The Sonic the Hedgehog Continuity Thread of Love and Timelines

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The Chaos Emerald's power is meant to be the Emerald Pillar/Master Emerald:

So his detecting it would have still made sense. What doesn't make sense is: he knows exactly where it is from the start now, why not just collect when Knuckles is busy with Sonic in Angel Island Zone?

I'm not overly happy with Flynn over this. How do you mess up a pre-written story and introduce a plothole?

 

I guess the next Bumblecast may turn into a bombardment of canonicity questions, regarding the Origins' animations.

 

Eh, I already established my stance on the game. Just sad to see I was correct to do it pre-emptively and that they add nothing but trouble.

And cool looking cutscenes, I must say. Their animation is great, I need to stress.

 

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When you have less than 50 seconds to do it? Harder than you think.

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A plothole is different than a story point that just isn't told to you, though. Maybe Eggman still had to go build a machine to harness the Master Emerald. He needed to repair the Death Egg anyway, the Emerald location being known doesn't mean he's at liberty to immediately use it. Maybe Knuckles still kept tabs on the Emerald in-between encounters with Sonic, etc. etc. Why is it so fun to extrapolate hypothesis on plot holes in older games but this is so egregious?

 

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I mean Eggman himself is busy fighting Sonic on Angel Island. Such a plot hole exists within the original text too. If Eggman's looking for this Chaos Emerald energy via a tracker, why is he wasting his time on Sonic when he clearly has the miniboss robots at his disposal, as well as Knuckles on his side, rather than following the tracker? What's the point in him dicking around with his weather changing machine Mushroom Hill? In both stories, it's entirely possible that Eggman just wasn't ready to get the Death Egg up and running again right away.

 

The way I see it is that the cutscenes are complementary to the events of the games/manual stories.

Sort of like animated summaries of what's happening but are not supposed to superseded the events.

They go hand in hand, sort of how current Star Wars handles when a tv show or movie retell or change somethings that happened in a book, comic or game.

Both events happened and go hand in hand, is just that you're seeing it played out different because of the medium.

 

I'm rather sure it's not a weather changing machine, just a machine with a negative effect on the environment. Everything gets dry.

 

Alright, smartypants. I bet the next thing you're going to tell me is that FBZ boss isn't a real phallus either. :v

 

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Which is why he went to collect it straight away when he saw it?

This annoys me as this is now the official story. That we now have to figure out a new plothole with a lesser plot.

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Launch Base Zone. Seems pretty active there, yet he doesn't retrieve it while Knuckles is busy with Sonic in that same level.

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Perhaps the giant army of badniks spread across the whole of Angel Island, including Lava Reef Zone where you get into it from, are in the middle of the search while he attempts to dispose of Sonic. All he knows is it's underground, like the badniks in Lava Reef Zone are, drilling away...

Well, we thought so, apparently he found it just found it right away.

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They could have had him wake up in the Death Egg Robot's remains, see a blip on a computer noting "large Chaos Emerald Signature" before hopping out and bumping into Knuckles. Boom, I've just told the story in 20-30 seconds.

 

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The only story that this tells is that Eggman has spotted some kind of Emerald power and meets a stranger. An audience watching that would have no idea who Knuckles is or his relation to the Emerald, or why Knuckles would be working with Eggman. Just bumping into Knuckles doesn't explain who he is or why Eggman needs to trick him. "No written language" (apart from "fin") was also a requirement in all of these cutscenes for localization reasons. Establishing all this takes precious seconds, and it always seems easier when all you're doing is typing it out.

 

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Or they could leave it a mystery until we get to Hidden Palace Zone or Mushroom Hill Zone, where it becomes pretty clear why Knuckles is so eager to get you off the island.

It's like the Star Wars prequels revealing Anakin as Darth Vader and Luke and Leia's father: unnecessary and devalues part of the original. We can have things build up in the plot to a reveal, not some cheap quick reveal at the start...

 

I always interpreted it as Sonic "took" them in S2 via the special stage (some kind of wormhole through time and space) which is why Knuckles could easily reclaim them at the beginning of S3.

 

What about Sonic the Hedgehog (Mega Drive), where he has six of them?

 

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But the manual tells you right off the bat that Knuckles is the guardian of the emeralds and there's a huge emerald on the island. These aren't threads that are built up, the original storytellers thought this was information worth giving the player outright.

 

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And I dislike that as well, funnily enough. I think the game does a good enough job revealing over time Knuckles' status as Guardian. But regardless, we don't need to know that information right off the bat, which is why it's not in the main plot synopsis, but Knuckles' character bio.

If we're that desperate for the early reveal, you can have it show Knuckles thinking about the Master Emerald before shaking hands with Robotnik. There, sorted.

 

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That doesn't communicate anything though. Just vaguely thinking about an emerald doesn't imply an intent. For all the audience knows, he could be thinking about giving the emerald to Eggman.

 

@Boxer Hockey it seems the animators were quite restricted on what they could produce and how long they were.

@BlackHole The games themselves kinda had plotholes from as far as I remember. You're trying a tough endeavor.

 

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Then show Sonic on it laughing evilly. Any more easy answers?

Eh, not really. Feel free to point to some though, I'm curious.

 

They say when the game answers that for you.

Do you want me to make an animatic to show you? I'll make an animatic if that's what you're after.