doesn’t feel like it would hit all the beats. A Four Parker is very interesting; however, this isn’t the vehicle for him. Give me more backstory, more depth. Dig in. Ben and May are fantastic. Gwen and her father are fine (although don’t get me started about a costumer putting a young woman in thigh highs for a professional environment).
Many of the details on this movie are just okay. Peter’s a Four! Give him juicy scene chewing! Garfield is up to the task. Let him off the leash! This should’ve been a huge, emotional roller coaster. Instead, it’s meh.
The majority of gameplay is not story. Interesting, eh? Gathering teammates and achieving their loyalty missions is what clocks the hours. This means lots of fighting, which is good. How much plot is left, though? Let’s see.
LEFTOVER NINE
First of all, Shepard’s dead. How we die and how we’re brought back, at least from Shepard’s perspective, is the end of another tale. Miranda has a movie, let’s say, where she struggles to resurrect a person with no life signs. Waking Shepard is the Eight of that story, but what is it for this story? Is this a Leftover Nine or a One? Is the state of the world at the beginning the fact that Shepard died, or what happens when Shepard’s alive again? Either option has a good argument for it. I’m going to call it a Leftover Nine and see how the story unfolds from there.
ONE
Shepard’s alive. She has no idea what’s happening. Her last memory is of being spaced. The station where she awakes is under attack. Miranda’s voice, a stranger’s voice, tells her where to go (and directs a tutorial). She meets Jacob, who continues the tutorial and leads the escape from the science station.
TWO
Before they rejoin Miranda and leave this location, Jacob reveals that we’re on a Cerberus facility. Cerberus, a monstrous organization in ME1, has rebuilt Shepard. Working with Cerberus, owing life itself to Cerberus, must be the Trouble.
THREE
So, what happens next? Shepard meets the Illusive Man for the first time. I have a hard time justifying that as a Three, though. The Illusive Man comes In, but he never really goes Out, certainly not at a Six position.
Shepard completes the first mission and the Collectors are revealed, but only on video feed. Veetor the Quarian’s data — Collectors In — is a possible Three.
After Freedom’s Progress Shepard is reunited with Joker and the Normandy, hired and built, respectively, by Cerberus. Like the Illusive Man moment, Joker has an In but not an Out. The ship and the pilot carry through the Eight and Nine.
I’m getting an inkling of an Enneagram problem, lol. It’s possible the Illusive Man is the Six, he’s just in the wrong position. Let’s carry on and see. Whoo, boy, I think I’m right, though. Interesting.
Holland’s Peter is nice because he’s young. He’s respectful to his elders. Obviously he’s a good person, too, but much of his wide-eyed aw-shucks is due to youth, not an inherent character trait.
Without Spiderman Peter still has an athletic comfortableness. The suit helps, the bite helps, but this Peter had some skills before all that. Odds are that this rule-following young man is a One. He has a fast way of moving, a physical quickness, that speaks of Body Type. He has ambition and charm — very One — while still trying to do as he’s told.
When I think of the old Spiderman cartoon TV show, a One is a great choice for Parker. The wise-cracking, the physical speed and dexterity, the moral certainty — these are the traits that define Spiderman for me. This is who he is in my memory, and Holland’s Peter brings that Spiderman to life.
I could nitpick that the Three and Six don’t perfectly mirror, but I won’t. Just enjoy.
ONE
Bubble-wipe from the three-palm island to the pineapple house under the ocean.
TWO
Nope, lol. Spongebob’s hand, pretending to be him, comes from behind the house, which is actually a sand castle. Heh, then Patrick’s hand comes from a sand rock to visit. The two of them hand-hop over to Sandy’s place.
THREE
Except it’s not a tree dome. It’s a sand mountain. She karate chops the top off, revealing a sand relief of Texas. “What’s a Texas?” Spongebob asks. Then a wave crashes over them and washes Texas away. Sandy sighs.
Through the Omega 4 Relay, our IFF integrated into the Normandy, we go with no expectation of returning. Prior to this each crew member has requested Shepard take them to complete some unfinished business. If the quest is finished to their satisfaction, they become loyal to Shepard. It’s hinted that their loyalty is important, and it is. Crew without the loyalty boost can die. If Shepard ends up with nobody left, she’ll die, too. Of course, on a first playthrough none of this is understood. Endgame in ME2 is gut-wrenching and nerve-wracking. Each phase of the battle through the Collector base has a specific way someone can fail.
When we get to the final battle we face a humongous human skeleton.
It’s a Reaper powered by the humans the Collectors have been juicing here in their base. Some kind of DNA broth mingles with Reaper technology? It’s not quite clear, and, of course, the whole point is to kill the thing. Whatever it is, it will never reach fruition.
And then it’s time to blow the Collector base. (Does that mean the entire race goes extinct? That question — something so vital to deciding the fate of the Rachni — is never raised.) The Illusive Man patches in and argues vociferously to save the base. A radiation pulse will take out all the Collectors, but the technology of this base can be saved. On the one hand, we have paragon Shepard who objects. Human goo powers this place. It’s abhorrent and morally offensive. On the other hand, we have renegade Shepard who can see the logic of the argument. All of this effort has been about eventually facing the Reapers, a super-powered machine race. Any knowledge gleaned from this base may be our only chance to defeat them. Don’t let the human sacrifice have been in vain.
If Shepard says no, the Illusive Man shows a very dark side of himself. He doesn’t just want to defeat the Reapers. He wants the tech in order to super-power humanity. This is our chance to use advanced knowledge to jump start the human race and control the galaxy. Cerberus has always been about improving humanity by any means necessary. For most of the mission he’s played nice, giving Shepard leeway to decide what’s best. If he’s denied this base, he becomes vicious. He’s only virtual, though, and the decision is Shepard’s.
And that’s where we end. Whoever lived is back on the Normandy with Shepard. Whatever the Illusive Man thinks, he says no more in this game. We stopped the harvesting of human colonies and learned a little bit more about the Reapers. Mostly, we made friends.
