Megathread MT | Sonic Prime (Netflix, TV Series) - General Discussion

[Scritch the Cat]

1 hour ago, Ducktor Naldush said:

you guys are seriously overestimating the importance of Satam and other non game related productions. I understand that you got your hopes up when absolutely not a single thing had been promised, but SEGA is not losing any money by not including those characters from media that was created when the series still had to find its footing. Some of you are even thinking that Sega of Japan (those devious Japanese, am I right, because it's not like Japan ever had its own takes on the Japanese IP Sonic The Hedgehog) is jealous or spiteful or something else.

It feels like you're contradicting yourself, assuming the bit in your parentheses is meant as sarcasm.  it is precisely because Sega of Japan has insisted on its own take on the Sonic series that people regularly accuse of them jerking around with their foreign partners, and it's not just about them having a difference of opinion either; there's many documented instances of them being bossy, reluctant to employ Americans and doubting what the American did would work.

Also, I will tremendously contest your claim that Sonic "still had to find its footing" at the time.  It didn't have a big supporting cast in the games themselves yet, but that wasn't too surprising because video games at the time weren't usually expected to have a lot of memorable characters.  But in terms of a distinct and consistent mechanical identity in its main games, Sonic indeed had that in the Mega Drive/Genesis era when it was most successful and given the biggest multimedia push in America.  It was actually in the Dreamcast era when Sega of Japan started pulling more rank, whatwith promoting Amy to the primary female character in the series (granted there weren't really any others in the games at the time), canonizing the name Eggman in the foreign versions of every game going forward, adding in far more characters to hopefully broaden the appeal, and some utterly idiotic mandates from Naka such as English voice actors making exclamations that only ever made sense in Japanese, that the Sonic series lost its footing, at least in terms of having something that everyone could agree was proper Sonic gameplay.  As someone who overall prefers that era of Sonic, I take no pleasure in saying that, but there is valid reason for foreign fans to resent how the brass in Japan have manhandled the series from Dreamcast onward.

1 hour ago, Ducktor Naldush said:

But really, there is no loss in just showing a multiverse where Amy is a cavewoman and Tails has multiple ... tails over "hey remember Satam"?

There is also no gain.  At least the latter thing would generate more buzz, if only because so much of the Sonic fanbase runs on nostalgia and views new things with skepticism.

[Ducktor Naldush]

Listen, I admit this is a topic that I don't actually care spending time writing about, nothing against you personally. 

Let me just correct you on one thing, then we'll get this thread back on topic. 

 

Amy wasn't "made" the main female character with the Adventure games, she had always been the main female character everywhere but the USA. She was the main one in Japan, where she actually debuted in the manga before the games, she was the one in the UK where Sonic The Comic was the main source of storytelling, and even the one shot French comic had her and not anyone else in that role. It was not an invention "imposed" by the Japanese. 

 

 

[Scritch the Cat]

On 9/27/2022 at 2:02 PM, Ducktor Naldush said:

And this is coming from someone who doesn't care about SATAM yes, but the same could be applied to things I liked and that are over and done like Sonic The Comic or Sonic X or the OVA or heck AOSTH for what it was. 

Take a step back and look at the bigger picture, SEGA (and I don't mean just "THOSE" Japanese) is doing fine and well like this. Sonic Prime can stand on its own without pulling a No Way Home

Can it?  That remains to be seen.  I mean okay; this show will probably be watched enough simply because it's Sonic, but so far "it's Sonic" is just about the only thing we know about it.  It doesn't need to pull a No Way Home to be successful but it sure needs to pull something besides just "it's Sonic" when fans expect a show to have more identity than that.

And if they didn't want people to be angry that they aren't pulling a No Way Home, or if you prefer, Into the Spiderverse, then they shouldn't have made their early pitches about this series all about Sonic traveling to different universes and meeting alternate versions of himself and his friends and foes.  In a different time, maybe the main conclusion people would draw from such pitches would be "Sliders, but with Sonic", but that's not the time we're in; in fact I'm not sure how many people here will even get this reference.  Spider-Man is the popular multiverse franchise of our time, and regardless of whether they like those movies it's hard to believe anyone working at SEGA or Netflix is unaware of the cultural impact they have had.  I wouldn't even be surprised if the early (and inevitable) assumptions about what this show are what made them decide to stop promoting the multiverse angle of this show in subsequent previews. 

But now, again, it has no other legs to stand on besides that it's a Sonic show.  I think most people here would be willing to like the show for what is is rather than hate it for what it isn't, except we can't do that when it's almost totally unclear what it is, and I can't think of any show that still has revealed so little only a bit over a month from its release date.

[Diogenes]

Whether the multiverse premise justifies itself is going to come down to what it's used to say, and I don't think a crossover multiverse would inherently say something more important than an original multiverse. And I imagine pretty much anyone who was pulling for the crossover type really just wants it for nostalgia anyway. If you're disappointed not to get it, fair, but they're not making some fundamental mistake by not going full fanservice.

2 minutes ago, Scritch the Cat said:

And if they didn't want people to be angry that they aren't pulling a No Way Home, or if you prefer, Into the Spiderverse, then they shouldn't have made their early pitches about this series all about Sonic traveling to different universes and meeting alternate versions of himself and his friends and foes.  In a different time, maybe the main conclusion people would draw from such pitches would be "Sliders, but with Sonic", but that's not the time we're in; in fact I'm not sure how many people here will even get this reference. 

I don't think the show's creators should be blamed for Sonic fans being dumb and expecting things they were never promised.

[Scritch the Cat]

4 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Whether the multiverse premise justifies itself is going to come down to what it's used to say, and I don't think a crossover multiverse would inherently say something more important than an original multiverse. And I imagine pretty much anyone who was pulling for the crossover type really just wants it for nostalgia anyway. If you're disappointed not to get it, fair, but they're not making some fundamental mistake by not going full fanservice.

I don't think the show's creators should be blamed for Sonic fans being dumb and expecting things they were never promised.

It's not just Sonic fans, and furthermore, that isn't a dumb conclusion to make about this brand in particular when so much of Sonic's buzz for about a decade has already been based on meta callbacks to the series' history.  Not so much the games, but the TV shows, animated shorts, social media and movies have been riding on in-jokes and easter eggs pretty hard.

And honestly, I'm not really blaming the show's creators but I am blaming the marketing for being so opaque about this show.  If the biggest thing people have to talk about in this show so far is just what it isn't, then something about its publicity has gone wrong; not necessarily because of what they've said but certainly because of what they haven't said.

[Sega DogTagz]

19 hours ago, KingMario05 said:

 And because they're co-producing this, what they say GOES... even if both fans and creatives think that it's total bullshit.

lol, thats not how this kind of thing always works.

 

Remember the Movie? Sega was a partner on that one too, and when they were shown the original design (Ugly Sonic) they of course objected to it and suggested changes. Paramount pretty much shrugged them off and took the pony to market anyway. I repeat, they took the main character of the IP, dis-regarded the concerns of the IP holder, and pushed forward with the project.

 

If Sega can't even stop their main character from getting deformed into an abomination; how much creative pull do you think they have in these partnerships? Quite frankly not as much as most people think.

 

The idea that Sega can just kick the door in and make demands, and those demands be the word-of-god is laughable.

 

[Razule]

Paramount's in a different league compared to whatever deals they have with the comics or Sonic Boom's productions. I'd assume Sonic Prime's more similar to the latter. 

I don't think even the movies could just pull out the Freedom Fighters if they wanted to.

[Scritch the Cat]

12 minutes ago, Razule said:

Paramount's in a different league compared to whatever deals they have with the comics or Sonic Boom's productions. I'd assume Sonic Prime's more similar to the latter. 

I don't think even the movies could just pull out the Freedom Fighters if they wanted to.

I still am bummed that Agent Stone wans't called Snively.  He didn't have to look like him but it would have been such a treat if Robotnik at least nicknamed him Snively.

[Sega DogTagz]

Comic's aren't even in the same stratosphere. Sega can leverage their weight all they want there because the licensing deals can be done in much shorter term, with much less money involved and the penalty for breaking them won't be as catastrophically large as say a TV production or movie.

 

But the bigger the budget the less clout they are going to have with the creative team in charge. Sure, it'd be nice if everyone was on the same page, and there is plenty of incentive to play nice, but that same risk of getting the rug pulled out from under you due to creative differences isn't nearly as prevalent. The vice grip loosens. Suddenly all the power isn't in Sega court anymore.

 

and Netflix isn't exactly a small fish. They ain't too far off from Paramount.

[Mega]

I mean, I doubt anyone was trying to be racist when they bring up SEGA of Japan, but SEGA of Japan, from what I understand, IS behind a lot of the strict unification of the Sonic brand, so it's simply a matter of fact that at the end of the day, the ultimate decisions on the franchise direction come from that side of SEGA.

But the thing is, what is wrong about being hopeful that, again, a multiverse series might throw a bone to older iterations of the franchise? Wildbrain OWNS them. That's why people were hopeful.

They may not seem important in the grand scheme of the franchise, but they still made a lasting impact on many Sonic fans in the 90's and were some people's introduction to Sonic. So it's frustrating that this potential is being squandered. Other franchises with alternate continuities still acknowledge them- Transformers, Ninja Turtles, many comic book IPs (e.g. Spider-man).

I just think that Prime would've been a fun opportunity for nostalgic throwbacks.

[Sega DogTagz]

I'd love to see a Spiderverse take on this too...

 

but it never struck me as anything more than haha pirate Knuckles; look caveman Amy sort of gag. It doesn't appear to want to go deeper than that. Asking for other canons to be brought into this is akin to asking for the moon.

[Scritch the Cat]

20 hours ago, Mega said:

I mean, I doubt anyone was trying to be racist when they bring up SEGA of Japan, but SEGA of Japan, from what I understand, IS behind a lot of the strict unification of the Sonic brand, so it's simply a matter of fact that at the end of the day, the ultimate decisions on the franchise direction come from that side of SEGA.

But the thing is, what is wrong about being hopeful that, again, a multiverse series might throw a bone to older iterations of the franchise? Wildbrain OWNS them. That's why people were hopeful.

They may not seem important in the grand scheme of the franchise, but they still made a lasting impact on many Sonic fans in the 90's and were some people's introduction to Sonic. So it's frustrating that this potential is being squandered. Other franchises with alternate continuities still acknowledge them- Transformers, Ninja Turtles, many comic book IPs (e.g. Spider-man).

I just think that Prime would've been a fun opportunity for nostalgic throwbacks.

How they ought to be regarded seems to be open to debate and hinging on what you think is important.

From Sega of Japan's perspective, the American deviations in marketing Sonic were never supposed to exist.  Eggman was never supposed to be named Robotnik and he certainly was never supposed to have once been a good guy named Kintobor, Sonic was never meant to be bowlegged and have a wrinkle on his brow, and he was certainly never meant to be a lost prince who starts a band with his siblings.  A huge supporting cast of talking animals that forced stories to be written around their existence wasn't supposed to exist, although SEGA of Japan itself would become guilty of that later.  Sonic probably wasn't supposed to become known for oodles of totally radical surfer dude lingo.  As Madeleine Schroeder put it, to establish Sonic as a huge brand in a hurry they needed him to be everywhere, and with that territory came a bunch of quick deals with a bunch of other companies that they didn't exactly have time to vet for quality.  Probably the definitive story of that time for me comes from Yuji Naka about a time when he was flicking through TV channels, suddenly caught site of Sonic Underground, and remarked on how absurd it was that something like that somehow got released without anyone even telling him about it.  I don't know why exactly Sega of Japan decided to do that unification stuff, but I can imagine some people felt they had opened up a Pandora's Box and regretted it.

However, it can just as easily be argued that the runaway success Sonic had in America has validated the American takes on the brand, especially when it so radically outpaced the brand's success in Japan, which makes it feel like Japanese branch of Sega pulling rank on this is kind of a waste of time.  Not to mention that it's not just the USA that likes Sonic so much better than Japan, it's pretty much the entirety of the Americas, Oceania and Europe.  Why demand this type of rigid brand identity when far more people will be annoyed abroad than will approve in your own country?  "Because it's our own country" would be their likely answer, but it still seems to be a pretty odd thing for Sega of Japan to care about when so few of their peers give a shit one way or another.  Even after Sega of Japan pulled rank and steered the brand into something more animesque, it seems like it won over far more foreigners who like anime than it won over actual Japanese people.

Of course, an alternate explanation would be that Sonic's creators view themselves as artists and see it as a blow to their work's integrity if it is just overhauled to please someone else.  But why get hot-and-bothered about that when creating Sonic was always a group effort and it went through many different phases and ideas on the way to be what it was even in its very first game?

20 hours ago, Sega DogTagz said:

I'd love to see a Spiderverse take on this too...

but it never struck me as anything more than haha pirate Knuckles; look caveman Amy sort of gag. It doesn't appear to want to go deeper than that. Asking for other canons to be brought into this is akin to asking for the moon.

But again, if that part of the plot doesn't go deeper, then what exactly is the draw of this show supposed to be?  I know SEGA probably wishes this wasn't true, but a lot of Sonic fans now are jaded teenagers and adults who no longer automatically support something just because it has Sonic's face slapped on it.

[Sega DogTagz]

38 minutes ago, Scritch the Cat said:

But again, if that part of the plot doesn't go deeper, then what exactly is the draw of this show supposed to be?  I know SEGA probably wishes this wasn't true, but a lot of Sonic fans now are jaded teenagers and adults who no longer automatically support something just because it has Sonic's face slapped on it.

The draw of the show is to put something on the telly that feeds off a brand that is currently at peak relevance. It doesn't have to be anything more than that really. Sonic is big business at the moment and Netflix wants in on it. It doesn't necessarily need the support of us teens and adults because there is a brand spanking new demographic of movie fan kids that are ripe for the picking.

Much as it sucks, stuff like this usually isn't aimed at us early adopters O GOD I'M OLD. We shouldn't be expecting them to cater to what we want unless that is made clear as the intent right from the jump.

[TheNerdyKMT]

So do you think Sonic Prime will get a snazzy theme song?

[Rabbitearsblog]

2 minutes ago, TheNerdyKMT said:

So do you think Sonic Prime will get a snazzy theme song?

I hope so.  I think the last catchy Sonic theme we had was "Gotta Go Fast" from Sonic X.

[Scritch the Cat]

I get the feeling a show made for Netflix won't prioritize having a good theme song because most of those shows are meant to be watched on a binge and Netflix just assumes that people doing that want to skip those.  If you're watching more than one episode in one sitting, every additional episode you have to select an option to watch the intro and credits.

Oh, and I know this isn't Sonic-related but while we're here, Netflix, please stop punishing those of us who choose to watch the credits by forcing us to watch the credits for every single foreign dub of the series afterward in awkward silence.

[The Famous Sonic]

10 hours ago, Scritch the Cat said:

I get the feeling a show made for Netflix won't prioritize having a good theme song because most of those shows are meant to be watched on a binge and Netflix just assumes that people doing that want to skip those.  If you're watching more than one episode in one sitting, every additional episode you have to select an option to watch the intro and credits.

Oh, and I know this isn't Sonic-related but while we're here, Netflix, please stop punishing those of us who choose to watch the credits by forcing us to watch the credits for every single foreign dub of the series afterward in awkward silence.

I find that very annoying. I have to fast forward when it gets to the foreign credits. 

[Ducktor Naldush]

sorry for speaking other languages and punishing you that way

[Wraith]

I'm gonna piss every single side of this whole discussion off and say I'm not sure if the alternate takes on Sonic are different enough for an Into the Spider verse type joint to be interesting. Ova Sonic is more of a prick and Archie Sonic is more of a flirt but overall there's not enough here that has me aching to see them interact.

Without that, it's just fanservice, and since I don't like stuff like Boom and X anyway it's not really fanservice to me. I only really like the OVA and Archie Sonic, and I would prefer fully committed sequels to those things that aren't fighting for attention with everything else.

This is a bit more personal but I've long burned out on discussing which sonic adaptation is superior. This would just relitigate that. I don't think it's a bad idea to have a Sonic IP crossover but I wouldn't necessarily be excited for it.

 

 

[Scritch the Cat]

4 hours ago, Ducktor Naldush said:

sorry for speaking other languages and punishing you that way

Nobody's blaming you or your languages for existing; it's Netflix's fault for tacking on credits for the dubs that people didn't watch.  People should be able to watch in whatever language they want and get the specific credits for that language.

[Scritch the Cat]

2 hours ago, The Great Egg Emperor said:

How on earth did this topic become a bloody warzone?

It's Sonic.  By now everyone should know that on its own is enough.

[Rabbitearsblog]

This topic is becoming a warzone?  Eh, I don't know, I guess I'm so used to having lots of arguments when it comes to the Sonic franchise that I just view these arguments as another ordinary day.

[Scritch the Cat]

On 9/27/2022 at 6:16 PM, Mega said:

They may not seem important in the grand scheme of the franchise, but they still made a lasting impact on many Sonic fans in the 90's and were some people's introduction to Sonic. So it's frustrating that this potential is being squandered. Other franchises with alternate continuities still acknowledge them- Transformers, Ninja Turtles, many comic book IPs (e.g. Spider-man).

You know, while that is true now, during the time Peter Laird became the sole owner of the brand he prudishly did his best to wipe the slate clean, virtually forbidding references to the 1987 cartoon, The Next Mutation, or the Image Comics series.  Instead, he made a new cartoon that was mostly dedicated to adapting his old Mirage TMNT stories.  A cartoon that was actually pretty good to be fair; it was one of the first truly bingeworthy cartoons and it was many people's first introduction to those higher-stakes and darker TMNT stories.  But it ended up feeling really redundant once IDW reprints of Mirage made those stories widely accessible in their original form.  Meanwhile, after Laird sold the brand to Nickelodeon, references to past versions started returning almost overnight, implying that indeed, Laird was the stick in the mud pushing for his vision while suppressing others.

[SticksSuperFan14]

7 hours ago, Scritch the Cat said:

You know, while that is true now, during the time Peter Laird become the sole owner of the brand he prudishly did his best to wipe the slate clean, virtually forbidding references to the 1987 cartoon, The Next Mutation, or the Image Comics series.  Instead, he made a new cartoon that was mostly dedicated to adapting his old Mirage TMNT stories.  A cartoon that was actually pretty good to be fair; it was one of the first truly bingeworthy cartoons and it was many people's first introduction to higher stakes and darker TMNT stories.  But it ended up feeling really redundant once IDW reprints of Mirage made those stories widely accessible in their original form.  Meanwhile, after Laird sold the brand to Nickelodeon, references to past versions started returning almost overnight, implying that indeed, Laird was the stick in the mud pushing for his vision while suppressing others.

You can also see it in the way the 1987 turtles were portrayed in Turtles Forever compared to 2012's first crossover, "Trans-Dimensional Turtles" (though the second crossover episode of that show was less well-received).

[Scritch the Cat]

2 hours ago, SticksSuperFan14 said:

You can also see it in the way the 1987 turtles were portrayed in Turtles Forever compared to 2012's first crossover, "Trans-Dimensional Turtles" (though the second crossover episode of that show was less well-received).

Yeah, though to be fair TF’s portrayal of the Mirage Turtles was probably even more absurdly off the mark.  I think TF might as well be awful Internet fan fiction, except somehow made into a movie they expected money for.  And it got away with it at the time because back then people weren’t used to seeing such a story done in movies and TV shows, but now that has become commonplace, so the luster is gone and people expect better, thankfully.  They don’t always get it, but still...