Anyone else bored of Eggman being the villain? Also the series should go back to basics!

[Kuzu]

5 hours ago, thumbs13 said:

This isn't a "you millenials are too soft" argument or wherever you think this is going.

This is a "these two things are so inherently seperated there's no comparison" argument.

A human girl getting shot by the military is realistic. Something that could physically happen. We can't get drowned by water gods, we won't die and a bird pops out, the sun won't fall from us, and our planet's life force can't get drained. 

You tried to call people hypocrites for liking one thing and not the other when there's a clear disconnect between the two.

Also guns and Sonic have a very negative history in general and that's a huge turnoff. 

I'm arguing that its literally not all that different, because the context of Maria's death would remain the same even if the content was different.

As I mentioned, Disney movies have all matters of gruesome deaths that exists alongside lighthearted content and nobody bats an eye.

Its literally only with Sonic that people draw this arbitrary line and I'm led to believe that it's only because people are still holding onto grudges against two games from over 10 years.

Its 2020, and the fact that I'm still being told that this type of content is "too far" for the series just makes me so exhausted to discuss this series on this site.

[DryLagoon]

1 hour ago, StaticMania said:

Apparently it never had consequences before...like the game right before that one where leaving her alone got her kidnapped.

Words...

What I meant was they had been leaving her behind the whole game. You'd think after she got kidnapped in the past they'd not leave her alone on a giant Ark they've never been on before.

[StaticMania]

9 minutes ago, DryLagoon said:

What I meant was they had been leaving her behind the whole game. You'd think after she got kidnapped in the past they'd not leave her alone on a giant Ark they've never been on before.

Yes, it's very weird she plays the tag-along in that game...despite her SA1 development.

Clearly Sonic and Tails knew about her weird growth and thought she can handle herself.

[thumbs13]

3 hours ago, Kuzu said:

I'm arguing that its literally not all that different, because the context of Maria's death would remain the same even if the content was different.

No, it would not. That's the thing. If she died in literally any other way aside from being shot by the military, it would fit in Sonic's world better.

You keep bringing up Disney movies, but none of them take place in wackyland like Sonic's supposed to, and the ones that do explicitly don't have gruesome deaths. Having talking animals doesn't make Tarzan on the same level as Sonic, sorry to say. There was a Disney character Sonic was based on, and you'll never see Mickey Mouse in any of those situations ever for a good reason.

When the next Crash Bandicoot game has Nina Cortex get shot to death in an alley, you might have a point.

The point of the matter isn't that we have a weird standard for Sonic, it's that our standard for Sonic has to pass the very, very low bar of "Don't include this wack-ass scene in the games we like" That's it. There's no thinking about the children or whatever other excuse. It's just excessive, even if we did get a cool Sonic X episode out of it. Our game of funny animals who run through loops can have danger, but make it tonally consistent with the rest of the series. 

[Almar]

You know, I wonder if it was posts like the ones in this topic which helped lead to Two-Worlds happening (that is, Sonic just doesn't belong in "grounded environments" dealing with something like a shooting happening to a little girl all from him needing to be in his Animal World).

[Kuzu]

You know what, I'm so tired of this circular argument that I don't care anymore. Have a nice day.

[Wraith]

7 hours ago, DryLagoon said:

 

The funny thing is that even in the edgier Shadow game, it still got censored from the original intention too, possibly to avoid an outright T rating.

  Reveal hidden contents

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPzp0pimIgs

 

A lot of things in STH were changed at the last minute to bring the game down from T to the fabled E10+ promise land. Says everything you need to know about that game's intentions.

[Shadowlax]

2 hours ago, thumbs13 said:

No, it would not. That's the thing. If she died in literally any other way aside from being shot by the military, it would fit in Sonic's world better.

Actually it wouldn't have weirdly enough. Theming is key and everything that happens to shadow and Maria is actually thematically consistent with the themes presented in the series.

Also I feel like this argument is weird because I feel most people dont have an issue with Maria's death?

 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

3 hours ago, thumbs13 said:

No, it would not. That's the thing. If she died in literally any other way aside from being shot by the military, it would fit in Sonic's world better.

You keep bringing up Disney movies, but none of them take place in wackyland like Sonic's supposed to, and the ones that do explicitly don't have gruesome deaths.

See this is the main point where things are getting disingenuous: Maria’s death wasn’t gruesome, and you’re stretching that term way too far.

There is no blood, no headshot, no bullet wounds, she wasn’t tied down with a gun pointed to her head and executed, or any number of brutal ways you can imagine.The only thing we hear is a gunshot offscreen, and then we hear that she was among the list of the dead from the raid. That’s it.

That’s not that gruesome and you know it. It was as bloodless and tame as you could get without showing the full details of such an act.

We keep bringing up Disney movies because they do it literally no different—Bambi’s mother gets shot by a hunter offscreen in the exact same manner as Maria does by a soldier, and it doesn’t take much thought for anyone to get the message that she was killed when she doesn’t come back and Bambi is all alone. Hell, in Sonic Unleashed, Sonic plows through Dark Gaia’s eye and bleeds green blood from the wound—now that’s gruesome and something I wouldn’t expect from a Sonic game.

It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t take place in the same wacky world as Sonic does, there is a matter of taste and how it’s handled and they can both portray these things without bumping the age rating to a level we’d see in something like Batman Arkham Asylum or Mortal Kombat we’re things actually are gruesome.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

46 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

Also I feel like this argument is weird because I feel most people dont have an issue with Maria's death?

You'd be right. Only the petty vocal minorities get in scuffles over something like that.

[thumbs13]

45 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

See this is the main point where things are getting disingenuous: Maria’s death wasn’t gruesome, and you’re stretching that term way too far.

There is no blood, no headshot, no bullet wounds, she wasn’t tied down with a gun pointed to her head and executed, or any number of brutal ways you can imagine.The only thing we hear is a gunshot offscreen, and then we hear that she was among the list of the dead from the raid. That’s it.

That’s not that gruesome and you know it. It was as bloodless and tame as you could get without showing the full details of such an act.

We keep bringing up Disney movies because they do it literally no different—Bambi’s mother gets shot by a hunter offscreen in the exact same manner as Maria does by a soldier, and it doesn’t take much thought for anyone to get the message that she was killed when she doesn’t come back and Bambi is all alone. Hell, in Sonic Unleashed, Sonic plows through Dark Gaia’s eye and bleeds green blood from the wound—now that’s gruesome and something I wouldn’t expect from a Sonic game.

It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t take place in the same wacky world as Sonic does, there is a matter of taste and how it’s handled and they can both portray these things without bumping the age rating to a level we’d see in something like Batman Arkham Asylum or Mortal Kombat we’re things actually are gruesome.

Gruesome is relative in this case. When everyone else in the series just explodes or gets hit with lasers, it stands out. Compare Maria being shot to the main character of the series' death in 06 where he gets pierced by a magic laser, and there's a bit of a contrast. 

I don't talk about it much because there's not much to say, but a little girl being shot by the military is out of left field. I'm not saying she couldn't have died, and I'm not even saying G.U.N couldn't have done it, I'm just saying it's not the same as any other death. 

Bambi was a grounded movie, so seeing people get shot was fine. Sonic...isn't. 

[DabigRG]

Sigh...

Has no one considered the point of Disney Movies being, well, movies that set their own tone and environments each time compared to Sonic being an ongoing series, btw?

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

33 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Sigh...

Has no one considered the point of Disney Movies being, well, movies that set their own tone and environments each time compared to Sonic being an ongoing series, btw?

Yes, and in many cases, they go from the same tone and environments as Sonic to a much darker take often in the same film.
 

But I have other examples if you don’t want to talk about Disney.

55 minutes ago, thumbs13 said:

Gruesome is relative in this case. When everyone else in the series just explodes or gets hit with lasers, it stands out. Compare Maria being shot to the main character of the series' death in 06 where he gets pierced by a magic laser, and there's a bit of a contrast. 

I don't talk about it much because there's not much to say, but a little girl being shot by the military is out of left field. I'm not saying she couldn't have died, and I'm not even saying G.U.N couldn't have done it, I'm just saying it's not the same as any other death. 

Bambi was a grounded movie, so seeing people get shot was fine. Sonic...isn't. 
 

Okay, how gruesome was Maria’s death really? Explain.

[StaticMania]

Maria's death is fine.

Gerald's death is more...teetering on the edge of what this series should be able to show or imply.

[DabigRG]

28 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

Yes, and in many cases, they go from the same tone and environments as Sonic to a much darker take often in the same film.
 

But I have other examples if you don’t want to talk about Disney.

 

It's not that I don't wanna talk about Disney, I'll tell you that.

16 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

Maria's death is fine.

Gerald's death is more...teetering on the edge of what this series should be able to show or imply.

Kyeh, seriously. Gotta love how messed up the context of that one is when you pay attention.

[Multikaris]

On 3/12/2020 at 9:32 PM, thumbs13 said:

This isn't a "you millenials are too soft" argument or wherever you think this is going.

This is a "these two things are so inherently seperated there's no comparison" argument.

A human girl getting shot by the military is realistic. Something that could physically happen. We can't get drowned by water gods, we won't die and a bird pops out, the sun won't fall from us, and our planet's life force can't get drained. 

You tried to call people hypocrites for liking one thing and not the other when there's a clear disconnect between the two.

Also guns and Sonic have a very negative history in general and that's a huge turnoff. 

There’s also a difference between most of THOSE and the life-draining thing; the lattermost wasn’t even taken seriously period, and isn’t just unrealistic. Another more realistic peril would have to go way back to Sonic 3; the napalm forest fire sequence. Sonic’s no stranger to fairly realistic stuff like that.

[DryLagoon]

In an attempt to get things back on topic, if there was a new villain would you want another human like Eggman or another animal? If an animal, is there a certain species you'd prefer seeing and why?

[thumbs13]

51 minutes ago, DryLagoon said:

In an attempt to get things back on topic, if there was a new villain would you want another human like Eggman or another animal? If an animal, is there a certain species you'd prefer seeing and why?

Probably an anthro or something non-human. Another human who does the exact same things as Eggman will just run into the Eggman Nega problem of "why isn't this just Eggman?"

 

[DabigRG]

1 hour ago, DryLagoon said:

In an attempt to get things back on topic, if there was a new villain would you want another human like Eggman or another animal? If an animal, is there a certain species you'd prefer seeing and why?

With the Classic separation in place and the current hanging around in Sonic's World, perhaps they can have a humanoid with magical powers.

6 hours ago, Miragnarok said:

There’s also a difference between most of THOSE and the life-draining thing; the lattermost wasn’t even taken seriously period, and isn’t just unrealistic. 

What do you mean?

[Sonic Fan J]

On Topic:
Crazy as it sounds, i still think Lyric has potential and would like to see more of Infinite. I still believe there is more to explore with his character after his second fall and what he can become.

 

Off Topic (and shoving cherry bombs into a hornets nest):
When painting a villain I have nothing against the use of more mature themes and tone. Additionally, tonally acceptable can vary by audience and with a series which has worn so many faces it's hard to paint a clear line. This is especially true if you are arguing for a different tone in tonal consistency than someone else. Our individual introductions and histories with the franchise strongly dictate how we see it and what we each find tonally acceptable for it. It's fine to disagree, or even point out the changes and differences, but you can not tell someone that what they see as acceptable is not over personal preference.

[DabigRG]

1 minute ago, Sonic Fan J said:

On Topic:
Crazy as it sounds, i still think Lyric has potential and would like to see more of Infinite. I still believe there is more to explore with his character after his second fall and what he can become.

 

Honestly, Lyric himself was fine.

He's a remaining denizen of an ancient race, he got seriously ill after being assigned to study powerful artifacts unaware of the dangerous side effects, he despises natural life because his own was compromised under the watch of his superiors, and now seeks to express his fury using technology  since it's the only way he was reliably able to survive.

That all makes cohesive sense and it ties into themes the series has always been using.

[E-122-Psi]

It's the tonal contrast really. The idea of Bambi's mother being shot fit because of the ever looming implication of man being this unstoppable threat to nature. Sure things were happy cutesy animals in other scenes but that ominous threat was always there. Same for say Winnie the Pooh's looming somber mood about Christopher Robin leaving his imaginary friends behind to grow up (thus the darker real world connection in the previous movie having far more connection with Pooh's own universe). The aforementioned Tarzan also set up its darker tone from the beginning with Sabor brutally killing several characters. They didn't change the universe and lore to make this darkness work, they just expanded on that looming dread that was already there.

It's why many see Pinocchio as one of the most uneasy in contrast, since it goes from a similarly playful whimsical affair to....a ruthless child trafficker turning tons of little boys into donkeys and enslaving them while they plead for mercy and GETTING AWAY WITH IT...and then trying to forget about that for the sake of going back playful and whimsical for a happy ending. Hunchback of Notre Dame is considered the opposite, aiming for a fairly dark and more down to earth story but then sticking in wacky fantasy stuff like the Gargoyles that kinda messes with the premise completely (though at least the church being 'alive' has some sort of relevant twist in the end).

SA2 does the same with its realistic military conspiracy involving committing genocide and scapegoating an innocent man and successfully covering it up with no implied comeuppance in the end....all immersed in between the usual laid back Sonic fare. They try to merge a gritty sci fi thriller with realistic humans getting killed with the cartoony affairs of Sonic, to the point that the Sonic anthros look like bombastic out of place aliens in their own universe (hell that's practically what Sonic X makes fun of in their adaptation).

Sure there were dark implications with SA1's backstory interspersed throughout but it was more a fantasy parable about greed, with Knuckles ancestors suffering an unrealistic but karmic end. There's still something that keeps it in tone with the Sonic universe in spite of it still having those photo realistic humans (for weirdly superfluous reasoning I admit).

[Wraith]

You can only draw the well of nature versus technology and ancient societies so many times. By the time SA2 rolled around it was past time for them to start digging into new material if they were going to keep making games. 

[Kuzu]

30 minutes ago, E-122-Psi said:

It's the tonal contrast really. The idea of Bambi's mother being shot fit because of the ever looming implication of man being this unstoppable threat to nature. Sure things were happy cutesy animals in other scenes but that ominous threat was always there. Same for say Winnie the Pooh's looming somber mood about Christopher Robin leaving his imaginary friends behind to grow up (thus the darker real world connection in the previous movie having far more connection with Pooh's own universe). The aforementioned Tarzan also set up its darker tone from the beginning with Sabor brutally killing several characters. They didn't change the universe and lore to make this darkness work, they just expanded on that looming dread that was already there.

It's why many see Pinocchio as one of the most uneasy in contrast, since it goes from a similarly playful whimsical affair to....a ruthless child trafficker turning tons of little boys into donkeys and enslaving them while they plead for mercy and GETTING AWAY WITH IT...and then trying to forget about that for the sake of going back playful and whimsical for a happy ending. Hunchback of Notre Dame is considered the opposite, aiming for a fairly dark and more down to earth story but then sticking in wacky fantasy stuff like the Gargoyles that kinda messes with the premise completely (though at least the church being 'alive' has some sort of relevant twist in the end).

SA2 does the same with its realistic military conspiracy involving committing genocide and scapegoating an innocent man and successfully covering it up with no implied comeuppance in the end....all immersed in between the usual laid back Sonic fare. They try to merge a gritty sci fi thriller with realistic humans getting killed with the cartoony affairs of Sonic, to the point that the Sonic anthros look like bombastic out of place aliens in their own universe (hell that's practically what Sonic X makes fun of in their adaptation).

Sure there were dark implications with SA1's backstory interspersed throughout but it was more a fantasy parable about greed, with Knuckles ancestors suffering an unrealistic but karmic end. There's still something that keeps it in tone with the Sonic universe in spite of it still having those photo realistic humans (for weirdly superfluous reasoning I admit).

Sonic Adventure 2 isn't about a corrupt military, it's about how one person's revenge put him down a dark path and how he had to redeem himself.  The corrupt military is simply a device for that. 

[DabigRG]

1 hour ago, E-122-Psi said:

It's the tonal contrast really. The idea of Bambi's mother being shot fit because of the ever looming implication of man being this unstoppable threat to nature. Sure things were happy cutesy animals in other scenes but that ominous threat was always there. Same for say Winnie the Pooh's looming somber mood about Christopher Robin leaving his imaginary friends behind to grow up (thus the darker real world connection in the previous movie having far more connection with Pooh's own universe). The aforementioned Tarzan also set up its darker tone from the beginning with Sabor brutally killing several characters. They didn't change the universe and lore to make this darkness work, they just expanded on that looming dread that was already there.

So basically, they all relate to the overall themes the particular movie is built on and in the latter's case, it sets up that there is legitimate danger and violence in this environment right off the bat.

Quote

It's why many see Pinocchio as one of the most uneasy in contrast, since it goes from a similarly playful whimsical affair to....a ruthless child trafficker turning tons of little boys into donkeys and enslaving them while they plead for mercy and GETTING AWAY WITH IT...and then trying to forget about that for the sake of going back playful and whimsical for a happy ending.

Yeah, seriously.   

Quote

Hunchback of Notre Dame is considered the opposite, aiming for a fairly dark and more down to earth story but then sticking in wacky fantasy stuff like the Gargoyles that kinda messes with the premise completely (though at least the church being 'alive' has some sort of relevant twist in the end).

The funny thing about Hunchback is, in addition to the point of the church seemingly coming alive, the Gargoyles were initially depicted as entirely in Quasimodo's head. So while they were annoying and tonally dissonant, there was a character related basis for them.

Maybe they could've blended them together with the other stuff at the end for a better payoff? 

Quote

SA2 does the same with its realistic military conspiracy involving committing genocide and scapegoating an innocent man and successfully covering it up with no implied comeuppance in the end....all immersed in between the usual laid back Sonic fare.

I mean, "innocent" is a little bit of a stretch given the Artificial Chaos, Giziod, Black Doom, and Eclipse Cannon, but GUN did legit blame the dangerous experiments going on there on Gerald and his team to cover their asses while commissioning half that stuff.

 

1 hour ago, Wraith said:

You can only draw the well of nature versus technology and ancient societies so many times. By the time SA2 rolled around it was past time for them to start digging into new material if they were going to keep making games. 

I was gonna question you still being upset from the arguing, but then I saw Psi bring it up again.

Still, Lyric's backstory shares common ground with Gerald, Chaos, Shadow, the Chaos Emeralds, and Eggman.

52 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Sonic Adventure 2 isn't about a corrupt military, it's about how one person's revenge put his creation down a dark path and how it had to redeem itself.  The corrupt military is simply a device for that. 

That's better.