Review: Season 3, Episode 1

A lot of odd stories surrounding episode development recently. This one is a Season 0 throwback—a planned standalone episode getting split into a two parter because it just turned out too darned long. I wrote as far as Shadow and Tails appearing in the brig still planning on this being a single episode (that was about 75% of the way in). Hypothetically, I could’ve cut out the ensuing fight with Knuckles, cut out the travel to Camp Beta subplot, drastically shortened Sonic’s roundtable conference after Shadow left, and probably managed to fit in a shortened version of next episode without the need for a part two. But that’s a lot to cut out. The Season 2 premiere episode was a lot to live up to, and I figured that cutting important content out of this episode wouldn’t help that comparison. On the other hand, maybe this plot could’ve been better served by a faster pace and less time to breathe. Hard to say.

Anyways, let’s talk a bit about the episode itself. By now, I’d hope the inspiration is pretty obvious—Marvel’s “Captain America: Civil War,” a film about a super hero team turned against one another by a sleeper soldier who has a shockingly-revealed dark history with one of the protagonists. You can see that even the cover art made for this episode is a callback to similar art from that movie.

Civil War Cover

 

There are some interesting stories surrounding this cover art as well. It was originally meant to be a simple cut-and-paste of existing character renders from Forces. Obviously, I had to give Sonic a black glove as well, but that was easily photoshopped (though I did experiment with an alternate version that would have Sonic and Shadow’s faces much larger to better replicate the Marvel art, abandoned because I wanted to keep Sonic’s hand visible). Trouble is, these “existing” renders didn’t actually exist. That front and focused artwork of an angry Sonic charging forward against the opposing forces is something that I’ve theoretically been staring at for years now—it’s on an official desktop background purchased from MyNintendo. What I didn’t realize was that this was the only place such a render existed. This means that this angry Sonic render is partially covered up by various other characters, and doesn’t have a transparent background, so using it for anything other than its intended purpose was pretty much impossible. I found this so surprising because I already knew the render was used elsewhere—in Sonic Forces Speed Battle, where it was photoshopped to have brighter, more saturated colors and a facial expression displaying more snarky confidence and less anger. Obviously, this means someone had to have that original full-body transparent angry render somewhere, that had to be modified into the final product, but without it being accessible to the public, there was nothing much I could do about that. So instead, I had to put my revers-photoshop skills to the test. I took this lower-quality Speed Battle artwork, and adjusted the colors and lighting to match the original Forces render as closely as possible. Then I had to carefully cut out the angry mouth from the original MyNintendo background and paste it on to the new render, hiding any traces of the Speed Battle smirk. The result turned out well enough, I’d say. Only trouble is that Sonic ended up being the lowest-quality image used on the cover, relative to his size, so he comes out looking just a tiny bit blurry/grainy. Once I got started on a photoshop streak, I just kept it going. I sourced other renders from several iterations of Olympic Games titles, and, in the case of Omega, even Sonic Runners, which had a very different artstyle. All were modified by hand to roughly match the Forces lighting and colors, and Omega’s thick black outline was removed. Then there was Hero, who had the same problem as Sonic—except that he didn’t get a Speed Battle version. As a result, his entire character model had to be meticulously cut out from the MyNintendo background. Bits and pieces of Classic Sonic that I didn’t bother cutting out are actually still hiding on the layer behind Rouge. So yeah, that all turned out a lot harder than it was planned to be, but I still smirk every time I see the result.

That was a long diversion, but back on the topic of the episode itself. As was probably made clear by the “previously” segment at the beginning of the episode, Shadow being responsible for distributing the Doom Virus was planned as far back as the introduction to that concept. That this episode would specifically be the Season 3 premiere came later, when I was considering what ideas I had in store that could compete with the groundbreaking premiere of Season 2.

What else can I say without spoilers? The whole thing was meant to take its Marvel movie roots very seriously, playing into a lot of action movie tropes that were hopefully pretty satisfying. Opening on the Shamar incident was heavily inspired by the similar opening scene of Captain America, a seemingly well-coordinated but still intense mission in a foreign country which starts to fall apart and ends with an explosion deemed the fault of one of the heroes, leading to the creation of a set of strict rules for the heroes which causes the first signs of dissent within the team. I was completely unsure of how to open the episode going in, so that inspiration proved necessary. However, that scene actually went through some significant changes before publication. The context was originally quite different. Sonic wasn’t told anything at all about what the mission was—before Fox could get the chance to explain, Sonic would hear the explosion and move in for the rescue. This rescue would be of just two civilians, a mother and child, who were “accidentally” missed when Fox had the building evacuated. The mission itself, then, was purely a publicity stunt. Fake an accident, then have Sonic save people from said accident. Moment for moment, the scene played out in a pretty much identical way, with the only difference being the target as civilian instead of military, and the changed setting inside the building as a result. There was still a person pinned down by rubble, still a statement of “you have to save [person],” and still a realization of “you really are a hero,” all while the building is falling apart. The change was made to give some more credit to Fox. It was a very careful balancing act throughout the episode, getting characters to fight each other without everyone looking stupid, so Shadow supporting Fox in the end needed to be as reasonable as possible.

Anyways, I long had in mind the scenes of Sonic and Tails finally talking, Shadow finally reading the datapad, and Knuckles “accidentally” overhearing, and those might have been the first three scenes of the episode, had I not solidified a more concrete direction with the Shamar Incident. The Rebellion eventually adopting standardized laws was something that I knew I wanted to happen eventually in the series, but I didn’t necessarily know when that would happen or how it would start. Rewatching Captain America for reference and making the connection to the Sokovia Accords worked out great for that purpose. Once I had all that figured out, the rest of the episode actually went over surprisingly smoothly. The biggest trouble was figuring out exactly how and when each character would choose their side, and the roundtable conference at the end turned out to be an unfortunate ad hoc necessity for involving the rest of the characters who weren’t in the room for the initial conflict.

That’s all I have for now, so on to the trivia!

• As mentioned above, this episodes title, “Civil War,” is lifted directly from the subtitle of the Marvel movie which inspired its plot.
  • A line cut from the final episode would have had Sonic stating near the end, “Shadow has declared war against us,” or something of the like, meant more than anything to justify the title. The line was cut to keep Sonic’s choices feeling a bit more reasonable, giving Shadow the benefit of the doubt even as both of them are doing what they feel they have to do. The war line would’ve solidified an unwanted idea that Sonic is now convinced of Shadow’s guilt.
• The following locations from previous Sonic games were shown or mentioned in this episode:
  • Shamar (Sonic Unleashed, CP debut)
  • Hill Top Zone (Sonic 2)
  • Mirage Saloon Zone (Sonic Mania, CP debut)
    • The zone was placed geographically near the Hill Top Zone, lining up with its adjacency to Oil Ocean Zone in Mania, which has also been shown in the Chaos Project to be quite near Hill Top.
    • In describing the setting of Mirage Saloon, the phrase “dazzling desert” was used, referencing “Desert Dazzle,” the name of the scrapped zone from some versions of Sonic CD on which Mirage Saloon was based.
• This episode featured something of a checkpoint for character development in the form of pointed theme song quotes.
  • Sonic uses the phrase “It doesn’t matter” early on, but when forced to confront his feelings, sings a different tune. “Now, it matters.” This shows how his character has fundamentally changed over the years, as he’s grown into the leadership role and embraced his destiny.
  • When asked if he is sure he wants to know the truth, Shadow asserts, “I am.” Unlike Sonic, Shadow is showing just how little his character has fundamentally changed since finding himself. Yet the unchanged repetition mirrors the seeming repetition of circumstances in his life, and is his acknowledgement of feeling trapped by this cycle. But there is one change shown. Regarding Tails’ relationship with Sonic, Shadow asks how he can Throw it All Away. Though Shadow hasn’t changed much in the Chaos Project, he certainly has changed since his SA2 debut, and now he takes concern at the notion of others feeling the way he once felt about himself.
  • Tails’ response to the above is done in kind. “I believe in myself, and I believe in you.” This one speaks for itself. Tails once had to figure out how to believe in himself, but that task is long done. It’s no longer something he will do, but something that he does every day, just the way that Sonic taught him. Now, he passes that support onto others. If it wasn’t enough to tell you in this episode that Tails is growing up, this is where we show you.
• The alleged code to unlock Shadow’s mind is a number that may be familiar to some, though not from any game. “27:53:00” is the number at which the countdown timer to the ARK’s collision with Earth started, not in SA2, but in Sonic X. Definitely not trying to claim that Sonic X is canon here, and if I had the appropriate number from SA2, I would’ve used it. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t give you a look at the timer until it’s been ticking down for a while. The Sonic X number lines up well enough to assume it to be true, and, to be fair to Sonic X, that whole arc does feature some known cut content from SA2, implying that the creators likely had access to insider knowledge about the game, which could potentially include the original intended number for that timer.
  • Why is this number being used for this purpose? Wait and see!
• It was already mentioned in a previous review that Sonic losing a hand is Marvel/Star Wars reference (unrelated to Civil War specifically), but now we see Sonic making use of the replacement robot hand for the first time, including the fact that it remains covered up by a black glove that doesn’t match the opposite hand, much like Luke and Anakin before him.
• In the Shamar scene, Sonic refers to Fox as “Cap,” while Fox refers to Sonic’s lack of an “iron head.” This is a reference to the two primary characters of Civil War, Captain America and Iron Man. This analogy is pretty superficial, as the better comparison for Captain America in this context would be Tails, the one taking the side of the sleeper solider in spite of allegations, while Knuckles is the one who plays the role of Iron Man combined with Black Panther, seeking vengeance/justice against said sleeper soldier. However, this comparison still serves to draw the necessary dividing lines early on.
• The guard robots in Shamar speak the phrase “Priority one rebel detected.” This resembles a common phrase spoken by Eggman’s Swatbots in Sonic SatAM regarding the priority one hedgehog. I see it as notable that I treat the entire cast as relevant, not just Sonic.
• The therapy scene, where Sonic throws Cyber Sonic’s faceplate into the ocean, is a scrapped scene that was considered to be included in the Season 2 finale instead.
  • Similarly, Sonic’s discussion with Tails was considered as a possible epilogue to that episode.
• Shadow and Rouge’s discussion of the SCOPE datapad was directly compared to very similar scene from S0 E13 and 14, the end of the Black Cloak arc and beginning of Birth of Blacklight, where a GUN datapad kicked off the events of said arc. This is, in significant part, addressing my own thoughts of how similar these ideas ended up being presented, despite being so different in concept. I don’t have much of a problem with it however, calling back to what was mentioned earlier of Shadow being caught in a bit of a character cycle.
• During Sonic’s discussion with Tails, it is mentioned that Tails’ voice is getting deeper. Were this an actual TV show, this scene would be what addresses the fact that, starting with this season, Tails would now have a male voice actor. This is only natural, given his continued aging, and if anything, it might be too much to say that he would still have the standard female voice actress as late as last season. There are no real voice actors, of course, but I like to pretend.
• The phrase spoken by Agent Black in the recording, Indicium sit Imperium, is a Latin phrase roughly translating to “Information is Power”—something spoken by Ayanna back in the finale. It would seem to be some sort of slogan, though its significance is not yet clear.
• One of Agent Black’s alleged targets, the Controller to come before Sonic, is actually a character who has been mentioned once before, though never named, in S0 E19. Of greater interest is that we’ve already talked a little bit about this character, and his scrapped role in the Birth of Blacklight arc, in a previous review, where I specifically promised that he would get a “proper introduction” later in the series. Four years later, and we’re still not there. Just give it a little more time. We’ll hear a little more about him next episode, and then that’ll be it until his actual, proper, complete introduction, for real. I promise.
  • The reference to this character at this time was quite unplanned, until after this episode was nearly complete. It was decided that Sonic needed just a little bit more skin in the game in order to be justifiably ready to turn against Shadow, and this was all I had that could accomplish that. Since this character already got an earlier reference anyways, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to reference him again before the proper intro.
• In the final moment of tension before Shadow makes his escape, he quotes a familiar line from Shadow the Hedgehog: “If what you say is true…then I will respectfully accept my fate. But I just need some time…to uncover the real truth.” Another case of Shadow being caught in a cycle, and showing the same reaction.

That’s all for today! I hope you’re all looking forward to the continuation of this story as much as I am!

-And until next time, remember to live and learn every day!