The "what could have been" topic

[Klinsy]

Things change, a lot.

Throughout history various works has been change or flat out canned making them things that could have been. Sometimes these changes are for the better, such as an in name only Spider-man movie where Peter Parker is kidnapped by a mad scientist and being mutated into a large spider beast which craved death or these abominations.

Other times it could have been interesting such as Neil Gaiman's Sandman Episode of Batman: the animated series or Apollo Justice having none of the previous Ace Attorney characters.

Basically this topic is created to talk about things that almost happen, and how they could change the work in a positive or in a negative way.

[Wentos]

Shadow could've stayed dead.

[Milo]

*insert "Sonic 06/Sonic Adventure 3" rant here*

[TheOcelot]

Sonic 2 could have been a very different game, if the following scrapped levels had made the final product:

Wood Zone

Winter Zone

Dust Hill Zone

Hidden Palace Zone

Genocide City Zone

[Sarah Jane Smith]

Sonic Generations could've had all the Classic characters, a good story, genuine character interaction, and more levels and callbacks.

Every Sonic game other than Triple Trouble could've had Fang.

[Klinsy]

There was going to be a Spider-man movie made by James Cameron with Doctor Octopus as the villain who would be played by Arnold Schwarzenegger who had a catchphrase of "Okey dokey then" and would call his tentacles "weldos" and would have also had a lab assistant that he constantly abused throughout the movie. I actually want to see this for how insane it is.

There was going be terrible redesign of Klonoa for the North American version of the Wii game.

Good thing that they didn't use it.

Edited September 29, 2012 by Ecco

[188Eternal]

The very first version of the classic FPS DOOM could've had 5 or 6 episodes, and could've had up to 5 playable characters with 1 of them being a female soldier. And it also could've had different weapons with more of a mysticism theme rather than a technological theme....

But the guys at ID Software didn't like the idea that their creative director Tom Hall was proposing, so they kicked him out and released the simplified DOOM that we've known and seen.

But 2 years later, in 1995... The bitter Tom Hall strikes back! With the employees of a rival compay called Apogee Software under his control, he releases a game called Rise Of The Triad which looks very similar to the DOOM that we know but contains all of the lacking features such as female soldiers and mystical weaponry.

Edited September 30, 2012 by 188DarkRevived

[MegaMan_EXE]

Mega Man Legends 3 could have been a great game if Capcom didn't out right cancel it.

[188Eternal]

Also remembered something else... The Sailor Moon series which we all know today with its huge cast of characters could've not existed at all, and instead we would've only had the single character series of Sailor V.

This is because the very first manga which was ever made by the creator was called Codename: Sailor V", and the creator was only intending for it to focus on 1 female protagonist the whole time.

But the series scored such rave reviews and generated so much fanmail and feedback that eventually the creator submitted to their demands and created more characters.

[Komodin]

Hm, I'm surprised no one has linked to this yet. Allow me to do so.

Anyway, to this very day, I still wonder what Xenogears could've been like if it was actually completed all the way through. I mean, some of the events provided in the exposition part of the second disc actually sounded pretty awesome...

Edited September 30, 2012 by Komodin

[Spooky Mulder]

NBC didn't cancel Seinfeld, it was Jerry Seinfeld's decision to move on from the series after Season Nine. NBC was so desperate that they offered him a $100 million deal to come back (5 million per episode). He refused the offer, and Seinfeld ended. I wonder what classic episodes would've emerged as a result of an additional season and if the show's quality would have been maintained through it.

The character of Jack Shepherd on Lost was originally supposed to die at the end of the pilot episode. The plan changed, and Jack went on to become the central character of the series.

JK Rowling originally planned to have Arthur Weasley die in the middle of Order of the Phoenix (the snake attack was supposed to be fatal) but couldn't bring herself to do it.

[McGroose]

The completion and release of Sonic X-treme could have either helped Sonic's reputation or have been a bad part of it. I'm going to assume the latter if it still used the Fish Eye engine.

It might have been really nice if it used the 3D Sonic Worlds engine from Sonic Jam.

No matter what though, it would have still helped the Saturn since it now had a proper 3D Sonic game. Unless you'd count Sonic R as one.

Edited September 30, 2012 by Mephiles550

[RK64]

Banjo Kazooie as we know today could have been a very different game! Originaly called Project Dream it was supposed to be a Mario/Zelda esc game with a pirate theme and setting. After seeing early bulids of Conker though, the banjo team decided to re-do the project and making it more in vain of its classic DKC tittles with a animal main character. Taking a bear and bird that were originaly in the Project Dream tittle, rare made the legendary Banjo-Kazooie series.

[Speederino]

On this subject, check this out.

Super Mario 64 was originally planned to be on the Super Nintendo, using a more advanced version of the super fx chip (Starfox, Doom). Once it made the jump to the N64, they were also planning on having a co-op mode where each player could navigate the castle seperately, an idea that was going to be used on the cancelled Super Mario 64 2 (!).

[RK64]

The completion and release of Sonic X-treme could have either helped Sonic's reputation or have been a bad part of it. I'm going to assume the latter if it still used the Fish Eye engine.

It might have been really nice if it used the 3D Sonic Worlds engine from Sonic Jam.

No matter what though, it would have still helped the Saturn since it now had a proper 3D Sonic game. Unless you'd count Sonic R as one.

Man I remember a few years back watching the Sonic Xtreame videos, I would love to play it one day. The fish-eye lens could have made a very intresting game.

[Solkia]

ToS:Dawn of the New World could have been enjoyable for me if the monster taming gimmick wasn't useless and they didn't shit the name Tales of Symphonia on it to make a quick buck.

[McGroose]

Man I remember a few years back watching the Sonic Xtreame videos, I would love to play it one day. The fish-eye lens could have made a very intresting game.

I felt the same way at first. I would have really liked to play this game. As time went on however, I've come to see that the Fish-Eye lens perspective wasn't really that good of an idea. It might have looked nice, but playing the game with that might have been annoying.

Still, I would have liked to be able to play the game's levels like Crystal Frost, Red Sands, ext.

Oh and by the way...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq_iPxQsbm0&feature=related

THAT'S THE DEATH EGG? I know the Saturn could only process so much at a time without being overly laggy, but there's a lack of actual...Egg on the Death Egg. Maybe that's some sort of 2nd act like in Sonic 3 were your actually in space/outside the innards of the Death Egg or something? I don't know.

Look's cool though.

Edited September 30, 2012 by Mephiles550

[smogfog]

Sometimes I think that if the Dreamcast did not fail, Sonic franchise by now could have evolved into something like Mass Effect, or Sonic Chronicles in full 3D.

[Nepenthe]

I bet no one knew that Pixar was actually not to release the first 3D feature. There were plans back in 1991 to make a 3D feature based upon the comic Star Watcher by comic artist Moebius, using an early bulky form of motion capture. However, the owner of the studio was in a ridiculous mountain of debt. About a month after my current teacher quit, the owner was killed in a car accident and the studio closed entirely as it was sold off to creditors and whatnot. The only thing that really survives from it are some production drawings during the art design process that my teacher drew. So had one single man better managed his finances, we'd have an awesome 3D film based on a Moebius property back in the early 90s, Pixar would not have been the first to do so and may have produced their films much differently than they do now, as would all 3D production houses, and my teacher'd probably be a hell of a lot richer than he is now.

So pay your bills, kids.

[Milo]

^ This is definitely one of the more infamous/tragic cases of a "What Could Have Been" example.

[Amomynous]

Sonic OVA is a 'what could have been' TV series, production was stopped after the second episode, and it's a real shame, I'd have loved to have a 'now retro' Sonic series to go along with the likes of Aosth and SatAm, but from Japan. It would also be great to have a Sonic series attempt from Japan that isn't Sonic X.

I do not doubt Sonic The Hedgehog: OVA got off the ground, the entire franchise would be swayed, and somehow I don't think I'd mind.

All franchise-related material,of any franchise, if it's vaguely heard of, makes some sort of mark on the franchise as a whole, by making an impression on the fans and staff, not only altering their opinions about what character portrayals and other elements they like and which ones they don't, but altering how they actually believe the characters and world to be, and of course, for the staff, altering how they choose to create the material.

Edited September 30, 2012 by Mysterics

[Milo]

The Sonic Jam "Man of the Year" short I heard was supposed to be some sort of pilot for an (dropped, as seeing that the cartoon was never finished despite the cliffhanger it ends on) Sonic cartoon series. Also interesting to note that the short was animated by TMS, who would later be the animation production company for Sonic X.

[Klinsy]

Long before he became one of Marvel most iconic characters, Wolverine was almost killed off due to being similar to the character Thuderbird, the author of the Xmen comics at the time was given the choice to kill off Wolverine or Thunderbird, obviously he chose Thunderbird.

Imagine instead of Wolverine Publicity we might had Thunderbird Publicity.

Edited September 30, 2012 by Ecco

[batson]

Ingmar Bergman wanted to make a Pippi Longstocking movie, but the author of the original books wouldnt give him permission. And later on, Hayao Miyazaki wanted to make a Pippi movie, but the author refused him too.

[Klinsy]

There this odd trailer for Pokemon The First movie with what appears to be a grown up Misty.

In fact trailers for Pokemon movies always have scenes that aren't in the movie, like a trailer for Pokemom the movie 3 had a scene with a shadow of Mewtwo.

Originally Piccolo was suppose to become a majin instead of Vegeta, that would been neat.