This will be the first of many Fan Cast columns. The Pit has asked me to do a regular series of articles and these immediately came to mind (SEE: Justice League Casting Suggestions). I love choosing casts for things I have such a vested interest in. The first one was a toss-up between my two favorite video game franchises: Mass Effect and Assassins Creed. I decided to go with the former as it’s the one I have most fun playing.
This article will deal with Mass Effect 1, the second will focus on Mass Effect 2, and the third will be Mass Effect 3. Each game introduced and retained an amazing set of characters. For those of you who do not know, the Mass Effect series is a sci-fi action RPG game set in the future. It focuses on a soldier called Commander Shepard who must save the galaxy from a race of powerful sentient machines called Reapers, who harvest the advanced races leaving the smaller races to develop as answer to chaos. It also offers a great system where your decisions influence the rest of the game. Do good things and you’ll earn paragon points, while bad things earn you renegade points. So without further ado let’s get down to casting. There will be two choices per character, one is my choice and one is the choice of a friend who is also a fan of the game.
Commander Shepard
The choices for Shepard was a tough one as I had to consider whether I was going to go with as ME fans called them; Man-Shep or Fem-Shep. So I decided to do both. My choice for Man-Shep is Logan Marshall-Green. He was excellent in Prometheus and let’s face it, there wasn’t much in that film to like. He was also pretty good in Brooklyn’s Finest and Dark Blue. He has a cool range and I kind of like the idea of not getting a big star in the main role. It should go to someone who needs the breakout movie.
For Fem-Shep, my friend chose and I completely agree that Eliza Dushku is perfect for the role. She has played the bad ass type before and has the right look for the character. Same rules apply from Marshall-Green as in she is a big TV star, but has never had a big breakout film role. This would be perfect for her to showcase her ability.
Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams
The character of Ashley is an interesting one in that she starts of a tad xenophobic due to her family being a career military family who fought in the first contact war (which was when humanity found out they were not alone in the universe). As she fights alongside them she gains a new found respect for them. She is also a total badass and a very competent solider. Now if I had wrote this a week ago, I might have said somebody different, but as I just saw Edge Of Tomorrow (which I suggest you all should go see!). Emily Blunt wins this hands down for me. The character she plays is essentially Ashley- which is amazing. She kicks ass throughout the film and has a on screen presence that has only been matched in recent films by my friends choice…
Jennifer Lawrence. Like Blunt, she just oozes sex appeal along with being able to hold her own fighting with (if not) better than the boys. Her stock has really soared in the past three to four years. Her action scenes in The Hunger Games films and X-Men films are top notch, but for me the best performance she did was her Oscar winning performance in the Silver Linings Playbook. She acted everybody off the screen, which is not an easy job when you have Robert De Niro in the film. She was the standout performer. It would be excellent to see her take on another franchise.
Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko
Kaidan is a biotic which basically means he has certain powers, he is also a good solider but I have to be honest: I hate him. I really can’t stand his character. He seems like a total douche for lack of better word. He’s not all bad though he does have his moments. My choice to play him is Brandon Routh for a couple of reasons, He done a few action films and has played a few douche bag characters on TV. He also bears a striking resemblance to the character in game.
My friend went for Ben Barnes who is someone I have only seen a little bit of and like Routh the things I saw him had him playing a good but flawed character and he like Routh does look like him. Kaidan is a character I did not have a lot invested in, I always chose Ashley over him in the big choice you have to make in game.
Garrus Vakarian
Surprisingly there is only one choice for this role. Once I heard my friend’s pick, it was so brilliant there was no point in finding any others. Garrus is a Turian, a race that look like humanoid birds. He is a former cop on the citadel who has been trying to find evidence on the rogue spectre Saren. So for this bad ass former cop the choice is the Wolverine himself, Hugh Jackman. Jackman is perfect for the role, I would imagine the role would be prosthesis and makeup rather than CGI to create the character and Hugh has the ability to pull that off. He would bring the same intensity to the role as he does for Wolverine. This would really put more into the character of Garrus as he does a stick up his ass which is a constant in-joke in the trilogy.
Urdnot Wrex
Wrex is a krogan and one of my favorite characters of the trilogy. Krogan are large reptilian bipeds who are usually seven feet tall. They also have two hearts, four lungs and four testicles which Wrex always likes to point out as a “quad” usually in reference to Shepard or other characters showing the balls to make the hard decisions. I would think Wrex would be better done by CGI and mo-capped, then voiced over. For the Mo-cap I would choose Brock Lesnar, the man is a freak of nature and has the right build and size to pull it off. He would also be able to pull of the physicality of the role with complete ease. As for the voice I think someone like Vin Diesel or Dwayne Johnson would capture the rough and embattled voice of Wrex plus they would be able to bring the humour that Wrex has.
Sound off below in the comments section if you agree or disagree with my choices and please give your choices as well. That’s all folks!
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