Metroid other M story plot discussion

[Zeroº]

You want a crazy theory to top it all? I've totally got it covered.

The main villain in the Metroid series is actually a Metroid, but not the kind that you are thinking of. And no, not that kind either. It's the ultra-rare next step above Queen Metroid, the Human Metroid. See, it was a Queen Metroid that existed on SR388 long before the events of Zero Mission. So long, in fact, that it molted one step further and took the shape of a human. During the events of RoS, it saw Samus running around and killing all the Metroids, so it snuck aboard her ship and escaped SR388 and the extermination. It then snuck off of Samus' ship at Ceres station, but had to sneak back aboard it after Ridley attacked the station. It then hid upon Samus' ship until after she blew Zebes up and found herself in Federation custody. From this point, the Human Metroid simply sought out a person in the proper position to start its plan. The evil military dude from the end of Other M was the one. The Human Metroid gave him the idea to use Adam's report as a plan for creating unfreezable Metroids. It also gave him the idea to use the alien goop from Samus' suit to clone lots o' shit. It also gave him some detailed blueprints for recreating Mother Brain in cute, little girl form.

From this point, everything was rolling along quite smoothly. There was a corrupt faction of the Federation making new 'troids, Pirates, and Mother Brain to keep it company/build its army. Then Samus came along and messed shit up again, so the Human Metroid had to come up with a new plan. It decided to have 'em send Samus on a suicide mission to SR388 and collect some Metroid food (aka X-parasites). This would eliminate Samus and give the corrupt Federation a chance to grow lots and lots of premium Metroid food for the Human Metroid. Everything went according to plan, until Samus survived and blew up the ship and SR388.

So, what's the next step for the Human Metroid? The only obvious next move is for it to try and mate with Samus, creating some sort of proper Human/Metroid hybrid of doom and destruction.

[KingBroly]

I don't think my theory is that insane.

I'll just use a quote from Yoda:

No. There is another.

And I'll just say that the idea involves someone besides Samus being raised by the Chozo on Zebes for the title of Ultimate Warrior, but the little shit was jealous, and had Samus falsely exiled, forcing her to live a life with a false burden.

[LesserChozo]

I had an interesting thought today. I haven't noticed anyone bring this up, so maybe I'm just late to the point. Anyway,

regarding the whole "sexualization of Samus" controversy stemming from the story of Other M, I wonder if part of it had to do with the fact that Sakamoto is, in fact, a man. I'm willing to bet that if Other M had been written as is by a woman, it would not have garnered nearly as much backlash. I might even go so far as to say that the response would have been quite the opposite; the tone would be less one of sexism and more one of empowerment. There would be more focus on how Samus "chose to follow," rather than being "forced to submit to," a man.


Maybe it's just me. I've noticed a lot of female stereotypes in various media, but the one's created by men tend to get more flak.

[Zeroº]

So what you're saying is... we need a Metroid game written by Joss Whedon?

People tend to think that his females are rather good.

[KingBroly]

I think what he's saying is that the next Metroid game has to have an individual writer for each character, wherein each writer is writing for a specific gender.

Also, Samus' heels are only in the game because of her emotional response in the Sector Zero scene to give the insinuation that her emotional fortitude is that of a 5-year toddler. Her movement in that moment is very toddler-esque, stilted, etc. They help paint that image very well.

[kadosho]

That's exactly what bugged me about reading details within the game script.
Although they wanted to redefine Samus, they over-exposed too many ideas. Where they should have just let her be what's she's always been to us M fans. Herself. Dialog aside, I can understand why they wanted to give her a voice, making her more clairvoyant to the audience, and not just "ouch" vox edits alone. But next time, they could get it right.

[KingBroly]

They really didn't expose a lot. Well, I mean they exposed things, but it didn't come across as having an overall purpose and came across as doing things for the sake of doing them if you catch my drift. It's like 'we wanted this Metroid to be different because we own the IP, nothing else matters.' Whether or not that's the case doesn't matter, it's how it came across to the fans, and that's the part that's really important. I mean, yeah, Samus might have that emotional fortitude (Ridley killing her parents in front her would be my guess), but in previous games she's always been shown to be in control of her emotions. If she wasn't, she'd be dead, especially since she's fought Ridley so many times. So why is Other M different? We're simply not told. And Nintendo keeping us in the dark about the situation isn't helping matters at all. As someone said somewhere else, if things were explained (and not just with Samus) in detail, then people would be more apt to believe it. But because certain things, important things (Ridley) have no or improper context, they come across as 'Dear fans, fuck you, signed Nintendo.'

In regards to her voice, you have to realize that the idea behind Samus' voice has existed since the original Metroid Prime, and is actually on the disc. But the person they got to play the voice in Other M was inexperienced and unqualified to do the voice in a lot of people's opinions, and should be re-cast. Even the person who read lines as Samus for Prime's intro (which was cut) still had a very tough time with the actual lines, and she's the best in the business.

EDIT:
As a side note here, Metroids get stronger the more they kill/absorb things. So Samus, since she is a Metroid (past/present/future) she probably gets stronger through death as well. Metroid as a series has been about life, she conquers through death. So effectively, she is Death.

[FacelessGriffin]

Also, Samus' heels are only in the game because of her emotional response in the Sector Zero scene to give the insinuation that her emotional fortitude is that of a 5-year toddler. Her movement in that moment is very toddler-esque, stilted, etc. They help paint that image very well.

... Me being someone who actually worked in a kindergarden twice, I'll just pretend you meant that sarcastically, if only to save myself the mental image of how you think toddlers are supposed to be like.

I mean, yeah, Samus might have that emotional fortitude (Ridley killing her parents in front her would be my guess), but in previous games she's always been shown to be in control of her emotions. If she wasn't, she'd be dead, especially since she's fought Ridley so many times. So why is Other M different? We're simply not told. And Nintendo keeping us in the dark about the situation isn't helping matters at all. As someone said somewhere else, if things were explained (and not just with Samus) in detail, then people would be more apt to believe it. But because certain things, important things (Ridley) have no or improper context, they come across as 'Dear fans, fuck you, signed Nintendo.'

... How can someone pay so much attention on things and yet still missed the mark so well?

Someone else try say something, because I fear if I do I will be locked in a death loop of endless arguements of complete irrelevancy and mindnumbing overstatements.

[Hawk's Eye]

I mean, yeah, Samus might have that emotional fortitude (Ridley killing her parents in front her would be my guess), but in previous games she's always been shown to be in control of her emotions. If she wasn't, she'd be dead, especially since she's fought Ridley so many times. So why is Other M different? We're simply not told. And Nintendo keeping us in the dark about the situation isn't helping matters at all. As someone said somewhere else, if things were explained (and not just with Samus) in detail, then people would be more apt to believe it. But because certain things, important things (Ridley) have no or improper context, they come across as 'Dear fans, fuck you, signed Nintendo.'

King Broly; Why, in order for your entertainment to be good, do you want things to be spoon fed to you?? Why is Nintendo saying "Fuck you" because they dont feel the need to explain to you every goddamned useless detail that you just can't figure out or ponder on yourself. Why must we be "told" that they changed the theme of Samus? I'm stilll wondering why peole are doing the whole "Samus wasn't like that in other games" thing!! How DO you or I or anyone know how she was emotionally in the Prime Trilogy?? SHE DIDN'T SHOW ANY EMOTIONS!!! For all we know, she could go back to her ship at the end of each game to cut herself as Linkin Park blared in her subwoofers. How do you or I or anyone know that she didn't secretly have a horrible flashback of K2-L before she battled Ridley each time in those games?? WE DON'T! We do NOT know if she did that or not because she didn’t show any emotions to us. (Oh shit I’m rambling. I need to go to bed… ;)

It’s kind of like if Sakamoto told everyone he was painting this mural of Samus and everyone was like “I can’t wait to see it” and he got half way through with Super and Fusion but then Retro came along and painted over it with the Samus we see in the Prime series and then released it and everyone thought that was what Sakamoto was painting. There is always that underlying Samus that was meant to be there but everyone got used to the new mural and forgot about the old. Now, Sakamoto is trying to re-do his artwork over Retro Studios and no one likes it because they got used to Retro’s mural.

If all these changes happened slower and more gradual (as in having Sakamoto write more story) we probably wouldn’t be shitting the bricks we are now about character change because it would come to us as normal. (Of course, in no way am I saying that Retro Ruined Metroid. But Of course I’m not saying Sakamoto did either) If Sakamoto made a few more games that addeed a little more emotions each time, we would never have noticed the “change”. But since Retro Studios put this mental image in our heads that Samus HAS to be the quiet, emotionless, cold bounty hunter, we got freaked out when the emotion/human like quality is brought back in.
(Im done now. Sorry about that. If this doesn’t make sense I am SO sorry!)

[LesserChozo]

I think what he's saying is that the next Metroid game has to have an individual writer for each character, wherein each writer is writing for a specific gender.

All I meant was that the whole "sexism" issue had more to do with who wrote the story than the story itself. It's a matter of perspective.

Also, Samus' heels are only in the game because of her emotional response in the Sector Zero scene to give the insinuation that her emotional fortitude is that of a 5-year toddler. Her movement in that moment is very toddler-esque, stilted, etc. They help paint that image very well.

She walks like that because she is exhausted, both mentally and physically, but she has a strong fortitude to continue.

But the person they got to play the voice in Other M was inexperienced and unqualified to do the voice in a lot of people's opinions, and should be re-cast.

I hate how people zero in on the internal monologue and present it as bad voice acting. Samus did actually speak in the game and I thought Jessica did an excellent job with it. The monologues came across to me as reflective, which I'm assuming was the intention; like she was recalling a lost memory. Granted they might have over used it a bit for the purpose of exposition, but Other M was intended to introduce a new audience to the franchise; was it not?

I think you're missing a lot of details that were explained, KB. Some things were intentionally left vague, however, which can be frustrating. Other details were left out, because they were simply unimportant. You seem to keep focusing on those.

Oh, and my final word on Ridley is this: Other M is the only game that specifically says Ridley was dead. Nevermind what the booklets say, we all know how accurate they can be . Under the impression that she never actually killed Ridley before Super Metroid, this only adds to the significance of his defeat in that game and compounds the shock of finding him resurrected on the Bottle Ship. In essence, knowing he is dead, rather than simply believing he is dead, her encounter with him on the BS was more akin to their first encounter, when she was a child, than any previous. Hence the visual metaphor(not a flashback) and state of shock.

And I know someone is going to bring this up: in Fusion; yes, Samus knows Ridley is dead, but she is also quite familiar with the capabilities of the X-parasite by then, so Ridley's resurrection there comes as no big surprise. Of course, it's not really Ridley, anyway.

[KingBroly]

I didn't zero in on the monologues at all. You're putting words in my mouth and I am offended that you insinuate such things.

And no, intentionally vague things aren't unimportant. With what you're saying, giving no answer to the Ridley thing isn't important. I guess what's why it was cut and Sakamoto should be praised for pissing off his audience due to his intentional vagueness. WRONG! He has total responsibility for his writing and should be eviscerated for what he's done, plain and simple. Saying Samus' motivations and purpose in life should be left on the cutting room floor because they're not important is crazy, as they are vital to the story and vital to people understanding the character.

[Hawk's Eye]

Oh i remember why i stopped coming to this topic....my posts were disregarded like i never posted. Anyway, for the record I agree with What lesser chozo said up there (phone wont let me quote). Anyway have fun running in circles all. i'll keep my ideas to myself...

[FacelessGriffin]

And no, intentionally vague things aren't unimportant. With what you're saying, giving no answer to the Ridley thing isn't important. I guess what's why it was cut and Sakamoto should be praised for pissing off his audience due to his intentional vagueness. WRONG! He has total responsibility for his writing and should be eviscerated for what he's done, plain and simple. Saying Samus' motivations and purpose in life should be left on the cutting room floor because they're not important is crazy, as they are vital to the story and vital to people understanding the character.

Yes, crucify him! Hang him in public! Gut him and wear his skin as a poncho!

Oh i remember why i stopped coming to this topic....my posts were disregarded like i never posted. Anyway, for the record I agree with What lesser chozo said up there (phone wont let me quote). Anyway have fun running in circles all. i'll keep my ideas to myself...

Don't take it personally. That's KingBroly always does.

[KingBroly]

Forgot this, but Lesser Chozo, if she was exhausted mentally and physically outside of just that part, the game should've said something. If it was just the one scene, you could sell it like an isolated incident, but it wasn't.

[FacelessGriffin]

Forgot this, but Lesser Chozo, if she was exhausted mentally and physically outside of just that part, the game should've said something. If it was just the one scene, you could sell it like an isolated incident, but it wasn't.

Because my brains are too simpleton to process even the slight suggestion of having to figure out something myself.

Though then again, given how you suggested the whole toddler arguement...