Rebooting the Franchise: Good or Bad?

[Soniman]

20 years of canon that basically amounts to nothing. What would we actually be losing?

Getting rid of everything just sounds stupid.

[Diogenes]

Getting rid of everything just sounds stupid.

Award winning argument right here.

"It sounds stupid".

Amazingly versatile; you can use it on just about anything.

[Soniman]

Getting rid of literally everything the Sonic series has built (and yes, there are good things in there) just sounds like an incredible waste.

Edited August 7, 2012 by Soniman

[Diogenes]

What, specifically? Vague rumblings of unsaid "good things" aren't really going to convince me of anything.

[Kuzu]

He's kinda got a point, I mean I'm not really for dumping out the entire canon myself, but it's not like it been structured well at all in the last twenty years.

[Jack / Joker]

Well what about the series is so bad that you would want it all erased?

Edited August 7, 2012 by Knux-K4J

[Soniman]

>Entire classic era

>Development of the Echidna history and expanded mythos of the Chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald in SA1.

>Partial reboot with Unleashed with an appropriate tone and proper world building extended to Colors.

These really are the major ones for me.

[Kuzu]

Well what about the series is so bad that you would want it all erased?

Well it's not exactly structured well, for years we had that inconsistency with Nega, Silver, and Blaze. The characters are mostly filler with no purpose or drive for their actions and mostly just tag along. Backstories being fucked to hell and back, and at this point it's hard to determine what's canon, and what isn't.

>Entire classic era

>Development of the Echidna history and expanded mythos of the Chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald in SA1.

>Partial reboot with Unleashed with an appropriate tone and proper world building extended to Colors.

These really are the major ones for me.

Those aren't exactly things that have had a major impact on the series, especially since the Echinda backstory led to nowhere since Knuckles has been booted from main character status.

[Jack / Joker]

The series needs a serious overhaul but starting from scratch I don't like...

Edited August 7, 2012 by Knux-K4J

[Kuzu]

I don't care either way, but if it leads to better characterization and a more structured universe, I don't see why not.

[Soniman]

The entire classic era isn't important?

Knuckles' backstory is somehow rendered irrelevant becuase of his reduced role?

Partially remaking the entire universe that has been consistent for 3 straight games isnt somehow important?

Okay then.

Edited August 7, 2012 by Soniman

[Diogenes]

Well what about the series is so bad that you would want it all erased?

The disconnected stories, the constantly shifting tone and style, the shallow characters, plotholes/neglect of continuity like '06 Blaze and the inexplicably-not-damaged moon...

>Entire classic era

Storywise there's barely anything to it. S3&K is the only game that merits more than a paragraph, and even it could stand to have been better told. Scavenge it for parts; that's better use of it than anything the series has done lately.

>Development of the Echidna history and expanded mythos of the Chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald in SA1.

Which was not bad, but how much relevance has it had in the past decade? A reboot wouldn't make it any less relevant.

>Partial reboot with Unleashed with an appropriate tone and proper world building extended to Colors.

If the tone works, keep it. And what worldbuilding? Unleashed would've been good with it if there were any chance of future games giving a shit about it, but it's just Earthlike locations for the sake of its world travelling gimmick.

[Nepenthe]

What exactly do you need to get rid of in a canon that supposedly has nothing important established in it anyway???

[Kuzu]

The entire classic era isn't important?

Sonic 3 & Knuckles is the only game that has resembling a story, and even then..

Knuckles' backstory is somehow rendered irrelevant becuase of his reduced role?

Yes, it is. The entire backstory does not matter at this point because it basically has no relevance ever since Knuckles was demoted. A reboot wouldn't exactly change that.

Partially remaking the entire universe that has been consistent for 3 straight games isnt somehow important?

I don't understand how a reboot would instantly mean throwing out the tone, and artstyle but whatever floats your boat.

What exactly do you need to get rid of in a canon that supposedly has nothing important established in it anyway???

Well the foul taste it left in some people's mouths for one.

[Diogenes]

What exactly do you need to get rid of in a canon that supposedly has nothing important established in it anyway???

To eliminate its mistakes, to rebuild characters, their relationships, and their world from scratch without the need to adhere to their existing flawed states. To shed the weight of what currently exists to allow for a fresh look at the series' core elements.

[Nepenthe]

Well the foul taste it left in some people's mouths for one.

A reboot is not going to fix that. See: Sonic 06.

But really, I want hard examples. What characteristics of the SegaSonic canon are simultaneously expendable and yet a barrier to good writing? It literally makes no sense to me.

To eliminate its mistakes, to rebuild characters, their relationships, and their world from scratch without the need to adhere to their existing flawed states. To shed the weight of what currently exists to allow for a fresh look at the series' core elements.

If the canon features no real actions of consequence, what do the mistakes even matter to the games afterward? Ignore them and move on.

You also don't need to permanently adhere to established character archetypes, especially considering the characters change in attitude and interpretation from game to game already anyway.

And what weight is there? How can you have significant weight in a canon that you self-describe as having absolutely nothing to show for 20 years of storytelling? That makes no sense to me.

You would do better to just have the writers come up with some neat concepts for storytelling and go from there, and to make a point of having these concepts have an impact on the current canon in subsequent games. I see no reason to destroy everything in order to do that.

Edited August 7, 2012 by Nepenthe

[Soniman]

I really think some people need to just get over what "foul taste" they have and move on.

Ever game series has its share of bad stories, and I just don't thing rebooting accomplishes anything whatsoever than simply "making the universe better" won't fix.

Edited August 7, 2012 by Soniman

[Jack / Joker]

Yanno, I'd like a reboot actually. Characters like Sonic would still be Sonic, but they would also be new characters with a clean past. Characters like Knuckles, Shadow, Vector and Silver as well as relationships between characters like Sonic & Amy and Rouge & Knuckles would really benefit from starting fresh, and we could forget the inconsistency they have... I like Knuckles the Echidna, but if we could forget about the time they tried to play Knuckles as Sonic's retarded guard dog, I would like him a lot more... even if it means forgetting about the good times, it would be SO worth it!

[Diogenes]

But really, I want hard examples. What characteristics of the SegaSonic canon are simultaneously expendable and yet a barrier to good writing? It literally makes no sense to me.

Nothing about the series as it is currently inherently prevents good writing, but the series doesn't have any kind of strong base; everything's muddled and inconsistent.

Sonic has no consistent setting. We went from checkered dirt and geometric palm trees to Basically Just San Francisco to a futuristic city with flying cars and hard-light moving walkways to fake Venice and fake China to a space theme park with captured alien planets.

Characters barely have defined personalities beyond the broadest of strokes. There's no complexity, no clear direction for them, so they just fall into the basic archetypes. Likewise with character relationships; they largely failed to define meaningful relationships the first time, so they tend to fall back to very hollow interactions.

The emeralds have been saddled with so many different stories. What were once supposedly mysterious and legendary are basically just plot tokens, showing up whenever the story needs some thing for the characters to go after. They power up Chaos, they power the Eclipse Cannon, they power up Emerl, Black Doom needs them to Super Chaos Control, they reveal Babylon, they can revive Sonic, they heal the planet, they fix time. And even when you don't strictly need them they tend to drop into your lap anyway.

[Soniman]

There is a diffrence between having a consistent setting amd actually going to diffrent places where the game takes place. I dont think the series has to have the same setting over and over again in the games.

[Diogenes]

There is a diffrence between having a consistent setting amd actually going to diffrent places where the game takes place. I dont think the series has to have the same setting over and over again in the games.

And I never said it should. I understand the difference; I'm saying there's no consistency; the series jumps wildly between art styles, tech levels, the balance between reality, fantasy, and sci-fi, without any underlying structure to tie it together.

edit: Whoops, didn't see this before:

If the canon features no real actions of consequence, what do the mistakes even matter to the games afterward? Ignore them and move on.

They create expectations, they create patterns. Things that need to be broken, because they're holding the series back more than benefiting it.

You also don't need to permanently adhere to established character archetypes, especially considering the characters change in attitude and interpretation from game to game already anyway.

That being part of the problem. The characters are poorly defined, there's no clear vision for them.

And what weight is there? How can you have significant weight in a canon that you self-describe as having absolutely nothing to show for 20 years of storytelling? That makes no sense to me.

There's a difference between doing nothing (or very little) good and doing nothing at all. Bashing your head against a wall for two decades is going to leave a mark, even if it's not a positive one. Edited August 7, 2012 by Diogenes

[Nepenthe]

Nothing about the series as it is currently inherently prevents good writing, but the series doesn't have any kind of strong base; everything's muddled and inconsistent.

But a reboot doesn't inherently insure success in remedying this; proper writing does, which we sorely need more than Sega having to come up with yet another new canon for us to argue about.

Either way, the only thing I agree with being particularly problematic is the characterization of the cast, but I consider that moreso a side effect of the plotting than anything else. Without interesting things for the cast to do, and certainly without the extended cast being used in any significant manner lately, there's no impetus for them to act beyond their archetypes in the first place.

But I like thinking of the Sonic games as somewhat of a serial in that you can expect familiar characters and somewhat-familiar conflicts regardless of the setting and without any hard rules eliminating any fun possibilities, so wildly different locales and the breadth of abilities the Emeralds possess don't actually bother me. It's a kind of a journey versus the destination thing; I want to see more effort devoted towards writing how Sonic and co. respond to different events and situations and subsequently each other in their effort to handle the Plot of the Day moreso than I want to see the universe slimmed back and developed with more permanent comic-style continuity.

Edited August 7, 2012 by Nepenthe

[SenEDDtor Missile]

Yanno, I'd like a reboot actually. Characters like Sonic would still be Sonic, but they would also be new characters with a clean past. Characters like Knuckles, Shadow, Vector and Silver as well as relationships between characters like Sonic & Amy and Rouge & Knuckles would really benefit from starting fresh, and we could forget the inconsistency they have... I like Knuckles the Echidna, but if we could forget about the time they tried to play Knuckles as Sonic's retarded guard dog, I would like him a lot more... even if it means forgetting about the good times, it would be SO worth it!

Offtopic thought:

Ever since I read a certain fanfiction, I cannot help but keep imagining Knuckles as a Tribal Warrior/Spartan esque character, who due to facing off in some epic battle several centuries in the past, gets sealed in stone by his enemies, and through a freak accident in the present, is revitalized and now needs to deal with culture shock and fitting in.

Oh and his enemies were the ancestors of the Babylon Rogues, or were the guys that would form the Nocturnus clan under Imperator Ix's ancestors.

We now return to the status quo of this topic.

Edited August 7, 2012 by Enigmatus

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Actually, I think I understand what the problem is.

It's not so much a reboot than it is the fear of erasing everything and filling them up with something else. They don't want to see whatever plot told by the classics to be done away with in favor of something else; they don't want to forget about Knuckles' tribal roots and overhauled into a completely different character than what they're already used to seeing; they don't want to be in a world that makes absolutely no acknowledgement to what was made, and by that I mean they don't want to see places like the Floating Island, Chun-nan, or Station Square to be replaced by something else; and perhaps moreso, they don't want to see characters like Shadow, Amy, Rouge, and the various other characters replaced or done away with in favor of any potential newer ones or wiped out entirely.

Maybe some of you are aware of that. But I think others are looking at the worst case scenario when they hear the word "reboot", and it's hard to blame them. When franchises like Spyro undergo a drastic overhaul and changed not only his looks, but his established world, it's easy to fear the worst when you hear the word "reboot".

But I think what we should be mindful is that a reboot doesn't need to be defined as "change absolutely everything possible" as we've seen of Spyro. A reboot could establish further connections of previous plots and create new ones based on what occurred; a reboot could alter characters to where you can still identify them as Shadow or Knuckles, but they are much more fuller and dynamic characters instead of hollow archetypes; it could very much create the very world others fear would be done away with, establishing places like Chun-nan, Station Square, Soleanna, or Gigan Rocks as a part of the same world that can be revisited in future games.

Maybe I'm not fully understanding the issue here, but it goes without saying that a reboot can have both negative and positive associations. While it's not a bad thing to fear the worst, you can't use that as the definition of something that can potentially be used positively.

Really, what's your fear of rebooting the franchise? Tell me, and we'll see if we can put a positive spin on it.

[dontblush]

Maybe they should do the like comics did.

Everything goes white and Sonic is back in the Green Hill Zone (Green Hill Zone is located in Mobius) and looks around and all of his friends (which are aminals) are not there, he goes to look for them and encounters Robotnick. This is Sonic's first time seeing a human, who is this human and why is he here? And go from there

That was my long running idea, but that would probably fail .