Has the Prime trilogy been retconned out of existence?

2010-12-18 08:17:54 pm

How's about we leave it at this: Retro Studios had different ideas for Samus' portrayal than Sakamoto. Sakamoto was never in charge of the game's direction before, atleast not exclusively. Your argument is that, if Samus was like this before, it would make sense but Retro Studios obviously isn't telepathically linked to Sakamoto. You may as well call Other M's Samus a completely different Samus since someone else portrayed her.

If Sakamoto was in charge in the Prime series, things might have ended differently. I'll admit, I said some very stupid things but can we leave it at this? Sakamoto's vision of Samus was obviously on a completely different route than what Retro Studios had in mind. If you ask me, Nintendo of America is just as much at fault since Sakamoto had the benefit of the manga being available in Japan. Nintendo of America didn't consider that America doesn't have an equivalent and, thus, translated it without even attempting to explain why Samus is like that.

tomatobob

2010-12-18 08:28:17 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Quote from sabata2:

I'm personally of the belief that because people keep bringing shit up like sexism or racism (especially in cases where it doesn't apply) keeps it alive.

In some sense I do tend to agree with this, but in the sense that those who tend towards racism or sexism don't actually care if people are offended by what they are saying, because they are targeting what they consider and inferior so informing them of this is in any way rarely worth it. But it doesn't mean that the issues are not worth discussing if the occur in media, if only because it can make for fun conversation.

Quote from sabata2:

Samus WAS reduced to a much weaker hero because of Other M in a lot of gamers minds. Did a majority of those gamers CARE that Samus was a woman? Hell no, they just wanted the badass bounty hunter who just HAPPENED to be a woman back.

This is sort of the problem though, Samus was a bad ass bounty hunter who happened to be a woman. Happened to be, like it wasn't really a thing, it's just what she did, gender was mostly irrelevant. That's cool, you didn't get any "Heh, pretty crazy that a chick's doing all this cool shit and saving universes right? Normally it's a dude!" Well, outside of the first game, anyway, but from that point on it was kind of not a big deal or anything. That's pretty much the ideal scenario. She's a woman and that's just fine.

The problem arises when in attempting to humanize the character they focus, instead of on her personality or actions or even her origins (over played as that last one is), on the fact that she's female and that as a woman she must then be a very emotional delicate little flower. Her 'flaws' in Other M are basically what is typically considered being a girl, she may be super tough bad asses on the outside but on the inside she's just as fragile as all little girls are. There is something to be said for making your hero a regular person who does the extraordinary by sheer force of will and so on (See: Batman), I feel like this is where they were trying to go even, the problem is that they did it wrong, they went too far in that direction and started edging in on stereotypical. She does not come off as a person wounded by past events but instead as weak person who does not belong in this situation and indeed shouldn't be even functional in it. Because she's a woman, though, not because of some past trauma.

The Ridley scene stands out well here because despite the fact that people may be able to infer that this dragon did something to her in the past, they don't really know what and it just seems like a wild overreaction to this thing that really isn't all that scary. People who are already feeling a slightly misogynistic angle to the game will jump all over this because even in the game's context it makes no sense and only arguably makes a tiny bit of sense in the context of the entire series. It can just as well appear as this character being terrified of this dragon because she's a GIRL, cause see that manly man wasn't scared or if he was he fought it anyway, like REAL MAN should and it is only through this MANLY MANISH action that GIRLY over here could snap out of it.

Now you can counter this by informing the view that this guy killed the entire planet she grew up on and left her an orphan to be raised by wacky birdmen and they might go "Well, ok I guess I could see that being pretty bad, I'd probably have problems with that." But then you point out that he's a recurring boss who she's beaten before with no such problem or reaction and then it's all "Wait, what? Really? Now she's scared?" and we're back to square one.

See the thing here is, people making claims of sexism in this case don't necessarily have to be right, it is hard to say they're entirely wrong because the writing is so bad you could draw their same conclusions from just about any scene in the game with little effort and there's really no way to tell what was actually intended because the writing is an absolute mess by any standard. This is the problem with poor writing, you can very easily convey ideas and view points you don't really intend to even when you can write well, if you can't it just gets so very much worse and harder to refute.

And I don't think it diverts attention from the story at all, it's all part of it after all and the game sure seems to want to remind everyone at every opportunity that IT'S A GIRL IN THE SUIT GUYS! A GIRL! PRETTY WILD, YEAH? People are drawing their conclusions based on what they're seeing in the story, it's just so dull and poorly executed that one isn't always clear what they're supposed to be getting from it all. When you suck at writing and take control of a character people are fond of this is just kind of what happens.

[quote="sabata2"]I'm personally of the belief that because people keep bringing shit up like sexism or racism (especially in cases where it doesn't apply) keeps it alive.[/quote]
In some sense I do tend to agree with this, but in the sense that those who tend towards racism or sexism don't actually care if people are offended by what they are saying, because they are targeting what they consider and inferior so informing them of this is in any way rarely worth it. But it doesn't mean that the issues are not worth discussing if the occur in media, if only because it can make for fun conversation.

[quote="sabata2"]Samus WAS reduced to a much weaker hero because of Other M in a lot of gamers minds. Did a majority of those gamers CARE that Samus was a woman? Hell no, they just wanted the badass bounty hunter who just HAPPENED to be a woman back.[/quote]
This is sort of the problem though, Samus [i]was[/i] a bad ass bounty hunter who happened to be a woman. Happened to be, like it wasn't really a thing, it's just what she did, gender was mostly irrelevant. That's cool, you didn't get any "Heh, pretty crazy that a chick's doing all this cool shit and saving universes right? Normally it's a dude!" Well, outside of the first game, anyway, but from that point on it was kind of not a big deal or anything. That's pretty much the ideal scenario. She's a woman and that's just fine.

The problem arises when in attempting to humanize the character they focus, instead of on her personality or actions or even her origins (over played as that last one is), on the fact that she's female and that as a woman she must then be a very emotional delicate little flower. Her 'flaws' in Other M are basically what is typically considered being a girl, she may be super tough bad asses on the outside but on the inside she's just as fragile as all little girls are. There is something to be said for making your hero a regular person who does the extraordinary by sheer force of will and so on (See: Batman), I feel like this is where they were trying to go even, the problem is that they did it wrong, they went too far in that direction and started edging in on stereotypical. She does not come off as a person wounded by past events but instead as weak person who does not belong in this situation and indeed shouldn't be even functional in it. Because she's a woman, though, not because of some past trauma.

The Ridley scene stands out well here because despite the fact that people may be able to infer that this dragon did [i]something[/i] to her in the past, they don't really know [i]what[/i] and it just seems like a wild overreaction to this thing that really isn't all that scary. People who are already feeling a slightly misogynistic angle to the game will jump all over this because even in the game's context it makes no sense and only arguably makes a tiny bit of sense in the context of the entire series. It can just as well appear as this character being terrified of this dragon because she's a GIRL, cause see that manly man wasn't scared or if he was he fought it anyway, like REAL MAN should and it is only through this MANLY MANISH action that GIRLY over here could snap out of it.

Now you can counter this by informing the view that this guy [i]killed the entire planet[/i] she grew up on and left her an orphan to be raised by wacky birdmen and they might go "Well, ok I guess I could see that being pretty bad, I'd probably have problems with that." But then you point out that he's a recurring boss who she's beaten before with no such problem or reaction and then it's all "Wait, what? Really? [i]Now[/i] she's scared?" and we're back to square one.

See the thing here is, people making claims of sexism in this case don't necessarily have to be [i]right[/i], it is hard to say they're entirely wrong because the writing is so bad you could draw their same conclusions from just about any scene in the game with little effort and there's really no way to tell what was actually intended because the writing is an absolute mess by any standard. This is the problem with poor writing, you can very easily convey ideas and view points you don't really intend to even when you [i]can[/i] write well, if you can't it just gets so very much worse and harder to refute.

And I don't think it diverts attention from the story at all, it's all part of it after all and the game sure seems to want to remind everyone at every opportunity that IT'S A GIRL IN THE SUIT GUYS! A GIRL! PRETTY WILD, YEAH? People are drawing their conclusions based on what they're seeing in the story, it's just so dull and poorly executed that one isn't always clear what they're supposed to be getting from it all. When you suck at writing and take control of a character people are fond of this is just kind of what happens.

tomatobob

2010-12-18 08:29:19 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Sakamoto is awful is what I'm saying.

MetroidJunkie

2010-12-18 08:41:33 pm

Well, I agree there. The story was vague as hell and did a very poor job explaining everything. Indeed, we're left in the dark alot of the time and, for a game attempting to flesh out her backstory, putting so much reliance on having read the manga is just stupid for someone trying to explain Samus as a character.

Not including her past with Ridley nor even one mention of the Chozo dent the story. I guess I keep defending the game because it's the direction I like. It may be a very flawed, maybe even mediocre effort, but I think they're on the right track and that, with a little effort and moderately heavy hammering, this kind of Samus could work and the series as a whole could become deeper and more modern.

sabata2

Edit history:

sabata2: 2010-12-18 08:52:29 pm

sabata2: 2010-12-18 08:51:42 pm

2010-12-18 08:51:05 pm

ANKOKU

Fair enough MJ, I'd just flip your first sentence to this:

Quote from MetroidJunkie:

How's about we leave it at this: Sakamoto had different ideas for Samus' portrayal than Retro Studios.

That was the only part that was irking me. (The way it was read, it placed blame on Retro)

@TBob
1) lol at your tl;dr, I still read it all anyways.
2) I didn't mean show your facts against the person who did it. (ie. You were racist, and here's the proof) I meant show the PUBLIC. People will naturally divert themselves from that which is deemed radical or "out there". Even more so if they figure it out themselves.
To draw a parallel (which I REALLY don't want to go into on this forum, so I ask you to take it at face value), the Tea Party of today. Were labeled "RACIST" and "VIOLENT" through the shouts. But when the facts (videos, transcripts, etc) were presented to the public, a large majority, that initially believed the shouting, turned around and said "What the hell are you talking about? No they aren't."
Flip it to "Yes they are" and you have the prior "fired by racist" example. People will naturally not try to be hired by said business/person, and many will outright avoid the business' products. Which if taken far enough would get the racist to atleast think before he/she acts.

3) You laid out a really nice argument. Outside of the one thing presented above, I'd say I agree on all counts. It's definitely there, I just don't like how it was pointed out.

Fair enough MJ, I'd just flip your first sentence to this:[quote="MetroidJunkie"]How's about we leave it at this: Sakamoto had different ideas for Samus' portrayal than Retro Studios.[/quote]That was the only part that was irking me. (The way it was read, it placed blame on Retro)

@TBob
1) lol at your tl;dr, I still read it all anyways.
2) I didn't mean show your facts against the person who did it. (ie. You were racist, and here's the proof) I meant show the PUBLIC. People will naturally divert themselves from that which is deemed radical or "out there". Even more so if they figure it out themselves.
To draw a parallel (which I REALLY don't want to go into on this forum, so I ask you to take it at face value), the Tea Party of today. Were labeled "RACIST" and "VIOLENT" through the shouts. But when the facts (videos, transcripts, etc) were presented to the public, a large majority, that initially believed the shouting, turned around and said "What the hell are you talking about? No they aren't."
Flip it to "Yes they are" and you have the prior "fired by racist" example. People will naturally not try to be hired by said business/person, and many will outright avoid the business' products. Which if taken far enough would get the racist to atleast think before he/she acts.

3) You laid out a really nice argument. Outside of the one thing presented above, I'd say I agree on all counts. It's definitely there, I just don't like how it was pointed out.

MetroidJunkie

2010-12-18 08:58:31 pm

I don't blame Retro Studios. I blame Sakamoto for not explaining the story better, leaving people to wild conclusions unless they saw the manga. Nintendo of America is arguably worse as the US doesn't have an official copy of the manga like Japan does, making it worse on their part that they didn't compensate for this.

sabata2

2010-12-18 09:00:41 pm

ANKOKU

AAAAND, scene.

That was a fun little debate while it lasted.
*extends hand for a shake*

Now then...

****in' trilogy retcon, how does that work?

MetroidJunkie

2010-12-18 09:06:05 pm

*Shake*

You could say it's something of a retcon since Sakamoto obviously disagrees with how Retro portrayed her but I think this new Samus could work. Now, if only he could explain the story better and iron out the game bugs (Pixel hunts and shoulder cam slow walks are annoying), then I think he could make this shine. Personally, I hope the next game has more focus on the Chozo. Their absence in this game was one of my irks.

tomatobob

2010-12-18 09:09:39 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Quote from sabata2:

It's definitely there, I just don't like how it was pointed out.

Oh yeah, it could have been done better, but it did catch some people's attention. More so than a more generic review would have, and that might really have been the point. Just to get people thinking about it, I can't fault that too much I guess.

Turtle

2010-12-19 09:48:40 am

I like turtles.

Quote from MetroidJunkie:

You could say it's something of a retcon since Sakamoto obviously disagrees with how Retro portrayed her but I think this new Samus could work.

I really couldn't say whether this Samus is a good one or not, since the situation wasn't handled well. I wouldn't mind having more glimpses into her mind, like in Fusion. And I really never minded her taking orders from Adam like that (unless we're talking about her not activating the Varia Suit or Space Jump, which are both harmless in and of themselves). I didn't even mind the monologues, although they could have been better written. Those who know my and my stance on the game know that the only scene I can outright condemn is the Ridley cutscene.

But if having her show fear is so very important, then instead of making her have a panic attack during that one scene, I would've done it over the course of the game - like, after the Zebesian clones were introduced. It wouldn't have been hard to show Samus suspecting Ridley's presence as well, expressing her misgivings about the situation from that point up until she see's El Pollo Loco's empty shell in Sector 3. Then when Ridley actually shows his ugly face, show a flashback or something of Ridley attacking K-2L to at least give some background. Have Adam calm her down or something, which would also go a long way toward reducing the fanbase's hatred of him. Then commence with the @$$kicking, ideally using the scenario I detailed earlier, the one where Samus and Anthony team up, and once Ridley "kills" Anthony, have Adam authorize the Plasma Beam. For full effect, don't start playing Ridley's theme for the boss music until that happens.

...I just need to write a fan fiction, don't I?

[quote="MetroidJunkie"]
You could say it's something of a retcon since Sakamoto obviously disagrees with how Retro portrayed her but I think this new Samus could work.[/quote]
I really couldn't say whether this Samus is a good one or not, since the situation wasn't handled well.  I wouldn't mind having more glimpses into her mind, like in [i]Fusion[/i].  And I really never minded her taking orders from Adam like that (unless we're talking about her not activating the Varia Suit or Space Jump, which are both harmless in and of themselves).  I didn't even mind the monologues, although they could have been better written.  Those who know my and my stance on the game know that the only scene I can outright condemn is the Ridley cutscene.

But if having her show fear is so very important, then instead of making her have a panic attack during that one scene, I would've done it over the course of the game - like, after the Zebesian clones were introduced.  It wouldn't have been hard to show Samus suspecting Ridley's presence as well, expressing her misgivings about the situation from that point up until she see's El Pollo Loco's empty shell in Sector 3.  Then when Ridley actually shows his ugly face, show a flashback or something of Ridley attacking K-2L to at least give some background.  Have Adam calm her down or something, which would also go a long way toward reducing the fanbase's hatred of him.  Then commence with the @$$kicking, ideally using the scenario I detailed earlier, the one where Samus and Anthony team up, and once Ridley "kills" Anthony, have Adam authorize the Plasma Beam.  For full effect, don't start playing Ridley's theme for the boss music until that happens.

...I just need to write a fan fiction, don't I?

Baron Dante

2010-12-19 02:36:09 pm

Quote:

At the end of Zero Mission, he's already back as a robot. I doubt Samus would be surprised at him becoming a cyborg later on.

Although that Robot was just a Robot, not Ridley himself -.-

Quote:

If Sakamoto was in charge in the Prime series, things might have ended differently. I'll admit, I said some very stupid things but can we leave it at this? Sakamoto's vision of Samus was obviously on a completely different route than what Retro Studios had in mind. If you ask me, Nintendo of America is just as much at fault since Sakamoto had the benefit of the manga being available in Japan. Nintendo of America didn't consider that America doesn't have an equivalent and, thus, translated it without even attempting to explain why Samus is like that.

Retro Studios became first. Thusly, Sakamoto would have to do with what Retro left for him. It can be said that the manga came, she was traumatized, then few years later (IIRC) she went to Zebes quite confident and without no apparent fear towards Ridleys or anything, which leads straight to Zero Mission (Also contains a major part of it) where she is not shown with fear.

Quote:

Nintendo of America is arguably worse as the US doesn't have an official copy of the manga like Japan does, making it worse on their part that they didn't compensate for this.

Too bad NoA just can't decide to publish it. If they didn't get rights for it and/or thought it wouldn't make good profit, it would be waste.

I have to commend you for great patience on defending the game. :P Not many would be that patient for too many things.

[quote]At the end of Zero Mission, he's already back as a robot. I doubt Samus would be surprised at him becoming a cyborg later on.[/quote]

Although that Robot was just a Robot, not Ridley himself -.-

[quote]If Sakamoto was in charge in the Prime series, things might have ended differently. I'll admit, I said some very stupid things but can we leave it at this? Sakamoto's vision of Samus was obviously on a completely different route than what Retro Studios had in mind. If you ask me, Nintendo of America is just as much at fault since Sakamoto had the benefit of the manga being available in Japan. Nintendo of America didn't consider that America doesn't have an equivalent and, thus, translated it without even attempting to explain why Samus is like that.[/quote]

Retro Studios became first. Thusly, Sakamoto would have to do with what Retro left for him. It can be said that the manga came, she was traumatized, then few years later (IIRC) she went to Zebes quite confident and without no apparent fear towards Ridleys or anything, which leads straight to Zero Mission (Also contains a major part of it) where she is not shown with fear.

[quote]Nintendo of America is arguably worse as the US doesn't have an official copy of the manga like Japan does, making it worse on their part that they didn't compensate for this.[/quote]

Too bad NoA just can't decide to publish it. If they didn't get rights for it and/or thought it wouldn't make good profit, it would be waste.

I have to commend you for great patience on defending the game. :P Not many would be that patient for too many things.

UchihaSasuke

2010-12-21 12:11:21 am

my umbrella goes directly to Bankai

the manga didn't even exist when mp1 was made so the damage would be there anyway.

Quote from MetroidJunkie:

For someone who "doesn't know about Samus", Ridley sure is glaring at her pretty intensely when he's "little birdie". The game never said Ridley has no memory.

he cannot have any memory since he's not the original one. the only way would be to tell him or teach him past events but no one knew it was him until he evolved. even melissa tells samus that the feds thought he had no bioweapon potential at his initial stage.

if you died and your body was fully reduced to dust but someone kept some blood and cloned you, would you be able to know anything your former self knew without having someone tell you?

Opium

2010-12-21 12:20:30 am

I think the time has come to cut and paste this thread to MDb.

kesvalk

2011-01-11 03:43:41 pm

Indie Lover

i can't believe this disscussion -_-
depressing...