User blog comment:Mike Gilbert/Mass Effect movie?/@comment-5379655-20121025094437/@comment-5379655-20121026220506

Well the way it makes sense to me is that even though they are making a Mass Effect game with fans of the series in mind, they will likely try to cash in on other demographics as well and I would be willing to bet that the average moviegoer would probably react better to a human-human relationship than with Shepard and Liara. On another and more important note, Ashley offers richer character development (in the first game at least) and would generate more sympathy with the audience. If you think about it, one of the major themes in Mass Effect is Humanity finding it's way as a newcomer in a galaxy full of other civilizations. Many people view Ashley as being simply racist, but I would argue that that is a one-dimensional observation as she is much more nuanced than that. Up until 30 or so years before the game, humans thought that we were the only life in the galaxy. Then the first contact war occurs and we find out that not only are we not alone (causing huge a crisis of faith among the religious), but that we are far from the most advanced. And then Ashley's grandfather holds the distinction of being the only general to surrender to alien forces which, no matter how justified his actions were (The garrison was going to starve), scarred the family name so that even two generations down the family tree, Ashley is still struggling to overcome the persecution. Not only is her story to overcome that sort of adversity appealing to a general audience, but also her feelings reflect how I believe many people would react to the discovery of other sentient races: with caution and a little bit of xenophobia. Placed into the proper context, her actions and beliefs make sense. However, as the story goes on, she is shown how wrong her initial position was and there is a visible softening of her character, which movie could latch on to as a storytelling device. In short, she starts out prejudiced towards the unknown, which a general audience could easily relate to, and then she evolves over the course of the story to show to the audience who related with her and herself how foolish her thinking was. Although I love both romance arches, I believe that Ashley's character development and character would much better resonate with an audience in a movie setting.