I have a confession to make: I've never seen a single episode of the US Office, which remains an opaque and beautiful mystery to me, something I only brush up against when my downstairs neighbours put on yet another episode and the theme wafts up through the floorboards. I have played several hundred hours of Mass Effect, though, so I feel at least 50% qualified to tell you this Office/ME mashup is very well done indeed.
It comes from a creator called eli_handle_b.wav, and replaces Mass Effect's steely-jawed Commander Shepard with The Office's Michael Scott as he bumbles his way through diplomacy and romance of galactic import. I'm not kidding when I say it's well done: Scott is eerily seamless in every part, and the creator has even gone out of their way to pick clips of him where he's lit (more or less) correctly for each scene.
Eli_handle_b.wav, which I will never type correctly on a first try, told Kotaku that the video was a two-week labour of love, and he got the idea after marathoning the TV series. "Michael Scott is the perfect candidate for commander of the Normandy," he decided, before setting about creating the video using Adobe Premiere, After Effects, and Mocha Pro.
It's far from the only strange mashup the video's creator has made. There are far too many to list here, but some choice standouts include Tony Soprano in God of War, Kermit the Frog in Half-Life 2, and Ace Ventura in The Witcher 3. All of which, I have no doubt, accurately reflect the original creative intentions of each series' respective creators.
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