As I stated there, and another topic here, I am a screenwriter. Being a screenwriter, I can see the various forms of entertainment, this franchise could cross into.
So, with that, it got me thinking. What if they had a TV series? How about comics? Better still, they could bring out a movie or even some novels.
Then I got to thinking even more, until I created a couple of episodes for what could be a Skylanders TV series. I created the idea for two episodes, and I posted them on Facebook. However, some might not visit their Facebook page, so I will post them here.
The pilot episode for the series could be called "Skylanders, to battle." It could be a two-parter, that features Spyro and the gang taking on a new threat in Skylands. The show could have filler episodes, as well as episodes that deal with this main villain. The universe they created left itself open to a massive amount of stories to tell and various enemies to face.
Here are the episode title, sypnosis and plot for two episodes, that I plan on fleshing out into scripts, for fun.
Episode title: "Chopping Block."
Sypnosis: "Stump Smash and Boomer must stop the troll general, Grahm, from destroying another forest in Skylands."
Plot: "When Stump Smash learns that General Grahm plans to bring down another forest, he sets out on a quest to save his fellow ents.. or is it revenge he is after? He will need Boomer, Grahm's former Lieutenant General, to assist in his efforts. Boomer, gladly accepts, as he has motives of his own."
We would find out, that while Boomer was indeed a demolition specialtist for the Troll Enclave, he managed to briefly become Lieutenant General in the troll army, under the leadership of (I created this person) General Grahm.
Here is one other episode I thought about.
Episode: "The Atlantis of the Clouds."
Sypnosis: "Wham Shell and Gill Grunt must amass their people in order to save Wham's undersea kingdom of Cordelia, from the troll drillers, before they destroy the kingdom even further."
Plot: "While out on his ship, Gurglefin spots driller trolls under the sea once again. He quickly gets word to Wham Shell, who fears his kingdom of Cordelia will suffer more damage, than what had already been damaged before. Wham Shell asks Gill if he could gather the Gillmen, in order to save the seas from the trolls who seek to put the final nail in the coffin."
The episode title comes from the idea, that by the end of the episode, Wham Shell decides to bring his kingdom, named Cordelia (I came up with the name), above the seas and into the clouds. There would be a permanent water shield around the kingdom, incase his people can't breathe open air.
This is just from my mind. I can imagine books and a movie in all of this. This property has potential, thanks to them fleshing out the characters in the game, through their bios.
Books are already in production, they've got that one covered.
I like the idea of a television show, but I must admit I would only watch it if Kaos was the main villain and in most, if not every episode. Ideally, I had the idea of someone like Lauren Faust working on the series, as I truly believe she could combine that wacky - Yet brilliant kind of show.
The only problem with a TV show is the 32+ characters - Most series nowadays don't like dealing with such a large array of characters, and they don't feel it would benefit children.
Well, naturally KAOS would finally return and even be a main villain, but introducing another villain never hurts. There would be multiple villains, but I'd want the show to have a strong continuity like the 2003 TMNT show and the new Thundercats.
However, it's all talk. To even propose the idea, I need to sell one of my spec scripts first. I almost had that done in 2009, but something bad happened in my family. I had started writing again this year, though, so if I get established I may try to see if I can grab the liscense for a show.
That would be good. I'm still not entirely sure a Skylander series would work overall, mainly because of those 32+ characters. Some kids, as well as general viewers might get bored if their favorite character is left out for too long a time. I know whenever my favorite character is left out of episodes I get a little bored of the series, unless something really amazing comes out of it.
Trouble with Activision is that, from what I've heard, they never listen to fans. Which is a pity, really, as they often have some great ideas.
Well we don't want to turn out like the Sonic fanbase, wanting the game company to listen to our ideas and demands on what we think will make a good Spyro game in our opinions, then send petty death threats all because a released game isn't what we desired.
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"Soon all of Skylands will tremble at the awesome might of Malefor, the Undead Dragon King!"
Edited 2 times - Last edited at 23:51:10 08/12/2011 by Aura24
Well we don't want to turn out like the Sonic fanbase, wanting the game company to listen to our ideas and demands on what we think will a good Spyro game in our opinions.
That's very true. Right now, I think I'm happy with Skylanders a videogame franchise. I'd love to see new merchandise and some spin off games (racing, anyone?) though.
As long as Activision keeps ignoring the majority of the rowdy, out of control older fans of this fanbase who make a big, major deal over changes, we're good.
---
"Soon all of Skylands will tremble at the awesome might of Malefor, the Undead Dragon King!"
As long as the show was as good as the game and didn't deviate so far away from the original source like the Viva Piñata show did.
Yah that show was not that great but the game was pretty fun!!!!
I actually like GameMaster78 story, pretty good man!!!!
Would like to see it as a computer generated cartoon, along with some small live action stuff when they are frozen as toys.
Think it could be very watchable and humorous too!
Well we don't want to turn out like the Sonic fanbase, wanting the game company to listen to our ideas and demands on what we think will make a good Spyro game in our opinions, then send petty death threats all because a released game isn't what we desired.
We're already like that. I thought this became obvious after the past few months.
At this point, I honestly think this fanbase is worse than the Sonic fanbase. At least with the Sonic fanbase, most of the bad eggs have lost the attention they had.
I hope that Activision doesn't abuse this potential and churn out 500 games a year, like they did with Guitar Hero. Quickly, they'll once again discover that over-saturation kills demand, and a game that was once so promising will end up in the graveyard of inspired and over-milked franchises right alongside the aforementioned Guitar Hero. The creative direction they take Skylanders in is their decision and theirs alone, and my family has enjoyed the first enough to give them benefit of the doubt on future installments... I just pray they proceed with caution, and branch out into other areas, like, as the OP suggested, an episodic TV show. The series doesn't need two sequels a year using the same engine and 7,000 new figures; a gradual progression is fine. If they let the thing evolve on its own and don't flood their own market with senseless and expensive repetition, Skylanders could have a wonderful future for years to come.
The only problem with a TV show is the 32+ characters - Most series nowadays don't like dealing with such a large array of characters, and they don't feel it would benefit children.
You know what HAS worked though? Batman the Brave and the Bold. Each episode, Batman teams up with another superhero to beat the bad guy. While it does have a lot of really cheesy moments (And it's supposed to), they pull it off beautifully.
They could easily pull of something with Spyro teaming up with another character each episode, with Gil Grunt and Trigger Happy being the most common (if not always with Spyro). People will have favorites but I don't forsee them being "Omg I'll never watch the show again" because someone like...Cynder for instance isn't in every single episode.
Kaos comes back in Skylanders 2 as a Skylander...chew on that. I hope they have more planned for Skylanders 1 since we don't even have all the figures yet. This game seems to be a prime target for D.L.C. (since each toy is D.L.C. in it's own way). I would like to see an expansion before we get a sequel. As far as other media options are concerned...the Sky's the limit. Comic books, T.V. shows, Kids books, OMG Cereal, Toys that are more on the action figure side. A show would just own so much face though.
Books are already in production, they've got that one covered.
I like the idea of a television show, but I must admit I would only watch it if Kaos was the main villain and in most, if not every episode. Ideally, I had the idea of someone like Lauren Faust working on the series, as I truly believe she could combine that wacky - Yet brilliant kind of show.
The only problem with a TV show is the 32+ characters - Most series nowadays don't like dealing with such a large array of characters, and they don't feel it would benefit children.
The original Transformers and GI Joe cartoons had way more than 30 characters. The thing is, on certain episodes, only certain characters would appear.
So in certain episodes of this, it could be about certain characters. On episodes that deal with an overall story arc, it would deal with most Skylanders, but some would naturally have less screentime than a select few. Think of it like an episode with a huge battle. You would see ALL Skylanders fighting, but not have any dialogue.
Well we don't want to turn out like the Sonic fanbase, wanting the game company to listen to our ideas and demands on what we think will make a good Spyro game in our opinions, then send petty death threats all because a released game isn't what we desired.
Seen this, and felt obligated to comment on it. Don't care if it's off topic, I didn't bring it up. Get ready for a bit of a rant.
But first - TL; DR version: I find that you just made an ignorant statement towards the Sonic fan base in a place it didn't need to be mentioned, and it clearly was not backed up at all by evidence. If anything, the Spyro fan base would be much more respectable if it was more like the Sonic fan base. At least when a Sonic fan thinks there is something wrong with their favourite franchise, they get up and do something about it. There is hardly anything like that in the Spyro fan base.
Now, the detailed version.
In the case of the Sonic franchise, the fans have been requesting things from Sega and Sonic Team because the games became very unstable. While I did personally appreciate that they were trying new things with the franchise, even I couldn't ignore the problems. The main thing that fans wanted back was the momentum based gameplay, and they wanted Sonic Team to tone down on the scripted sequences, make the levels expansive playgrounds as opposed to linear corridors, as well as toning down on an over abundance of game genres in one game (a problem that started with Sonic Adventure, and plagued almost every 3D Sonic game from then until Unleashed, which was the first real step at fixing the things that were wrong with the franchise).
Now, I don't know what LoS fans asked for specifically, past playable Cynder and free flight, when DotD was being worked on, but I'm pretty sure the majority these fans weren't people who actually have knowledge over how game design works.
In the case of the Sonic fan base, a lot of the fans asking for changes actually knew what they were talking about, as they themselves developed ROM hacks or even fan games of Sonic, or at least studied how Sonic games work from a design perspective (I fit into the latter, myself). Many of these fan games and ROM hacks gathered praise not only from the Sonic fanbase, but also from general critics (Sonic Robo Blast 2 is a great example of this fan game wise, and Sonic Megamix is a great example ROM hack wise), and it came to a point where many people thought these games were much better than what Sega had on offer. And what's more, these fan games and ROM hacks are free.
Then, at the time Sonic 4: Episode 1 was preparing for it's release, a demo for a Sonic fan game known as "Sonic Fan Remix" was being hosted on MegaUpload. The goal of this game was to bring back the game mechanics of the Classic games, and make them feel fresh with updated graphics, just like Sonic 4. However, many fans felt that Sonic Fan Remix was shaping up to be better than Sonic 4, by the looks of the gameplay videos on YouTube. So guess what happened? Sega got MegaUpload to stop hosting the Sonic Fan Remix demo for a period of time, but not because of copyright issues (Sonic Fan Remix is a non-profit game, and Sega have praised non-profit, unofficial Sonic projects in the past). They got it removed because they feared that Sonic Fan Remix would actually tarnish sales for Sonic 4: Episode 1. I have both the Sonic Fan Remix demo, and Sonic 4: Episode 1, and honestly - Sonic Fan Remix is much closer to the Classic feel than Sonic 4: Episode 1, and the full game will probably be much better than Sonic 4: Episode 1. It isn't as accurate as Classic Sonic in Generations, but it's not far from that.
And while I've mentioned Sonic Generations, it should be noted that game was made specifically with fan requests in mind, and look what happened - it's the most critically successful Sonic game in over a decade.
Also, not only are Sega listening to fans, they are also taking fans directly on board to work on official Sonic games. The recent 2011 remake of Sonic CD was headed by Christian "Taxman" Whitehead, a member of the Sonic Retro forums. He used his "Retro Engine" to develop the game, an engine which, in it's early stages, was a dedicated engine for fan games. Using this engine, he implemented some features not in the original Sonic CD, that went to improve the game, and his version of the game is considered the definitive version of the game, by the fans, critics, and Sega.
--- "My memories will be part of the sky."
Edited 2 times - Last edited at 20:25:53 06/01/2012 by sonicbrawler182
Sonicbrawler, I didn't mean to offend you or the other civilized fans of Sonic. I was talking about the complaining part of that fanbase.
I know you're not trying to offend anyone, and I'm not offended at all. I just think you are looking at this situation regarding the relationship between a developer, publisher and fan base, in a very close minded way.
Yes, I know DotD was a game that may have been tarnished by fan requests (I say "may", as the only fan requests I know of for that game are free flight, Cynder being playable, and co-op. Cynder wasn't a bad addition because playing as her is actually more or less optional, save for the odd puzzle, and she was essentially a different playstyle when compared to Spyro, offering more freedom in how to play the game. As for co-op, it's completely optional, and free flight may not have been what people had hoped for, but it didn't have a negative impact on what WAS in the game, and again, you are rarely forced to use it).
But, the majority of the time, listening to the fans is a good thing. Heck, this goes for any product. The consumers are the people who are going to be buying the product, so the product should be tailored to their tastes. The consumers shouldn't dictate it, but they should have an influence on the final product. I mean, if they're not going to buy it, who else will?
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