This week, Sonic the Hedgehog fans will get a chance to check out Sonic Prime, an all-new animated series set in the same universe as the video games from Sega. It’s a bold new take on the source material, and readers interested can check out our review right here. We also got a chance to talk with Sonic’s new voice actor Deven Mack, as well as executive producer Logan McPherson. In an interview with ComicBook, the two offered a lot of interesting details about the show’s development, and how this series differs from other takes on the property.
For those unfamiliar with Sonic Prime, the new series sees Sonic exploring the “Shatterverse,” where Sonic’s familiar friends and foes are quite different from the ones fans have come to expect. While Sonic is still the same hero players see in games like Sonic Frontiers, these versions of his friends have never had a Sonic in their lives to inspire or help them. As a result, Tails has become a jaded scientist named “Nine,” while Amy Rose has been captured and transformed into the dangerous Rusty Rose.
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Keep reading to see our interview with Deven Mack and Logan McPherson!
Sonic’s Voice
ComicBook: Deven, you’re voicing Sonic in the same year as Ben Schwartz and Roger Craig Smith, two actors that have a long history with the character. Was that hard for you, and did their takes influence your approach?
Deven Mack: I would say there’s a little bit of everything that’s influencing what I’ve got going on here, because I know there’s such a rich legacy of this character and everybody has their expectations. So there’s no one individual that I focus on. It’s just everything, and then adding my own little unique spin dash on top of that. But at the same time, I honestly love the fact that they are both continuing to voice the character. I think that they’re both doing a phenomenal job, and I love that there’s different areas within the franchise that just everybody can enjoy. There’s just so much Sonic going on. There’s a lot of Sonic for everybody, and I’m just really happy to see it.
Canon
Logan, this series takes place in the continuity of the video games. What was the motivation for doing that?
Logan McPherson: Yeah, it’s a great point. It’s first and foremost, it is canon and it does draw upon the existing mythology from the games. And we work very closely with Sega creatively to establish that. We obviously want to bring a new audience into that mythology and introduce them to the amazing 30-year history that has been established over the years, but also launch a new story that can take the characters and the situations to very unexpected places. So we really use the mythology as a springboard to create that familiarity for fans that have grown up with the games or are still fans today, and then create some unexpected twists and turns that take us to new and undiscovered places that a really broad audience can enjoy.
Guest stars
Last year, writer Duncan Rouleau hinted that the multiverse concept could lead to other Sega crossovers. Is that still something we might see at some point in the series?
Logan: There’s nothing in the works from our side at this point, but I could tell you, I think everybody involved with the project from Sega and WildBrain and Man of Action that we would love to continue telling more stories in a similar fashion.
Excellent. Now, is there any characters that you would love to bring in? And that’s a question for both you and Deven. Is there anybody that you think like, “Oh my God, it would be so cool if we could bring in this Sega character or that Sega character?”
Logan: For me personally, they have such a laundry list of amazing characters. I would love to see Chaotix in there. Silver is a character that I love there. There’s just a million super interesting characters that I think would lend themselves to the style of storytelling, which really is an elevated narrative that really pushes the emotional landscape and explores new aspects to these already amazingly established characters. So there’s a ton of stuff in there that we would love to look at and bring to the table, and obviously saying it’s going to have a very loud and strong voice in that as well.
Deven: Yeah, for me, as somebody who’s earliest attachment to Sonic came through the cartoons, the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, I definitely have a fondness for goofy hench villains. So I know who I’d like to see, but again, who knows what might happen? But yeah, I definitely have my personal favorites going back to that era.
The Multiverse
Now, in Sonic Prime, Sonic bounces through various realities. Did the Marvel Cinematic Universe inspire the series, or was it a happy accident that now casual audiences are more familiar with that storytelling approach?
Logan: Yeah, great question. The multiverse and in our case, the Shatterverse, is very on trend at the moment. We’ve been in production for close to two years, and we’re three years in development prior to that. So in our minds, we are like, “of course, the multiverse has been done and all sorts of content over the years, and Marvel does have a history with that.” But in our minds, we were like, “this feels right for this story.” We certainly weren’t cashing in on any trends that were going on at the time. It was like we really do want to use that mythology and then springboard into a whole new unexpected realm and take these characters to places that’ve never been before. So the Shatterverse really made sense for that storytelling. And then over the years as we’ve been working on it, all of the virtual content was coming out. We’re like, “wow, there you go. At least we’re on point here with what’s in the zeitgeist.”
Shattered takes
Now, Sonic is very much a classic take on Sonic in this series. But because we have this whole Shatterverse concept, the takes on Tails, Knuckles, Amy, they’re all very different from what Sonic fans are used to seeing. Is that a concern for you guys, that people maybe either coming off the movie or coming off the games might go, “well, this isn’t the Tails or Knuckles that I love?”
Logan: Yeah, well, absolutely. Whenever you’re pushing things into a new and at times uncomfortable territory, there’s always a concern that the audience is going to react to that. But what we really tried to do was take fragments of the Prime personalities, and we have the Prime personalities in the beginning and the end unchanged as they are, that in the mythology demands. And then we took, okay, so with these Shatter versions, considering the Shatter as a motif running throughout the series, we looked at aspects of their personalities that we could take and embellish with these Shatter version characters.
And what would happen, how would their evolution change without Sonic having ever been in their lives? And there’s a flashback sequence that we do in 16-bit pixel art style where Sonic recalls meeting Tails for the first time and it’s depicted as is in the game. And then the Shatter version character retells the same story, but Sonic wasn’t there. He’s like, “Well, that happened, but you weren’t there and this is how it affected my life.” So we get to see these parallel realities playing out in real time, and it’s a way to throw a really cherished Easter egg in there, but take it in a whole new direction at the same time.
Genesis influence
The 16-bit flashbacks are great. Is that something that we could see with… if we’re flashing back in future episodes to stuff that take place in the Dreamcast era, is that something that we could expect to see you guys shift to it looking like say a Dreamcast game?
Logan: Yeah, certainly there’s no plans for anything like that, but we have discussed could we treat flashbacks as if they were moments in time from the game catalog and could we actually explore different styles? It’s something we talked about as we were developing the series, because a lot of… Sonic has these memories, flashbacks, to his Prime friends who he misses throughout this journey. They’re essentially taken away from them. So it’s something that we definitely just explored. Could we actually pull from different styles throughout the timeline in terms of the game catalog? And we settled where we did with going back to that 16-bit style. But that isn’t to say that we wouldn’t consider exploring that again in the future.
Selling Sonic fans
Now, Sonic the Hedgehog fans have a bit of a reputation of being really hardcore. For this, and this is for both of you guys, is there something that you’d like to say to them? Is there some way that you’d like to pitch this series to them, why they would love this show?
Logan: Yeah. Well, first and foremost, we really wanted to bring the out of control action dynamic back to the Sonic franchise in terms of television series. We love all the past versions of the shows that have been done, and there’s little nods to I think all of them in this. But when Sega Genesis came out, they had innovated in such a way with the graphics. And I just, as a kid, growing up with it myself, the dynamism in the action is one thing that really I thought was so cool, and it’s something we really wanted to honor and push.
So the choreography and the action sequences honor all of his legacy moves, and we make combinations of them throughout. And it really helped us push the staging and the choreography and the cinematography in those sections to really like, “Okay, let’s shoot it like a Marvel movie. Let’s shoot it like the most dynamic action sequence we can, but feature all of these classic moves that he’s got throughout the games.” So for us, it was just a really intriguing way to blend what the games have done in their history and bring it into a TV series in a new and fun and exciting way.
Deven: And I think that it’s great that Sonic fans are so passionate and can be so inspired in so many different ways. And I really think that fans are going to love this because it was made with love, because there is so much respect and fondness for the rich history of this character and this world. At the same time, while we’re paying homage to the things that fans know and love, we are introducing new things that through the Shatterverse, that do not replace any of what has previously been established. So I think, again, the fact that these things are kept intact again shows there is a respect there. And it’s just a really neat rollercoaster ride that’s going to go to a lot of places people won’t expect. While again, the things that they know and love will still be there.
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Sonic Prime is set to premiere on Netflix on December 15th.
