Netflix's Sonic Prime

I mean, I thought "shattered a Cosmic Keystone, splitting a single universe into 5" was pretty clear.

I feel like in 90 percent of multiverse stories, the multiverse usually is just "universe where characters wear funny outfits." if you check out the Archie Sonic Comics, every single parallel universe they do is like a parody of some anime or comic book.

Not every single Multiversal story is Reference Overdosed. e.g., Rick and Morty, Invincible (2021), The Mid Night Gospel, Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake.

Also throw in My Little Pony: Equestria Girls for a alternate world story not Reference Overdosed. Coincidentally, Ishi Rudell (co-showrunner for Equestria Girls starting in 2015) directed a couple episodes of Sonic Prime.

Even Miraculous Tales Of Lady Bug And Cat Noir, utilizes non-Reference Overdosed multiversal narratives.

Everything Everywhere All At Once would like to join the chat as well.

Even if the premise had been advertised from the very beginning as "super limited in scope, five worlds" (and it wasn't) they could have done interesting things with those five.

They either had very few ideas beyond Not-SatAM New Yolk City, or they never got off the drawing board.

Edited by Grounder on Feb 4th 2024 at 11:59:09 AM

The fact that there are only five worlds (and only three of any substance) is probably the biggest indictment of the fact that they didn't have a lot of ideas to throw into it.

Mystical Sonic doodads come in sevens. It's. Like. The rule. But Prime ran out of ideas after three and had to desperately scrape the bottom of the barrel just to find two more.

I think it's more of a budget issue than "writers were put guns to their heads and still couldn't think of 4th real world."

Budget issue? It's a cartoon. It costs as much to animate No Place as it does The Grim.

I think my biggest issue with Sonic Prime was that they didn't fully explored the characters very well. Like, I've been really upset at the fact that the original universe versions of Sonic's friends barely got any kind of development and they were pretty much just there to give Sonic a reason to go on his journey. Also, since Rouge the Bat is apart of the team here, they could have developed her relationship with the other characters a bit better.

I'm surprised they didn't have at least one more world. Each world in Prime followed the basic idea of having an alt version of someone in Sonic's team who was - like - THE focus character of each area and/or a temporary antagonist for a while, who got a character arc with Sonic as he tried to teach them to be more like their prime versions, etc.

The only exceptions are Shadow, who didn't have any alts but at least got a lot of play in Green Hill, and for some reason Rouge, who was instead a supporting character on every world.

I figured since they made a point of including Rouge in the core cast on this one, there would've been like a Rouge-centered world too. Like maybe a gangster planet or something.

Maybe Rouge only got included as a means of evening the female-male ratio.

The unique art assets that those locations call for (not to mention variations on existing assets, for the characters) don't appear out of nowhere.

Edited by Chortleous on Feb 4th 2024 at 4:16:15 AM

Yeah, it was a bit disappointing that they didn't use these characters to their full potential.

At the end of the day, that's just not what the series was about. It's an action series and the cool worlds where an excuse for a series of escalating Interesting Situation Duel situations.

But it's funny because in the characterization and interaction department they absolutely nailed what they did give us. Deven Mack in particular is a fantastic Sonic that really elevates his scenes.

It's no wonder that people cried "More!" With what we got.

Edited by ShirowShirow on Feb 4th 2024 at 12:07:27 PM

Did they nail it? Sonic's characterized as a self-obsessed glory hound who doesn't respect his friends at all, opting instead for reckless and impulsive buffoonery that creates more problems than it solves.

This is his central character flaw to overcome by learning to stop talking and actually listen to other people. The show's about him overcoming his intrinsic selfishness and learning that people like Tails and Shadow have value as contributors, rather than just being his useless tagalongs.

...

But. Like.

Was that ever an actual problem that Sonic had, outside of this show? It feels more like a response to the meta-problem of Sonic games underrepresenting Sonic's supporting cast post-06 than a response to any actual character flaw that Sonic's ever possessed. He's used here as a strawman for Sega so the creators can complain about the franchise's direction, rather than as a portrayal of the character in his own right.

(And man, is it wild to see Sonic depicted that way immediately after playing Sonic Frontiers.)

Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 4th 2024 at 4:14:31 AM

The show intentionally dedicates so much time to Sonic building relationships with these shades of his friends and using those relationships to explore what makes his friends so special that I have to disagree with the idea that exploring the characters wasn't one of the things the show was about.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Feb 4th 2024 at 4:17:24 AM

I am completely serious when I say that I think that Mashed's There's Something About is a better take on Prime's general multiverse premise than the official series.

Given that we don't know (and probably will never know) what happened to Nine, it works as a Happy Ending Override sequel if we're to assume Secret Histories Tails is him.

Honestly, I didn't have a problem with how Sonic was characterized in this series. It felt like Sonic actually had more emotions in this series than how I usually see him and it's great that this series was trying to have Sonic understand about not taking his friends for granted. Although, I can understand why a lot of people were confused about why Sonic was acting more immature in this series when in Sonic Frontiers, Sonic was mostly serious and mature.

Honestly, my biggest issue with the show is that it's meant to be part of the main continuity.

Like, taken entirely as its own thing, this show's pretty good, and the characterisation is nice. But it just does not mesh with the franchise at all.

Sonic's off, the "main" universe as a whole is off, in the few minutes of screen time the regular crew get they're off, and the overt continuity references are just shoehorned in.

It's supposed to be part of the main continuity?

I feel Sonic as a whole is becoming a collection of persistent tropes that get updated, shifted, and removed by Sonic Team at random, or depending on who's doing the writing. I say that not because all of ongoing fiction is like that, but because the series doesn't have a core canon or serialized storytelling anymore - Sonic on a new island with an AI E-Girl, Sonic Dream Team, Sonic in a racing title, Sonic in a Sliders story.

Unlike Mario and Zelda it doesn't have minimalist/silent storytelling so it's always going to feel off when Sonic is cautious/optimistic like in Frontiers, but then suddenly is optimistic/naive in Prime.

Edited by FOFD on Feb 5th 2024 at 5:56:57 AM

Edited: Nevermind, fixed.

Edited by Tomodachi on Feb 5th 2024 at 7:06:32 AM

Looking over the whole situation, the short of it seems to be... sorta, maybe, but nobody involved actually takes the idea seriously. Ian Flynn's general reaction has been "yeah, sure, whatever, don't ask me about it."

I still suspect the whole thing started when one of the writers said the show was set using the main universe (as in, uses it as a basis unlike every other previous Sonic series who always made their own setting), and everyone mistook that as them saying it was literally canon to the main universe, and the whole thing snowballed since it would've killed the hype for anyone to deny it.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Feb 5th 2024 at 1:09:51 AM

It's how I took it.

Back in the day, My Little Pony FIM claimed its IDW adaptations were canon until told otherwise. Well, they stopped being canon, and I'm still sour about it.

The same happened here. After all, Prime wasn't created by anyone in Sonic Team or even the IDW comics, but a third party. And since the IDW staff appears to be very indifferent to the show, or at least Flynn is due to how passive he acts when asked about it, don't expect it to be more than it is.