Alright, let's rewrite the series to have a more coherent plotline. We'll do this in order to make things simpler and less confusing. Now Liam makes it sound like he had everything planned out from the beginning so I'm going to be writing this in the assumption he didn't massively revise the plot inbetween every fucking episode like I assume he did just to keep things simplistic. So this will all be written with that in mind.
- Episode 1 is completely fine for what it is and I can't think of any direct changes that could be made that would benefit the series later.
- Same with Episode 2 I honestly can't really offer anything there either so I think we'll skip to Episode 3 where I believe the series started to fuck up.
Upon a rewatch honestly just comes across as a really pointless episode and really doesn't add much to the plot or advance it in any meaningful way it doesn't even really serve the characters either so I think the best way to retool Episode 3 would've been to have it sort've be a confrontation of V's sins. In fact that's about the only real purpose I could see Doll serving because she really doesn't add anything at all to the plot in the actual series. So I would say have the episode play out largely the same though maybe with a tweak or two. Maybe have V actually fight Doll instead of having Uzi and N do all the work and maybe right before the conclusion of their battle V questions Doll's motives which could lead into her telling V that she killed her parents and that she's here for revenge. Doll still dies but perhaps right before the killing blow V could say something like
"If it means anything, I'm sorry." and the reason for this is that unlike the original series it actually lays the groundwork to give V a sympathetic hook to utilize for later which is something that was lacking in the original. But we'll come back to that later. Also maybe remove J from the ending scene because it adds literally nothing to the series to bring her back to life considering she ends up not serving any purpose afterwards. It honestly just felt like fanservice to bring her back and not much else.
is another episode that I can't really offer any major changes to except that N should continue to begin being assertive and questioning things like he does in this episode since he lacked any kind of meaningful character growth in the original series. So this should begin N's character arc of being sick of being the doormat that everyone wipes their feet on.
Oh boy I'm sure somebody here is interested in seeing what I'm going to say here considering I've cited it multiple times as the turning point of the series where everything went down the shitter and they squandered their one chance to salvage the asinine plotline, so, how would I change it?
First off remove the whole confusing memory simulation aspect of the whole thing. The entire concept was retarded and made things needlessly confusing. Or at the very least reframe it as something like how the Animus functions from Assassin's Creed where it's technically a replay of a memory but with light interaction BUT N has to follow what actually happened or else things start to glitch and freak out the more things desync from the original memory perhaps even causing it to crash maybe it could be some kind of sci-fi way to recover the memory file by having N re-enact it as it originally happened or some bullshit I dunno sci-fi garbage, which requires Uzi to guide N around since she can see how it's meant to play out while he can't or something like that.
Maybe throw in Uzi chiming in about how some of his memories seem corrupted or incomplete. On top of all of that instead of N and V just suddenly collapsing or whatever actually happened in the show maybe the episode can begin with Uzi proposing that they try poking around inside of N's data banks to try and find more about what's going on. Which would also be a good way to remind everyone that Uzi is supposed to be handy with technology as implied in the first episode.
Outside of the framing however how would I change the actual contents of the episode? Well, first of all the episode should exclusively follow N since V being involved genuinely added absolutely 0 to the plot and just made things more confusing so in this version we're only going to be seeing N's memories. V is just not going to be here because she adds nothing. Perhaps throw in some more scenes with Tessa so we can get a better understanding of her character and her relation to all of this. Maybe have it be told or shown to us that her parents are somehow related to the JCJenson company to tie it back into the plot again perhaps shareholders or some other high position. Hell, they could make her dad the CEO it doesn't matter but it could serve as a decent way to explain why Tessa has a knowledge and seemingly fascination with drones. Besides just being lonely her family having some connection to the people manufacturing the drones could explain how and why Tessa knows how to repair them and reactivate them.
Perhaps also throw in some scenes with J even though in the current version she is dead it could be used to explain for instance why N and V seemingly don't care that she died. Perhaps they could display that even back before they were turned into Disassembly Drones, J was a commanding narcissistic bitchface that nobody liked but perhaps Tessa would protect her from the others or try to de-escalate situations caused by her arrogance. Naively believing that she has a good side somewhere.
And of course perhaps throw in some scenes of N and V interacting to give us a better feel of their previous relationship and N's supposed crush on V. And of course to give us more reason to care about her later, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Finally perhaps give Cyn a genuine motivation for wanting to destroy all of humanity, beyond just "lol cuz it's funni" maybe she wants revenge for being thrown out. Perhaps she retained her memories from before she was thrown into the dumpster and has come to despise humanity for treating her like she's a worthless piece of plastic to be thrown away. Tessa learns of her plan and tries to stop her probably with N's help but of course as we know this goes poorly for her and Cyn ends up killing Tessa for also betraying her trust. (Obviously like in the actual series this fact will be somewhat obscured from the viewer until later but heavily implied that she died here.)
And that's about it. But it would fix a lot of things that the series did wrong. I know this is a complete rewrite but I feel it's warranted considering again this was the turning point their last chance to tie things together. So now that we're finally done with that, let's move on to the next episode.
Another episode where I think things can play out largely the same besides the obvious removal of J and Doll as they added literally nothing to the plot. Perhaps instead of whatever Doll did they trigger some kind of security counter measure that releases all of the extra dino-bots at the end like normal though V elects to stay behind to keep them from following the others deeper into the facility. Only this time V actually dies and stays dead. Making this her penance for her sins and also making her sacrifice actually have some weight to it instead of just being...for no reason? I honestly still don't get what the point of the fake out even was.
No, Nori. Again, I feel like revealing that Nori actually survived adds basically nothing to the story and she doesn't really contribute anything worthwhile either that couldn't have been done through other means. If we want to keep the original scene showing the core collapse maybe Uzi finds some kind of security recording or something that would be a decent way to reframe it and could also be the driving force for the episode having Uzi and crew assume the cross USB is something important and that they should go find it reasoning it must be connected to why they came here or why Cyn is seemingly interested in what's going on here. Perhaps N could semi-take Doll's place here in confronting Tessa at the infected drone database list thingy. N continuing his arc of questioning things begins prodding Tessa on why they're blowing up the data instead of preserving it considering it could be helpful in stopping Cyn but Tessa shuts him down and proceeds to destroy the list anyway causing N to begin to seriously doubt her.
Meanwhile Uzi wanders alone and maybe even comes across some extra information about what happened here at these labs and why her mother was there. Leading up to revealing that the crucifix USB is some kind of patch to combat Cyn's virus that they've been developing after the destruction of Earth. So now of course she goes to find it and eventually does. But just before she can use it on herself Cyn remotely takes control of her and tries to prevent her from using it but Uzi tries her best to fight it and is ultimately successful in patching herself, prompting "Tessa" to appear and confront Uzi with N not far behind. Blah blah, things happen "Tessa" is revealed to have been Cyn in disguise all along like normal. Maybe throw in a small shock moment of Cyn trying to control N to fight Uzi and Uzi uses the patch on him too allowing him to be free from Cyn's remote control for good. (Mostly just to close the question of "Why didn't Cyn just force N to kill Uzi or something?)
So we're finally here. In all honesty I can't really think of anything to say here that wouldn't just be me fanfictioning more. Obviously things would unfold similarly but with the absence of certain characters like before.
Maybe have the others actually help in taking down Cyn to make it more believable or something since obviously with J and V's absence this is reduced to a showdown between Uzi, N and Cyn.
That's about it really. Now obviously this isn't perfect and I tried my best to be brief to avoid basically writing a standalone rewrite novel of the entire series but with just a few tweaks I think I've managed to transform Murder Drones nonsensical plot line into something at the very least passable and able to be followed.
And with that, I end my ranting about this series for good. I also apologize if I missed certain things I did not care enough to rewatch the entire series for this so I just skimmed the episodes for the major plot points and that's about it.
Thank you for reading what is probably the most autistic fucking thing I've posted here. Now if you'll excuse me I need to go touch the grass outside.
