41 replies to this topic

[Uncle Ben]

i gave it an 8.25

[E122Psi]

I give it more or less the mentioned 7 to 8 rating (probably 7.5 in which case). I have made a review of Satam and other shows before, and I actually tend to find myself being rather negative when doing so (though I at least try to keep focus on the positives or at least be constructive in my complaints). When giving critique it tends to be easier to talk about problems in more detail compared to positives which often end up generic 'this is cool' or 'I like this' so many reviews may end up being more cynical than the reviewer actually intended.

 

http://e-122-psi.dev...SatAm-392448381

 

Here's my critique in execution if you can stand it. Do keep in mind I'd probably be even more merciless to Sonic X. I almost never rate anything higher than 8.

[Captain Sorzo]

The show is very flawed, and upon first going through the series two years ago I gave it an 8.5.

 

Now, however, I can't help but give it a 10. More than any other television series, animated or otherwise, it has proven thought provoking. I just keep thinking about it, keep analyzing it, falling more and more in love with the world, characters, and underlying themes. Even if I'm reading into certain elements more than the developers intended, I find numerous aspects of the show absolutely brilliant. My rating stems more from the world the show created rather than the actual collection of 26 episodes, but given that those episodes have, for me at least, served as the catalyst for more thought than all but a handful of fictional works, I feel the maximum score is merited.

[E122Psi]

I actually tend to be harsher on shows for that reason. They have concepts that draw me in and want me to adore everything about, but when some flaw in execution taints it and makes it so I can't take to it as much, it frustrates me. It INFURIATES ME! I almost end up slandering it and (theoretically) yelling at the pitch of my lungs just in some ill fated hope the creators know they had something great and ruined it, and they better damn get it right next time.

 

It is kinda unjust but still complimentary I guess. I wouldn't be so emotional about something that I just hated altogether and saw no potential in. Something that is good but has a detrimental set back however really gets under my skin because I so want to love it.

[TheRedStranger]

In lieu of being a kid show in a time where shows were very preachy but empty of true moral/spirtual content (Captain Planet/Page Master/ The Infamous Cartoon All Stars where Pee-Wee Herman actually talks about Crack Cocaine   ) I'd give Satam 11 for it's subtext, setting, and conception. It ushered in more of a Postmodern Subtext in kid's cartoons. I have already discussed this at length in the Satam Reconstructed page on the thematic depth of the show in compairson the trite trash that insulted my child-mind and intellgence in the 90's. Luckily there was one serious cartoon that said something edifying to kids. Themeatically it opened up somemany more crazy doors, missing magic and science, high-fantasy and time travel, and this . Despite it's flaws, I see it for what it was during it's time and don't read my contemporary prejudices into the show. I do grimace at Dulcy's one-trick-pony jokes and various other things...but I know the shows was going places, a lot more places than any show at the time had the guts for. And I don't blame the creators but the meddeling exectutives for half the kiddie elements of the show.

 

My Satam score: "Thank you for inspiring me...you deserve my grattitude, not an arbitrary number."

[Captain Sorzo]

They have concepts that draw me in and want me to adore everything about, but when some flaw in execution taints it and makes it so I can't take to it as much, it frustrates me. It INFURIATES ME!

 

That's sort of how I feel about the Archie Sonic series. Given that it was built on the same framework, it has the potential to be as great as SatAM or, as with Sea3on, even better, learning from the mistakes of the show while continuing to develop its strengths. In reality, I don't feel it ever came close, barring a few fleeting moments, yet the thought of the wasted potential prevents me from ignoring it entirely, even if I don't read issues anymore.

 

 

My Satam score: "Thank you for inspiring me...you deserve my grattitude, not an arbitrary number."

 

I'll second this.

[E122Psi]

When comparing shows, I tend to rate them by the audience, quality and genre they aim for. AoSth for example wasn't nearly as refined as Satam, but it didn't aim to be, it just wanted to be a simple little slapstick cartoon, so I rate it by how well it achieved in that. Satam however aimed to be something a lot more dignified and ambitious, so when it makes the same mistakes or even worse than AoSth, it suffers a lot more, especially since it risks not only looking flawed, but also rather pretentious on top of it. It's even worse if some other less ambitious actually fare better in elements it tried to conceive (my ratings for Satam admittedly lowered when I saw more shows that handled certain similar elements to a better degree, and thus know first hand it could have done better).

 

Satam is good as an enjoyable little cartoon, but as a 'blockbuster epic' that Hurst once bragged it to be, it's barely even close, so it loses at least a handful of points for that. Basically the bigger they come, they harder they'll fall.

 

This is why I can never get into the comics, even when they do a plot that is of no worse quality or depth than of the other more simplified medias, it's ruined by it's ridiculously pretentious air and trying to convey itself as the most serious and depthful version of Sonic ever made (especially when writers brag on about how they 'fixed' elements of other medias). Though I do have that same 'bile fascination' you have, Sorzo.

[ILOVEVHS]

I always rated it as 8.5. It's still one of my favorite shows, but it barely misses the Top 5.

[Prince ByTor]

I kind of have to agree with the Red Stranger on this one, mostly for the reason that I hate putting an arbitrary number on anything. That being said, SatAM, despite its flaws it will always be far and away the best Sonic show/adaptation in my opinion; that is, unless something changes in the future. I don't really know if SatAM has affected my personal preferences or rather if my personal preferences fit the show being that I am a huge Science Fiction nut, but it will always be a show that I'll like. 

[TheRedStranger]

"The truly signifigant art is what prepares the future." Robet Hughes.

 

 Note that Satam was written during the 90's after the recent death of Modernity and in the bitter hindsight of the bloody and smog-soaked tragedy that was the ambigous 20th century, a century where we almost nuked ourselves to death.  It mixed pre-modern and modern concepts into an intresting mix of Post-modern commentary. I love the concepts given in Satam and the issues the subtext tackles like over-dependence on industry and the death of culture due to a cold a cruel modernization (again I refrence you back to my previous comments in the Satam Reconstructed Post). I want to see these themes press on, despite Sega's out of touch and over-commerialized meandering and the gawdy pretense of others. A creative work lives through it's sucessions (the works it inspires) and I say Satam needs sucessions. If you guys grumble and mumble about the directions official works take Sonic's story, then I beg you to make your own works (both Fan-Fic and originals) and do your best to make something good out of it. Make something that will edify, not this egocentric fap-fodder garbage you see on Deviant Art and the like, really give people a Sonic or Sonic inspired story/painting/drawing/flash cartoon that they can get something out of, that will make them think and enflame their passion for possibility. I tell people who complain about anything in life: You are either a part of the solution or a part of the problem and if you are not working to find a soultion, then you know what side of the line your on.  

[Captain Sorzo]

That's the plan.

[Prince ByTor]

The only issue we have is that we are using someone else's copyrighted work and are stuck in a Catch 22: if we do try to "supplant" Sega's capitalistic universe with our fan vision once we get big enough we will incur Sega's wrath and be squelched, but if we stay under the radar we won't get Sega's legal undies in a twist, however, then we won't get our vision out.

It'll be a fine balance that's needed, but the seeds are there and I can see them taking off with Sea3on (both in comic and animated), our fan fictions, and ones like E22Psi who make games that us 20 years ago dreamed could happen.

You see it right now with the music industry; they are holding on to a business model that is well over 60 years old and now with Amazon and iTunes the playing field is leveled, however that being said the bad news is that everyone can make a song and publish it, but that doesn't mean they 'should'.

I can see it going two ways initially with intellectual property controlled by big business: 1. they embrace the movement and actually benefit from fan works (like what has been happening with fan novels for eons), or 2. they can fight it and attack the fans but suffering huge losses in the process through lost sales and go the way of the recording industry. In the end no one can fight it when the market changes; just look at Microsoft, they are more or less holding on to the empire Bill Gates built in the 1980s and haven't really innovated and have been milking their windows and office cash cows. Meanwhile the market changed to where the consumer doesn't need their software anymore; sure, they are trying to enter the new markets, but their monopolistic business model of expecting the customer to come to you because he/she need your product doesn't work in today's economy.

I like how Duane Allman put it: "There ain't no revolution, it's evolution[...]" I too will keep doing what I can and eat a peach for peace.

[TheRedStranger]

The only issue we have is that we are using someone else's copyrighted work and are stuck in a Catch 22: if we do try to "supplant" Sega's capitalistic universe with our fan vision once we get big enough we will incur Sega's wrath and be squelched, but if we stay under the radar we won't get Sega's legal undies in a twist, however, then we won't get our vision out.

It'll be a fine balance that's needed, but the seeds are there and I can see them taking off with Sea3on (both in comic and animated), our fan fictions, and ones like E22Psi who make games that us 20 years ago dreamed could happen.

You see it right now with the music industry; they are holding on to a business model that is well over 60 years old and now with Amazon and iTunes the playing field is leveled, however that being said the bad news is that everyone can make a song and publish it, but that doesn't mean they 'should'.

I can see it going two ways initially with intellectual property controlled by big business: 1. they embrace the movement and actually benefit from fan works (like what has been happening with fan novels for eons), or 2. they can fight it and attack the fans but suffering huge losses in the process through lost sales and go the way of the recording industry. In the end no one can fight it when the market changes; just look at Microsoft, they are more or less holding on to the empire Bill Gates built in the 1980s and haven't really innovated and have been milking their windows and office cash cows. Meanwhile the market changed to where the consumer doesn't need their software anymore; sure, they are trying to enter the new markets, but their monopolistic business model of expecting the customer to come to you because he/she need your product doesn't work in today's economy.

I like how Duane Allman put it: "There ain't no revolution, it's evolution[...]" I too will keep doing what I can and eat a peach for peace.

 

It's already happening.

 

http://www.amazon.co...ocId=1001197421 (Imagine if we could do this with stuff like EoT?)

 

 Corpratavism is not capitalism... The centeral pillar in not corporate soverignty but consumer soverignty. They might make the stuff and price the stuff, but we have the finaly say so in the review of the stuff and purchasing of the stuff, if the stuff sucks and is not well sold, then all that work was a waste. If you want sucess nowadays, you'll need synergy. If you can get consumers further involved in production, that is awesome. People who want to see somthing happen will happily help you make it happen. It's all about merit now, how invested you are in the product. And if they can be more inviting than resisting, the better. As long as one fringe group takes over, it's going to be very productive for everybody.

[Prince ByTor]

The sad thing is that most business now days is all about the bottom line: how to maximize profits, not the consumer. The two groups that take it in the shorts from this business practice is the workers and the consumer. THAT is why I cringe when Teddy Roosevelt's trust-busting regulations get watered down. When companies merge and become corporate behemoths like we saw in history with the likes of J.P. Morgan are again being made today; too big to fail? Heck, in many parts of the economy the consumer has maybe one or two places to go for a product/service, thus they can charge anything they want for sub-standard products/services. Oh, and try to break in as an entrepreneur in some of these industries occupied by these behemoths; you'll get stomped out or swallowed up so fast it'll make your head spin.

Sega is a very big entertainment company, which Sonic makes a mere fraction of what they make even though he is more or less their mascot, and like many other companies out there they are shooting for the bottom line; like with Watto in The Phantom Menace: they only understand money; that's their language and religion anything else doesn't work too well with them.

[TheRedStranger]

The sad thing is that most business now days is all about the bottom line: how to maximize profits, not the consumer. The two groups that take it in the shorts from this business practice is the workers and the consumer. THAT is why I cringe when Teddy Roosevelt's trust-busting regulations get watered down. When companies merge and become corporate behemoths like we saw in history with the likes of J.P. Morgan are again being made today; too big to fail? Heck, in many parts of the economy the consumer has maybe one or two places to go for a product/service, thus they can charge anything they want for sub-standard products/services. Oh, and try to break in as an entrepreneur in some of these industries occupied by these behemoths; you'll get stomped out or swallowed up so fast it'll make your head spin.

Sega is a very big entertainment company, which Sonic makes a mere fraction of what they make even though he is more or less their mascot, and like many other companies out there they are shooting for the bottom line; like with Watto in The Phantom Menace: they only understand money; that's their language and religion anything else doesn't work too well with them.

 

 Don't forget that the internet's opening new doors, look at the Indie movement in gaming for example. Amnesia, Minecraft, Project Zomboid (gosh I love that game), are all heavy hitters amidst the big boys. Also note that the bigger they are, the harder they fall...remember the Great Depression? Monopolies get hanged with the ropes they sold somebody... Competition will come, and will cut you down. Look at Nintendo,n the 80's. It dominated the Gaming market with 99% of the shares after slaying Atari.  Conservative and straightlace, it sliced a complacent Atari's dope-fogged brain right off it's shoulders (the Atari today isn't the Atari of yesteryear, it's owned by some French company). Nintendo then got to powerful and joint-locked any competor by black-mailing companies like Walmart and Toy's-R-Us: "If you sell another console, we will drop all our hottest items off your shelves." It didn't work. Sega still came, saw, and conquered 65% of the market. There will always be someone that is poor, hungry, and driven to rip the throat out of some Big-Shot with his bare, unbrushed theeth. You get flabby in the bussiness world, if you get to big-for-your-britches, and you think you can't be beat, that's when you're doomed to fail. The Good Book's right "Pride Comes before destruction and a huaghty spirit before a fall." The only true security in the bussiness world is growth and flow. Like water if it sticks, it stagnates, no matter how big the pool the wealth's got to grow and flow. The future of bussiness isn't in Corporations but the aforementioned synergy between Company and Consumer, and you can see that by the sucess of creative juggernuats like Valve, which Steam-system has crippled big-wigs like Origin with fan-involvment community-building and the encouraging of the modding community with a plethora of tools (EA has been voted the consumer's worse Big-Bussiness in America twice in a row). A community of fans and professionals together to make something special will always be more profitable than the cold non-consensual, fiscal-falandering of Big-Business. There are whole groups of powerful people that love to bash on Big-Bussiness, and other companies take advantage of the bashing by appealing the bashers. For example Pepsi (who I hate) was cuaght using aborted embryo's in a Frakenstinian nightmare of reverse engineering, using Kindney's cells as taste-receptiors to measure the quality of their products . Campells, a very conservative company, vowed to never do such a thing and denouced Pepsi, their stocks raised and the gained the respect of conservative consumers. Other company's did the same with varying sucess. All it takes is consumers using their brains a bit and knowing what they are buying. Who you support will determine what progresses. If, God forbid, we all undyingly supported Sonelise, it would probably happen... 

[Prince ByTor]

Dang, I didn't hear that about Pepsi; I'm glad I quit drinking their swill a while ago. I'm going to have to check that out.

You sir are one of a rare kind of people that still gives me some hope for humanity; I just wish there were more of you out there. I agree with you completely, but if we are to try to change the Sonic Universe first we must somehow gather support from all corners of the fandom.

 

*EDIT*

 

It appears that Campbell's, Nestle, and Kraft were all using the company Senomyx along with Pepsi for flavour research. I wasn't until after the story broke that Campbell's quit using Senomyx for research, also midway through last year Pepsi bowed to public pressure; here's a list you might find interesting.

[TheRedStranger]

Dang, I didn't hear that about Pepsi; I'm glad I quit drinking their swill a while ago. I'm going to have to check that out.

You sir are one of a rare kind of people that still gives me some hope for humanity; I just wish there were more of you out there. I agree with you completely, but if we are to try to change the Sonic Universe first we must somehow gather support from all corners of the fandom.

 

*EDIT*

 

It appears that Campbell's, Nestle, and Kraft were all using the company Senomyx along with Pepsi for flavour research. I wasn't until after the story broke that Campbell's quit using Senomyx for research, also midway through last year Pepsi bowed to public pressure; here's a list you might find interesting.

 

 Sole Deo Gloria.

 

I was involved during the early controversy when Pepsi was stubborn and rigid...what an intresting turn of events. This is a victory. And proof that victory can be achivied if the public fights. Praise God. I wonder if Campbell's knew of Senomyx dark origin? If so they have ruined their quaint and familial image possibly beyond repair. I'm glad I bought Progresso instead today. Yet, from what their board reported they seemed shocked and disgusted by hearing about what Senomyx was all about deep down. I'm curious now...very curious. 

 

*Notices Wonka* I always knew that creep was evil...I remember that tunnel all to well .

 

Who is with me, and saying this would be a good way to characterize an early Robotnik? A  shady corporate creep that's climbing the economic ladder in the Overland before the great war as a brilliant inventor/entrepreneur like an evil Thomas Edison (well, more questionable Edison)? 

[Captain Sorzo]

 Who you support will determine what progresses.

 

Unless you're a Mega Man fan.

[TheRedStranger]

 

 Who you support will determine what progresses.

 

Unless you're a Mega Man fan.

 

 

Poor Megaman...

 

At least Capcom finally brought back zombies in RE6. They better stay dangit. 

[Prince ByTor]

 

 Who you support will determine what progresses.

 

Unless you're a Mega Man fan.

 

 

Did you know about the game Mighty No.9, which is made by Keiji Inafune (the creator of Mega Man). He was just successful with kickstarter and it is coming very soon! Check it out.