Sonic Boom (Untagged Spoilers)

[RedFox99]

30 minutes ago, SpongicX said:

If we ever get a third season of Sonic Boom, I want to see an episode where Eggman brings Amy’s Sonic doll to life. That would be creepy and hilarious.

That actually sounds diabolical. Maybe the doll could spy on Amy and we could learn where she got it.

[Blueknight V2.0]

A new Sonic the Hedgehog stream was posted on Youtube earlier tonight and according to the stream there's going to be a special Sonic Boom announcement this Saturday. Hopefully it's confirmation about Sonic Boom getting renewed for a third season and more games.

Then there's upcoming news probably within the month or February for the Sly Cooper TV Show. Now a while back, CEO of Blockade Entertainment, Brad Foxhoven, said that the Twitter account for the Sly Cooper Movie would be switched over to promote the show in either late 2017 or early 2018. Also, with Sly Cooper being the 11th most screened show at Mipcom/Junior, I'd say that it's going to be a pretty good show. Since the show is probably Not going in Sonic Boom's direction, Sly Cooper will probably be more like the games with a story-arc between episodes/seasons, while also being darker, but still humorous like Sonic Boom (just hope they don't do as much 4th wall breaking).

[RedFox99]

39 minutes ago, Blue Knight/Bluestreak said:

(just hope they don't do as much 4th wall breaking).

You and me both pal. Honestly, some of them felt forced like in the second Buddy-Buddy temple episode. I never actually played any of the Sky Cooper games, but I'm kind of wondering what the show will be like.

Also, when did it talk about the announcement?

[Blueknight V2.0]

6 minutes ago, RedFox99 said:

I never actually played any of the Sky Cooper games, but I'm kind of wondering what the show will be like.

Also, when did it talk about the announcement?

The Sly Cooper games are some of the best games around, I recommend all 4 games on PS3 or PS Vita. The first 3 games are also on PS2. Still looking forward to the show, movie and Sly 5.

I didn't watch the live stream, I just read the description, mostly because I don't have the time to watch it all.

[Almar]

The main question I have for a Sly Cooper show is whether or not they'll write it with Thieves in Time in mind. Namely to know if they'll make a certain character's actions in that game be more foreshadowed.

[Kellan]

I saw the live stream, and absolutely nothing in the YouTube description actually happened. I’m pretty sure they just recycled that description from another week’s livestream. So, sorry to say, there probably isn’t going to be any announcement Saturday.

[Red Hot Jack]

4 hours ago, Santa Kellan said:

I saw the live stream, and absolutely nothing in the YouTube description actually happened. I’m pretty sure they just recycled that description from another week’s livestream. So, sorry to say, there probably isn’t going to be any announcement Saturday.

So if it was recycled information, what was the old Boom announcement?

[Kellan]

1 hour ago, Dr. Jack said:

So if it was recycled information, what was the old Boom announcement?

I found the video that it’s from.

It appears that the announcement was that Shadow would be in the next episode.

[SpongicX]

16 hours ago, RedFox99 said:

That actually sounds diabolical. Maybe the doll could spy on Amy and we could learn where she got it.

She supposedly made it herself, since she referred to it as a “homemade Sonic doll.” We still don’t know how Eggman got one at the end, but he either repaired Amy’s destroyed doll, or bought it somewhere. Maybe Mark the Tapir made them?

I think it would be funny to see a horror spoof episode where Eggman turns the doll into a robot, and starts haunting the gang with it. It would also be funny for the Sonic doll to turn on Eggman, and start creeping him out as well.

[Blueknight V2.0]

13 hours ago, Almar said:

The main question I have for a Sly Cooper show is whether or not they'll write it with Thieves in Time in mind. Namely to know if they'll make a certain character's actions in that game be more foreshadowed.

I'm hoping that they include stories from all 4 games (with more in-depth detail than the games) including adventures from comics and between games. Since the Sonic Boom and Sly Cooper games and TV shows are handled by the same companies, maybe we'll get a cross-over between Sly Cooper and Sonic Boom. That would be great to have my top 2 video game characters of all-time in one show.

[RedFox99]

5 minutes ago, Blue Knight/Bluestreak said:

I'm hoping that they include stories from all 4 games (with more in-depth detail than the games) including adventures from comics and between games. Since the Sonic Boom and Sly Cooper games and TV shows are handled by the same companies, maybe we'll get a cross-over between Sly Cooper and Sonic Boom. That would be great to have my top 2 video game characters of all-time in one show.

That could be interesting. I could see Sly and Rouge having a blast stealing stuff while Carmelita and Knuckles chase them.

[Almar]

8 hours ago, Blue Knight/Bluestreak said:

I'm hoping that they include stories from all 4 games (with more in-depth detail than the games) including adventures from comics and between games. Since the Sonic Boom and Sly Cooper games and TV shows are handled by the same companies, maybe we'll get a cross-over between Sly Cooper and Sonic Boom. That would be great to have my top 2 video game characters of all-time in one show.

Oh, I agree. That should be done. I'm just saying that when they introduce Penelope they could drop hints ahead of Sly 4 that she's not loyal to Sly and holds his honorable thief act in contempt. I mean, in canon she conned her way into what was a bloodsport with planes, arranged for her rivals to be killed, and joined the Cooper Gang for the loot. She's already nasty in a way Sly's other sidekicks aren't besides Panda King, it shouldn't take that much to make her betrayal flow better than it did in the games.

[Geraint Lewis]

They’re finally airing season 2 on Gulli over in France on Saturday.

[RedFox99]

So elements of Boom do you guys think will be in the comics? Part of me thinks that some of the background characters will make cameos.

[Swing]

I think that Sticks will stick around and will become one of the main recurring characters of this series. Comics and Tv shows. Her state is similar to that of Silver. Both of them were the newest (typical) Sonic characters introduced and both of them are the most memorable and also best received element from their specific games. 

[DabigRG]

4 hours ago, RedFox99 said:

So elements of Boom do you guys think will be in the comics? Part of me thinks that some of the background characters will make cameos.

Sticks is the most obvious and probably doesn't even need any speculation because let's be frank here: Sticks is easily the Breakout Character of Boom, whether she was actually created to be or not. She's already shown up in numerous areas that have little to nothing to do with Boom, including official Japanese material, something I don't think can really be said for any other spinoff character not named Sally Acorn. And it really does help that she's the only Boom original that actually both looks and functions like a Sonic character should.

Outside of her though, I don't really see many others popping up outside of cameos. Cause if we're being honest, one notable trend with the Boom original characters is that most of them tend to be really one-note in their role. That doesn't quite apply to all of them, mind you, but the point still stands that most of the characters are too restrictive in their scope to really be expected to show up much outside of their normal environment.

As a result, the only characters I can really see showing up in any notable capacity are Soar the Eagle, Nominatus, D-Fect, the Citizens of MorrisTown, and maybe some of Eggman's robots.

Of course, that's partially assuming Bygone Island itself won't show up.

[Blueknight V2.0]

https://twitter.com/GanttJake/status/943281943906570240

I found this Tweet over on Twitter as a response to Aaron Webber aka Ruby Eclipse and was wondering, who is this guy and what does he have to do with Sonic or Sega? And how can he be so sure there will be news or announcements in February?

[NikoS]

21 minutes ago, Blue Knight/Bluestreak said:

https://twitter.com/GanttJake/status/943281943906570240

I found this Tweet over on Twitter as a response to Aaron Webber aka Ruby Eclipse and was wondering, who is this guy and what does he have to do with Sonic or Sega? And how can he be so sure there will be news or announcements in February?

My bet would be that he wanted to ask a question to Aaron, not affirm anything

[DabigRG]

So, for whatever reason it was that gave me the idea in the first place, I decided to rewatch Season 2's premiere Tommy Thunder:Method Actor.

Part of the intrigue of watching this episode again is that someone asked for us to list some of our favorite characters and Tommy( was actually among some of "lesser" characters I mentioned under mine. Why? Primarily because of his design.

Keep in mind that this was actually the first impression we ever had of the titular character.

(My favorite shot of this guy)

On that note, I recall that watching this episode for the first time was kinda awkward because of that. This was meant to be the same character and we're spending 11 minutes with him.
 

(Btw, am I the only one who found much of his animation a bit offputting?)

So, getting to the point of this rewatch. This was...not a very good episode, if I'm being honest. At the very least, there were some pretty funny quips throughout the episode, with Tails, Tommy, and especially Eggman delivering most of them. It's just that the episode itself had numerous issues and the basis of the assessment comes less from the eponymous tiger himself(though I definitely have much to say regarding him) and more from how it seems to get a little confused with what it actually wanted to do, leading to a shift by the end that led to the ending feeling oddly rushed in a way. 

(Holy shit, what's happening with the quality here?)

Straight to the point of this rewatch, Tommy Thunder is supposed to be a famous jerk with good publicity who decides to use Sonic's status as actual hero to enhance his own caliber as an action hero. At first, the focus is on him wanting to hang with Team Sonic to pick up a few things from them, but after a (really slack) runabout with the Weasel Bandits, the focus shifts to him blatantly taking credit for Sonic's heroics. This leads to him getting cocky and challenging Eggman on TV, leading to the Doctor attacking him for real and Tommy turns to Sonic for help. Sonic happily trashes Eggman's robots and, realizing Tommy's fans really do put stock in him, decides to share the credit.

(And the resolution shits the bed again!)

So, to address the primary driving point, let's talk about Tommy in this episode; specifically, how...flimsy his characterization is. I mean, on paper, he seems like he should be written more along the lines of a character like Zapp Brannigan from Futurama: unapologetically egomaniacal about his fame and a smooth talking jerk who is isn't actually what he's cracked up to be. And yet, throughout this episode, I couldn't help but notice that it seemed inconsistent and occasionally halfhearted about how much of a dick he's supposed to be. Or towards the end, how much of a schemer he's supposed to be?

The first thing we hear him say is that he's better to be here before muttering to himself that this place is a dump, which seems like an early indication that he's a mean actor...except that he's at Meh Burger. So wait, is he supposed to be talking about the town in general here or is it just another "Meh Burger Sucks" joke? Okay, this is more of a minor bit of ambiguous dialogue, but I assure you it gets worse throughout the episode.

This episode(or rather, just the second half of it) is based around the idea that he's a bigheaded coward yucking up his fame for being an action hero while Sonic is the real hero who really saves the day. And yet, when news of Eggman's attack comes out, Tommy noticeably doesn't panic and in fact, openly admits when the fight is over that he's not a real hero like Sonic and asks to tag along with his Team for a few days to help him get into character for his next role. Sure, he does this while listing his actual accomplishments, but he still seemingly says this aloud with many non-Amy fans present.

Of course, when Sonic declines, Tommy later shows up at his shack and tries to convince him with this fruitbowl replica of hedgehog. And here lies a example of how weird the writing behind this episode is: the unspoken implication I got is that Tommy made this himself. Now technically, Tommy never once implies this, true, but he still just presents it to Sonic and that's that. Wouldn't the expected dialogue for such a scene have Tommy mention having it made for Sonic or even better, that he simply found/took it?  Idk, it's just really weird that with this show's brand of writing, there is a moment where they missed an obvious joke involving a character doing that type of thing. (Although, I do like the comments about Sonic not having a door and especially the brick joke of Sonic admitting he ate half of the visage)

Anyway, when the fruit didn't go over, Tommy decides to take the rest of Team Sonic out for the night("I didn't know Meh Burger had a VIP Section!" "It doesn't." *wink*) with the underlying intention of talk them(or specifically Amy) into convincing Sonic for him and she does this the next day by pointing out that this is Sonic's chance to make Tommy less of a phony and make his next movie more realistic of a true hero.(isn't that basically what Tommy said to begin with, btw?). So, Tommy spends the next 45 seconds of running time dressing like Sonic, asking him questions about his routine, and imitating his bouts of "brooding time," basically annoying Sonic in the process. 

This is cut short when Weasel Bandits(three of them, anyway) are detected to be robbing a TV store. Now again, this has a small but noticeable moment where the episode's actual intent can be seen to be a bit confusing: the episode generally carried the vibe that Tommy was in this purely for his own benefit, but what that source of benefit is changes across the episode. In this scene, he walks up as if he was actually expecting to do something before looking somewhat surprised at Sonic telling him to stay out of the way. So here I must ask, what exactly was Tommy goal's here: was he always planning to just swindle some glory from Sonic or was he actually planning legitimately picking up some experience? I mean, given his [even more(?)] lackluster characterization in the rest of the episode, it's likely meant to be the former, but I find myself asking this because parts of this episode seemed like it had two different concepts in mind for it's plot: one where Tommy legitimately wants to get experience at being a hero but can't leave the shallow movie star stuff out of it and one where he's just been in it for an easy publicity stunt and is just putting himself on the road for some humble pie.

Anyway, we officially shift into the second premise for the rest of the episode when Tommy pretty shamelessly sets up a shot with Soar the Eagle, with the vague but not really spoken implication that it might've been a setup to begin with. Though he still gives credit to Sonic and the Goober with the two tails, its played as a more bizarre brand of facetiousness. "Enjoy" that bit of straightforward/competent storytelling there, because for the rest of the episode, Tommy's characterization becomes dumb. So dumb, in fact, that he can be compared to a movie star version of our own Buffles at times. 

Seriously, the very next couple of scenes has him go to Sonic's house to thank him for teaching him how to do the hero thing now that he has it "down cold(what?)," accuses him of being jealous when he questions Tommy's view of what actually happened, is confused when Comedy Chimps describes the Weasel Bandits as "neer-do-well reprobates," and just flows with Comedy's comment about taking on Eggman by calling him out on Live TV. Like, that second and last one work fine with the Miles Gloriosus storyline for the most part, but what the heck's up with the rest of that? Why exactly did he even bother giving Sonic credit on TV if he was just gonna come by later? Shouldn't he just have left Sonic out during the interview in favor of just taking the top credit himself? Like, maybe if they were actually calling back to his first appearance somewhat and it was supposed to be that Tommy is actually very meek despite his fame and the bad attitude he generally has because of it, then sure. But a.I'm pretty sure that's not what they were going for and b.that's not quite how it comes across either. And the joke with the fancy terminology is another one where I question the logic behind it. Tommy Thunder is a self-described egomaniac who was able to weasel his way into some easy publicity after a sequence of smoothtalking and manipulating everyone. Should've the joke be that he's overaggrandizing himself in part by using fancy words to sell the idea of his valiant deed, to Comedy Chimp's confusion? Honestly, I'm done wondering if he's still supposed to be a brazen sham or just a delusional idiot.

So fastforwarding throughout the climax, Tommy is confronted by Eggman on his cellphone("Yeah, those shoelifts really help."), tries to claim it was all part of the shoe(with the odd implication that he meant it, I think), and we get the expected scene of him begging the suddenly present Sonic to help him with some redundant dialogue(aside from his real name: Irwin Fertelmeister). So, we get a one-hedgehog fight sequence with a weird mix of AoStH's theme(Y'all do realize "In the Hall of the Mountain King" is public domian, right?) playing over it, with Eggman leaving to since his muffins are ready. So Soar comes again to report on what he deems a epic battle between Tommy and Eggman, asking Sonic "the Bystander" to about Tommy's heroics. After glancing between the jittered Tommy and his cheering fans, Sonic claims Tommy was great, to which the latter decides to take all the credit and promises to use his finished research in his most "realistic" film to date. The episode ends with a brick(or should I say Sticks) joke that may not make sense if you were paying attention, with the implication being that it's Sonic's reward for sharing(?) credit with Tommy.

So, what exactly were we meant to take away from this episode beside Sonic interacting with a foil and coming out the better person because of it? That Tommy's a self-serving egomaniac? That Mr. Thunder's just some vapid bigwig with delusions of grandeur? That Meh Burger is so awful that it may not even have had a real VIP Room to offer? I honestly think the only reasons this was picked as the premiere was because it was probably one of the first they completed, it was primarily Sonic focused(to herald the more character driven episodes), and it was the easiest to pretty up and/or show off the upgraded animation. Cause the actual story--and by extension, Tommy's characterization--didn't make much sense.

 

 

[Multikaris]

Tommy Thunder should have been punished for his actions. Even though the villagers look up to him, they don’t follow his apparent lifestyle at all. They try to keep our heroes down, rather than support them or do anything heroic themselves.

[DabigRG]

2 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

Tommy Thunder should have been punished for his actions.

Even though the villagers look up to him, they don’t follow his apparent lifestyle at all. They try to keep our heroes down, rather than support them or do anything heroic themselves.

These things almost seem like they're at odds with each other.

But yeah, I think I recall seeing someone here ranting for quite a bit about Tommy supposedly lacking comeuppance when I getting caught back up on both the show and the general response to it here.

Still, it's interesting that that dichotomy of interest exists in-universe.

 

[RedFox99]

19 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

These things almost seem like they're at odds with each other.

But yeah, I think I recall seeing someone here ranting for quite a bit about Tommy supposedly lacking comeuppance when I getting caught back up on both the show and the general response to it here.

Still, it's interesting that that dichotomy of interest exists in-universe.

 

I can see why people felt it was a weak opening for season 2. The ending itself felt rushed and a bit mean-spirited.

I have a question for you guys: do you think Boom could've been better if it wasn't a sitcom?

Edited December 21, 2017 by RedFox99

[Multikaris]

20 minutes ago, RedFox99 said:

I can see why people felt it was a weak opening for season 2. The ending itself felt rushed and a bit mean-spirited.

I have a question for you guys: do you think Boom could've been better if it wasn't a sitcom?

Indeed. If it had the tone of the Boom games/toys/Comic it would have been better.

[RedFox99]

28 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

Indeed. If it had the tone of the Boom games/toys/Comic it would have been better.

You mean like RoL? Interestingly enough, it was supposed to be a bit more serious but then the TV show came along and the tone of the video game changed (i.e. Knuckles being more dumb).

[DabigRG]

34 minutes ago, RedFox99 said:

The ending itself felt rushed and a bit mean-spirited.

Yeah, seriously.

As I subtley pointed out towards the end, for as flimsy and inconsistent as Tommy's characterization was throughout, one of the only consistent things was that he seemed to genuine respect Sonic's heroism on some level and made sure to credit/compliment him throughout. And then at the very end, he suddenly takes full credit for being Obliterator-bot and yet Amy describes Sonic as sharing the glory with Tommy? What the heck?! While I definitely get the feeling the final joke was just Dave being Dave(I think), it's still a weird, not very good note for the episode to end on.

Though another funny note, I'm having a bit of a time figuring out if rewatching this episode for the first time hinders or further helps my theory regarding Vector Detector's origins.