Cut to Samus in an elevator. Samus monologues about how Adam stopped talking to her. Then she says... this: "From the Deleter's point of view, Adam would represent the largest threat."
-_-
I'll assume you know why that's stupid and move on.
Samus then talks up Adam, saying he wouldn't be easily killed. Yeah whatever. Then she says that he would know about "the Deleter." Of course, since he never bothered to mention it in the hours since Samus herself found out, and even called his men together where they could be more easily picked off, I think Samus is just full of crap. Samus then says that Adam wouldn't let his guard down, even though that's what we just saw. Samus wonders why Adam broke off contact, since she thinks he's among the living.
"My racing thoughts started to frustrate me..." Another line from the "Never write this ever" guide to writing.
When Samus steps out of the elevator, she sees "the Deleter" walking towards a different elevator. Rather than running over there, dive-tackling him, and shooting him in the face, she slowly creeps up on him. This gives him time to get into the elevator and escape into the Biosphere.
She chases him to a bridge that he was able to destroy the controls of, making it one-way. Though, why the bridge is retractable at all is unknown. So Samus say, "Any objections, Adam?" and then turns on her Screw Attack and Space Jump (but not her Gravity Suit because...?). This could have been awesome if the game hadn't spent the last hour running Samus into the ground (let alone the contents of last scene). It would have also been better if Samus had said the line with any hint of sarcasm, but no: monotone it is.
So she jumps across the pit and steps into an elevator. She continues on and finds a large room. She then spends the next 40 seconds looking around and slowly walking in, as thought she's not wearing the strongest power-armor ever made which can sustain innumerable direct hits by Space Pirate weapons. Such wonderful pacing in these scenes. And no, it doesn't add to the tension; the director just thinks it does.
A computer comes on, which startles Samus. She then... completely forgets about the Deleter and walks nonchalantly over to use the computer. A door opens and out walks the blond woman from before without a care in the world; she too has forgotten about the Deleter. But she freaks out upon seeing Samus, despite the fact that she saw Samus fighting the Deleter. She retreats behind the door.
Samus starts talking to her through the door, as though Samus knows she's still standing behind that door, not running away. Samus says that she's a bounty hunter, which isn't exactly a more comforting thought. It's not like the GF might put out a bounty on her to get people to hunt her down or anything. Or does Nintendo even know what the term means? Any, Samus then, in her most monotone voice possible, implores the woman to believe her.
Apparently monotone is what makes her trust people, so out comes the blond woman. She introduces herself as "Madeline Bergman." Yes, for only in true hack writing would the only person to survive the destruction of a facility be its director.
She lays out what's been going on*. The GF wants a special forces unit composed of bioweapons. Again, I wonder if Nintendo knows what that word means. Their plan was to essentially rebuild the Space Pirates under the control of the GF. So they were trying to enslave a sentient race? Madeline says that "a certain presence," which she won't mention for a few seconds for no adequately explained reason, caused the Pirates to become uncontrollable.
Samus assumes that this was Ridley. No explanation is offered for why she thinks that as of yet. Samus marvels at the fact that Madeline sent a distress call, even though it "endangered your life." Yes, because it was so safe here with the Space Pirates overrunning the place. Madeline says, "I felt there was a real danger here." No shit, Sherlock. Holy shit this writing is awful. Anyway, she says that there was a concern that the Zebesians would become Space Pirates.
Now, what they're trying to do is make a distinction between the species and what the species does. After all, "Space Pirates" is a pretty generic name for a race. Are all of them doing piracy? Did the GF genocide them when they occupied their homeworld in Corruption? Granted, because making this distinction makes sense, Other M is going to screw it all up.
Samus says some more obvious stuff, then wonders that Madeline set the facility to self destruct. Wait, when the hell did that happen? Did I miss a scene somewhere? What in the hell is she talking about? No, I didn't; I've seen the game all the way through several times, and never once does this happen. Well, it does at the very end, but that had nothing to do with Madeline or anyone else connected to the facility.
Samus then stands there in complete silence with Madeline and starts monologuing to herself. Yes, really. She wonders about aspects of her story, unsure if Ridley influencing the Zebesians would resurrect the organization. Well, um, yeah, it kinda would. Granted, they wouldn't have any ships except the BOTTLE SHIP. And this Ridley is a clone, without the knowledge of the previous one.
Then Samus says that a "malicious force" would be needed, otherwise the Zebesians would just "follow their instincts." Wow. So, all this time, the Space Pirates have been nothing but mindless drones under the command of some "malicious force?" Wait a second: the leader of the Pirates was supposed to be Ridley, yes? So wouldn't that be the "malicious force" in question? So what the hell is Samus going on about here. She knows that Ridley started this.
Even then, what the hell is up with this nonsense of the Space Pirates otherwise being mindless? This was never stated, implied, hinted at, or anything before. Indeed, the fact that they had several worlds and colonies, all outside of the influence of this "malicious force" suggests otherwise. They have a central command, scientific research, and even leisure time, activities, and pets (which Metroids should not be kept as).
So, Shitting on Metroid #7: for turning the main antagonists of the Prime trilogy, as well as a strong force in Zero Mission, into nothing more than mindless drones when Ridley isn't present. Oh, and if Ridley is needed... how do these mindless drones keep rebuilding/resurrecting him?
Back to the Infodump, such that it is. Samus figures that the GF was ready to destroy the place, hence the Deleter. Samus then realizes that the Deleter would be unnecessary, since they could just blow up the station. And then we have a gratuitous cutscene of unseen warships blowing it up. Thanks, director, that's what this infodump totally needed. An entirely imaginary scene of something happening.
Because the only way something will actually happen in this scene is if you imagine it...
As Samus wonders this, Madeline decides to pipe in with more stuff that the GF was doing. She takes Samus to the computer terminal, while we get a POV shot from a nearby catwalk overlooking the pair. We get more pointless zooms and shakey-cam over typing at a keyboard (the cinematographer should be fired. Out of a cannon). Then Madeline shows Samus a report about a Metroid breeding program. Gee, where have I heard that little plot twist before?
The only original thing in this story is the character assassination...
Samus flips out because she thought the Metroids were all destroyed. Then we have a flashback to the half-assed Super Metroid re-imagining, so that Samus can remind us that "the baby" was killed above her. Madeline says that they scraped the bits of Metroid off her suit and cloned them; we then get an actually good flashback to that one line from the prologue, where the scientist tells Samus they polished her suit.
Samus then speaks (not monologuing, actual dialog), saying that Ridley must have been cloned that way too. I guess this means that canonically, Samus took the back-door out of lower-Norfair; if she'd taken the regular way, she'd have had to go through a vat of lava and burned off the bits of Ridley. Madeline says that nobody thought the creature was Ridley; see, even some of the smartest scientists in the galaxy think the Poke-Ridley thing is full of shit. For the people who didn't get it, we have a flashback to Furby playing with that pine cone.
The scientists apparently raised it as a pet. Why? Did they think some random crap they scrapped off Samus's suit and cloned would be kind and gentle? Oh yeah, we then get a flashback to that scientist from Furby's room being killed by Furby. BTW, being killed by Furby is analogous to being killed by a chihuahua; yes, it's possible, but you really have to suck for it to happen.
Well, enough about Ridley; back to Metroids. Samus says that Mother Brain's telepathy would be needed to control Metroids. Um, what? They are animals; you can train animals as attack dogs. Also, this is the first we've heard about any such telepathy; where is this coming from? Samus asks if they cloned Mother Brain, but Madeline shakes her head. Because they built an AI that replicated Mother Brain instead. Which is totally different from cloning.
Wait: how does that create telepathy? Wouldn't telepathy need some kind of special physical structure to work on? Why would an AI, a program, be able to generate telepathy? Anyway, to emphasize the stupidity of recreating Mother Brain, the scientists call it "MB." Madeline says that it became sentient as a result of communicating with Metroids... somehow. Then Samus says this:
And now I'd like to offer my sincerest congratulations to Metroid: Other M. It just beat The Last Airbender
's, "It's time we show the Fire Nation we believe in our beliefs as much as they believe in theirs." line as the single worst line of dialog I have ever heard. This is dialog so bad that it actually physically hurts to hear.
It's interesting. Right here, we have a way to integrate Ridley into the main plot. He has some ability to command the Space Pirates; he was their leader, after all. But now that we have MB? The Ridley plot is quickly forgotten; Samus now assumes that it was MB run amok that caused the problem, and the story bears this out. So Ridley doesn't cause the uprising; he wasn't even Ridley until two evolutions after everything bad had gone down. So... what was the point of having Ridley at all, if he doesn't factor into the plot?
To do the only thing he did: show that Samus is weak. QED.
Samus asks where the Metroids are being stored. Madeline says that they're in Sector Zero, a place that doesn't appear on their maps. Why not? The BOTTLE SHIP is a top-secret facility, presumably run by a rogue branch of the GF. Do they need to keep secrets from themselves? Anyway, Samus guesses that it was MB that causes things to go downhill on the station. Though she could just ask Madeline about the precise sequence of events. What with her being the director of the facility and having a front-row seat.
Samus suspects that the GF's plan was to take Sector Zero and destroy the rest of the facility. But Adam showed up first. Um, how, why? We still never figured out why he came besides a distress call. Samus figures that the Deleter was inserted into his unit to keep things quiet. Though why they couldn't just send a squad of commandos in to frag Adam's unit, take the Metroids, and do whatever is not answered.
Samus thanks her for the info, then tells her to hide. She mentions that "the Galactic Federation CO" (who may well be dead as far as she knows) is there to help her. Madeline asks if it's Adam.
We then cut to Samus in an elevator. The camera circles her while we get flashes of the Metroid report Madeline showed her that tell us the report was written... by Adam! DUN DUN DUNNNN!
Then, we actually see a flashback to the scene we were just in! I am not making this up. We fade out of the middle of a scene, so that we can immediately flash back to it. There was no gameplay between these two. Madeline asks about Adam, we cut to Samus in an elevator, and then we flashback to the very next sentence in that conversation. This is a breathtaking failure in basic cinematography and storytelling; why would anyone ever do this?
Anyway, in the flashback, Madeline says that Adam was in charge of the whole project. Samus just tells her to stay in that room until she comes back, and then she leaves. Footsteps echo in the room after Samus's departure. Wow, you mean that Samus chased the Deleter to this room, and he was still there? Wow, what a shock! Samus must not have achieved object permanence yet. Or maybe she thought he died of boredom from listening to their exposition; Lord knows it nearly did me in.
So this scene ends with the Deleter approaching Madeline, who slowly turns around to face him. But there's no recognition on her face or anything. And then there's a gunshot and a cut to black. Good job killing Madeline, Samus. And for more great cinematography, this segment is shot in the same blurry-vision as the rest of the flashback. Samus just had a flashback to something she cannot possibly have seen!
The sheer lack of basic tradecraft in the construction of this scene is mind-boggling. This is like what some film-school reject would make for $5 on weekends.
Well, enough of that; Theater Mode moves on to a boss-fight, again likely to spare us from what comes next for a few moments. The fight is against Nightmare, a memorable boss from Metroid Fusion. Please stop reminding us of other, better story-driven Metroid games we could be playing. Actually, I take that back; please remind us of other stuff we could be playing so we'll do that instead of watching this garbage.
The gimmick with Nightmare is that he messes with gravity, making it hard to move and causing your shots to not hit the things you want them to. Naturally Samus uses her new-found independence to turn on her Gravity Suit an- no, she doesn't do that. Also, when Nightmare dies, we see that it's face is a deformed baby face with 6 eyes who gives a baby's cry as it dies.
Because the game hasn't had enough baby references yet.
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