Sonic Boom (Untagged Spoilers)

[Red Hot Jack]

11 hours ago, SonicWind said:

Honestly, it doesn't bother me as much, but yeah, it seems Amy doesn't do a lot in the show.

She still gets her moments, though. We can at least say that.

I agree, but what about Sticks? She gets even less moments and lines to shine. I know she's not as important as Amy, but both girls are being treated poorly in my opinion. She deserves to stay in the Sonic universe, even after Boom ends, she's such a precious and unique character.

Anyway, the season finale I thought was pretty good, but I would have preferred to see more plot, but the 2 Eggmen crisis was interesting. I have to say... I kinda like Shadow as a full villain, but obviously he needs motivations, not just a shallow enemy, I doubt a complex villain would work on a comedy show though. The action was very good, WAAAY better than last season's finale.

I hope there is a third season, because if the show gets cancelled we'll have to wait a long time before a new Sonic cartoon gets announced.

Also, so Lord Eggman is basically a Sith? He fights with a lightsaber. I thought that was pretty cool.

 

 

[RedFox99]

9 minutes ago, Jack the Rookie said:

I agree, but what about Sticks? She gets even less moments and lines to shine. I know she's not as important as Amy, but both girls are being treated poorly in my opinion. She deserves to stay in the Sonic universe, even after Boom ends, she's such a precious and unique character.

The girls don't get as much episodes as the guys.

[Swing]

18 minutes ago, Jack the Rookie said:

I agree, but what about Sticks? She gets even less moments and lines to shine.

I think the reason for this is, because Sticks was, like Shadow and Metal-Sonic, more an after thought for this show. I heard she wasn't planned to be a main character but rather a recurring side character. 

[RedFox99]

6 minutes ago, Swing said:

I think the reason for this is, because Sticks was, like Shadow and Metal-Sonic, more an after thought for this show. I heard she wasn't planned to be a main character but rather a recurring side character. 

Could be. I mean, look at RoL where she was an NPC.

[Swing]

28 minutes ago, RedFox99 said:

Could be. I mean, look at RoL where she was an NPC.

Pretty much. That would also explain why she was barley used in the show because the writers didn't planned to use her. And you know how Sega is, they earn Sonic, and they tell what Sonic has to be.

[RedFox99]

13 minutes ago, Swing said:

Pretty much. That would also explain why she was barley used in the show because the writers didn't planned to use her. And you know how Sega is, they earn Sonic, and they tell what Sonic has to be.

I mean she was probably absent the most of the others.

[SpongicX]

47 minutes ago, RedFox99 said:

I mean she was probably absent the most of the others.

Yet she still had more starring roles than Amy. Amy may have appeared in each episode this season, but did she do a lot that had her stand out compared to everyone else? Not really, most of her actions go unappreciated by everyone else. If it weren’t for Sticks, Amy would have been treated like crap in the end The Unnamed Episode, despite being responsible for having Sticks save the village. Imagine if the episode didn’t end with Sticks giving Amy the credit she deserved, that would have meant that the last thing people have done to Amy in the episode, was boo her, just because she found out how to give the town back to the people, thanks to the library.

This season, we’ve seen Knuckles save the world by fighting an asteroid in space, saw Sticks fight news corruption and lead the village to fight back, saw Sticks save the town from hypnosis, saw Knuckles be useful in restoring the town’s power, saw Tails save the world from Hypno bot, saw Tails give instructions to assist Sticks and Dave from saving everyone from being blasted into the sun, and many others.

Amy has had a few highlights this season, like saving Knuckles from TW Barker, saving a beebot, finding out Sticks owns the village, and saving the town alongside Sticks, while Sonic and pals were away, but I don’t think these accomplishments  hold up compared to the many shining moments the others have gotten. Even the freaking villains and henchmen get better shining moments than Amy... Amy rarely got any recognition, or pats on the back for a job well done, like everyone else in this show. Just getting one hug from Sticks wasn’t enough, despite everything she did for the village, she was still treated like crap during the rest of the season.

Amy was left out of quite a few things as well, she was the only one to not be shown  with a space suit, she was the only one who wasn’t shown bowling in The Lightning Bowler Society, Amy is still the only character to not be shown playing a musical instrument. I know this stuff isn’t necessary, but it feels so strange to see everyone but Amy getting to do some fun things in the show. Amy was even dropped from Vector Detector, despite having the episode start off being about her. The episode really should have had Amy assist Vector and Sonic throughout.

 While Amy has had starring roles, most of them have Sticks as the costar. Sticks has had 2 episodes to herself this season, Amy only had one. Even in episodes the other characters didn’t star in, they still had moments to shine, yet Amy rarely had any moments. It felt kind of wrong for the finale to give everyone but Amy their own scene to stand out. 

All Amy did in this finale was call Sonic for help, and was the only one to get knocked out by Metal Sonic. While Sticks, Tails, and Knuckles got knocked down shortly after, they got up pretty quickly to take down Metal Sonic, yet Amy was still left knocked out.

That’s what really bugged me, they even seemed to make it look like Amy was about to get up to help finish off Metal Sonic, but then Sticks killed Metal Sonic, and ruined Amy’s chance of helping out. She was wasted this season, and was made even more wasteful in this finale. I really wanted to see Amy treated better, but I guess that’s too much to ask for. Putting her in each episode without something to do isn’t good enough.

[RedFox99]

@SpongicX You've hit the nail on the head man. I hope if there is a Season 3, the writers take notice of this and try to compensate for Amy's rather poor treatment.

[SBR2]

Well I liked it. The action was good and honestly I felt the story was pretty solid. Shadow wanting to destroy the world was...yeah ok that came out of nowhere. I mean I guess Boom Shadow's a villain? It's kinda hard to tell.

Also Brobotnik. You gotta admit that was cute.

I'm not really liking the Finality of how Alan and the Official Sonic Tumblr are talking about this finale. Signs aren't pointing very good for Season 3.

[RedFox99]

1 hour ago, SBR2 said:

Shadow wanting to destroy the world was...yeah ok that came out of nowhere. I mean I guess Boom Shadow's a villain? It's kinda hard to tell.

Yeah, it came out of left field and it didn't help his already lackluster characterization (it kind of made it even worse); that's why I like @Mad Convoy's interpretation of Shadow's character. This is also why I hope they get better writers if there's a next season. I don't want to be unnecessarily harsh, it's just that I'm not a fan of their writing style.

[Dash Speed]

9 hours ago, Swing said:

Shadow is kinda a dick in the newer games and shows. I wonder why people like him so much. 

Cuz Badguys(or at least knight templars) are more entertaining than good guys and more fun to root for, it subverts expectations and cliches in good guy fictions. See Cartman or to match a depiction to Shadow Hiei and one of my favorite anti heroes Wolverine.

Shadow is a breath of fresh air because he doesn't do silly things like sonic and the gang and straight up steals the show with his presense of non nonsense brutality and ruthless determination.

[SpongicX]

1 minute ago, Dash Speed said:

Cuz Badguys(or at least knight templars) are more entertaining than good guys and more fun to root for, it subverts expectations and cliches. See Cartman and even Eggman sometime.

Shadow is a breath of fresh air because he doesn't do silly things like sonic and the gang and straight up steals the show with his presense of non nonsense brutality and ruthless determination.

True, look at Disney’s Hercules, most seem to agree that Hades was the best thing about that movie.

[RedFox99]

The problem with Boom Shadow is that he doesn't really have any motivations for his actions, so it makes him a bit flat as a character.

[Lord-Dreamerz]

3 minutes ago, SpongicX said:

True, look at Disney’s Hercules, most seem to agree that Hades was the best thing about that movie.

Hades really was the best part of the show for me too. Even on Yugioh I love Kaiba and hate Yugi. On Pokemon I kinda like Team Rocket and hate Ash. On Samurai Jack I like Jack just fine... I really like Aku on it too, maybe even little more then Jack. On Shantae I love both Shantae & Risky Boots about the same. On Mario I dislike Mario but I like Peach & Bowser... So it really just depends with me... I don't always hate the heroes/prefer the villains in stories... regardless I do often have a thing for cartoony over the top villains more often and tend to dislike obnoxious type heroes where the story panders to them.

[Dash Speed]

22 minutes ago, RedFox99 said:

The problem with Boom Shadow is that he doesn't really have any motivations for his actions, so it makes him a bit flat as a character.

Does that really matter since it's a childrens show/game franchise and not a complex focus on mature themes?

Sonic doesn't have motivations for being a hero, he just is because he's cool like that and looks out for the little guy.

Knuckles has no motivations for being a hotheaded brute and has no hangups with guarding a shining big jewel.

Eggman seeing that he's from a genius decendant who started out good still chooses to enslave the world for no reason because he's smarter than everyone and wants his own theme park.

It's just entertaining and ironic, Shadow is the dark "non humorous" anti hero who does what he sets out to do and basically constrasts everything around him because thats his point, to bring serious/edgy aspects to a lght hearted fun series.

[RedFox99]

17 hours ago, SpongicX said:

There is a funny detail I missed upon my first viewing of this episode.

During the scene where there's a crowd who want to buy the new Tommy Thunder Video Game, we see Mark the Tapir as the cashier, and he tells everyone how there's enough copies to go around. However, Tommy lies that they're in limited supply, and encourages everyone to push and shove to get their copies before they're sold out.



The next time we see Mark in the episode, he's wearing a neck brace.



How did I miss that detail? That's actually kind of funny, yet messed up. It really portrays how violent customers get over limited supply in games. It's funny, because we don't actually see much of the customers going nuts, we just see them get excited after Tommy tells them how it's in limited supply, yet the next scene with Mark really implies how violent the crowd got off screen. 
 

I wonder if Perci has an addiction to video games and knew the others would fall for Tommy's trick.

[Red Hot Jack]

41 minutes ago, Dash Speed said:

Does that really matter since it's a childrens show/game franchise and not a complex focus on mature themes?

Sonic doesn't have motivations for being a hero, he just is because he's cool like that and looks out for the little guy.

Knuckles has no motivations for being a hotheaded brute and has no hangups with guarding a shining big jewel.

Eggman seeing that he's from a genius decendant who started out good still chooses to enslave the world for no reason because he's smarter than everyone and wants his own theme park.

It's just entertaining and ironic, Shadow is the dark "non humorous" anti hero who does what he sets out to do and basically constrasts everything around him because thats his point, to bring serious/edgy aspects to a lght hearted fun series.

It's not the franchise, characters can have backstories and motivations, but it would really feel off in a children comedy show. Am I the only one who thinks this way? Shadow already doesn't fit in the show, he is just fanservice.

[Shadowlax]

47 minutes ago, Dash Speed said:

Does that really matter since it's a childrens show/game franchise and not a complex focus on mature themes?

Sonic doesn't have motivations for being a hero, he just is because he's cool like that and looks out for the little guy.

Knuckles has no motivations for being a hotheaded brute and has no hangups with guarding a shining big jewel.

Eggman seeing that he's from a genius decendant who started out good still chooses to enslave the world for no reason because he's smarter than everyone and wants his own theme park.

It's just entertaining and ironic, Shadow is the dark "non humorous" anti hero who does what he sets out to do and basically constrasts everything around him because thats his point, to bring serious/edgy aspects to a lght hearted fun series.

YES, yes it does. I'm not gonna full on rant on you real quick, but i'm gonna break it down why knuckles and shadow are bad characters. 

Ok, first ... having character motivations doesn't need to be complex, amy does some of the shit she does because she like sonic. Bam reasonable character motivation. No one is expecting like full on masterwork story telling from a kids show, or even that deep motivations in season 2, adventure time didn't start getting weird untill like season 3 and 4 and even though things like steven universe started quicker the characters had to flesh out more. So being something for children doesn't really excuse bad writing or story telling. 

Why is the writing and story telling bad you ask and what does this have to do with shadow and knuckles, we are getting to that last part later. But for now , why is the writing for this show kind of generally not great? Short hand and Short cuts, to put it simply, the shows writers have an issue with finishing ideas whether it be plots, narratives, settings or characters  nothing is ever finished, and instead of actually you know... finishing it. They usually joke about it, which isn't the worst thing in the world, but it isn't the best and gets worse and worse the more you use it because it means you are aware of a writing issue and are making the active choice not to fix it. For example characters joking about needing catalysts for plots or plot holes in general. These are narrative short cuts, that allow the writer to get a potential laugh out of the audience while getting away from dealing .. writing a coherent plot. While it can work, despite diminishing returns on narratives

It does not work on characters

Now we get to shadow and knuckles. Actually not yet, ok so the reason Amy, Tails, Sonic and Eggman work as they are because they don't have anything established in the main canon besides very loose motivations. It isn't really an insult , its just what those characters are, we don't know much about them except immediate goals and motivations in that moment and we have gained their characters through interactions over the years. Eggman wants to take over the world, Sonic's a chill cocky dude who saves the day, tails is a smart guy and sonic's side kick who wants to live up to what his friend does, and Amy is the love interest who is motivated by sonics actions. Clear motivations, and all these things retain because they aren't held down for anything. 

This is not the case for shadow and knuckles, because they have backstory. Shadow and Knuckles have motivations, they have reasons for why they are who they are and if those things didn't happen...they wouldn't be the same characters. Lets start with knuckles, so a lot of knuckle's humor in this show is " dumb"  , he's a big dumb guy. Why is he dumb? He's dumb because main knuckle's gullible. That's why, that's the shorthand they are using, that short hand doesn't work because its not the same knuckles. The reason knuckles in main canon is gullible is because he lived on an island by himself dedicated to duty. he doesn't have a family and very little social interaction so he doesn't trust people much. Knuckles lacks this, they even try to do an episode where the moral is " we are your family " but it doesn't work because its trying to call back to the misfortune of a character this knuckle's isn't. This knuckles didn't go through all the shit , main knuckles did. So instead of it being a heart warming moment it comes off as lazy and weird, it feels like there's his weird ass buff robot pretending to be main canon knuckles on screen. The best parts of knuckles in the show , and the funniest parts aren't when he's dumb but when he's showing character that isn't dumb. You get suprisng bits of intersting character that could be its own, but its never achived because knuckles has to be dumb because main knuckles's is gullible, and he doesn't have the context for that gullibility so he's just mindlessly dumb. 

 Now to shadow, shadow is in a deeper crock of shit, because he might be the sonic back story king.  He got like a lot shit going , he has direct character motivation, character evolution and arc in result and things added on to the back story. He gotta lotta stuff going on. So they go ok " he's edgy and a loner , so he'll just be that. That's funny" ok why is it funny? Why is it funny shadow is serious. Well lets take a look at why shadow's serious, shadow is a serious character because he went through some fucked up shit. Not even like some " you beat me and called me weak " type stuff. Murders, being trapped in an government basement for half a century, memory manipulation, aliens, ect ect. The reason show fails at shadow because it doesn't need to be shadow. there's no reason it couldn't be some new edgy boom specific guy besides marking. There's no reason. And they continue to use shadow's original characterization for a reference, but it doesn't make sense because OG shadow went though shit. This shadow, for all intents a purposes has not, this isn't the same kind of universe so there is a good chance he has not. It comes off as a blatant marketing attempt that doesn't really hit home for a lot of people, the story behind the character is gone. So all you have is the edge parts , and those don't work with out the story parts , one justified the other. So now you have this out of place not funny version of a character who really shouldn't be there. 

 

So basically what i'm saying is, I think your wrong and being a children's show doesn't excuse the lazy ass writing, especially when the show isn't funny or compelling enough to make me excuse its flaws.

[RedFox99]

@SpongicX

 

[Swing]

Hades was so great because he was funny, cool, had motivation for his actions and was a very unique villain over all. Shadow is really just evil and that's it. No backstory (I'm not sure if SA2 is still canon), no motivations and now real personality.

[RedFox99]

Thank you @Shadowlax. It felt like the writers wanted go crack jokes instead of telling good stories.

[Shadowlax]

Turns out establishing a character, and giving him motivation actually allows them to be used for humor and to be charming. Shadow doesn't even have to be funny like hadies he could be an edgy character, I had an idea he was just some stuck up kid with dead parents who liked to fight and later they would have a semi serious episode addressing his dead parents in some degree. It doesn't have to be the same, shadow, it doesn't even have to be a character that is in itself inherently funny in their actions or rather one that tries to be funny, it just needs to be a character. So you can have a baseline to build humor off of. Because with out all that shadow's just a really really lame plot device, and everyone watching can clearly see he's a plot device. 

[Dash Speed]

Shadows humor should be void of any emotion yet smugly aware about the realization of being annoyed about the silly things around him. Also as deadpan in making retorts of the flaws about others while being comically serious. Basically boom shadow put downs.

Otherwise Shadow should not have any humorou elements about him, which is why I hated Ian Flynn Archie sonic with shadow always being the emo joke of the series, it came off to meta since neither sonic nor rouge take shadow lightly in cannon.

[Dash Speed]

49 minutes ago, Swing said:

Hades was so great because he was funny, cool, had motivation for his actions and was a very unique villain over all. Shadow is really just evil and that's it. No backstory (I'm not sure if SA2 is still canon), no motivations and now real personality.

Shadows is being what he always is, a anti hero that brings rule of cool and fights the rival for fanservice. That' something clear and actually unique, he is a contrast to sonic while subverting  the shows typical good vs bad comedy by breaking character and forcing the tone of the series to work with his character.

Thats actually a good character trope.

[Shadowlax]

6 minutes ago, Dash Speed said:

Shadows is being what he always is, a anti hero that brings rule of cool and fights the rival for fanservice. That' something clear and actually unique, he is a contrast to sonic while subverting  the shows typical good vs bad comedy by breaking character and forcing the tone of the series to work with his character.

Thats actually a good character trope.

A trope isn't a character, that trope doesn't work with out the character behind it.  You just described a plot device. He isn't what he always was, shadow has been always a characte. He is now, or at least in boom, not that

The trope doesn't work with out a character, otherwise he's just saying shit with little to motivation into the ether.