Sonic Prime: Episode 1 Netflix New Series

 It's out! Sonic Prime the Netflix CG Sonic show is out as of Dec 15th 2022.
And of course, that warrants a blog post because you know that it's going to get toys (to go on Sonic Gear, of course) but also the blog is the place to talk about Sonic media & whatever else so here it goes. YES there is EP 1 SPOILERS but only episode 1 in this particular post. 

For the quick breakdown:
It's a CG (and sometimes pixel animated?? yes) show with episode format and an over-arching plot (so you do have to watch it in order, unlike say AOSTH or so) As a Netflix thing, the run times of the episodes vary. Get to the point? DO watch this show! For in-depth, do see below...

First impression of good:
The first episode is about 45 minutes long which is a real smooth move because it gives extra length to really get kids/people hooked into the story without breaks or pauses or rushing. Using Netflix' flexibility to ones' advantage for storytelling is good.

The art- It's good, it's CG, nobody is off model or weird looking or anything. They did draw random like...scribble lines on Sonic to give him what, texture? The backgrounds and general set piece / prop items are more detailed than like the Kung Fu Panda show or even Boom because of course this increases with technology. It doesn't look weird or barren like a lot of CG shows can. 

The action - Someone WAS paying attention! The action DOES use speed of the characters, and they use the camera well to do new and fresh angles and they make Sonic fight with speed rather than just like 'oh he hits thing' or making things fist fight each other because that's what every animator is used to. 

The Premise - This is also good
A fight between Sonic & Eggman breaks a crystal that Eggman wanted for himself, but when it breaks it creates pocket dimensions where everything is different in them (setting, characters, etc) BUT the commonality is that Sonic is in/was in none of them. This is a great idea because you can easily field cool stuff and then if it doesn't turn out as amazing, "it was just that 1 dimension" and it can gloss over and just go away OR come back if it's amazing.

The Format - They DIDNT do "1 dimension per ep" like would be formulaic or boring or predictable, and the over-arching plot DOES have mystery in it (like why are there 5 eggmans in 1 dimension but none in any of the others and why is he more wildly various than anybody else) so it gives itself real possibility to go places with the plot. 

How About That Sonic?
You may have seen famous Youtube "The Tails Channel" guy doing the review, and he brings up right away the point but misses his word which is "Head-Cannon". He states that "Sonic is a bit different to anyone, YOUR one exactly is unique and probably will miss marks in every media he's ever in." What he means is headcannon, which is a fanfiction term meaning how the person views the character and all of its traits while minimizing some, maximizing others and assuming still more. Of course, headcannons are as diverse as the people who have them and are as inevitable as people thinking about a piece of media. 

A Sonic show.......ABOUT SONIC????
The flabbers are ghasted? It's more likely than you think. For whatever reason, the poor guy has a poor track record of getting shows that are actually about Sonic and Sonic characters. You'd think it'd be the biggest no-brainer on earth that uhhhhhhhhhhh Sonic Fans want to seee............Sonic....in their media but apparently this is like somehow turbo hard for anyone in the industry to grasp and there's proof annoyingly everywhere.

Movie Sonic - they changed him, disrespected his world (changed it to Earf) and made him 2nd fiddle to some stupid human man trying to get a GF
SatAM - The Sally Acorn Show
Mania - GROSS go away brother sister why did you eliminate all Sega characters for no reason
Sonic X - It's time for Richie Rich the Mary Sue
Boom - They changed him again but at least this was about Sonic characters mostly
AOSTH - He's basically Bugs Bunny but at least it has Tails & Robotnick 
Archie - How many non Sega characters can we put? Let's find out.
IDW - They are trying to do well with success...but there's a trickle of trouble*

But this show seems to be exclusively about Sonic/World/Characters so automatically it's going to rise above as long as no one is OOC. 

What about the other Characters?
One episode isn't enough to draw any conclusion on them so this is going to go into "Who They Picked To Start" instead. AKA "We're going to add Rouge to this"

This is an honest blog. Sonic DOES 100% suffer (from creation) a few problems which is that there is "The token female" AND she is also "Ms. Male Character AKA: "Him But Pink*" AND she has "loves the guy but he doesn't return it" AND she has "violent temper /wants to control men/get her way".

That's like........awful laundry list of everything you DONT want in modern media but it's baked in from the past when nobody was thinking about anything like that and how formulaic and boring it all was. And you can't change the past! (No really, go back into all old 80s shows & etc team shows there's always like 1 girl if there's a girl at all and she will usually have "loves 1 of the guys" or "rage issues" or "is the smart one" or is Ms. Male Character (Batgirl, spiderwoman, thor when the hammer goes to a woman, supergirl,  ms packman, it is actually very hard (other than WonderWoman) to come up with a main line super well known stand alone female hero that isn't "___but a girl". ) 

So what are they going to do about it?
Add Rouge & fix Amy. The catch is that they added her smartly and realistically because she's after that gem so it makes perfect sense. Just keeping her in there makes more girls in the show which is the goal. Also they seem to have toned away the 'pining for Sonic' from Amy as well as the temper thing (Remember SA1 folks) Amy needs to focus on being her own character / own person with cool aspects that make people like her. 

The Bottom Line:
Seems pretty good so far. Very few possible pitfalls for it, the team on it seems quite competent, the show is new and entertaining enough certainly to grab new fans and keep they Sonic hype train rolling along. Kids coming off Frontiers and craving more media will do well going to this show most likely. Also merch for it IS confirmed via copyright postings lists, so that's good news too. There will be more blog post/s about it in the future once I can see more episodes.

*Him but pink - In Amy's case it's her design rather than her powers/personality. 

*Trickle of Trouble at IDW
They're beginning to show that old heel menace of "OCs are Always Better"
Archie of course had this bigtime and SatAm really started the whole thing off by being the Sally Acorn Show. OF COURSE she was a better character than Sonic, because she had no constraints and could be whatever the writers wanted. Her role was also superior to his role in the show so they had to dumb him down to fit. Archie had an easy continuation of it with her, of course. But now we've got IDW and they sure do love Whisper and Tangle, don't they? Their Main Man even shoe-horned a reference into a main line Sonic game (Frontiers) in the dialogue because he loves his Whisper Tangle Fanchars SO SO much. Surge too, rising to the top for her villainy because unlike Eggman she can do anything and...well...be a better character.
It is in the nature of creative people (who you do want, of course) to want to go their own way with their own stuff so this kind of thing happens naturally. What to do about it IDK.