The "what could have been" topic

[188Eternal]

Duke Nukem Forever could've been released in either 2000 or 2001 on the same engine that Quake II used. And personally, I feel that that would've been the better choice. The game would've felt more like an actual sequel and less like a revamped reboot.

All this latest trend of rebooting old classics and altering their image is really really grating my nerves.

[PeanutButterDimond]

The Joker was supposed to die in the first batman comic. Someone said to keep him alive and well, the rest is comic book history.

Mickey Mouse was originally going to be Mortimer Mouse but Disney's wife thought Mickey was cuter and more appealing.

Epic mickey was originally going to include design changes for mickey based on desicions. Some dev suggested the game giving the player more paint or thinner depending on what they use more instead and Warren Spector liked it better.

Portal was originally going to have no voice acting but people found it too boring. So Valve added in a good writer and an opera singer to voice the snarky robot GLADOS and, yeah.

Dwarf Fortress was originally supposed to be an Infiminer clone that was incredibly hard but two dimensional in plane. It changed to an over head adventuring rougelike. that was cancelled and Toady(The dev) announced he was making a game about Dwarves maintaining a fortress instead. Later on he revealed Adventure mode. Even then it took a while for Dwarf Fortress for it to finally switch to using a Z Axis so you could dig down.

In a Marble hornets entry, at one point while filming their student film, Brian wasn't supposed to say "Well you would have money to pay us if you didn't spend it all on tapes". The line made Alex's actor crack up so bad that they redid the take and kept the line.

Marble hornets was supposed to end very early on with Jay looking for Alex and driving down a street at night with the Operator being at every stop light. the series was supposed to end there implying jay failed. The series though became a huge hit though and the creators came up with so many ideas, they felt that they were too far in that it wouldn't be proper to end it that way.

Originally, the idea was that Slender Man's face looked different to everyone who saw it. Slendy was also supposed to change outfits depending where he was to blend in with the environments Early stories also described him as having a low chuckle. These ideas were done away with pretty quickly though.

[Klinsy]

Old designs for Ace Attorney characters.

From left to right, old design Phoenix, old design Edgeworth, old design Maya, old design Mia and old design Gumshoe.

Old design Phoenix and old design Maya look they would been basically the same characters as the final versions with different designs.

Old design Mia and old design Gumshoe look like they would been really different characters then the final versions.

Old design Edgeworth was aged up and became Manfred Von Karma.

Edited October 6, 2012 by Violent Pacifist

[Milo]

Ice Age was originally going to be a 2D animated feature. The failure of Don Bluth's Titan A.E. led Fox/Blue Sky to have it made in CGI instead.

[Spin Attaxx]

The first Mega Man game was meant to have 8 Robot Masters like future games. These Robot Masters were Cut Man, Bond Man, Ice Man, Fire Man, Bomb Man, Elec Man, Guts Man, and an unfinalised Robot Master (I've read somewhere that it was meant to have the water stage of the game). Due to cartrige limitations, the roster was cut down to 6 and Bond Man was scrapped. His weapon's effect (freezing enemies) was given to the Ice Slasher. Keiji Inafune considered putting Bond Man in Powered Up, but decided against it, believing it would destroy Bond Man's cult legacy.

 

Tornadus was originally meant to be red instead of green. The GS Ball was meant to contain a Celebi that would follow Ash and co. for most of Johto. However, during the fourth movie's production, it was decided that Celebi be in the movie instead. The plotline was abandoned after Ash left the ball with Kurt. This idea was likely recycled with Meloetta in Best Wishes.

 

Evil of the Daleks was meant to be the final Dalek story, with Terry Nation, their creator, planning to use the Daleks independently. When that didn't work, they returned to Doctor Who in Day of the Daleks.

 

In an early draft for Transformers: The Movie, Unicron's name was Ingestor. Galvatron was meant to have been made from Megatron's disembodied life spark (lost by accident during a brawl in the Hall of Heroes over who becomes the new Decepticon leader) and the new Decepticons (Cyclonus, Scourge, the Sweeps) were meant to have been made from the life sparks of past Decepticons (also lost during the brawl). This idea remained long enough for the UK comic to establish that Cyclonus was made from a Decepticon called Life Spark.

 

Ryuk initially looked like this. The creators (wisely) thought that if he looked prettier or more handsome than Light, all the attention would go to him.

 

Shigeru Miyamoto wanted the Mii system (or a precursor) to be implemented as early as the NES/Famicom. However, technical limits held it back for years.

 

There is an unused line said by Tikal in Sonic Adventure, describing how to turn into Super Sonic. This suggests that Super Sonic was meant to be playable outside of the last story. An unused, rainbow coloured Custom Gem allowing the user to turn super is in Sonic 06. Also found in 06 are:

• A Light Chip for Silver, which was meant to make him move faster.
• Portal graphics for areas that don't have them (e.g. Flame Core).
• Notes that announce the unlocking of missions and episodes for the side characters (and Metal Sonic).

 

Team Fortress 2 was initially meant to be realistic, like it's predecessor, as well as being an FPS/RTS hybrid. However, the RTS part was dropped and the art was changed to a cartoonier look.

 

LOADS more to come.

Edited January 3, 2013 by Spin Attaxx

[Johnny Boy]

Toy Story 2 was originally going to be a direct to video feature but when John Lassetter came in and saw the storyboards, he was displeased and thus the entire Toy Stoy 2 project was scrapped and it had to be re done from the ground up in just 9 months for a theatrical release. And keep in mind that the required time to make a computer animated film is 4 years.

Sonic was originally going to be a rabbit but was then changed to a hedgehog. The rest is videogame history.

Mario was going to be in Wreck It Ralph but ultimately didn't make the cut. Some sources say that the directors simply couldn't find something for Mario to do in the film, other sources say that Nintendo made Mario to expensive to use in the film.

[Autosaver]

I'm pretty sure the director's said that it would be too costly to grab Mario.

 

Anyways, Mario was mentioned in the film at the start of the movie when Ralph enters the party. ..A cameo I guess.

[Klinsy]

Spoiler tag due to horrifying nature.

Yes, Nicholas Cage as Superman, scary isn't it?

This is from a thankfully canceled Superman movie called Superman Lives.

On one hand Kevin Smith was going to work on it, on the other hand pretty much everything else about it.

Superman was going to wear an all-black suit because the studio thought that the red and blue suit was "too faggy", Lex Luthor had a space dog because the studio wanted sell toys, Brainiac was going to have a sidekick who was "a gay R2-D2 with attitude." Yeah as you can tell this studio didn't know much about Superman.

Here an article with more details on it.

 

Speaking of Superman, Captain America was originally  called Super-American but was changed because the creators thought there was too many superheroes with the word "super" in their name.

Edited January 3, 2013 by Not David Bowie

[Endy]

                                                     

 

This kawaii son-a-bitch could have been the mascot for the Pokemon series! If it weren't for a last minute change, this thing could have been Ash's partner, but it was changed for some reason. And due to anime's popularity, Pikachu became world famous, so Clefairy didn't become the official mascot.

 

but who didn't know that already like come on

Edited January 3, 2013 by Iris

[Johnny Boy]

Here's some more:

The Powerpuff Girls were originally going to be called the whoop ass girls.

In Codename Kids Next Door, Number 3 was originally going to only speak Japanese and Number 5 was going to be mute. This was changed because the creators wanted to avoid controversy about the girls being the only ones on the team not being able to speak English.

When Batman Forever was being made, Christian Bale tried out for the role of Robin (I'm dead serious about this one).

In the Little Mermaid, Eric was originally going to kill Ursula by throwing the trident into chest. Thankfully this scene found a place in Kingdom Hearts 2. What's also interesting is that Walt Disney himself had planned on doing the Little Mermaid when he was still living but he scrapped plans for the movie because of the rather brutal ending of the original fairy tale.

Disneyland was originally going to be located in Arizona, but Walt Disney changed his mind when he saw how ugly the weather can be in winter and instead built the park in California.

Edited January 3, 2013 by Goddamn Batman

[Person]

Crash Bandicoot was originally called "Willy Wombat" and went through many design changes:

Edited January 3, 2013 by a person

[Linkabel]

Disneyland was originally going to be located in Arizona, but Walt Disney changed his mind when he saw how ugly the weather can be in winter and instead built the park in California.

More like the harsh winters AND summers. At least Disneyland is one state away.

[Milo]

Spoiler tag due to horrifying nature.

Yes, Nicholas Cage as Superman, scary isn't it?

This is from a thankfully canceled Superman movie called Superman Lives.

On one hand Kevin Smith was going to work on it, on the other hand pretty much everything else about it.

Superman was going to wear an all-black suit because the studio thought that the red and blue suit was "too faggy", Lex Luthor had a space dog because the studio wanted sell toys, Brainiac was going to have a sidekick who was "a gay R2-D2 with attitude." Yeah as you can tell this studio didn't know much about Superman.

Here an article with more details on it.

 

Speaking of Superman, Captain America was originally  called Super-American but was changed because the creators thought there was too many superheroes with the word "super" in their name.

 

All of those requests for the film were made by the film's would-be producer Jon Peters who among other things kept requesting for giant spider fights up until he finally he got his fix in Wild Wild West.

 

On that note, Kevin Smith made a hilarious stand-up piece with it, which you can see below.

 

[Mr. Awesomest]

In Demon's Souls, there were six archstones. They were to the Kingdom of Boletaria, the Stonefang Mines, the Towers of Latria, the Storm Shrine, the Valley of Defilement, and last and most certainly not the least, the Northern Land of Giants. Long ago when demons previously brought pain and misery upon the world, gargantuan demons wreaked havoc upon the Land of Giants, and because it could not be contained with force, the Monumentals destroyed the Archstone, forever locking away the Land of Giants to the outside world.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrFL2zPc2uk

 

What could have been the most worthy of the message "The Real Demon's Souls starts here" was removed from the final game due to time constraints.

[Dr. Homem]

Shrek almost looked like this.

 

[Spin Attaxx]

 

"HEY YOU GUIISEE!"

Edited January 3, 2013 by Spin Attaxx

[Blue Wisp]

Credit to DYKG? for this, but Sonic originally had a human girl that had Amy's place, she was called Madonna.

Truly a ladies' man...hog...thing.

[DarkLight]

Disney has a history of early film concepts that they eventually changed but I'll be only bringing up, Kingdom of the Sun which later became The Emperor's New Groove. The story was to be more akin to Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper with the emperor and Pacha switching places, a love interest and some extra Sting songs as well as a villain song called Snuff Out the Light, which is still on the film's soundtrack.

[Dr. Homem]

It was Christopher Lee's lifelong dream to play Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien himself wanted him to play him, in case a movie was ever made. However, Gandalf's fighting scenes were far too demanding for his age, so he was cast as Saruman instead, while Ian McKellen got the tole of Gandalf.

 

 

Lee was at one point considered for the role of Magneto in the adaptation of X-Men too, but he also lost the role to Ian McKellen. McKellen is obviously Lee's cockblocking nemesis.

[Yoko/葉子]

Knuckles could have been killed in S&K in his bad ending with the Master Emerald shattered as well.

[Jack / Joker]

Heath Ledger turned down the role of Batman in Batman Begins, before being cast as The Joker for the sequel, The Dark Knight.

 

Frank Welker was considered for the role of Megatron in Michael Bay's shitty Transformers movies, but was deemed too old and raspy-voiced to play him. Welker was later cast as Megatron in the TV show Transformers Prime, and he's still considered the best voice of the character...

 

Jason Griffith originally auditioned for the role of Chris Thorndyke before being recast as Sonic the Hedgehog... for some reason.

[Spin Attaxx]

Silver the Hedgehog was initially conceived as a mink named Venice (to match Soleanna's Venice-inspired design). Likewise, Shadow was initially named Terios (meaning "mirror", I believe).

 

There was a Pokémon designed for Red/Green based off Dolly the Sheep. It was scrapped after being deemed "too controversial". In fact, over 190 Pokémon were meant to be in Red/Green. Many of these unused Pokémon were reused in later games.

 

Springer was meant to appear in Revenge of the Fallen as an Osprey helicopter. He was unused as the Osprey's size would mean that he would dwarf Devastator in size.

 

Super Mario Bros.'s initial controls had the player jump with Up instead of A, A being used to shoot (bullets instead of fireballs!) and B being used to run. It was changed because Miyamoto felt that being able to run and shoot at the same time would be game-breaking.

 

Super Metroid was almost cancelled multiple times. It was also intended to be an unlockable extra on Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, much like how the original Metroid was an unlockable on the first Prime game.

[Linkabel]

Knuckles could have been killed in S&K in his bad ending with the Master Emerald shattered as well.

 

Wait really? Where did you get this?

[vgmaster]

This, nuff said

 

For a webcomic with art as stunning as this, you'd actually expect it to actually stay around for a good while. Had it actually lasted, it would've probably been one of the biggest webcomics ever made. But of course, it got canned after the 5th page.

Edited January 3, 2013 by vgmaster

[Yoko/葉子]

Speculation. My bad.