Analyzing EVERYTHING from Dark Beginnings

[@Flight_of_Icarus]

You know, I never realized just how weird it was that Eggman had samurai egg pawns at an egyptian themed base with pyramids and obelisks. Pick a theme, man!

[@GameApologist]

HEY YEAH THAT IS WEIRD!

[@RenSugiura]

Maybe he was just storing a bunch of old robots in his old supply base

[@Shywhitefox]

He did. He chose all of them.

[@carleta4445]

I love dark beginnings but there was one thing that liked about the animatic more then the final animation; it gave Omega more screentime and more interactions with Shadow. I love the scene before the fight with the Blue Falcon where Omega tells Shadow "Come Shadow, let us ruin their night" and Shadow smiles at Omega.

[@AstroTom]

Hey Nick, I think Gerald's Journal from SXSG would make for a good Sonic Speed Reading. It's got some awesome lore including new information about the Robotnik family line.

[@Gaia_BentosZX5]

Also Nick, Abe Tower is an Olive Garden shill. Win some, lose some.

[@soniccooldude54]

YES! Theres alot of meat in the journal including even more context for dark beginnings, and Ark facility projects as a whole. :')

[@GameApologist]

@@AstroTom don’t worry it’s coming!

[@AstroTom]

@@GameApologist Aw yeah, this is happening

[@Djammin14]

@@AstroTomthank you for making that reference

[@Biostar96]

Abraham Tower is a name Ian made up for the Archie comics, he confirmed this years ago on the old comic forums. "It was the name of an old fan-character I'd made up for a fan-comic that never went anywhere. I didn't want to be trapped by calling him "Commander" or "sir" every stinkin' time, so I dusted off the old name and attached it to him. Mike liked it, SEGA hasn't rejected it, so we're running with it for now. Heaven help me if they do end up naming him." "The name was supposed to evoke an idea of authoritative power. "Abraham," whether biblical or U.S. historical, lends itself to the notion of an influential leader. "Tower" is simply enough - tall, rigid, standing over all others. That's the only name/character I plan on bringing back from the old project, though. I don't see any reason to pad out the G.U.N. side of things with extra humans."

[@iponce2]

I was going to listen to music and do some writing, but an hour of game apologist requires my undivided attention. That's just how it goes.

[@DarkshadowXD63]

To be fair in Shadow (05) Shadow takes a spaceship with Sonic to the Ark. There is a whole stage dedicated to it I believe it was Iron Jungle

[@shadowposers]

sick thumbnail btw

[@spider59er35]

Sick Pfp dude!

[@Bestmotion2389]

И ты тоже тут?? Не ожидал честно

[@сфистодуй]

йоооу,какие люди!(ну или людь)

[@BritBox777]

"You will GLADLY watch me kiss your wife on the mouth" This unhinged rant always cracks me up, every time.

[@nightbrand8016]

30:59 lets not forget too that Rouge somehow still works for G.U.N. despite HELPING EGGMAN BLOW UP AN ISLAND THEY OWNED in SA2

[@Gyrokun]

She just can't break the habit of destroying some of their shit for the fun of it 😂

[@galten7361]

@nightbrand8016 Rouge wasn't the one who planted the bomb. She was there to begin with to infiltrate Eggman's operation.

[@stanzacosmi]

38:40 I personally feel that shadow CAN teleport long distances with chaos control, however it drains him afterwards, so he prefers not to. Stopping time and running (and homing attacking) is easier on him than outright warping,

[@stanzacosmi]

it fits with the whole "Sonic uses chaos control to escape the capsule, how did he do iit if it's not warping"

[@Skylancer727]

Only downsides I see to dark beginnings a continuity flaw in it. Dark beginning's ending immediately conflicts with the first cutscene as Shadow says he wants to go to the Ark because he got visions when seeing it, yet in game he said he went because G.U.N informed him on detecting an unusual biosignature. These can't be both true as one implies G.U.N sent him and the other says he went there on his own without their blessing.

[@spider59er35]

Headcanon from me, it could be that since Rouge told Gun they contacted him at some point to confirm his suspicions

[@shadow8928]

Sure but It could be taken as Shadow and Abe having been in communication while the rocket was on route to the Ark, Shadow then explains to Abe that he thinks Black arms may be back and then Abe giving the order to have the Ark's sensors sweep the area for bio signatures on board the ark while Shadow was on board the rocket. and then communicated that to Shadow confirming his suspicions. A bit of headcanoning required but it could still work logically.

[@xiiiunmetal]

​@@shadow8928that's exactly how I interpreted it too

[@AtomicoMacaco]

His relationship with G.U.N overall is confusing. Didn't he work for them? How come Dark Beginnings made it seem like they never made amends and Shadow might still want revenge against them? I feel like this might be because of the "Team Dark isn't a thing" statement that retconned Shadow working for G.U.N and Shadow saying he was in the Ark on behalf of them might be because it was an early draft of the script and they forgot to change it.

[@nicholassgobero]

​@@AtomicoMacacohe doesn't work FOR them, this does not mean he can't work with them when it is convenient

[@CHANIMATES]

THIS IS WHY STORYBOARDERS MATTER PEOPLE SUPPORT THE ANIMATION STRIKE ✊️

[@bintasenghore3321]

Yeah!

[@Morgil27]

There's a strike?

[@CHANIMATES]

@Morgil27 yes there is a animation strike for us to get a fair deal from the studios

[@aokyoutsuki7744]

​@@Morgil27animators are kinda known to get treated rather poorly from the go to actors, so far its writers/directors and actors, S/VFX artists especially get treated poorly

[@bintasenghore3321]

@@aokyoutsuki7744 you know before inside out 2 came out Disney fired 100s of they’re animators just because they were cheap and didn’t want to properly pay them.

[@Pinkanator]

For the record, no, that is GENUINELY the model ripped straight from Shadow 05, you can tell from the scuffed-paint textures on the orange sections that are all over Shadow 05's art design. Compare to its page on The Model's Resource and it's 1:1

[@thatoneguy4452]

They probably got it from The Model's Resource as well. Game companies don't tend to keep that stuff around.

[@OnePolishMoFo]

"Instead of getting shorts we got three whole episodes that were admittedly very short." Ah, so shorts?

[@GameApologist]

…yeah…. Yeah basically that

[@STKMRProductions]

I had to look up Abe as well and it took it to Abraham tower and then I realised “Wait a minute, 2 different coloured eyes, same name, OMG THATS TOWER” can’t believe I hadn’t noticed

[@ribottostudio]

51:30 that LOOK on Shadow's FACE....I don't think we've ever SEEN such a look on him before.....I wish that alone had made it to the final product, and I wish the line he says was there too...The fact that Shadow thinks he's got nothing ahead of him but endless suffering is just....heartbreaking. No Shadow, you deserve to be happy....but I do see why what was cut got cut.

[@Caybee1999]

I like that they finally have the animation be available in Shadow Generations along with an animatic to boot. But it’s only for the PS5 version….

[@ML1399TheyStoleMyName]

Black Doom seemingly being able to resurrect himself from any larva within the Black Arms hive mind does kind of legitimize Sonic Team's claim that he is to Shadow what Eggman is to Sonic. He can just keep coming back with his own unique minions to antagonize Shadow, and Shadow can destroy him every time and put him back on cool down. I'd actually like to see Sega or IDW do a story of he and Eggman teaming up to destroy Sonic and Shadow

[@vampirekingdarkness9076]

Here's how I interpret CC: it's just time stop/slow, 2 happening at the same time rips open a space/time portal due to the strain it puts on the universe, but the "warp" is just what others see, sonic warping was just him using chaos control to give himself the time to get out, jump and use any debris he could find to get back to the ark

[@frickerrific2813]

Nah

[@vampirekingdarkness9076]

See those first 5 words? "This is how I interpret"? Theres these things called "context clues" and those four words are context clues that im not looking for YOUR opinion, just stating mine

[@claus_al_aerth]

Could he survive the vacuum without his super form?

[@vampirekingdarkness9076]

Final rush, egg gate, and a few other stages suggest a yes at least for a short time, and we can also assume since space around a chaos control user is slowed/frozen in time, the pressure buildup could be slowed/nullified during the activation period

[@Flight_of_Icarus]

I mean it manipulates space and time right? They're one in the same, in a single continuum. Perhaps all Sonic did was warp himself back in time to a situation where he was still on the ARK anyway. It probably would've been a lot easier to do that than warp all that distance, depending on how far he traveled that quickly.

[@Artista_Frustrado]

1- heck yeah the full compilation is here 2- so I know I'm going to be a minority here, but i would love if a Sonic Anime followed the format of Dark Beginings & Convergence: here's what goes thru each character's mind when they aren't part of the adventure, i love seeing Knuckles just patroling Angel Island alone confronting his lonelines, or Shadow still plagued by what could have been; or simply like TSR Overdrive where the characters are just Car Racing for the fun of it 3- so technically there has been 2 explanations for the Moon appearing intact: in Sonic X Eggman had to repair the moon as community service, but he used it for an evil plot; the other is Iizuka-san jokingly explained in an interview that the Moon just rotated and we are seeing the intact side 4- yeah, a lot of fans just forgot that GUN disappeared from the games after Sonic 06, in Generations OG is just there because of SA2, but they aren't reintroduced, so yeah new fans would have ZERO idea who they are & how they relate to Shadow 5- it seems that Rings are portrayed on two dietetic ways: Portal Rings like in Sonic 1, 3&K, or Mania. And just straight up Money like in Unleashed, Adventure, & 06. The ones we pick seem to be just non-diegetic 6- again, hilarious that you bring Goku's instant transmission because it's probably the one skill that has a fair ruleset. But yeah, Shadow's first instinct wouldn't be to steal one of Eggman's rocket if he could Chaos Control to the Ark at will 7- yeah I'm glad the over explaining got trimmed down, but I'm also glad Ian knew we were asking 8- honestly other than Frontiers Convergence & Dark Beginings, none of the animations really need to be in the games. But yeah i love having the full story in the story I'm experiencing at the moment, Rise of the Wisps is just there to have Ian be a better Pontac+Graf than Pontac+Graf

[@solarammy2255]

I definitely felt like black doom reformed from samples on the ark. It was the only place shadow forgot to exterminate after he destroyed the black comet.

[@T_Man]

If the scenes in the Animatic are laying it on too thick then the whole entire Song that plays when you are supposed to be sad in the final product is laying down an entire foundation.

[@33pandagamer]

I watched Sonic X before learning about Sonic Adventure 2. So I had always assumed that Shadow used a teleportation device to get up there.

[@NightFuryLover31]

The little details help, but I am happy with the final result! Dark Beginnings was everything I wanted and more!

[@chaosgetsuga6114]

So, touching back on the issue of Shadow's Chaos Control and getting to the ARK, since it's being brought up again here; in the case of SA2, I think we can assume that was exactly why he went and stole the Green Chaos Emerald. Eggman had already brought him the Silver one, but going off that and this now, one may not've been enough to teleport all the way up into space. And his first order of business at the time was getting Eggman on board with using the Eclipse Cannon, ruse though it was.

[@SonicLegends]

I think if we want to consider Sonic X as a director's cut to unanswered questions then the answer there why Shadow didn't use Chaos Control to transport from earth to the space colony ark with the 1 emerald he had is that in the Sonic X episode Shadow is carrying 4 emeralds, so it's reasonable that perhaps the more emeralds one has when performing the ability the user has a larger range when warping. Although in the case of the actual game it's the very 3 emeralds Rouge was tasked with getting, since the green emerald isn't present due to being inserted in the Eclipse Cannon, so at least 3 is needed.

[@pupununu3024]

Hey, I managed to make it here before Goonten started spewing about his hate for "Western" Sonic and those associated like Ian Flynn and the "TrUe JaPaNeSe SoNiC!!!" that his lord and savior, the literal pariah of the Sonic community, told him to preach about. Neat. Anyways, Dark Beginnings was beautiful. Seeing Team Dark together like the old days was wonderful, the AMV with Maria made me choke up, and Omega was just a treat to see as he's so excited to blow stuff up.

[@kuraihikari5785]

Wait I don’t know this ‘Goonten’ what’s this all about?

[@Reset2150676]

???

[@galten7361]

@pupununu3024 Salt.

[@wijinsama]

Im still waiting for that SMBZ video he promised 2 years ago

[@firemask747]

Y'know what I would like to see after Shadow Generations, the Metarex Arc adapted into the games

[@FuzHammer]

I do think the cut Omega line going in to fight the Blue Falcon was waaay better than just having him repeat one of his only 2 other lines. Other than that though while I very much enjoyed the animatic I can see why that version wasn't the final one

[@JomaXZ]

51:20 I think they cut that because that's basically what the Doom Spears in the game is. A bunch of extra Chaos Spears I mean.

[@Haze-wb5ot]

The thumbnail goes HARD also i fully agree with what you said about the animatic

[@ftthecartoon]

I still want the full song from the ending if episode 3.

[@FrostTheHobidon]

I just assumed Shadow was able to warp from Prison Island to the Ark due the amount of power the 3 Chaos Emeralds, the more emeralds you have the greater the distance you travel with Chaos Control.

[@windy3935]

Shadow already has his own teleport move without the need of a chaos emerald, and it's been undeniably intact for decades. It's called Chaos Snap, which even made its way to Boom and the movie universe. This one goes short distances (so despite being a teleport move, it's not entirely comparable to Goku's Instant Transmission - this is a general point, not a direct one). Then we have chaos control, which needs an emerald. For starters, by default, this automatically has to teleport Shadow at least much further than his CS. That cannot be argued (either). I suppose though one still can't safely argue that Shadow could teleport as far as to the ark from earth with a single emerald, but at the very least we know it goes farther than his CS and a fairly lengthy distance in general.

[@VaniRoyal]

Not sure if this has any relevance in the video, but i haven’t seen a single person point this out: In Shadow Generations, in the collection room, there’s a section called “Shadow’s history” which outlines the plot of each game where Shadow is relevant to the plot… and they put Shadow 2005 *before* Sonic Heroes I’m like- what? Is this a retcon? or a weird mistake? I kinda like it because Shadow’s characterization in ShTH doesn’t really make sense after Heroes, it’s like he came to terms with his past and moved on… but then immediately decided to backtrack hard. (I also like it because it means that Heroes wouldn’t have to be before Advance 3, and Advance 3 could be the next mainline game after Advance 2, it’s always bothered me that Heroes is stuck between the two.) It also doesn’t really make sense with how many Heroes callbacks are in it though… I mean Omega is in the game for crying out loud… guess we’ll have to wait and see. I wonder if that rumored Heroes remake is real…

[@Gaia_BentosZX5]

You can thank the Rise of TMNT animators for this. In short: ANIME JA NAI!

[@kentojin50]

On 10:11 i wanted to know what issue is this so i can read full

[@Jax_mac]

7 mins sick details

[@lloydbagby8355]

I always took it that shadow could always use chaos control at short distance but need a lot of emeralds for long distance it i was casecin point black doom need 7 to warp the black comit down to earth because of it size

[@K7TZ]

That chaos control plot hole is not a plot hole at all. In this situation he only has 1 chaos emerald, in sa2 they had a couple. If 7 chaos emeralds and 2 hedgehog can chaos control the entire space colony ark back into orbit, im sure a few is enough to teleport 3 people to the ark.

[@jasonjimerson7046]

Why does Shadow need a rocket? Why does God need a starship?

[@johanstenfelt1206]

I see, very well done.

[@kunlesanders]

Infinite the Jackal is not coming back anymore, because Sonic the Hedgehog and his friends killed him at the very end of Sonic Forces.

[@galten7361]

@kunlesanders He showed up in Sonic Channel plot with Eggman using the Phantom Ruby but even bigger than last time. It confirmed he was at least bound to it after death with him accepting vanishing once the it's all over.

[@markelcraig5042]

Have you checked out DEATH BATTLE’s Bowser VS Eggman (Mario VS Sonic)?

[@TheInkMoon]

Hey nick! Just curious, have you seen the eggman vs bowser death battle? If so what are your opinions on it?

[@spongebobfan78]

49:09 Japanese school classroom jumpscare

[@Captain1455]

Enjoy Sonic Expo.

[@SethLyons-wc3wd]

definitely a good show.

[@mavrickindigo]

Dark beginnings isn't on the game is it? I have it on pc

[@reggielacey2235]

Not our fault ian flynn is wrong

[@GamingAficionado-s4k]

ITS KNOVEMBER CHATOIX PLSSSSSS SPLLSSSS CHAOTIX

[@NotWetToast]

Most of the memories seen in dark beginnings are just made up from doom manipulating shadow

[@Speedblueblur]

47:00

[@FamerGame]

Was this… was this a reupload of some sort????

[@Spamton1997bigsh0t]

27:04

[@mikebearthegamer1365]

Animatics are better, because it has more omega. Give me more omega

[@frickerrific2813]

Why would it be called mobius? It’s been earth in the REAL LORE the whole time lol.

[@GameApologist]

Hate to break it to you bud but none of this is real, they are all fictional. I'm sorry you had to learn this way.

[@galten7361]

@@GameApologist Archie/SatAM/Whatever is not and will never be what the series was made to be.

[@Magicghost23]

👍👍👍

[@Planag7]

lol got to milk it

[@MasterAtMC]

Uploaded 58 seconds ago

[@anishunnikrishnan9639]

I think sonic's world should be called morbius and everything else remained the same.

[@rouge4871]

First comment?

[@Jax_mac]

no

[@Jax_mac]

some one elses got deleted

[@skymario1012]

Why can't we just get an animated series like this. This would have been way better then sonic prime. Stop making sonic shows for the normies.

[@Eminster]

My god sonic does not copy from other franchises. Stop lying about that.

[@amagicalbeing7427]

Everyone copies from everything. Its called inspiration

[@Eminster]

@amagicalbeing7427 yeah. Ok it's inspiration. But when people say copy, they act like it's the exact same with no differences.

[@SeanFinlayson-ot7pu]

@@Eminster Originality is a myth, every idea has been thought of and made real, whats important is that you come up with a good story and interesting characters that you want to see again and again

[@Eminster]

@@SeanFinlayson-ot7pu well I mean something had to be the original in order for the inspires to even exist so originality isn't a myth

[@SeanFinlayson-ot7pu]

@@Eminster Now we are debating which came first "the chicken or the egg", does it matter haha? What does it that we have a game series that has lasted for over 30 years, through its highs and its lows, we have all continued to play the games, watch the movies, tv shows, experienced it all because we enjoy it, the games, the characters, where theyre going to go with it, lets just continue to have fun with it, "Lets do it, to it", peace bro