How would you rewrite Sonic X?

[horridus]

Hmm, what would I do, what would I do... well in theory what I make wouldn't be Sonic X anymore, given that I wouldn't make a Sonic show with this premise if I had the power to do so. That being said, I'm going to stick within the core concepts that have come to define X as a series- Sonic and friends being trapped on OUR world, as well as his friendship with Chris. 

Now then, how I might go about it...

-Firstly, we'd re-structure Chris a bit to actually demonstrate that he is in fact quite lonely despite the status he enjoys thanks to his parents' wealth. It doesn't exactly add up that he has at least three other friends before meeting Sonic and co, in addition to a grandfather who is with him at all times and parents who actually do a great deal to try and make time for their son despite being busy. It's a wonderful example of telling rather than showing, and in the process it makes Chris look like a dick who traded in his old friends for new, improved models once Sonic and co showed up. As such, steps need to be taken to shown that Chris leads an isolated existence- his parents need to be more distant and less involved in his life. Not exactly 'bad' parents, per say, but their priorities are skewed without them realizing how it affects their son. 

Similarly, dialing back his involvement waaaay more would help a lot, I feel. While his arc of growth thanks to his friendship with Sonic and company is still a prominent part of things, it isn't to such a degree where it eclipses everyone and everything else- along with his attachment to Sonic, it needs to be dialed back so that he no longer appears to be obssessed to the point of insanity and so that no one else gets shoved aside to in order to accomodate him. Playing up the fact it essentially falls to him to explain the new world and its norms to Sonic and his friends while keeping them under wraps would also be a nice touch, in particular his exasperation with Sonic's less than responsible approach to secrecy. 

I'm also going to add my voice to the chorus saying that the INCREDIBLY stupid and selfish thing he did at the end of season 2 should just... not happen. I really have nothing to say that hasn't already been said on that particular front, I think. 

-Make Sonic the main focus. I really shouldn't need to say that when discussing a *Sonic* show, but good God the guy is barely there a lot of the time. He's the blandest, flattest thing on the entire show, with fewer moments than the rest of the cast. This... really should not be. So yeah, more screentime for the hedgehog, along with a bit more dimension to him in general- he is like the flattest thing in the entire show, and no, a few sentimental moments and 'Dark Sonic' don't make up for any of it. Give him flaws, weaknesses to be exploited. Put him in situations where he can't just power through or Ring Boost his way out of trouble. As the show went on, the conflict increasingly became less and less suspenseful because there wasn't even much of a facade that he could be in any real kind of trouble. 

-More utilization for the rest of the games cast as well would be nice, as well as dialing back some of the more damning exaggerations of certain personality traits- Amy can have her crush, but she can't act like a psychopath about it. Knuckles can still be gullible, but making him a continued patsy to Eggman despite the fact he should MORE than know the guy is not on the level is a tad much. Likewise, a lot of the times he wound up suffering needlessly even in situations where he was quite correct about what to do- none of that, now. In general just give everyone more to do and more chances to shine solo, really. 

-Flesh out Sonic's world. Yeah, this is heresy for Sonic Team/SEGA, but frankly its kind of glaring that throughout the entire show we barely see anything of the place and we don't even get to learn what its called, and what we DO see is either incredibly brief or so generic that it makes little difference. Give it a name- call it Gaia, Terra, Mobius, Freedom, hell, call it Planet Nancy, but don't just have it as some nameless void that the characters don't even reminisce about. While I'm at it, showing more Sonic-Worldians popping up would be a nice touch as well, whether they be characters directly from the games or made for the show, it'd be interesting to see more of them popping up. 

-A minor note, but I'd go the Unleashed route and make the humans toonier, if only so that Eggman doesn't wind up looking like a freakish mutant when next to the others. 

-Several stuff for Eggman- firstly, we get him a better base. Seriously, that dinky little thing is by far the single lamest hideout Eggman has had in any continuity out there. Give him something more... Eggman-y. Heck, just make the Egg Carrier his mobile base- the opening plot arc could be about him trying to get to get it airborne again. Likewise, ditch the Random Robot Selection Slot Machine. It didn't really add to things and was ditched eventually, so really we lose nothing by getting rid of it. Likewise, we up his ambition and scheming a bit, let him showcase his intelligence a bit more, as well as ruthlessness- he doesn't need to be Deathmongus the Destroyer or anything, but a bit more credibility as a villain wouldn't hurt. I'd also give him his badniks from the Adventure era in addition to the Big Threat Robots- new ones could show up depending on the situation at hand.

-If we HAVE to do an SA2 adaptation, then we're going to have to commit SEGA blasphemy and give an explanation for Eggman and his connection to Gerald Robotnik and Maria and the Earth itself. The excuse of him having no memories of the place was a massive copout and just flat out lazy, especially since evidently baseball doesn't exist as a sport on Wherever-the-hell-Sonic-is-From, yet he knows the sport and even keeps a baseball mit. Towards that end, we would also need to straighten out the timeline of things, because given as is in relation to the later revelations of the time differences between Earth and Sonicworld? It is incredibly difficult to reconcile Eggman- every year on Earth is only a month on Sonicworld, so either he left Earth for Sonicworld recently, in which case the government would at least be aware of him given his connection to Gerald, or he got there when he was younger.. in which case MASSIVE amounts of time would have passed on Earth. The whole thing is just a twisted knot.

Likewise we'd need to really think through how Shadow exists on Earth and why the Eclipse cannon is even a thing when the Chaos Emeralds aren't a thing on Earth, or how his big revenge scheme was able to work when it relies on something nobody can find on the planet earth. 

I've actually got an idea, but this post is long enough- long story short, I'd take pains to get the story straight on that front. 

-I'm not sure how feasible this would be since I don't know how far ahead these things are planned ,but after the SA2 adaptation I'd introduce Metal Sonic and eventually lead up to a full blown Sonic Heroes adaptation. If we're going to be doing direct adaptations, then it'd be fitting to finish things off with the latest game getting some play within the series. We show Metal Sonic go from a mindless re-occuring weapon, to developing his own personality, to his disillusionment with Eggman and him deciding to run the show himself, with Metal Overlord serving as the final enemy of the series. 

-Rather than everyone going back home and things going back to normal on both ends, I'd just have all the Chaos Control abuse going on through the show threatening both worlds... and the solution being to merge the worlds together entirely, rending them as one place, with Eggman's last big scheme being to try and make both world his in the process of doing so. We end the series on an 'And the Adventure Continues' kind of note wherein we show that more things change, the more they stay the same- Eggman breaks loose from imprisonment, Sonic goes after him again, and even with the worlds fused its clear that those two are going to continue to bedevil the other. 

I'm not sure if I'd have done Season 3 the way it went down, nor have I given that much thought to it. I did have some thoughts about how I'd do the Metarex though, if it came to it. 

-Rather then mechanical, I'd have them be organic. Robotics is already Eggman's bag and I resent villains who intrude on his 'deal', so, making them into genetically engineered constructs and monsters would be a bit more distinct, I feel. 

-Ditch the gender division thing. Make some of the Metarex commanders female and make it clear that the split was between those who wanted to stay and fight and those who wanted to flee. None of this 'Oh, all the guys turned themselves into robobeasts while the ladies just ran away' crap. 

-In this interpretation of things, the tragedy of the Metarex is thus- they were Seedrians desperate to not leave their home who, through sacrifice and terrible actions, managed to drive away their enemy and save their world... but in the process, they have become something so radically different from what they once were that they are no longer truly Seedrian, and they are so collectively scarred by what happened that they refuse that they can ever be safe again so long as others out there live. And so they go out into the universe and do the evil they do, all in the name of never being at the mercy of anyone else again. 

That's as far as my Season 3 thoughts ever went, and its less a 'How I would Do the season' then 'How I Would Do The Metarex', but its all I got for this particular end of things. 

[Tornado]

12 minutes ago, Swing said:

Also, how is he lonely when he had three really good friends with Helen, Danny and Frances? What about them?

You can't really expect a prominent wealthy family to allow their son to associate with handicapped people, minorities or the Irish, can you? I know this is a work of fiction, but come on.

[Your Vest Friend]

I'd tear it down and just start again from the ground up. Humans are often treated as the only problem in the show and removing them would magically make the show great, but I don't think so.

-Most of the character portrayals were botched, so I'd go back to the drawing board and make sure those were corrected before going anywhere else with them.

-Monster of the Week format with Eggman isn't right when his plans are always big, figure out the story structure to not do this. 

-Try to get better dialogue writers. I mean, I don't entirely blame 4Kids as they had their own rules to follow but still. 

-Humans can be in the series, they just need to work around the Sonic cast shenanigans, not the other way around. 

[Swing]

13 minutes ago, Tornado said:

You can't really expect a prominent wealthy family to allow their son to associate with handicapped people, minorities or the Irish, can you? I know this is a work of fiction, but come on.

So what? Sonic a giant talking hedgehog, who doesn't even has a job. Is this really better?

[Ryannumber1gamer]

1 hour ago, horridus said:

-Rather then mechanical, I'd have them be organic. Robotics is already Eggman's bag and I resent villains who intrude on his 'deal', so, making them into genetically engineered constructs and monsters would be a bit more distinct, I feel. 

-Ditch the gender division thing. Make some of the Metarex commanders female and make it clear that the split was between those who wanted to stay and fight and those who wanted to flee. None of this 'Oh, all the guys turned themselves into robobeasts while the ladies just ran away' crap. 

-In this interpretation of things, the tragedy of the Metarex is thus- they were Seedrians desperate to not leave their home who, through sacrifice and terrible actions, managed to drive away their enemy and save their world... but in the process, they have become something so radically different from what they once were that they are no longer truly Seedrian, and they are so collectively scarred by what happened that they refuse that they can ever be safe again so long as others out there live. And so they go out into the universe and do the evil they do, all in the name of never being at the mercy of anyone else again. 

Ah, now I remember why I don't remember a thing about the seedians backstory, it was so utterly stupid that I blocked it out.

This actually would work into that Cosmo being a villain idea I had. Due to the fact that she's meant to be an spy for the Meterax in my version of events, it'd make sense that she's the last shred of seedrian in the Meterax so to speak.

[Sean]

I'd throw everything out and instead heckle Studio Pierrot to continue the OVA.

[RedFox99]

2 hours ago, Swing said:

So what? Sonic a giant talking hedgehog, who doesn't even has a job. Is this really better?

I'm pretty sure that was a joke.

[DabigRG]

13 minutes ago, RedFox99 said:

I'm pretty sure that was a joke.

Was it? Lindsey was whiter than white after all. Mm

[StaticMania]

Chris' selfish attempt to keep Sonic around should've caused the destruction of both worlds, because sometimes...a story needs a happy ending.

[Meta77]

No Chris seriously he butt hugged sonic harder than tails did in the old aosth show in the 90s. You could remove him and the show lose noting. Properly explain nazo and not pull out a lazy man excuse of oh that's super sonic early on. Bull crap cause we see ss before him and not have fans think he was the creation of a random newgrounds user. Have amy actually do more aka fight more, plus shop more for new outfits. Rouge to stop teasing topaz in the sub version and just jump her bones already. Getting rid of those two eggman helpers. They really served no purpose. more furr

iiejes like in the original trailer

[RedFox99]

I had an idea for Season 3 where Rouge and Shadow don't work with Eggman; in addition, the Doc ends up double-crossing the Metarex, and they're forced to work with Team Sonic to stop Dr. Eggman.

[Almar]

The show focused too much on Chris and to a lesser level human OCs overall. Obviously we need to remove the Chris character for the transparent attempt to shoehorn an audience surrogate and at least revamp other non-Eggman humans.

The show also tried to force Sonic into doing wacky adventures of the week ala the old Western shows. While that might have worked in smaller doses, the portion of them to important episodes was too large. This too needs some trimming.

I'll second the suggestions for the Metarex Arc.

[DabigRG]

Not sure if I should bump this, so if there's an issue this post can be moved somewhere else.

RebelTaxi recently did a review on Sonic X.

 

 

 

Anyway, I was looking over what I did before and realized I didn't really touch on Knuckles or Eggman. Probably because I thought they were fine as is, but it is funny that Eggman isn't even referenced there. Perhaps I'll come back at some point and decide if I'd change anything. I should go ahead and note though that outside of a few episodes here and there, I haven't watch Sonic X in years, so I'm mainly going off on rough memory of when it was still on 4kids, the screenshots I used to see on Team Artail or whatever, the few t episodes I saw on Toonzai, and the snippets from Robobuddies and Nicktendo's reviews.

[Mountaindewandsprite]

• Terminate that "two worlds" shit. Is it really that hard to have the anthro and human population exist in one world? Haven't they watched Looney Tunes?
• Not base it on the games continuity. I feel like Sonic X could've been the next Satam, just with the game chracters (even obscure ones) instead. I would keep the game characters but not base it solely off the games.
• No sagas (I'm looking at you Metarex). Yeah the Metarex saga was kinda cool and all but I feel that sagas wouldn't work just because they just drag on and that's how you get filler episodes.

[DabigRG]

1 hour ago, Mountaindewandsprite said:

• Terminate that "two worlds" shit. Is it really that hard to have the anthro and human population exist in one world? Haven't they watched Looney Tunes?
• Not base it on the games continuity. I feel like Sonic X could've been the next Satam, just with the game chracters (even obscure ones) instead. I would keep the game characters but not base it solely off the games.
• No sagas (I'm looking at you Metarex). Yeah the Metarex saga was kinda cool and all but I feel that sagas wouldn't work just because they just drag on and that's how you get filler episodes.

Filler episodes can be good for fun and development, they just have to distributed appropriate.