Sonic X Shadow Generations thread, movie level out now

Yeah that's not true at all. Teleport to the woods.

 

I dont understand how you could even come to that conclusion without yourself being insanely biased. SOmeone else mentioned the other off hand comment feeling petty, and so does that one. How many times does the dude have to say that as far as the games go he is just handling dialogue

 

I thought people grew up and finally realized games aren't just made by one person, just look up the fkin credits lol. Flynn's been with the series for nearly 18 years, he has flaws, but he isn't whatever you think he is in your head, and frankly, that ignorance does nobody any favors if you want to actually offer constructive criticism to improve the stories going forward.

 

Damn you guys must think Penders did some truly heinous shit and that I meant Flynn did it too. No, I'm just comparing their desire to turn the world into something that they would like to write in rather than just writing in the world as it is.

 

No, that was the thing you were wrong about. We didn't say anything about Penders's misdeeds.

 

With Penders I can see what you mean because the Archie comics he wrote were just a vehicle for writing about shit that he actually cared about at the expense of the IP they were attached to, but with Flynn I don't see it. For one he's an actual fan of the franchise, but he also works with Sega and Sonic Team all the time on an apparently tight leash. At that point I don't point I don't see how you can say he doesn't understand or agree with the material he's working with considering how closely he works with its owners and how protective they are of Sonic.

Plus the issues fans have with Shadow's modern characterization has been touched on a million times by everyone who has written for Sonic, mainline or no, in the past decade. It's absolutely not isolated to just Ian's or even Evan's take on the character. After Knuckles' inclusion in Sonic 2 made Sonic Team remember how his character should be I'm hoping the third movie can do the same for Shadow, honestly.

 

Before everything else, I feel like writers have a lot more freedom with the stories they write with Sonic than people want to believe. Outside of really basic stuff like "Sonic must win against Eggman" you can mostly go free in terms of overall story and they'll correct something like "Sonic shouldn't be making a peace sign" or "it should be clear Shadow isn't actually living in the cave". I think this rarely comes at odds with how the characters are actually portrayed within the dialogue itself, and where many writers, not even just flynn, basically get things wrong. (After all, the whole of Sonic Boom was made under the same exact restrictions as the regular Sonic stories would get.)

Being a "fan" isn't really a saving grace of working on the "official" version of something you're a "fan" of, in the same way that Zack Snyder is a "fan" of Superman, Man of Steel isn't nessecarily the version of the character people would want to be the default. Both Ian and Zack have fans of *their* versions of those characters, who might even say they actually represent those characters accurately, but, in a lot of ways, it's glorified fanfiction, and still not super accurate, even though they are being allowed to make things as they did.

This is why him writing Shadow is important to people. Because he doesn't "get it" even with enough freedom to do so. People were asking why people have a problem, and there's the answer.

And I don't feel like the movie guys will get Shadow "right" either but that should probably be under way less scrutiny than a game and its advertising material who aim to please fans of the old stuff even though it'll probably trickle its way down anyways.

 

I don't see any of those people talking about Archie Shadow, the only time where "enough freedom to do so" can be convincingly stated to have existed. And that version wasn't made to be some secret alternative vision Flynn has necessarily distinct from the main series like you're implying, it was drawing a line directly out from what made sense for SA2's version of the character.

It's not like you can really claim these nebulous "people who have a problem" really know any better than either version written by Flynn, because SEGA and Sonic Team sure fucking didn't either. Shadow in SA2 is not Shadow in Heroes is not Shadow in his own game is not Shadow in 06 is not Shadow in Forces. There are clear, obvious and glaring differences in all of these portrayals bearing more or less resemblance to each other writer's take on the character and there's no real value in this kind of critique unless you're actually making an argument for or against any of them. If you're honestly acting like there's a consistent, easily-followed through line in this character's dialogue and actions that somehow only these comics have managed to break from, you're being silly.

Moreover, none of this actually follows from what you initially said, which was that Flynn was like Penders, someone crafting a world or story according to what they like and little else, without consideration for Sonic as a story, world or brand. And that's just full of shit, what else can I say. All of this comes from a place of trying to understand, interpret and rationalize SEGA's vision, not dumb subversions like Snyder repeatedly states he's doing on-purpose. You don't even have to think he's doing a good job, just don't falsely conflate that with this idea that Sonic is a single, focused, unchanging thing that he's trying to steer it away from or whatever.

 

I think we can recognise that Flynn isn't the sole creator of the story while also not liking his writing in Frontiers? Is that reasonable? I don't know his writing generally but I wasn't impressed at all by his writing in Frontiers and wouldn't want to see the series continue in that direction.

 

Actually he has stated more than once that he has some (albeit minor) input in the games' lore and characters. He's part of the lore team after all. He said that he played a bit of a role in the decision to identify Fang as a pure jerboa in Superstars, and the modern characterizations of the Hooligans take a cue from his Archie work.

Comparing him to Penders is obviously going too far. Penders was completely apathetic (if not disdainful) toward the games and liked doing his own thing, while Ian is a passionate Sonic fan and bases much of his work on what came before in the Sonic franchise. However, I do get the impression he tries to leave his mark on the series and reshape the game universe and canon based on his preferences and biases on occasion, such as injecting SatAM lingo into game!Sonic's vocabulary, or retconning Amy into the leader of the Resistance from Forces, or trying to transplant his Archie Hooligans characterizations into their game counterparts (he originally wrote Bark as a clear cut villain in the supposedly game-canon IDW comic, but Sega complained that he's not supposed to be evil, so he had to add some lines about how he wasn't such a bad guy but was being influenced by Fang and Bean IIRC).

 

Not to defend this talentless hack of a writer, but Penders very much tried to get directions from Sega on how the characters and the world should be handled, but they refused to give him any. That's what he himself revealed on Twitter, and it very much aligns with everything that other former Sonic Scribes had told about Sega's relationship with Archie.

Ever wondered why Archie's SA1 adaptation was so long and elaborate, yet the SA2 adaptation was just a single issue that covered only Shadow's backstory and City Escape? It's because Sega told Archie to adapt both games, but didn't give any resources other than a few screenshots. Hell, the only reason why the SA1 adaptation managed to stay relatively faithful to the game was because Patrick Spaziante went out of his way to acquire a Japanese Dreamcast and a copy of the game on his own time and with his own money.

 

While that's true, Penders has bragged in the past about how he didn't base his Archie work on the games, and argued that the comics wouldn't have been any good if they had been closer to the games.

 

Well, the dude is ultimately a spineless grifter who's desperate for publicity. I think he's previously Tweeted that he'd bring Sally back were he in charge of the IDW comic, even though he's also blamed her for "slowing down" the Archie comic and has thus tried to kill her off permanently in multiple issues.

 

I'm 90% this is wrong. Adventure 2s adaptation was issue 98. They were 2 issues away from issue 100 and had told SEGA they didn't want to do an adaptation of an entire game so close to that milestone. So the single issue was the compromise.

They never even asked them to do a full adaptation of a game again. They started compromising with those 7 page previews afterwards.

Maybe new information came out but that's how I remember the story going.

 

Update:

https://x.com/mbkksstbhz5/status/1791388523150360941?s=46&t=S0_YkQ8TRA2Bk54XvKgWfw

 

Penders wrote in the This Just In! blurb in issue #98 that the Archie team wanted to adapt SA2 in full, but were unable to because Sonic Team USA wanted total secrecy, presumably to avoid the plot from being spoiled. They had to base the entire adaptation on the screenshots they were provided and what was in the demo that was bundled with early copies of PSO.

 

So this is wrong. I took two seconds to Google a sonic stadium article from 2001 where Penders answered questions on Sonic Adventure 2. Thanks for "correcting" me so I'd have to grab the accurate information.

He called the adaptation an interruption. Implying it wasn't something they wanted to do in the main comics at the time. He even said it messed with the pacing of his story reveals. He then expanded it with this response

They wanted to do the SA2 adaptation as a Super Sonic Special, like the meat of SA1, but couldn't because Archie and SEGA didn't produce those anymore.

These are Penders own words. Thanks for helping me confirm my story.

https://www.sonicstadium.org/forums...-sonic-adventure-2-will-be-focus-of-sonic-98/

 

So they couldn't adapt the story due to Sonic Team not providing any information for secrecy purposes.

 

But penders literally confirmed the story I was saying was true. That they didn't want to do it as an arc in the comic because they didn't want to destroy the pacing leading to issue 100.

He also said they wanted to do it as an SSS, not as an arc in the comics, so I'm still right. It was never meant to be in the main comics.

Literally posted an entire interview for you to look through.

 

Penders also confirmed what Joe said is true. Why are you being an ass? He wasn't even trying to "gotcha", Joe is just posting the information that is out there. The common thread here is Penders just talks shit.