It’s been a while since we’ve learned BioWare was officially teaming with Prime Video to make a Mass Effect show. Now it sounds like it’s on the verge of being greenlit, albeit with some supposed changes that’ve raised some eyebrows.
Recently, Lesley Goldberg of The Ankler published a report digging into Amazon TV head Peter Friedlander, who’s allegedly wanted to read the scripts of all in-development projects before letting them move forward with production. In Mass Effect’s case, it’s said Friedlander wanted rewrites so it could be “more appealing to non-gamers.” At first glance, that idea sounds silly given those games were arguably written with a broad audience in mind. It’s a mix of Star Trek and Star Wars, and it’s never really tried to hide that.
At the same time, it’s also unclear what “more appealing to non-gamers” even means here. What was so isolating to Friedlander that he felt rewrites were warranted, what was too obtuse to pick up through context, and if he read multiple scripts, how prevalent was this issue throughout them? These are all things we currently don’t know, and probably won’t for a while. Either way, the Mass Effect show is definitely not the only adaptation made to be less into itself. Sometimes it doesn’t matter, and other times…well, love or hate it, streamlining is par for the course in adaptations. We all know this.
All we can do is wait for the show comes to fruition and see how it plays out in execution. And since the show won’t be out for a while if it happens, non-players could mitigate the issue by just playing the four Mass Effect games, which are probably on sale on PC and consoles right this second.
[via Eurogamer]
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