#its a little funny that i'm doing a sonic game adaptation with no sonic

[duckapus]

If Mario Was in...Sonic Riders

 Several teams have entered the first ever Mushroom Kingdom Extreme Gear Tournament for the chance at the grand prize; one of the Chaos Emeralds and a big pile-o-cash!

Teams include:

Splat Squad

Consists of Meggy, Mario and Luigi. They’re partly doing it to stress test E. Gadd’s Extreme Gear design, but they also thought it’d be fun.

Babylon Rogues

I had to include them, it’s their game. Meggy and Jet end up in a rivalry since Meggy’s super competitive and Jet’s a cocky asshole.

Team Yoshi

Consists of the main Green Yoshi, a Red Yoshi, and a Blue Yoshi. Sent by the Haltmann Works Co. to stress-test their gear, and retrieve the Emerald if at all possible. There’s clear tension between green Yoshi and Mario, since this is the first time since they cut ties with each other that they’ve interacted in a non-meme context.

Team Rose

Consists of Amy Rose and the Wario Bros. It’s no secret that getting Memed affected Sonic’s friends pretty badly, but after a lot of time and therapy Amy’s ready to prove that she’s not just some Flanderized lovesick maniac anymore, and figured the tournament was as good a place as any for that. The Bros agreed to help her because she said they could keep the prize money if they won.

Team Anime Melon

Consists of Melony, Bob and Boopkins. Melony and Boopkins are here for fun, Bob’s here for the money.

And a bunch of other unimportant teams made up of random meme characters to fill out the roster.

[beevean]

I'm interested in your views on Sonic as a character. Which games or other media stay true to his core character?

Sonic is cool :)

And I don't mean just cool in a "totally radical" way, or in a "look how awesome his feats are!" way. It's just... he's a friend. He's supportive and optimistic and a full believe in the Superpower of Teamwork™, cocky yet polite, helping others because that's just what he wants to do. Sonic has no moral code, he doesn't operate on hero logic: he does good because he wants to do good, it ain't that deep fam. This is why IDW's portrayal of his as someone who has strong principles about freedom is just OOC - it's not a principle! It's not something that holds him back! He will kick your ass and imprison you in a lamp for all eternity if you proved yourself to be unredeemable! But then you contrast this with how he rejects Tikal's plan of sealing Chaos in the Master Emerald again because that won't make its anger vanish. giving him a super lobotomy to calm it down worked, though

Secret Rings, Black Knight and Unleashed have probably my favorite portrayal of Sonic. The first one shows well his friendship with Shahra, how he put himself in harm's way for her as soon as he met her and got cursed on her behalf, how he could empathize with her and her ambiguous history with Erazor Djinn and didn't hold it against her for not being able to let go of him; the second one is nearly unanimously considered to be the best Sonic of all time, because it actually shows the freedom and strong will of his character, how he's willing to be "the bad guy" in a story if that means doing what he thinks is right, and his surprisingly poignant views on mortality; and as for the third one, his line "Do I need a reason to help out a friend?" is just him in a nutshell :)

Also, I'm still not fond of how they relegated him to wooden secondary character in '06, but I can't deny his relationship with Elise is cute for what little we see - he meets this girl who has been forced into the role of the reserved queen since she was 7 and he teaches her how to have fun and let go of her worries! And Elise is so inspired that at one point she jumps out of Eggman's Egg Mobile to get away from him! Sonic is just this strong positive influence on other people and it's just. ugh. he's so friend shaped <3

Of all adaptations, Sonic X is the one who got the closest to capture this - not surprising, since it's the only Japanese adaptation we have so far and it was the most closely supervised by Sonic Team. It's not perfect, it has its weird moments like Sonic manipulating his friends because he really wanted to get off a boat, but he's overall nice and supportive as he should be. Episode 14 is a must watch to get Sonic.

The OVA is nice too? A bit more dated, and Sonic is just a little more prickly, but other than that I have no issue with his character - the ending is a standout.

Anyway. Sonic is the character of all time. I love my boy so much, I've loved him since 2004. I will protect him against adaptations who think he has to be an arrogant jerkass or a funny little penis man to give him "depth" and "appeal".

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

So far, the 2024 animated domestic box office shows me one thing...

If you want a big gross, it's still a sequels/franchise game with this medium at the movies, post-COVID outbreak.

KUNG FU PANDA 4 really kicked things off theatrically, and took in $57m over its early March opening weekend, and INSIDE OUT 2 sits among the big leagues with its colossal $154m opening.

Anything more original or based on an untested IP... Same situation as 2022 and 2023, really. Small openings, but if audiences like 'em, then... Leggy runs. See BAD GUYS, MIGRATION, etc.

Speaking of MIGRATION... Most of the first quarter of the year was MIGRATION's post-holiday legs, as it was an audience favorite and was literally one of the only movies to take the family to during the winter... If they hadn't seen WONKA already. Fitting for a movie about ducks, ahem, migrating to a place where it's warmer. It's like FROZEN: Make an animated movie about characters in a cold place wanting things to be warm again, and release it near Thanksgiving/Christmas... Really pushes those winter blues away. (Unless you like winter.)

IF, with its CG cartoon characters, was a real surprise opening at $33m and legging its way past $100m domestic. That has been acknowledged by some of the press, even if it'll still be a "flop" in Hollywood math at the end of the day. The adult, and even older adult/senior turnout, that I see for this one at the cinema I work at... All childless... Something about this movie has struck a chord with audiences in a way a lot of recent animated family movies seemingly haven't. I guess live-action just does make it easier to digest for some...

Elsewhere, THE GARFIELD MOVIE scored $24m for its three-day and has legged itself nicely despite the existence of both IF and INSIDE OUT 2. It's an agreeable little movie, I found it to be alright. Whether it's faithful to the spirit of the comic strip (and many cartoon adaptations, particularly from the era where Lorenzo Music voiced Garfield) or not, the families have consistently chosen this one weekend-to-weekend. Cartoon, cats and dogs, slapstick, recognizable characters even if you don't read funnies in the papers, fits the bill just enough.

DESPICABLE ME 4 will kick off the second half, and should be big. Gang's back together, as it's not a prequel, could make MINIONS numbers on opening weekend or around the unadjusted amounts of 2 & 3 ($83m and $72m respectively), sure to explode worldwide too. Illumination hasn't had a financial miss yet. DESPICABLE ME 4 also looks to be their newest movie for a long while, as nothing is scheduled for 2025 (first time they've skipped a year not counting the early COVID years, MINIONS 2 and SING 2 were made for 2020 in mind), and the MARIO sequel drops in April of 2026.

TRANSFORMERS ONE and THE WILD ROBOT open close to each other in September, but I suspect both will open okay and then leg it out from there. GARFIELD and IF co-existed fine together, and they currently co-exist fine with INSIDE OUT 2. If audiences like them and money's not too tight, they'll both make back their budgets. I'd imagine neither of them cost too much... And honestly, I'm here for it. I'm totally okay with a bunch of animated movies making sub-$100m totals domestically and around $150-300m worldwide, and still making back their money. The antithesis of what the Diz wants out of seemingly any movie they put out.

On the subject of smaller titles: Anime titles continue to do their business, too, i.e. new DEMON SLAYER clipshow, the SPY X FAMILY movie. Year after year, more so than ever before I'd argue. Give 'em a wide release for a few weeks, the base will show up.

MOANA 2 is sure to be massive, MUFASA I think gets saved by worldwide grosses and Christmas legs, SONIC 3 should do great, and then there's THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM. I think that'll be an interesting one to track, I don't think it's primed to be an opening weekend winner despite being a LORD OF THE RINGS film. Remember, SPIDER-VERSE 1 opened with an okay $35m in the December frame, MUTANT MAYHEM with $28m. LORD OF THE RINGS is largely associated with live-action for most audiences, despite there being a few animated adaptations made well beforehand. THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP, should it actually get the theatrical release GFM has been gunning for, I think opens small too but then legs it up... Again, I hope they make back their budgets, once again showing that little guys are every bit as important as the big guns. It's just cool that movies like ROHIRRIM and EARTH BLEW UP are getting theatrical releases to begin with, that would've been unheard of ten years ago.

Maybe 2025 changes course, and we see more original stuff open higher than usual post-outbreak. ELIO is the one I continue to be curious about, as it's Pixar's second-ever original movie to get a theatrical release post-outbreak, after ELEMENTAL... Which despite its legs, Disney now deems a flop. Pixar films used to get $45m+ on opening weekend down pat with the originals, the last to do that was COCO was back in 2017. ONWARD fell behind at $38m, cut right off by the pandemic a weekend into what should've been its run. Prior to COCO, INSIDE OUT made $90m on its opening weekend, and BRAVE made $66m. Not too shabby!

For some more context, we'll do Pixar originals starting w/ MONSTERS, INC. back in 2001, the first original of theirs to crack $40m on opening weekend:

MONSTERS, INC. (2001) - $62m

FINDING NEMO (2003) - $70m

THE INCREDIBLES (2004) - $70m

CARS (2006) - $60m

RATATOUILLE (2007) - $47m

WALL-E (2008) - $63m

UP (2009) - $68m

BRAVE (2012) - $66m

INSIDE OUT (2015) - $90m

THE GOOD DINOSAUR (2015) - $39m

COCO (2017) - $50m

ONWARD (2020) - $38m

ELEMENTAL (2023) - $29m

Does ELIO return to the days where a Pixar original could almost easily make $45-70m on opening weekend? Or is it ELEMENTAL redux, and Iger arbitrarily tries to find some other thing to blame the failure on?

2025's kinda sparse when it comes to these kinds of animated movies. Everything else - not counting sequels like BAD GUYS 2, ZOOTOPIA 2, and SEARCH FOR SQUAREPANTS - is associated with some pre-existing franchise, like SMURFS and GABBY'S DOLLHOUSE. There's also DOG MAN, the book series by Dav Pilkey, a spin-off of his iconic CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS series. DreamWorks adapted that into a movie back in 2017. No features are set for March, April, or May, possibly in anticipation of an animation strike very soon. July and October are also without a new theatrical animated movie at the moment. WILDWOOD, from Laika, is without a distributor or release date, but it's eyeballing 2025. That'll be their first feature since MISSING LINK, that came out in 2019, whoooaaa...

Either that, or it's more of the same. I think post-outbreak, audiences are still pretty choosy with theater visits. Again, because of money and because your experience could very well suck and be a waste of $60+ for a family of four. It frustrates me to no end that the press natters on and on about movies being the death of movie theaters, when it's the damn movie theaters themselves. Like an elephant in the room, or in the auditorium. The cinema chains are using an outdated, decaying model that doesn't serve audiences nor them. And I would know, I'm in those very trenches myself! Understaffed, poorly-equipped, management can be erratic, etc. Some of us break our backs so that anyone who comes in doesn't have a hangup about something.

But no, it's always the movies that have to do the work. You flop, it's your fault, or the marketing's fault. International Cinema Day was coined two years ago, in August 2022...

August 2022 was kind of a wasteland month. A lot of the new movies opened very badly, or merely just existed. Movies like EASTER SUNDAY, THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING, THE INVITATION, etc.... And on that low-price day... Every movie was jam-packed, down to the front rows... I dunno, making a gamble of an experience more affordable gets more people coming? Just a thought??

So, if anything, INSIDE OUT 2 doing as well as it did meant that people really wanted to see that movie. Despite their experience possibly sucking, they went in droves to see it. That was one worth gambling on. Much like BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE, much like KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, much like DUNE: PART TWO... But maybe people wouldn't narrow their choices to 3-4 movies a year if the experience was better and/or more affordable.

It would really serve animation well, methinks.

[poof346]

The Super Mario Bros. Movie: A Rollercoaster Ride of Thrills (spoilers inbound)

So, last Sunday I finally got around to watching The Super Mario Bros. movie in theaters. I feel like I should preface my thoughts by giving a summary of my history with Mario as a series. When I was a kid, my family got a Wii around 2007, and I played a bunch of Mario Strikers and the Galaxy duology with my sibling. I got a DSi sometime afterwards and played a bunch of the first New Super Mario Bros., SM64DS, and Mario Party DS. From there, I eventually went on to play...pretty much every platformer this dude has starred in, alongside the mountain of spin-offs. Needless to say, I feel qualified to talk about how much I fucking loved this movie on nearly every front as a representation of the series.

Do I think it was great as a film? Ehhhh, not necessarily, the pacing was a little fast due to how Illumination writes their films and I think a longer runtime might've helped them flesh out certain interactions more. But I only really noticed these flaws when reflecting on what I saw at home. In the moment, I was overcome by a feeling of childlike joy and wonder at almost every scene, seeing every element I love about Mario on the big screen. The colorful world and art design, the beautiful and upbeat music, the kinetic and fluid platforming action...all of it. Pretty comparable to how I felt when I watched Sonic 2 in theaters, funny enough.

That said, I'm not really interested in comparing the two films against each other to see which is better. I got a similar level of enjoyment from both and can accept they're going for different approaches, while also wishing they would've made some improvements. This is solely about the Mario movie on its own, which I feel already gives me plenty to talk about. So, I wanna start with my negatives first so I can get to everything I loved in an uninterrupted burst.

As I alluded to before, my main issue was the pacing. Particularly, I think the speed at which scenes moved caused some character arcs to feel a little undercooked, like with Donkey Kong. The movie wanted a moment where Mario and DK realize they're not too different in chasing after approval from their fathers, but this exchange gets like, 30 seconds dedicated to it before they're back into action. I understand that as a kid's movie, it's probably preferred by the staff to have a high volume of fun stuff on screen to keep the kids entertained, but I always feel like Illumination struggles with a good balance.

While this is a much smaller issue in comparison, I also wish the soundtrack had remained entirely original without the licensed songs. Mario has a very particular kind of sound that these song choices didn't quite fit with, plus it meant that they took the place of original tracks written for the movie. There was also the case of songs lifted directly from the games, like the DK Rap and Fury Bowser's theme, where the original composers weren't credited for their work. Proper credit is generally a big issue with productions like these, so I wouldn't say it was surprising to see, I was just a little disappointed.

That's about my main issues out of the way, now for the fun part.

Most immediately striking, this is a gorgeous-looking movie, but that's something I had no doubts about going in. If nothing else, Illumination has proven to me they know how to make visually appealing films. However, I need to give special credit to the artists and animators for capturing the look and feel of Mario's world so perfectly in every detail. The blocks, the hills, the girders, the karts, everything is colorful and exactly how I wanted it to be. Plus, the scenes of action have great kinetic energy that matches the platforming you'd do in Mario games, they were all fun to watch.

The music is also a particular highlight for me. I feel like a lot of video game movie adaptations don't properly pay tribute to the soundtracks of what they're adapting, so hearing all these iconic Mario tracks seamlessly fitting into scenes is a treat. And of course, Bowser's piano ballad about Peach, absolute classic already. I would've been very upset if they didn't use the casting of Jack Black as Bowser for a musical number.

Since I mentioned casting, I'll also address the voice cast for the main characters. While I'm still not totally on-board with the practice of celebrities taking voice acting roles, they did pretty well! My personal highlights were Charlie Day as Luigi and Jack Black as Bowser, they really fit those roles. And yes, I did actually warm up to Chris Pratt as Mario. Honestly, the commercials must've had something out for him, the takes they selected didn't give a proper impression of his voice throughout the movie (and some weren't actually used, like the "Mushroom Kingdom, here we come" line).

In general, I would say the Mario movie was a great experience as a first watch! I compared it to a rollercoaster ride in the title for a reason: it was exciting and fun in the moment, but there's also not a lot to analyze in terms of story or anything like that. The mixed reception from critics does make sense to me after seeing it, since if you don't have the prior attachment to the Mario franchise, would probably feel like a lot of spectacle with little substance.

[rookie-critic]

The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023, dir. Aaron Horvath & Michael Jelenic) - review by Rookie-Critic

We no longer live in a world where video game adaptations can be written off as soon as they're introduced. Modern adaptations like Paramount's Sonic the Hedgehog films or HBO's The Last of Us series have started to change the landscape and the expectation for what these adaptations can do and how good they can be. So, when Illumination announced they had partnered with Nintendo to put a new Super Mario Bros. film project into production, naturally hackles went up. The Mario franchise does house one of the most classic examples of a video game film adaptation gone bad, but there were also a fair number of people who wanted to wait and see what happened. I, at this point, was unsure. I was excited at the prospect of a new film starring some of my favorite video game characters, but at the same time Illumination doesn't have a fantastic track record with me. I love the first Despicable Me film, and I think the second one is ok, but since then I almost actively despise the Minions as a thing that exists and think a lot of Illumination's other films have this really cheap and obvious humor that only children and middle-aged moms would find funny. I also get that this is the exact audience they're trying to please, but I could easily point to animation studios like DreamWorks and a film like Puss in Boots: The Last Wish that manage to be naturally hilarious without ever feeling forced or cringey. Regardless, I was worried. My uncertainty was only deepened when the cast list was announced and I saw that Chris Pratt would be voicing Mario. The plucky, Italian plumber was going to be voiced by Star-Lord, but the rest of the cast looked perfect, so I still held out hope. Then the trailer dropped and my whole outlook changed. It looked good. Really good. Now, after having watched it, I'll come out and say that it was... just fine.

My worry about Illumination injecting their sense of humor into it was well-placed, because they absolutely packed the film with it. Characters deliver one-liners that are neither funny nor clever in places where it completely disrupts the flow of the scene (seriously, sometimes it almost felt like they paused to wait for the laughter they assumed they would get), and there's even a Luma (a little star creature that was first introduced in the Super Mario Galaxy games) that is, in my opinion, a really poor and unnecessary attempt at edgy dark humor that I immediately hated. This thing gets a massive amount of screen time for something that actively detracted from the film's quality (in its defense, I will say I've talked to a handful of people that thought that Luma was the best part of the movie, so maybe it's just a me thing), and every time it showed up to say some really cringey line about the only escape from suffering being death or whatever, I would audibly groan. A lot of the film has an air of an Illumination film that just happens to have Mario characters in it as opposed to a true blue (or red, rather) Mario film. To me, nothing makes this more apparent than the incessant use of licensed songs throughout the film. With a library of music as vast as the Mario franchise's, why would I ever need to hear "Thunderstruck" or "Holding Out for a Hero?" What's weirder is that they do a very good job of working classic themes and music from the games into the film's score already. Why even bother with the licensed music when you clearly are adept at doing it the better way, anyway?

So far, I'm making it seem like I hated it, but that really isn't true at all. I can almost forgive a lot of the very blatant cheap humor because the film is incredibly fun. For fans of the games, it throws a ton of references at the screen, so you're never at a loss for a good dose of nostalgia. Between a fun play on the classic "The princess is in another castle" line, to taking a shortcut on Rainbow Road, to the ringtone on Luigi's phone, to a massively meme'd rap song about a certain red-tie-wearing gorilla, you're being bombarded with beautiful callbacks and hilarious references. The playful ribbing at the fact that Bowser is hopelessly in love with Princess Peach while also constantly in an attempt to take over the kingdom she rules over was very cute and fun, and, while the film's story is very formulaic, the characters feel dynamic and fully realized. The loving, brotherly relationship between Mario and Luigi is very touching, and I loved that they took the baseline personalities the games give the brothers and molded them into this loving sibling unit that always has each other's backs. It's the sibling dynamic I've always wanted out of the duo, and I love that this film gave it to me (even if there could have been way more Luigi, but I feel that way about most Mario properties).

The last two compliments I'll give the Mario movie before I wrap up this incredibly long-winded review are these: the animation is gorgeous. They brought so many set pieces from the games to wondrous, big-budget animation life and it was great to see all these locations and characters that I've grown up with on the big screen. Lastly, the voice acting in the film is impeccable. Chris Pratt did better than I thought he was going to (my main concern was that it would just sound like Chris Pratt coming out of Mario's mouth, which it didn't), and Charlie Day, Jack Black, and Seth Rogen steal every single second of screen time they get. I really do hope they give Luigi a larger role in the sequel, because Charlie Day needs to be this character more. Ultimately, I'm glad that The Super Mario Bros. Movie exists. Sure, it has its flaws, but for fans of the games and fans of Illumination's films in general, this is a fun time. However, if you're not a fan of Illumination or Mario, this isn't going to convert you.

Score: 7/10

Currently only in theaters.

[breadbuggenius]

It drives me crazy that the third Sonic movie seems to lack any girl animal characters. And any time I see someone say that they wish Amy or Rouge was in the movie, I see them get dog piled by a million variations of "stop complaining" :/ It's so frustrating... I can't be the only one who finds this blatantly misogynistic, right? I mean, little boys get to have cool cute and crazy little animals with super powers. Things kids like!! Whereas little girls just get some ordinary humans whose screentime is drowned out by the ordinary human men :/ And I know little girls can and will like Sonic Tails Knuckles and Shadow. I loved all those characters as a kid (I still do!!), and growing up I knew plenty of girls who liked them all too (so I know it wasn't just "male socialization" or whatever that made me like them). But don't you think girls deserve to have cool cute and crazy little animals with super powers... Who are also girls like them?? Especially since the Sonic series has plenty to choose from...

Look at this. It's cute, they're all watching their movie together. I want to like it... But I can't help but notice the glaring omission of any girls. Like, they couldn't work even a single girl animal into this movie? Despite the fact that the game this movie is based off of (albeit loosely) prominently features funny animal girls in its cast? Not even Amy, a character who's almost always included alongside Sonic Tails and Knuckles in the games? I don't believe that. I get why the first two movies didn't have any girls. The first movie was an original story featuring just Sonic and Robotnik, the second was a loose adaptation of the Genesis trilogy which didn't have any girls either. But I feel there's no excuse at this point. This feels like a decision born simply out of misogyny to me. And it has soured both my excitement for the film and my thoughts on the movies as a whole...

Well, that and the increasing amount of weird copaganda going on in the Sonic movies. Maybe I'm not missing much if I decide to stop engaging with this facet of the series

[seventeendeer]

Hey! Sonic question! What're your two cents on the Ken Penders(?) deal? I don't really know much about it so I'm curious about a Sonic Fan's opinion!

OH KEN PENDERS ... INTERESTING SPECIMEN, THAT ONE

so, the basic rundown is this: at some point in the past, this joker somehow got himself hired on the Sonic Archie comics as headwriter. a lot of the unpleasantness of the series can be traced back to him in one way or another. aside from being an atrocious writer and artist, he’s also antisemitic and a massive sexist, and has a lot of disturbing ideas of right and wrong. he’s also got no sense of what’s ethical to portray in a comic book for children. a cute cartoon bee dying of a drug overdose? overt and extremely disrespectful Holocaust references? child abuse framed as a-okay because it comes from a place of caring? making one of the primary romantic relationships incestuous? that’s all that Ken Penders brand flavoring, baby!

now, one of mr. Penders’ most unfortunate traits is that he is absolutely obsessed with Knuckles’ character. and I mean obsessed. he spent most of his time on the comics making stories about Knuckles. in his mind, Knuckles is quite literally the cartoon animal equivalent of Jesus (not a metaphor! yes, seriously). because he’s spent so long adding asinine lore to the character, he’s also convinced that on some level, he actually kinda owns the character. writing about Knuckles is apparently his life mission, copyright laws be damned.

then a funny thing happened back in the mid to late 00′s: real, completely decent writers saw his extensive work on the comics and thought “you know, maybe we can do something with this? we’ll dust off the sexism and the incest and the child abuse, and then we actually have a pretty cool plot! let’s see if we can salvage these ideas”

see, different Sonic media doesn’t tend to mix - the games are basically a source code that various spin-off stories pick up and alter to an extent to make their own stories. it’s extremely rare that anything from the spin-offs is re-incorporated back into the games, as I believe the copyright process gets tricky. however, back in 2008, a game called Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood was released, and unfortunately for everyone, it had the gall to try to adapt some of Ken Penders’ Knuckles-related lore in a copyright-friendly way that fit into the game series’ canon.

they never should have. Ken Penders, somehow furious that something he had created for a franchise he didn’t own was being used elsewhere in the franchise, filed a lawsuit against SEGA. and unfortunately for SEGA, the legal documents that stated that Penders didn’t have the rights to any characters he created for the comics were lost in a fire years ago.

the lawsuit was successful, Penders obtained the rights to his 100+ awful characters, the second Sonic Chronicles game was cancelled, and the Sonic Archie comics - a series which had been building up continuity and stories for over a decade - had to be rebooted with a giant chunk of its cast and stories missing.

since then, Ken Penders has been trying to make his own comics with his characters, and the art is uglier than ever ... also Knuckles is apparently still involved in the series somehow, because copyright only matters when it concerns characters that he made, it seems

on the one hand, the whole fiasco is a little funny. reading about all his horrible stories is entertaining and the man is now a laughingstock among Sonic fans. on the other hand, I feel really, really bad for the people who loved the Archie comics and followed them for years. I don’t like them, but other people do, and this one idiot single-handedly destroyed the entire series.

also, as much as I want to fist fight Ken Penders, the Sonic Chronicles adaption of his stories is ... good. it’s so good. it’s one of my favorite stories in the whole game series. I don’t know who the writers of that game are, but they took all the fun and potentially interesting parts of the comic lore and cut out all the bad stuff, and then added some really cool and creative elements, and I just

look. the central character introduced in that game - Shade - she really stole my heart when I was a kid and I still adore her. it’s been over a decade and the legal problems have never been resolved, her story was never finished, and she has never appeared in another game. she isn’t so much as referenced anywhere in later games.

Ken Penders is a fantastic source of unintentional comedy. he’s also a terrible person who, aside from being offensive, also just ruined a lot of people’s fun.

here’s a whole article about all the ridiculous shit he added to the comics, if you want to laugh at him with us. no existing knowledge of Sonic required.

[bashhowardproductions]

in response to the sonic vs. marvel post: i love how the only argument you can give is that end credits give the names of ppl working on the movies. i’m doubtful you or anyone else actually reads the end credits especially in a time where imdb exists.

anyway have funny defending disney and their overproduced remakes, babe.

I do read credits! A fun game to do is look for women, or look for my name. Both are difficult. And my mom has always had us stay through the credits, even when we were little kids. Idk man, its just kind of a nasty sentiment to discourage people from staying though them. I actually wasn't defending marvel at all(i turned 18 a little while back, and grew out of enjoying children's films), just pointing out the hypocrisy of the statement.

Listen buddy, its studio vs studio here. I hate to break it to you, but theyre all bad, theyre all playing the sequel/reboot/adaptation game, Disney's just doing it remarkably better than anyone else(for a variety of reasons, which is actually kind of interesting, but I dont think you could handle that, it requires some critical thinking). I genuinely don't care about sonic, I don't care about people enjoying it, if they want to put a kids movie up on a pedestal, that's their prerogative(especially one that keeps my king James Marsden employed). Theres actually a bunch of incorrect stuff in that post, but I'm not going to correct it line by line, because that's a fool's errand.

anyway have funny(sic) going to people's blogs and writing misinformed messages on anon, babe

[beevean]

I apologize if i already asked this, but thoughts on all the sonic cartoons and anime?

I don't remember either lol

AoSTH: never watched it. I think I watched only the first episode ages ago? Anyway, it looks like Discount Looney Tunes to me so I never bothered. To be fair, there wasn't much material to work with back then so a wacky cartoon was more than okay. And Eggman was genuinely funny! And of course this iconic scene <3

SatAM: never watched it. Again, considering there was very little to work with back then, I find the concept interesting: it's a serious evolution of something that in the games is merely a background item, the fact that Eggman "turns animals into robots" - in the games he uses them as batteries, but in the cartoon they're straight up converted into machines. And Robotropolis at the end of the day is similar to the Bad Futures in CD! Can't really speak for anything else, though, I only know that Robotnik here has barely anything in common with the canon one.

OVA: watched it. The only thing that has aged poorly is that Eggman's plan hinges on having children with Sara - I don't want to hear anything about Sonelise's creepiness when this happened 😬 everything else is still fun, and while the setting is a little odd (who had the idea of the Land of the Sky and Land of Darkness?), this was for years the most faithful adaptation of Sonic in spirit. Also this is, by far, the best Metal in the series - you can't tell me you didn't get the feels at the end.

Underground: never watched it. And I don't think I ever will.

Sonic X: watched it, except for Season 3. I'm a bit torn on it. I was, of course, super hyped when I discovered a cartoon about my new favorite series was airing, back in 2004, but something about it felt disappointing and I didn't have the words to express what. Now I do: the first season was rather formulaic and focused more on Chris' adventures with Tails an Amy than actually Sonic (and yeah, I didn't like Chris, but not because I felt he was a bad character, I simply didn't wany any human stealing the spotlight lol). I remember being confused and irritated at the fact that Sonic needed a Ring to Spin Dash, and being even more confused when I learned that the idea came form SatAM (me? being a canon stickler since my childhood? who would have thought). The second season was a little more intriguing because it adapted the Adventure duology + Battle, but it also had a clear budget drop and, well, Chris stealing scenes. I think the main fault of X is that its interpretation of the characters bled over the main series, especially Eggman, Amy and Knuckles. And of course I personally had to deal with the shitty Italian dub of the shitty English dub ("l'arca della colonia spaziale") 😬 that being said, it has its moments, it's entertaining, and the episode with Sonic and Helen is '06 done right

Sonic Boom: watched it. If you forget that it's supposed to be Sonic, it becomes one of the funniest cartoons I've watched recently. The writing took a handful of episodes to evolve, but when it did, it didn't stop. The fact that Boom was supposed to be an AU made me warm up to how different Knuckles and Eggman were from their canon counterparts, and they became my top faves lol. The second season was even better (the Roger gag is iconic), and we discovered that Cindy Robinson is also a good writer! Speaking of which, I'm grateful that this cartoon showed that the 2010 cast is actually good if there's a proper voice direction, especially Roger himself that gives his best here.

I really can't say anything for the manga because I know almost nothing about them lol. I know a little about that manga where Sonic was Nikki's superhero alterego, and he was Amy Emi's boyfriend, and Charmy was there, but that's about it.