Sonic Prime (Netflix Animated Series)

Sonic reminds me somewhat of Lightening McQueen, before he mellowed out. He's super sarcastic and only thinking of his long-term goal and kinda ignoring the goals of the people around him for the sake of his own. Sure, he's helping people while doing it, but he's not actually concerning himself with it, and looking for the fastest way out. Where Lightening McQueen half-assed his community service of paving a new road, Sonic half-asses the make-up talks before realizing how troubled a lot of these characters are and that half ass isn't gonna work. It's not directly in line with how Game Sonic usually tried to help people *emotionally* (06, Secret Rings, Unleashed, Black Knight, Frontiers to an extent) but it isn't all that far removed, which I think is part of what makes me not really care that he's different from how I'd personally like Sonic to act under normal circumstances. (Also I find him amusing, so I think kids are probably gonna find him amusing.)

 

I still prefer Prime Sonic over Heroes Sonic. On episode 7 now: Pirate Rouge is cute. But still like Rusty more tho, oh my God, she is so 10/10. Kinda wish Marine were in the Pirate World, smh.

Wondering if any more characters than Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Big, Shadow and Eggman are going to appear. Speaking about that, I love how Bog are just hqnging out with the guys.

 

Show was much better than I expected. The animation is leagues better than the crap animated shows Netflix makes.

 

Has it been stated why Amy has a pet bird?

 

Maybe a reference to SA1/X? Not that it was for long...

 

Well, I mean, it's a core part of her character in Prime for some reason. Only Black Rose didn't have one unless I missed something.

 

Which is ironic. I think a pirate would be the perfect role to have the bird...

Or in this world, have the bird BE a pirate, but I digress...

EDIT: Also, wasn't the Flicky in E-102 Gamma pink? And Rusty Rose has it in her... and she's reacting to Amy of the Pirate Dimension like E-102 Gamma reacted to Amy... Well, I think we know how that story's going to end.

 

Tails gets uncharacteristically upset (as in, the characters point out that he usually is not upset) when Sonic doesn't listen to him about Eggman's trap.

Everyone else is also annoyed when he leaves to fight Eggman without coming up with a plan (though they are initially "That's our Sonic") and are genuinely pissed when he somehow came late to the battle anyway.

Every one of Shadow's appearances are him kicking the shit out of Sonic specifically for being reckless and annoying.

It's hardly hardly picked up on. Him being annoying is clearly something the characters believe. It's how you balance his annoying-ness out.

Personally, I find it nearly impossible to make a character that somehow is explicitly annoying to the characters but not the audience, especially when them being annoying is part of their character arc. It's not like "being annoying" is a fictional character trait or thing. If a flaw matters, then it has to actually come across to the audience that way.

That's like saying that Spongebob should be likeable when he's annoying the crap out of Squidward, but even as a kid, I thought "man, Spongebob's kind of really annoying." I can see why people think it's too much (sometimes I do too), but it's a "necessary weasel."

Some of my favorite characters are the annoying, pitiful type and not one of them didn't have a moment where they were actually annoying and pitiful.

You said that Boom Sonic is a good example, but I don't really agree? It's the opposite problem in which Boom Sonic didn't really do enough to warrant the "he needs to learn to trust his friends" deal. Never got the impression that he's a loner.

Prime Sonic has an interesting dynamic where he clearly cares a great deal about his friends... but he's also self-centered and selfish. He'll do right by them but on his own terms, and what he needs to learn is to slow down and listen.

 

What's annoying to the audience will vary a lot, but Sonic being an obnoxious little shit is the point. Whether you agree with whether or not they should have done that is another point.

The issue I'm seeing is that since Sonic, both as a series and character, is designed to be "cool" if he's not the coolest character in the room at any given time, it feels "wrong". He has to always to be on top of things, in control of his emotions, and completely competent in battle otherwise people feel like he's not being done justice. If Sonic isn't "cool", then there's no point to most people. And this applies to Shadow as well since he's designed to be a reflection of Sonic as his foil. Sonic getting smacked around isn't "Cool", Sonic constantly talking isn't "cool", Sonic annoying his friends isn't "cool", even if it serves a purpose.

My attitude? If it serves the needs of the story then cool. You might say "Well they should have did a different story" but that's not the point; this is the story they wanted to tell and necessitates Sonic actually having a character flaw. If he's just perfect and on top of things, that defeats the purpose and the onus of development would have to be on another character. I'm not saying you gotta like it, I'm just pointing out the logic.


Sonic is at a point of many other franchises like Spider-Man or Batman with millions of different interpretations, all with their own devoted fanbase. And yes, Sonic Prime will eventually develop its own devoted fanbase like every part of Sonic's fandom does. Judging all of these interpretations of Sonic is pointless to me because they all serve different purposes within their respective universe even if they all share the same name and general attributes.

So, to me, its better to judge things based on what the creators intended as opposed to relying on prior knowledge; Prime!Sonic isn't Frontiers!Sonic (despite what the creators will tell you) who isn't IDW!Sonic, who isn't Archie!Sonic. They may all share the same name, but the role and story of the characters is completely different and that's how I like to look at it.

This is why I never understood the obsession with trying to connect everything together as "canon", because its obvious some of these products never had any intention of being connected to begin with. Let shit stand on its own.

 

I was looking at the concept art again from last year, it’s interesting noting the differences but also the similarities

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2..._gives_a_sneaky_look_at_upcoming_netflix_show

• The Chaos Council is pretty much the same, except regular Eggman is in New Yoke City instead of his more like Elvis outfit
• Nine originally had 9 actual Tails, not robot extensions
• Old Eggman used to drive the Sonic 2 Eggmobile and had a cluck with them (even in the final there are definitely some classic Robotnik design cues, had to of been intentional)
• Hipster Eggman wasn’t too unique at this point, kinda a hybrid of the final design and modern Eggman, only with a black outfit. Almost looks like he was more like a general or some kinda army leader.
• New Yoke city had traditional badniks
• The themes were there basically from the start, pirate, jungle, city
• The shoe designs remained pretty much final

 

Knux's voice in New Yoke sounds decent enough, to me.
Sonic seems annoying, but I expected it to be worse ^^"
Rouge really got so neutered. Why? Just why? So weird...

Also... Is it just me or the ED Theme nods at a game's BGM, in a different tone?
Feels that way to me, but I just can't seem to reach it...

 

Finished it, was surprised by how....good this actually is, the animation is very good and expressive, action is very engaging with a lot of cool choreography and some neat stuff, constantly new poses and expressions, a lot of effort and love went into this, this is easily the best Sonic TV series ever.

for the record, i Previously was thinking that Sonic Boom was the best, i actively disliked basically all the 90s cartoons, Sonic X was better but also had a lot of bad stuff like....basically all humans, and last arc was awful in particular , Sonic Boom was the first cartoon that i actually liked and enjoyed and it only got better with time, wished it continued, but Prime is good in ways i didn't expect, like i thought it would be more episodic, but it has this plotline that makes it enjoyable to follow, while also the premise of multiverse allows it to be more creative and trying new things, so, unless things take a nosedive in the next patches of episodes, i feel comfortable saying this is my favorite Sonic cartoon for now.

Also find it funny how the most...authentic?Canon? Sonic carton is basically about multiverse stuff which allows for really different and extreme interpretations of characters and the world

Since Frontiers took a lot of stuff from the movies, i wish they also take a look at Prime and incorporates some of it's stuff in Frontiers 2 or something, would love to explore some version of New Yoke City, or an Eggman Land like that, also some action ideas can work well in the games

Anyway, man what a great year for Sonic, we had:
Good Sonic movie
Good Sonic comic run
Good Sonic game
Good Sonic cartoon

Almost feel like we entered a golden age of sorts, feel the franchise is in good care those days , or at least we lucked out with this year, which i don't mind too

 

Indeed, I agree with some people that the Jungle and Pirate realms were the weaker parts of these 8 episodes.
But at least the jungle arc made Sonic realize the meaning of sharing memories with friends (the palmtrees).
He's also been realizing his shortcomings and how he failed his friends with his faulty decisions and attitude.
Them showing tids and bits of the trigger incident throughout the episodes felt very american show-like to me.
Sonic talking all the time, joking like mad and being annoying didn't faze me one bit. Sometimes, it was funny.
Still, the plot felt a bit messy overall, and this having been only Part 1 of 3 I wonder what else may be in store.
The whole thing gave me "Forces meets SatAM" vibes, two stories of which I'm not the biggest fan out there...

 

The 5 Eggmans look like the Deadly Six to me.

 

Yeah that was intentional. They wanted to do new things with Sonic while not changing anything too much to make it fit in the world of the games. So they introduced the Paradox Prism and the Shatterverse to be able to have Sonic go to new places.

Screenrant - I guess this next questions kind of goes into what you were just talking about, you know, preserving the legacy of the characters and whatnot. I'm guessing is that one of the reasons why it was chosen to do like the Paradox Prism rather than the Chaos Emeralds? It's like the obvious thing would be "let's use the Chaos Emeralds" but that would probably be changing a lot of what they represent in canon I'm guessing.

Logan McPherson - Yeah absolutely, you know, we're not here to rewrite history in any way shape or form and but at the same time we wanted to take this in new and unexpected directions and so the idea was that well what if we created a new gem and energy source to sort of be the MacGuffin of the series and let that drive its own story, um so it was another layer we could add to the world that already exists and feel like it was there was a little more freedom to explore it um because we were creating something new.
(5:24)

Also warning if anyone watches this interview. It has spoilers I think for the next batch of episodes not on Netflix right now.

 

Watched the first episode, I'll probably watch the others but I'm not sure yet. I agree with Overlord, the friendship stuff is really grating. Overall I like the animation a lot and while I'm not happy they changed all the voice actors again, I'm a big fan of Sonic's voice actor (in the regard that I really like his performance and in the regard that I like Deven Mack. He was the voice of Rockoon in the TOME flash series from Kirbopher (the Brawl Taunts and NiN10doh guy, although he left behind parodies a long time ago) and I really, really enjoyed that series) and I think that he does an excellent job keeping the Roger Craig Smith vibe. I just think the "for kids" vibe is a little too strong and a lot of it, especially the friendship stuff, comes off as really cringy. It's obviously what they're going for otherwise they wouldn't have aired the first episode on Roblox (which I still think is the funniest thing. I actually cried from laughing so hard when I read that) and that's fine, but I can only take so much of it before I start to get second-hand embarrassment. I think I'm going to watch the 2nd episode now and see how I feel about going forward.

 

I thought of them too. They all fill very generic roles. I think I prefer the Eggman though.

 

Part of why I think this is kind of repeating Sonic Lost World.

Sonic didn't listen to Tails' warning and rushed into a fight, freeing a collective of enemies to raise havoc. Said collective manage to capture Tails and convert one of Sonic's friends into a cyborg. The only difference is they're successful in their goals, they converted Amy and intended to capture Tails, versus the Deadly Six who kept failing.

 

That's an unflattering comparison if I've ever seen one...but I get jt.