53 replies to this topic

[sonicroc]

While it's not absolutely impossible for that to happen, I'm confident that it won't. Sega would be making the final call, and they would say no. Sonic Boom is what they want their Sonic TV show to be right now, and it wouldn't make any sense for them to, on top of that, have a third season created for a decade-old show that is largely disliked by the Sonic fan community on the whole. That just would make no sense at all.

 

Besides... I need to make my speech. *gets behind a podium*

 

I don't think a Sonic SatAM Season 3 is necessary. Sure, Season 2 ended on a cliffhanger. But imagine, for a moment, an alternate timeline of Earth on which Season 3 of SatAM had been made all those years ago, and then it ended, with no loose plot threads. Would things really be better then?

 

I'm actually glad SatAM ended on a cliffhanger. It's more fun that way. For one thing, it ends with Snively taking over, which is hilarious! And also, it means that fans get to try to make their own continuation, and even if they fail at it, it's still cool to see fans banding together trying to make it.

 

Even if it doesn't get animated, the Sea3on comic is still pretty cool. And it's probably better than an official Season 3, since it's made by the fans who loved the series, rather than a company trying to make money.

 

If you are that passionate about seeing Season 3 get animated, you might want to discuss with Chief and the other admins about how you could potentially help with Sea3on Animated. I dunno.

[King Connor Acorn]

That's about the only choice we've got left but if it works it works and if it doesn't it doesn't but at least i tried to revive it so that it could be done cause i am not one to give up until the very end.

[southbird]

That's about the only choice we've got left but if it works it works and if it doesn't it doesn't but at least i tried to revive it so that it could be done cause i am not one to give up until the very end.

 

The funny thing is, history is just repeating itself. What a lot of new FUS members don't remember is that FUS was born when SatAM was still a pretty fresh wound in the Sonic community's mind. Taking a look way back in time, check out the "Help Our Cause" section on the left, with links to "Sign the Petition" and "Write Letters to Networks." This was going on in 2001. There was no revival of the series back then, and you really can't expect that 13 years later it's going to happen now just because you want it to. Heck, one of the main writers of Season 2, Ben Hurst, largely communicated with the fan communities and was ready to go back into action if the show could be revived, and often gave tips on how such a thing could possibly be accomplished. That wasn't enough.

 

As mentioned earlier, Sega has largely been trying to retcon any Western influences of Sonic (the transition from the name "Robotnik" back to "Eggman" likely being the most prominent, although chili dogs are admittedly confusing.) I'm sure if Sega had really been die-hard fans of SatAM back when it aired, they would have sought out an alternate way to continue the media, or produced games in the style, or anything of the sort. They've never really pushed the series hard and by now have long abandoned it for their own vision.

 

Speaking of Ben Hurst, he passed away a few years ago, and I don't know if I'd honestly want to see SatAM revived in a TV show without his writing talent and core knowledge. I'd be wary of what any writer not familiar with the full context and time period would do to the series. The man was the SatAM guru, and he knew inside and out what he wanted the show to be.

 

A lot of people give credit to Archie, but I think that's somewhat overdue. Archie just mutates to follow Sonic -- early issues were somewhere between what little game canon there was and some really early SatAM-ish material, to a poor-to-okay job at being SatAM in its prime, and then started mutating away as Sonic games became the only new material. If you read Archie it's generally as disjointed and inconsistent as any of the other universes. It also loves the "alternate universe" trope way too much. (It has a hard enough time deciding what universe it itself exists in, especially in early issues.) There is some of the SatAM charm to be found in Archie, but you kind of to filter out all the stuff that isn't.

[sonicroc]

The funny thing is, history is just repeating itself. What a lot of new FUS members don't remember is that FUS was born when SatAM was still a pretty fresh wound in the Sonic community's mind. Taking a look way back in time, check out the "Help Our Cause" section on the left, with links to "Sign the Petition" and "Write Letters to Networks." This was going on in 2001. There was no revival of the series back then, and you really can't expect that 13 years later it's going to happen now just because you want it to. Heck, one of the main writers of Season 2, Ben Hurst, largely communicated with the fan communities and was ready to go back into action if the show could be revived, and often gave tips on how such a thing could possibly be accomplished. That wasn't enough.

 

As mentioned earlier, Sega has largely been trying to retcon any Western influences of Sonic (the transition from the name "Robotnik" back to "Eggman" likely being the most prominent, although chili dogs are admittedly confusing.) I'm sure if Sega had really been die-hard fans of SatAM back when it aired, they would have sought out an alternate way to continue the media, or produced games in the style, or anything of the sort. They've never really pushed the series hard and by now have long abandoned it for their own vision.

 

Speaking of Ben Hurst, he passed away a few years ago, and I don't know if I'd honestly want to see SatAM revived in a TV show without his writing talent and core knowledge. I'd be wary of what any writer not familiar with the full context and time period would do to the series. The man was the SatAM guru, and he knew inside and out what he wanted the show to be.

 

A lot of people give credit to Archie, but I think that's somewhat overdue. Archie just mutates to follow Sonic -- early issues were somewhere between what little game canon there was and some really early SatAM-ish material, to a poor-to-okay job at being SatAM in its prime, and then started mutating away as Sonic games became the only new material. If you read Archie it's generally as disjointed and inconsistent as any of the other universes. It also loves the "alternate universe" trope way too much. (It has a hard enough time deciding what universe it itself exists in, especially in early issues.) There is some of the SatAM charm to be found in Archie, but you kind of to filter out all the stuff that isn't.

 

 

Whoa, thanks for the link to the old FUS -- it's been so long! (I was here in the early days, left for a long time, and then recently came back.)

 

Anyway, Ben Hurst was certainly a cool guy, but while I agree that some new crew at DHX trying to continue SatAM might screw it up, I don't think the Sea3on writers are any less fit to continue the story than Mr. Hurst. I mean, he wasn't a fantastic writer or anything; he was just a cool guy who cared a lot about the story and tried to make it as good as he could; the same could be said for the writers here.

 

While I'm convinced that an official continuation of SatAM is unrealistic, I don't see why everyone seems to have implicitly given up on Sea3on Animated. Are they taking a very long time to get off the ground? Yes. But I'm fairly confident that they will shortly either (a) release the promotional video as part of some kind of Kickstarter-ish campaign to get the project off the ground, or ( announce that they've given up. While the latter would be disappointing, it would be understandable. I think we ought to be patient and wait for one of those things to happen before coming to conclusions. (Hey, they said they'd been delayed by trying to get the comic going again -- and now it is!)

[southbird]

Anyway, Ben Hurst was certainly a cool guy, but while I agree that some new crew at DHX trying to continue SatAM might screw it up, I don't think the Sea3on writers are any less fit to continue the story than Mr. Hurst. I mean, he wasn't a fantastic writer or anything; he was just a cool guy who cared a lot about the story and tried to make it as good as he could; the same could be said for the writers here.

 

I haven't read any of Sea3on, so I can't fairly comment on it. I remember Sea3on back when it was mismanaged, perpetually late, and extremely inconsistent. I believe it's supposed to be better now.

 

Anyway, I'm not trying to suggest Hurst is some kind of Shakespeare, but rather that he was heavily involved with the original development team and, as you could tell from his general communication with fans, he knew his stuff inside and out. I never said it was impossible that a reasonable extension to the show could be made, only that I'd be wary about a whole new team taking it on, which is what would almost certainly happen this far out. And that team may not have any appreciation for the material they're coming from, and will probably just base it off the current Sega canon or something in between and make a large mess out of it. If Hurst was still around, he'd probably have been adamant to be on this theoretical new team, and that would have brought on-board an "expertise" to keep things in line. I'm not sure anyone else from the old days would be interested or as passionate as he was. 

 

All of this is academic of course because I'm pretty certain it's impossible that this show would ever come back except possibly as some kind of fan-based extension. And I'll reserve my judgement for if and when such a thing ever actually sees the light of day. Fans have been talking about animating their own Season 3 for about as long as FUS has existed too.  

 

 

While I'm convinced that an official continuation of SatAM is unrealistic, I don't see why everyone seems to have implicitly given up on Sea3on Animated. Are they taking a very long time to get off the ground? Yes. But I'm fairly confident that they will shortly either (a) release the promotional video as part of some kind of Kickstarter-ish campaign to get the project off the ground, or (  announce that they've given up. While the latter would be disappointing, it would be understandable. I think we ought to be patient and wait for one of those things to happen before coming to conclusions. (Hey, they said they'd been delayed by trying to get the comic going again -- and now it is!)

 

I haven't really kept up on Sea3on Animated either, except in passing demo videos someone makes for whatever talent.

 

Quality cartoon animation is a wholly different world than comic books. I mean, they could do "Sea3on" as a cheap one-off Flash cartoon, but that's not "quality" animation. If they want it to even bare a passing resemblance to the show, that's going to be a tremendous effort, one that probably ultimately exceeds the abilities of freelancing fans to pull off. It's not a slight against whatever talents they might have, it's just the size of the endeavor. Animation that isn't just stretching and rotating Flash objects is going to take a lot of time. I'd be impressed if anyone could do a minute's worth of "quality" animation in less than an hour. And we haven't gotten in to backgrounds, colorization, voice acting, sound editing, how character models change at different perspectives, etc. And of course everyone involved needs to do this in their free time without pay.

 

Again, not impossible, but I would expect it to take years at the very least, and that's only if everyone is really dedicated enough to continue with it to the end. Nothing worse than if you get halfway done and lose a few of your best talents and have to ramp up someone else. Fan projects are tough work!

[King Connor Acorn]

Truly Spoken! and I intend to try to keep up the momentum on this as long as possible!

[sonicroc]

Truly Spoken! and I intend to try to keep up the momentum on this as long as possible!

 

Do you mean you've been doing something related to this behind the scenes, or do you just mean you want to get this forum thread moving again?

[E122Psi]

Without any disrespect meant to Hurst as a person, Satam was a group effort. Some criticisms stem from Hurst himself not understanding the universe fully, with too much Flanderization, character demotion and suspension of disbelief utilised when he had full creative control (he DID NOT have a full understanding of Bunnie and Rotor, that's for sure). He loved the show, but he had a very small comfort zone and preferences to what to do with it. That's not really a personal criticism either, it likely would have happened if they put any other of the original writers in sole charge.

 

The comics to me have a similar situation, having one writer who isn't quite versatile enough to develop everything (Flynn doesn't quite skip the formalities as much as Hurst did, but you can tell he's really lingering with a lot of elements, even when he tries to branch out and give them a token effort).

 

It would be interesting to see if any other members of the original team still around would be interested in the idea, there were several writers for the show throughout it's run and surely a handful at least gained some affection for it.

 

Either way, if it was revived, I think it would work best with Season One's method, having multiple writers all contributing in different aspects and lights of it's huge universe. Having a lead writer who monitors it and keeps it all consistent would be a decent idea (and probably what Hurst would have done far better as) but I think a team of people to brainstorm ideas is better than one with likely much more streamlined and limited array of how the show can work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[southbird]

Without any disrespect meant to Hurst as a person, Satam was a group effort. Some critisms stem from Hurst himself not understanding the universe fully, with too much Flanderization, character demotion and suspension of disbelief utilised when he had full creative control (he DID NOT have a full understanding of Bunnie and Rotor, that's for sure).

 

It would be interesting to see if any other members of the original team still around would be interested in the idea, there were several writers for the show throughout it's run and surely one or two at least gained some affection for it.

 

 

This is an "interesting" angle as far as attacking Hurst for "not understanding the universe." I'm wondering where such things come from... 

 

I just went through all of Hurst's newsgroup posts and his 2005/2006 IRC AMAs and merged them into a single document a few days ago (on my website, if anyone cares), so production stuff is fresh on my mind at the moment...

 

I realize that words from Hurst are likely going to be slanted in his own favor, but even before I poured through all that, on my own I found Season 1 of SatAM to be a disorganized mess, and Season 2 wasn't perfect but it definitely seemed like it had a much better idea where to go. Now, looking at Hurst's notes, he was not a major player of Season 1 -- which he said "wasn't planned at all" -- but Season 2 was pretty much completely Ben Hurst and Pat Allee. They took the best bits of the disorganized Season 1 and tried to form a cohesive Season 2. Given that SatAM really is just its own entity and didn't want to regard much of Sega's limited and ill-defined canon, then I would dare say most of the universe is invented by Hurst. So how he wouldn't understand his (mostly) own creation doesn't make any sense to me.

 

Of course SatAM overall is a "group effort", as obviously Hurst wasn't out there drawing cels and doing voice acting, and you had Len Janson was going to bat against Sega for them on controversial story decisions. But Ben, Pat, and Len were a machine, at least by Hurst's point of view. If any of the other writers from Season 1 really gained any affection for it, I can't say. Hurst made it sound like overall the team was pretty regularly friendly with each other and excited to work on it, but he never really seemed to mention anyone else specifically.

 

Again, I fully recognize that SatAM is not overall some great literary work of all humanity, and not saying it isn't without inconsistency and problems here and there, but I can definitely recognize it as a product of some creative people who fought uphill to get it as good as it got. You can really appreciate some of the battles fought by going through Hurst's own words. They had to work against DiC who insisted on this-or-that to serve their own bottom line and against Sega which of course owned the IP in the first place. SatAM was really a product of rebellion against what a lot of corporate types wanted "Sonic" to be, and that's really fascinating that way.

 

I guess I'm not sure what you want, but it sounds to me by what you wrote you're in favor of large retcon to support head-canon because you didn't like Hurst's ultimate direction with the show going forward. And I guess an opinion's an opinion in that respect. But I don't think there was anyone more passionate or more sure of the direction of SatAM than Hurst, so I have to give the guy a lot of respect and credit. He pretty much lived the rest of his life in regret over not getting a Season 3, and was still writing it out periodically as he was inspired even though there was no product to write for, and that's pretty hardcore fandom if there ever was any.

 

I guess what it really comes down to is, speaking from myself completely, I wouldn't want anything calling itself SatAM to not fully respect as much of Hurst's vision as possible. Not saying it has to follow it 100% -- especially since we don't even have a 100% unless someone gets ahold of all his personal belongings and it's documented in there somewhere -- but it should at least respect it. Because to me, what we call SatAM is Ben Hurst and his immediate crew. Anything else is derivative. (Of note, I don't consider anything Archie comics did as anything to do with SatAM. It's a vague adaption of some of SatAM at best. But those guys did not work together, and Penders even supposedly messed up one of Hurst's revival plans, so there was definitely no cooperation there.)

 

That's my stand on it, no one has to regard it, but just wanted to make a definitive statement on it.

[E122Psi]

As said I didn't mean that as an 'attack', but Hurst didn't invent Satam. He fine tuned it and made many core elements and stories, but lots of stuff wasn't his own. It's like saying someone is the sole inventor of a product because they were responsible for it's production more than the person who made the core idea.

 

Just because Season One was a mess doesn't mean anything from it's production didn't matter. Many will vouch that Bunnie and Rotor mattered, and facets such as Sally's flawed side were of importance to key development. They weren't of things that made the most memorable core element of the show, but that's because Hurst was in charge longer than anyone else.

 

Hurst's stuff DID matter of course and I have no doubt he should have been a major part of the creative team (hence my belief he would have worked as a head writer) but a lot of what many fans thought made the show great was lost by ignoring the contributions of other people, so it was not just his show or even just mostly his.

 

My complaint isn't towards Hurst sucking as a writer or anything but more that a full show couldn't have made JUST through his contribution. If anything most of the problems weren't even following his execution, just requiring more added onto it, in that way it still is following his methods, but several others with it to compliment it and make it more rounded.

 

 

 

[RedAuthar]

 

Given that SatAM really is just its own entity and didn't want to regard much of Sega's limited and ill-defined canon, then I would dare say most of the universe is invented by Hurst. So how he wouldn't understand his (mostly) own creation doesn't make any sense to me.

I can actually answer that one.
 

Just because he "made" it, doesn't mean he fully understood it.  You can create something and not understand it's value or potential.  Example:  When Hasbro Killed off Optimus Prime in the Original Transformers Movie.  They didn't realize what they had created or what he represented to the fans of the show.  

 

To be honest, most of what we love about Rotor and Bunnie didn't come from SatAM because well...they were the most underdeveloped of the whole cast.  Usually when we think about Bunnie and Rotor we think of their Archie versions who had much more time to be shown off.  

 

 

 

 

Of course SatAM overall is a "group effort"

That's something else.  I don't wish to belittle what Hurst did, but he was only one person on the project.  He only wrote 9 of the episodes (four of which he wrote with Pat).  That's only about 1/3rd of the show.   Len wrote (six episodes), directed, and animated for the show.   The other members of the team deserve just as much credit for the show as Ben gets.  From the art direction, to the voice acting, to the business side of things that we didn't even really see.

[southbird]

That's something else.  I don't wish to belittle what Hurst did, but he was only one person on the project.  He only wrote 9 of the episodes (four of which he wrote with Pat).  That's only about 1/3rd of the show.   Len wrote (six episodes), directed, and animated for the show.   The other members of the team deserve just as much credit for the show as Ben gets.  From the art direction, to the voice acting, to the business side of things that we didn't even really see.

 

 

I did specifically say "obviously Hurst wasn't out there drawing cels and doing voice acting, and you had Len Janson was going to bat against Sega for them on controversial story decisions."

 

Also a point of clarity, I say "Hurst" because I think of him saying things, but I also see Hurst / Janson / Allee as a unit, because they all seemed to be tightly integrated in the development. Even though they rotated in Season 2 in terms of credit, I have no doubt they communicated with each other and reviewed each other's scripts. I'd be very surprised if they didn't.

 

Here's where I think I got mixed up about it ... I see Hurst as the voice of those who defined the most memorable parts of SatAM (Hurst / Janson / Allee), and would have been the guy to continue it further, and often said he'd want to get Janson and Allee back in a theoretical never-to-happen project, thus continuing the "unit."

 

It's not so much that Season 1 "doesn't matter", it's that it becomes hard to resolve canon because they didn't lay it out. Like what do you do with Lazaar and the Forbidden Zone? The blobous king of the underground world? They were there and then they weren't, and it doesn't seem to matter if they were there at all. Granted some of this happened in Season 2 as well, but from what I understood from Hurst, it was more to do with DiC messing them up, cutting time, and some of it that would have mattered to the theoretical Season 3.

 

Perhaps I stepped up a little too far on my pedestal before, but I think I see Hurst / Janson / Allee as those who put rhyme and reason into what was disorganized. Correct Hurst didn't invent the core concept and he was adapting something that existed, but I think what really made everything work was when he took charge to make it happen. It's when the show stopped being kind of a generic Saturday Morning show starring Sonic the Hedgehog. And most likely would have been the driving force to its would-have-been continuation.

 

 

Really what set me off on any of this was E122Psi's original wording which, to me, sounds like "I'd like some people who weren't Hurst to work on it again", which I further translated as "I didn't really like the way Hurst did things", which to me sounds like you're throwing away the guy who took charge and made it work somewhat in unison. That's how I see it anyway.

[E122Psi]

Really what set me off on any of this was E122Psi's original wording which, to me, sounds like "I'd like some people who weren't Hurst to work on it again", which I further translated as "I didn't really like the way Hurst did things", which to me sounds like you're throwing away the guy who took charge and made it work somewhat in unison. That's how I see it anyway.

 

As said it's not that Hurst's style was bad, but it was limited. People were sick of Sally ALWAYS being the right to Sonic's wrong and being the co lead, and Bunnie NEVER getting a moment in the limelight, not just these formulas sometimes being used in generous doses, lots of times they had good results, but that were used all the time with almost no exceptions or variations. Add to that some of Hurst's more adventurous stories didn't work within these limitations (the Wolf Pack were an underwhelming addition since his comfort zone with Sonic and Sally still took over, imagine them under the pen of someone who could think up good roles and personalities for them).

 

It's like a formula, it can fun and well knit, but formulas get old used all the time with no variations, especially in a story that's supposed to be well rounded and diverse. That's why I said other contributions should work, alongside Hurst's rather than instead of it.

 

 

 

 

 

[RedAuthar]

 

That's something else.  I don't wish to belittle what Hurst did, but he was only one person on the project.  He only wrote 9 of the episodes (four of which he wrote with Pat).  That's only about 1/3rd of the show.   Len wrote (six episodes), directed, and animated for the show.   The other members of the team deserve just as much credit for the show as Ben gets.  From the art direction, to the voice acting, to the business side of things that we didn't even really see.

 

 

I did specifically say "obviously Hurst wasn't out there drawing cels and doing voice acting, and you had Len Janson was going to bat against Sega for them on controversial story decisions."

I wasn't disagreeing with you, I was agreeing.  

 

Really what set me off on any of this was E122Psi's original wording which, to me, sounds like "I'd like some people who weren't Hurst to work on it again", which I further translated as "I didn't really like the way Hurst did things", which to me sounds like you're throwing away the guy who took charge and made it work somewhat in unison. That's how I see it anyway.

 

As said it's not that Hurst's style was bad, but it was limited. People were sick of Sally ALWAYS being right over Sonic and being the co lead, and Bunnie NEVER getting a moment in the limelight, not just these formulas sometimes being used in generous doses, lots of points they were fun, but that were used all the time with little to no deconstructions. Add to that some of Hurst's more adventurous stories didn't work within these limitations (the Wolf Pack were an underwhelming addition since his comfort zone with Sonic and Sally still took over, imagine it under the pen of someone who could think up good roles and personalities for them).

 

It's like a formula, it can fun and well knit, but formulas get old used all the time with no variations, especially in a story that's supposed to be well rounded and diverse. That's why I said other contributions should work, alongside Hurst's rather than instead of it.

 

That and other people have different styles of writing and can write certain episodes better than others.  

[southbird]

I wasn't disagreeing with you, I was agreeing.

 

 

Whoops.

 

 

As it's not that Hurst's style was bad, but it was limited. People were sick of Sally ALWAYS being right over Sonic and being the co lead, and Bunnie NEVER getting a moment in the limelight, not just these formulas sometimes being used in generous doses, lots of points they were fun, but that were used all the time with little to no deconstructions.

 

It's like a formula, it can fun and well knit, but formulas get old used all the time with no variations. That's why I said other contributions should work, alongside Hurst's rather than instead of it.

 

 

Okay, I accept that. It depends what kind of show you want to do. Admittedly the presentation from the hero's side was, if you're not Sonic or Sally, you're not particularly important enough to be developed. I guess it's a two-way street. I don't know if any episode previously really made Rotor, Antoine, or Bunnie especially interesting. They may have occasionally had their own semi-starring roles, but it still sooner or later wound up being Sonic saving the day. It's like they never quite were able to escape their secondary status. I guess what was really needed was some Lower Deck Episodes to give them some personality and make them more story-useful. I can only say Hurst said he had a "big surprise" in store for Antoine in Season 3 (per the vague hints in the IRC chat), whatever that means. So maybe you would have gotten your wish anyway.

[E122Psi]

I admit Season One wasn't THAT diverse, I guess I preferred since it made the token effort at least, enough to see the potential the series had. The supporting cast were still underplayed, but they had at least odd roles of importance or fun displays of personality, while Sonic and Sally's dynamic was still a tad lop sided but not enough to be one dimension, they at least tried to make Sally flawed so she seemed more rounded. Season Two just skipped the formalities and didn't try them at all.

 

I know Hurst intended to do something with Tails. I guess I'm skeptical because usually when a writer tries to be diverse, it's still awkward since their preferences are still the same. Ian Flynn of the comics for instances has very similar preferences to Hurst for example, but, being in an era where internet is commonplace, he tries to appeal to fans and make changes, but they still feel very shallow, you can tell it's something he feels forced to do rather than something he has a genuine passion. Season Two shown Hurst's comfort zone clearly so I'm not sure he would have been able to branch out much, at least not in way that was as well handled as his standard concepts.

 

I could be wrong though, as mentioned he didn't have that long on the show to demonstrate.

[southbird]

Pretty much. I mean, you noted Tails, he pretty much said he had a whole personality ready for him and it got lost. Meant to be a bigger role in Doomsday and all that. Sometimes it was being bound by the executives in all directions that made some cuts necessary, and that may have caused a bit of a narrow focus on just what was the "best" development. Of course, he also admitted he loved the Sonic / Sally dynamic, and no doubt that would have continued. But then, in his leaked speculative movie idea, which to some degree is probably a shadow of his "Season 3" ideas, it seemed like he was going to even cause a rift in that. (Although no doubt because if the relationship is ultimately "good", it creates drama by trying to push it apart so that it reconnects strongly later, like a couple magnets, so it could just be a different angle of more of the same, I dunno.)

 

 

What's sad is that Hurst probably DID answer some of these qualms one way or another, as there were mythical Post-It notes, possible additional writing never released, etc. (He claims a whole big backstory he wrote for Blast to the Past for example.) We're just sort of stuck with what we have.

[E122Psi]

I'm in and out with the whole executives excuse. I can't really say unless I ever become under the thumb of one myself, but there are points I wonder just how much control they had over the quality over the product, like how much say they had in how Dulcy was developed, or the content of the Antoine shorts. Depending on how specific the mandates were, they still seem like things that could have worked under the right execution.

 

I mean they were able to pretty much give a middle finger concerning the mandate Sally should be clothed, a dinky open vest. Hey it's clothes.

 

[southbird]

I'm in and out with the whole executives excuse. I can't really say unless I ever become under the thumb of one myself, but there are points I wonder just how much control they had over the quality over the product, like how much say they had in how Dulcy was developed, or the content of the Antoine shorts. Depending on how specific the mandates were, they still seem like things that could have worked under the right execution.

 

That's something I'd defer to "needs more info." Hurst made it sounds like not only were the shorts forced upon them, they were also sort of with a particular "comedic" theme in mind. I'm sure anyone could have come up with a mini-dramatic plot for 11 minutes. It seems like it was some kind of mandate that they be "comic shorts" and that might have just been the way it is. Figure this, if they spent as much time fighting executives to get in stories that Sega found "controversial", then you need to establish a give and take relationship or else you'll be booted fairly quickly. That means Hurst "won" his Blast to the Past Two Parter, but had to give in to comedic shorts. I'm not saying that's what happened because I just don't know, but that's the kind of thing you need to deal with in these power struggle relationships.

[E122Psi]

I guess this is where the limit kicks in, since even there I could see potential execution wise. If the order was simply something like 'hey make a couple light hearted episodes to balance out the mood please' I could easily see a few slice of life stories based on the Freedom Fighters having some fun potential or even have the chance for character development in the right circumstances (see FIM's non action plots for example). If the order was strictly 'hey make some shorts about this Antoine guy and his slapstick and give one plot this gimmick and the other plot that one...' I could see them being more restricted.