To anyone dissatisfied with D.Va's story

General Discussion
41

I feel like this just phrases EVERYTHING perfectly.

The DVa short wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t excellent, and coming from a company that has produced nothing but excellent shorts (Rise and Shine not included, perhaps) in the last 2 years, we’re bound to be disappointed.

Personally it also lacked the emotional impact and reasonable change in character.

For transition, in Rein’s short, Reinhardt’s change in perspective is enabled by the fact that his mentor sacrificed himself to right Reinhardt’s mistake. That makes him a changed man (a bronze Reinhardt to a Grandmaster Reinhardt if you will).

In Dragons, the fact that Genji is alive and truly forgives him leaves Hanzo reconsidering his own worth (as seen in his hesitation at the end).

But with DVa, a rightfully proud fighter, she just suddenly realizes that having friends makes her better, without any transition or reasonable change in perspective. That makes the story somewhat lacking in terms of transition and emotional appeal.

Talking of emotional appeal, there really wasn’t much.

I still remember the way my heart lifts when Winston decides to recall Overwatch.
Or the way my heart drops when Tracer looks down at the scene and says “No no no”.
Or how touched I was when Genji says “Perhaps I am a fool to think there is still hope for you. But I do.”
Or how sad I was when I realized that Balderich was going to die, for Reinhardt’s mistake no less, but still get goosebumps when he dons his helmet and goes out like a knight. The slow-motion sequence right after Balderich charges in was so emotionally saturated that everyone i showed the short to was silent.

But Shooting star just lacked that appeal. It just…didn’t have it. There was no gut-wrenching scene, there was no touching scene, there was nothing that triggered any kind of reflection. There was no plot twist, nothing out of expectations.

That’s basically it. Shooting star performs within expectations in every aspect. But for a company that usually exceeds expectations, it just wasn’t adequate

Edit: Just want to add that you don’t need death to make a emotional scene, although it is a powerful tool. Look at Genji and Hanzo. You didn’t need one to die. All it takes is a good story. Just the sentence “I have forgiven you, brother. Now you must forgive yourself” is emotional. It doesn’t need death or anything gory

1 Like
42

Was rise and shine really excellent? Was it really? Lmao

43

Not really. So much earrors in the one. Though he combat with loneliness did make it interesting.

44

Hey, don’t talk smack about Transformers!

Lol I’m mostly joking but you make a good point.

45

These are fair points, and I understand that this short is, compared to the others, not as good. Personally I’d give it a solid B+, whereas many other shorts are DEFINITELY A, A+ material. The Tracer one is by far the most heart wrenching to me, and it was creative and wonderful and had a lot of awesome, interesting stuff in it - but those characters have a lot more flexibility in terms of their visual interest, fighting style as well that I think lends itself automatically to a better story. D.va as a character is perhaps just not equipped to offer you as an entertaining experience as Tracer, and I think that’s sort of… Just a fair, objective observation? Edit: By this I mean some characters are just more interesting in their story and concept, I mean there’s nearly 30 of them by now, some are going to be a bit more automatically awesome than others, that’s sort of the nature of the creative beast. Personally I found Winston’s animatic extremely boring, I really don’t care for it.

I only made this thread because I saw people literally screaming at and shaming Blizzard for making a ‘horrible’ short, and I don’t think that animosity is deserved at all. Just because people expected or wanted something that blew them away and they got something that was only pretty good, not astonishing, but solid and good- it’s like… IDK, it feels really ungrateful? And mean spirited? And I think we could all do with adjusting our attitudes to a more positive bent in this day and age, that’s all. I’m doing my best to do it at least for me and my own personal sanity.

46

We all know why. It’s because it’s about D.Va :’)

47

I guess it didn’t leave a lasting impression on me like the others did, heck I don’t feel changed by it existing.

I loved the short, Dva is so cool.

But that’s really it, it’s just there on its own, doing its thing, ended before it got super good, and left us waiting for some more story having to do with the main plot.

Now this would have been epic if another was on the way soon, but I guess Blizzcon is our last hope.

I’m hoping something massive happens, because right now, I have no clue what the future holds.

Will we get more backstory shorts for everyone?

If so, will we keep the two a year thing, because we will all be dead by the time they are done😂

Is the story actually going to move?

If so, will some charcters not get as much backstory?

What decides that, who chooses who gets what?

What happened to the comics?

Does anyone even know who is answering recall, and where are they going to meet?

So many questions bouncing around, some I hoped would be answered today.

But it’s ok, we still have Blizzcon.

All in all, the short was cool, hats off to blizz❤️

Dva is cool.

We just need more.

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48

All fair points, I can certainly understand the sentiment here. I also think that Blizzard seems to be a bit up in the air at the moment, but I’m hoping that it’s just a transitionary phase and that perhaps things are going to settle down and get back to the grindstone soon.

49

Again, it’s all at Blizzcon.

Hoping for some big event that gets the story going, that way next year will be laid out😁

Let’s start choosing sides, talon vs Overwatch.

That would be epic.

50

Interesting that there’s only issue with the plot advancing when it’s this cinematic. Ijs

51

It really does feel like they just can’t stand that the cinematic features a traditional action plot but ~wIth~A~GiRl~1!!1! like - sure it’s not the most original thing I’ve ever seen, but neither is a lot of the stuff in Overwatch. Some is really original, but Winston, the talking monkey man? Soldier, the soldier guy? Genji, the Ninja? None of those characters are exactly breaking the mold there…

52

Unless it’s Michael Bay’s movies. Those are fair game.

53

I really should clarify those were 100% what I was talking about. The animated series gets a nice pillow and cup of cocoa for being the bees knees.

edit: I f*cking LOVED the Beastformer series, I can’t remember if that’s what it was called, but I watched it every day as a kid. Loved that stuff.

54

You’re not wrong, but not entirely correct either.

Tracer and Widowmaker have probably some of the most interesting interaction and backstory to begin with, and it makes sense that their short is great.

But the thing is, it’s Blizzard’s job to tie in the short and the characters with other characters. It’s Blizzard’s job to use their creativity in the fighting design, the plot, whatever. It’s Blizzard’s job to MAKE their characters more interesting instead of just saying “Torbjorn is a turret with a deployable dwarf, I guess we’ll leave it at that”.

Take a look at Bastion. A standard omnic unit with no real backstory and tie-ins with Overwatch until the comic (which came AFTER the short). And yet they were able to do SO MUCH with The Last Bastion.

Once again, it’s not a bad short. It was just comparatively lacking. DVa had so much empty lore space for them to develop. And this short barely put colour onto the canvas, let alone draw a picture.

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56

To me the fact that Hana is a young korean woman dealing with this thing is inherently enough to make the very traditional plot otherwise compelling, which I think is where a lot of people are going to have a big divide. To some representation is meaningless, to others it’s everything. Seeing a girl like me doing this rather than watching another guy doing it for the millionth time makes a difference. I can understand that it doesn’t for everyone who’s had this made for them before, though.

57

And talking about fighting styles and flexibilities and stuff, take a look at 76.

76 is LITERALLY the STANDARD character. Everything about him is standard. Even his nationality is American (oh…erm…ignore that). But Hero was in my opinion nowhere as emotionally blank as Shooting Star was.

58

I really, really with Blizz would add an “are you sure” prompt for when we accidentally hit “delete.”

Anyways, which one? There are ten animated series, with an eleventh on the way :stuck_out_tongue:

The Beast-former one was either Beast Wars or Beast Machines. My guess is the former.

59

I felt more emotional resonance from Shooting Star than I did from Hero, personally, so that’s going to be a subjective experience.

60

And some light is finally shed.

Maybe I’m too aggressive in my stances?

I don’t know but I really thogmught i was getting a good discussion going on here.

61

Okay so it was like - they were on an alien planet, they were 3D animated VERY BADLY, there was a spider or scorpion woman? And I LOVED HER! Also, Megatron was a TRex, and that was AMAZING.