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

[Scritch the Cat]

2 hours ago, Wraith said:

I don't really care to see Rouge if she can't be herself. I never expected Sonic Team to do much with her in the first place but the last thing I ever wanted was for her to be 'black widow'd into being the generic action girl of the group. I'll give the writing team grace here but I'm not holding my breath.

They can probably write Rouge as more than a generic action girl, but I do wonder how they can use much of what she HAD been when having to jump through the myriad hoops of a new role (and probably a new continuity), increased censorship, and SEGA’s brain-numbing new mandates that erase most nuance the character had.  If her jewel obsession is too nasty for being on Sonic’s team, her sex appeal is too adult for the show’s demographic, her original allies not around her, the attraction between her and Knuckles not allowed to be there due to SEGA’s “no relationships” policy, her employment by the government not noteworthy due to there not being much of a human world here, well, what exactly is left of her essence?  Karate?  They can add new aspects to characters but when using her here tears her so full of holes that they need to fill, maybe they should...use someone else.

[batson]

I know I'm late to the party, but regarding those bat tits...

I said many months ago that since this is the first american Sonic cartoon in a long while, even though Rouge looks the same as she always has in most current Sonic media, in this particular show they would definitely nerf her chest size. I said that and people were like "You can't act like you know that that's going to be the case" and I was like "Oh yes I can." And here we are. Character designs in general, and general trends changes over time is a speciality of mine (I even wrote my masters in media history on how medical professionals have been represented in cartooning over the last century) and the fact is that over the past 5-4 years american childrens animation have an unspoken rule not to give female characters busts over a certain size. It's an ironic "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" effect of the trend that began in american cartooning around 2010 when it became more okay not to make female cartoon characters traditionally attractive, which had always been the case before in a huge double standard in comparasion to male characters (yes, yes, attactives is in the eye of the beholder, but you know what I mean). Around this time shows like Steven Universe and a ton of others began featured female characters with the same goofy traits as male characters (such as big noses), and various types of realistic body types that had rarely ever been featured on non-comedic female characters in cartoons before (such as being overweight). But ironically the trend that on first glance said "it's okay to draw female characters of every kind" in actuality said "it's okay to draw female characters of every kind... except one". Because you cant have female characters with really large breasts. Characters like Mis Bellum, Hello Nurse and so forth with extreme bust sizes had to be redesigned or in some cases just scapped. Even a lot of characters whose busts were modest in the first place still had their chests nerfed from medium to almost non-existant (Lola Bunny being a good example). Are there really busty characters in american kids animation still? Like, at all? Well, every now and then a zebra is born without stripes. What I mean is that sure, there are bound to be exceptions, but a handfull of unique exceptions doesnt take away the rule.

And what's truly interesting to me is that while all this is obviously done to combat sexualization, it's still perfectly okay to have female characters feature other traits that could be considered part of a sexualized (which really just means "intentionally hot") design just as much as a big chest. You can still have characters that feature the combination of a super narrow wasit and extremely wide hips. You can still have characters with shapley and pronounced asses in tight pants. You can still have characters given the most attractive facial features and seductive eye designs. And it's even somewhat okay (although rare) to feature female characters walking around in skin-revealing outfits like midriff-baring shirts and such. It really seems that for some reason, a really large chest size, even when that chest is completely covered up by cloting, is the single most unacceptable trait a female cartoon character is allowed to have in todays american animation landscape. And honestly, its the same with american video games too. It almost seems to me like male character designers still want to draw the kind of characters that they find sexy, but they know they "shouldnt" given todays political lanscape, and so they get around it by drawing female characters that are in many ways as attractive as they could be except that they are of a modest chest size. Look at how they redesigned Crash Bandicoots girlfriend in the newest game; she's super hot just like in the earlier games but they've nerfed her once massive boobies significantly. Have your cake and eat it, so to speak.

RIP Rouge's tits. Oh well, we'll most definitely see you again in anything produced in Japan.

[jungle_penguins]

While it's a recent implemented trend, the pushback's been around for as long as 3D animation was considered viable for children's television, it was just often ignored in practice because of the teams in the industry not really caring, many of them are still around today with a lot of newer people in (This is both US and Canada). Networks were concerned back then, but it's likely internal guidelines nowadays, for all we know from Sega themselves.

[ShadowSez]

People say Shadow outshines Rouge when she shows up at any context(with or without him), why arent people worried the same thing is gonna happy when shes gonna be obviously paired with Knuckles whos tremendously more popular than her.

Edited November 1, 2022 by ShadowSez

[Kuzu]

45 minutes ago, ShadowSez said:

People say Shadow outshines Rouge when she shows up at any context(with or without him), why arent people worried the same thing is gonna happy when shes gonna be obviously paired with Knuckles whos tremendously more popular than her.

Knuckles and Rouge have always been portrayed as equals since the latter's introduction. Their dynamic is more even where one doesn't really overshadow the other.

Shadow almost always tends to get preferential treatment over Rouge, likely due to him being the rival to the main character. So their dynamic is a bit more imbalanced. Separating them makes sense.

[ShadowSez]

45 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Knuckles and Rouge have always been portrayed as equals since the latter's introduction. Their dynamic is more even where one doesn't really overshadow the other.

Shadow almost always tends to get preferential treatment over Rouge, likely due to him being the rival to the main character. So their dynamic is a bit more imbalanced. Separating them makes sense.

I always figured Knuckles gets prefered over Rouge as the more "underdog hero" guy since Rouge is portrayed as a character that is slightly above him as a tease yet holds a flame of affection for his actions which are more heroic and sympathetic making Rouge some sort of trophy waifu to be won due to the former always getting more main story involvement with Sonic with Rouge as a supporting character following Knuckles beat when he accomplishes things.

Im just pointing out the hypocrisy, Shadow was always meant to be the core focus of Team Dark and Rouge to supporting him as the co partner. Rouge plays herself as his friend and values Shadow dearly showing her humanity and gentle side, while Shadow changes and develops cooperation and friendship. Unlike Knuckles and Rouge, Shadow and Rouge actually compliment each others characters equally while Knuckles and Rouge is a bland attempt of hyping Knuckles with a woman who is teased as a romantic imbalanced sort of forced chemistry all to make the latter feel she's lacking agency in order to give Knuckles a possible love story.

Edited November 1, 2022 by ShadowSez

[King Conne]

Seems like the first series which could take places in the videogame canon since it could happen anytime then Sonic dissapear in other dimensions!!...
Rouge is my favourite character... but her face doesn't look like the great face Yuji Uekawa draws at all...
I'd love to see an episode happen in a sort of Halloween Dimension and that Sonic meets Vampire Shadow, Reaper Metal Sonic and Witch Rouge from HARDlight's games and also Gothic Amy, Skeleton Knuckles, Vampire Sonic and Halloween Omega!!...

[Kuzu]

1 hour ago, ShadowSez said:

I always figured Knuckles gets prefered over Rouge as the more "underdog hero" guy since Rouge is portrayed as a character that is slightly above him as a tease yet holds a flame of affection for his actions which are more heroic and sympathetic making Rouge some sort of trophy waifu to be won due to the former always getting more main story involvement with Sonic with Rouge as a supporting character following Knuckles beat when he accomplishes things.

Im just pointing out the hypocrisy, Shadow was always meant to be the core focus of Team Dark and Rouge to supporting him as the co partner. Rouge plays herself as his friend and values Shadow dearly showing her humanity and gentle side, while Shadow changes and develops cooperation and friendship. Unlike Knuckles and Rouge, Shadow and Rouge actually compliment each others characters equally while Knuckles and Rouge is a bland attempt of hyping Knuckles with a woman who is teased as a romantic imbalanced sort of forced chemistry all to make the latter feel she's lacking agency in order to give Knuckles a possible love story.

This a very disingenuous reading of their dynamic that makes me think you're intentionally trying to make it look worse than it actually is to downplay how much Rouge gets overshadowed by Shadow.

Knuckles and Rouge are equal rivals in SA2, that's the whole dichotomy between them and tends to be the basis of their interactions in all subsequent media. Obviously Knuckles gets more attention being an older character but that's only when he's with Sonic and Rouge isn't around at all. Otherwise, their dynamic has been pretty consistent when its relevant. Don't really know how you get "trophy waifu" from her at all.

By contrast, Rouge almost always plays a supportive role towards Shadow. They don't interact much SA2, but Shadow is clearly the poster boy of the game along with Sonic. In Heroes, she's supposed to be the leader and the one who brought everyone together but her own goals are secondary to the plot of Shadow's amnesia. She doesn't do much of anything in Shadow's game, and 06 she is firmly a supporting character in Shadow's campaign. The only time they've been on equal footing is in Sonic Battle and Sonic Rivals 2 where they both have completely separate goals and motivations.

There's no double standard here, I'm calling a spade a spade. Its basically a known fact that the writers were pushing Shadow hard in that era as a Deuteragonist and Rouge was his equivalent to Tails. Its a fundamentally different dynamic than the one she has with Knuckles, where they were designed as equal rivals to each other as opposed to (Anti) Hero and sidekick.

[batson]

I'm bummed out about the sheer fact that the show is going to take place in an alternative universe that's different from the normal video game universe, what with everyone being half robotic and shit. This is the fist non-comedy Sonic show we've gotten in a hell of a lot of years, and I'd prefer to just see some good stories and character interactions taking place in the regular Sonic universe with the regular versions of the characters. It's gonna feel so lame to watch the show and to know that with the exception of Sonic himself, it's not the "real" versions of the characters that we're seeing. I wanna see reglar ass Tails and regular ass Knuckles in fun and dramatic new adventures, not robot ass Tails and robot ass Knuckles in post-apocalyptic "what-if" whatever land. They could have at the very least saved the dimension hopping to a later season, not have the whole show revlove around it from the start.

[Zoomzeta]

16 minutes ago, batson said:

I'm bummed out about the sheer fact that the show is going to take place in an alternative universe that's different from the normal video game universe, what with everyone being half robotic and shit. This is the fist non-comedy Sonic show we've gotten in a hell of a lot of years, and I'd prefer to just see some good stories and character interactions taking place in the regular Sonic universe with the regular versions of the characters. It's gonna feel so lame to watch the show and to know that with the exception of Sonic himself, it's not the "real" versions of the characters that we're seeing. I wanna see reglar ass Tails and regular ass Knuckles in fun and dramatic new adventures, not robot ass Tails and robot ass Knuckles in post-apocalyptic "what-if" whatever land. They could have at the very least saved the dimension hopping to a later season, not have the whole show revlove around it from the start.

Dude, I don't think this is the show for you if the premise alone was a detractor. 

[batson]

12 hours ago, Zoomzeta said:

Dude, I don't think this is the show for you if the premise alone was a detractor. 

Well yeah, that's what I'm saying.

However, I'm gonna watch the first couple of episodes though and if it's really good then I'll probably keep watching.

[Zoomzeta]

2 hours ago, batson said:

Well yeah, that's what I'm saying.

However, I'm gonna watch the first couple of episodes though and if it's really good then I'll probably keep watching.

Fair enough  

[Sega DogTagz]

My biggest fear from the start was that the prime variants of the main cast would immediately get shelved for the flavor of the day alt skins. 

 

I don't get the impression that they will be staying in the cyberpunk world long, but it seriously looking like Sonic will be pinballing around worlds as the lone prime variant, which would be a huge kick in the pants. 

Here's hoping Sonic can find his friends one at a time and they can accompany him in at least some of the episodes. 

[KingMario05]

On 11/2/2022 at 5:18 PM, batson said:

I'm bummed out about the sheer fact that the show is going to take place in an alternative universe that's different from the normal video game universe, what with everyone being half robotic and shit. This is the fist non-comedy Sonic show we've gotten in a hell of a lot of years, and I'd prefer to just see some good stories and character interactions taking place in the regular Sonic universe with the regular versions of the characters. It's gonna feel so lame to watch the show and to know that with the exception of Sonic himself, it's not the "real" versions of the characters that we're seeing. I wanna see reglar ass Tails and regular ass Knuckles in fun and dramatic new adventures, not robot ass Tails and robot ass Knuckles in post-apocalyptic "what-if" whatever land. They could have at the very least saved the dimension hopping to a later season, not have the whole show revlove around it from the start.

No disagreements with ya there. It looks better than I hoped, but I got into this franchise partly due to Sega's bonkers lore, particularly during the SA1-Unleashed era. Does that mean Prime is gonna be automatically terrible? Hardly... but I didn't want Miles the EdgeTopusBot or RoboCop Rose. I wanted Tails, Amy, and everyone else as competent characters again IN THE MAIN UNIVERSE. If that makes me a dino, then so be it.

Again, show doesn't look bad - hell, I think it looks great! Just would have preferred something more faithful, that's all.

17 hours ago, Sega DogTagz said:

My biggest fear from the start was that the prime variants of the main cast would immediately get shelved for the flavor of the day alt skins. 

I don't get the impression that they will be staying in the cyberpunk world long, but it seriously looking like Sonic will be pinballing around worlds as the lone prime variant, which would be a huge kick in the pants. 

Here's hoping Sonic can find his friends one at a time and they can accompany him in at least some of the episodes. 

Bingo. Unless Sonic pieces the variants back together into his buddies (which... raises far too many ethical questions for a fun children's show, so fat chance of that ever happening), then this is effectively yet another branch of the franchise where Sonic and a bunch of OCs do all the cool shit. YET A-GODDAMN-GAIN. I know neither Paramount nor IDW are perfect lily angels, but props to them both for actually making Tails, Knux, Amy et al. matter again. For trying to show how cool they are, and in many cases succeeding. Because at this point, Sega of Japan's executives clearly think that it's about Sonic and his "sTuPiD fRiEnDs." It's getting better, sure... but it still ain't where it once was.

[StaticMania]

Even among the most in depth stories...we barely learned anything about the world Sonic inhabits, we learned things existed at the very most.

So nobody who became a fan because of the stories from 1998 to 2008 were suckered in due to the "lore".

A show only has the chance to show that more things exist and maybe revisit some things, because Sonic Team is very bad at doing that...

[Scritch the Cat]

On 11/2/2022 at 2:18 PM, batson said:

I'm bummed out about the sheer fact that the show is going to take place in an alternative universe that's different from the normal video game universe, what with everyone being half robotic and shit. This is the fist non-comedy Sonic show we've gotten in a hell of a lot of years, and I'd prefer to just see some good stories and character interactions taking place in the regular Sonic universe with the regular versions of the characters. It's gonna feel so lame to watch the show and to know that with the exception of Sonic himself, it's not the "real" versions of the characters that we're seeing. I wanna see reglar ass Tails and regular ass Knuckles in fun and dramatic new adventures, not robot ass Tails and robot ass Knuckles in post-apocalyptic "what-if" whatever land. They could have at the very least saved the dimension hopping to a later season, not have the whole show revlove around it from the start.

 

On 11/3/2022 at 6:24 AM, Sega DogTagz said:

My biggest fear from the start was that the prime variants of the main cast would immediately get shelved for the flavor of the day alt skins. 

I don't get the impression that they will be staying in the cyberpunk world long, but it seriously looking like Sonic will be pinballing around worlds as the lone prime variant, which would be a huge kick in the pants. 

Here's hoping Sonic can find his friends one at a time and they can accompany him in at least some of the episodes. 

 

14 hours ago, KingMario05 said:

No disagreements with ya there. It looks better than I hoped, but I got into this franchise partly due to Sega's bonkers lore, particularly during the SA1-Unleashed era. Does that mean Prime is gonna be automatically terrible? Hardly... but I didn't want Miles the EdgeTopusBot or RoboCop Rose. I wanted Tails, Amy, and everyone else as competent characters again IN THE MAIN UNIVERSE. If that makes me a dino, then so be it.

Again, show doesn't look bad - hell, I think it looks great! Just would have preferred something more faithful, that's all.

Bingo. Unless Sonic pieces the variants back together into his buddies (which... raises far too many ethical questions for a fun children's show, so fat chance of that ever happening), then this is effectively yet another branch of the franchise where Sonic and a bunch of OCs do all the cool shit. YET A-GODDAMN-GAIN. I know neither Paramount nor IDW are perfect lily angels, but props to them both for actually making Tails, Knux, Amy et al. matter again. For trying to show how cool they are, and in many cases succeeding. Because at this point, Sega of Japan's executives clearly think that it's about Sonic and his "sTuPiD fRiEnDs." It's getting better, sure... but it still ain't where it once was.

I think things are a little bit more complex than all that.  I can't assure you this show will use the other characters well but the mere fact that they have featured heavily in the trailer should count for at least something.  I'm not sure they'd even have gone for an alternate reality versions angle if they didn't think viewers were familiar enough with the core cast for that to feel humorously subversive.

Sonic Team seems to have a...complicated relationship with the characters who aren't Sonic.  Unless we presume that everyone who liked them followed Naka out of the company during 06's development, then there's no reason to believe that Sonic Team loved them for years and then abruptly started hating them.  They still show up as NPCs quite frequently, readily become playable again in gacha games and multiplayer spinoffs, Yuki Uekawa still does new character art every month and profiles are still up for them on Sonic's Japanese website, even ones that haven't been relevant for a long time.  Looking at how the brand is presented there, it's like the Adventure Era never even ended, even if most of Japan doesn't notice it one way or the other.  Still, it doesn't seem like SEGA is trying to chase away the portion of the fandom that likes the other characters.

So while it might seem indicative of how they feel about them that the characters still haven't become playable again in mainstream Sonic games, that should still be seen in the context of how even making Sonic playable has been a huge ordeal for them.  They have managed to make the occasional Sonic game that isn't broken, but up until Frontiers that has always been due to compromising Sonic's freedom of movement in some way.  Things like camera controls haven't been so much fixed as they've been made irrelevant by pre-set angles.

All that being considered, and given how Sonic himself tends to look most impressive when he's not interactive, perhaps we shouldn't take what is and is not in gameplay as a good sign of how Sonic Team really sees this series.  I'm starting to think they wish they could go wild with different ideas and characters but in gameplay they feel the need to err on the side of caution.  Or did.

[SonicBoomFan101]

Did you know that there's going to be another Netflix Geeked Toon In livestream on Thursday, November 17? Kiera said there will be more Sonic Prime footage on that day.

[Rabbitearsblog]

31 minutes ago, SonicBoomFan101 said:

Did you know that there's going to be another Netflix Geeked Toon In livestream on Thursday, November 17? Kiera said there will be more Sonic Prime footage on that day.

Really?  That's pretty cool!  Glad we are seeing more of Sonic Prime!

[SonicBoomFan101]

Agreed. I'm so excited for more footage when Thursday comes.

[Rabbitearsblog]

16 hours ago, SonicBoomFan101 said:

Agreed. I'm so excited for more footage when Thursday comes.

Me too!  I wonder what new footage they are going to show us?

[DaBigJ]

We're getting another trailer tomorrow 

 

[Zoomzeta]

17 minutes ago, DaBigJ said:

We're getting another trailer tomorrow 

Huh. Neat. 

[Rabbitearsblog]

1 hour ago, DaBigJ said:

We're getting another trailer tomorrow 

Full trailer?  So the trailer we got last time wasn't the full trailer?

[MetalSkulkBane]

There it is!

 

[Zadent]

Just now, MetalSkulkBane said:

There it is!

The one snippet of Shadow’s voice has me like “wait..that sounded like asking for help…not edgy/disliking-Sonic Shadow??” The pitch gave me vibes of Griffith or Humphrey.

 Curious how they’re going to go about the balancing of the prime versions with the alt versions. I’m always iffy on alt Dimension stuff, but I’ll give it a chance.