What better way to kick off the new year than with a piece of found media? The long-lost 2D pilot episode of Mega Man: Fully Charged, produced by Man of Action (Ben 10, Generator Rex) and animated by Film Roman, has surfaced at last. Until now, only brief snippets had been seen nearly a decade ago, before the project was retooled by DHX Media / WildBrain Studios into a CG-animated series.
The 21-minute pilot showcases a number of differences from the final series, spanning animation style, character designs, voice acting, music, and even a slightly heavier tone. Where Fully Charged ultimately skewed toward very young viewers, this pilot feels more squarely aimed at an elementary to middle school audience.
We know a fair amount about Fully Charged’s production history, including early plans for a second season, but the reason it moved from traditional animation to CG has never really been explained. For now, all we can do is speculate.
I didn't like either. Too bad they didn't actually produce a Mega Man show. For it be Mega Man, he has to be more than a "blue guy". They threw away the entire supporting cast besides Dr. Light. This doesn't represent any of the previous Mega Man series in any way, shape or form. It's way too different to be Mega Man.
ReplyDeleteEh, having new characters doesn't automatically make a show bad. I actually thought Bert Wily was the best part of Fully Charged; he was the only character who seemed to have any brains on top of having consistently organic struggles and victories. Plus, Mega Man has had a bunch of spinoffs already. Why is it OK for Mega Man Legends to throw out the entire supporting cast, but not Fully Charged?
DeleteThere are much more practical reasons for why Fully Charged turned out to be such a terrible spinoff.
I absolutely hated Fully Charged in its entirety... but this... this is a genuinely good pilot episode.
ReplyDeleteWe were robbed of a charming Mega Man spinoff. How did it all go so wrong? What happun, Matt McMuscles?
Eh, still not feeling it.
ReplyDeleteI'm not usually interested in leaving comments on this site, but I think this is a pretty good opportunity to give my two cents on adaptations like this. I never really watched the show, but I see this particular pilot as generally pretty harmless. I've never really resonated with the hate people often give to anything that's different to the original media a franchise is associated with. Like, I enjoy the Sonic games lore, but I also think alternative Sonic lores like the Archie series and SatAM can be considered good by their own merits too. Different adaptations of a series existing isn't a threat, it's just another take. DMC is another example, I vastly prefer the games lore but I actually enjoyed the Netflix adaptation too. It's not canon to the games, and I don't think it's doing anything wrong by going in its own unique direction. When you treat it as its own thing instead of constantly comparing it to the games, it's honestly pretty good.
ReplyDeleteMega Man seems to get this kind of hate directed at it a lot too, and I've never really been able to figure it out. Different doesn't have to mean bad, and I can definitely see myself as really enjoying this series if it continued being like this and released while I was a kid. It's got that same sort of appeal as like, Ben 10 and Code Lyoko. In reality I would have been grown up by the time this released anyway, but my point is that it could fill that same sort of role for the younger generations. I'm actually somewhat curious what this show could have ended up fleshing out into if they had stuck with this art style and storyline and gave it a few seasons to develop the plot up through.
Louder for people in the back!
DeleteI've always been of the opinion that if we just got something that was true to the source material, some fans might be more accepting of odd stuff like this.
DeleteLike, the closest there's ever been to a Classic Mega Man anime or cartoon (Upon a Star aside) has been the Ruby Spears series, which... I love it, but I also recognize that it is VERY different from the games.
The only other ones to get animated series were the two parts of the BN/SF timeline. BN was fairly true to the feel of the games at first, then deviated into henshin mania, then kind of split the difference with SF after, which was true to the feel *because* it was henshin.
But Classic-X-Zero-ZX-Legends has yet to get anything like that. Instead, we got Captain N, the aforementioned Ruby Spears, and Fully Charged, which feels halfway between Classic, Captain N, and being its own thing.
I wondered that too until I happened upon a YouTuber who put it an interesting way: Mega Man isn't really a singular brand like Sonic. Mega Man's fanbase is splintered in as many directions as there are subfranchises. Classic, X, Zero, ZX, Legends, Battle Network, Star Force, each potentially have their own communities around them that only want more of their flavor. That's the big difference between the Mega Man and Sonic communities.
Delete...That and the Sonic community at least gets over itself enough to try new things.
@LBD 'Nyterayn' The thing about Mega Man Classic is that it doesn't really have much story to begin with for an animated adaptation to be faithful towards. There's some basic lather rinse repeat plot elements and some basic character roles and personalities and such, but beyond that the series is focused on the raw gameplay first and foremost. "Dr. Wily is doing bad things again, go stop him!". I suppose there is the (unfortunately canceled) Archie comics series that was doing a pretty decent job of feeling like a good adaptation of the games, but even that did have its differences. I wouldn't be against that getting an animated series, but I don't think that's really what you're asking for, or that what you are asking for is really something doable. There needs to be more substance injected into what little we have to work with from the games, and the very act of injecting that substance in is going to be treated as a betrayal by the purists anyway. This is one of the big reasons why many animated adaptations just go ahead and do their own thing anyway.
DeleteX, Zero, ZX, and Legends give a lot more to work with to do a faithful animated adaptation of the storyline from the games, and I always have felt like Capcom was sitting on a gold mine and doing nothing with it regarding that. Legends in particular although technically a part of the same timeline is kinda just doing its own thing so that could be its own individual series, but X, Zero, and ZX are connected enough to be included in the same series across different seasons. The Archie comics were doing a neat sort of thing where it would flash forward to the X series timeframe and then connect that to what was going on in the Classic series timeframe. A similar thing could probably be done with an animated adaptation focusing on the X series by using the Classic series as a sort of background lore, and those core themes could also be used to connect it to Zero and ZX as well. For instance, leaning into Dr. Light and Dr. Ciel sharing the same dream for the future.
What little animated content we do have for these series such as Day of Σ and the commercials for the Zero/ZX games and the ZX series animated cutscenes have always had me convinced that faithful animated adaptations would be a really great way to bring these stories to life in a way that's more accessible to those less interested in the games. That being said, if they did decide to go a bit of a different direction with it to make it stand out rather than just being a 1 to 1 retelling, I'd be willing to be open minded about it and decide later whether I enjoy it as a standalone take. To go back to my DMC example from earlier, the DMC: Devil May Cry game is generally bad (or at least not really particularly good) in regards to its story in my opinion, but I do enjoy the gameplay. As a standalone take on the franchise I generally feel rather mixed towards it as they had a lot of good and innovative ideas from a gameplay standpoint but the story feels more generic and tries way too hard to nail that angsty 2000's vibe without really seeming to understand what made that vibe or the original DMC games popular to begin with. Different doesn't necessarily mean bad but it's not mutually exclusive either, so I'd hope that the bigger takeaway people get from me is to be open minded towards original takes rather than blindly supportive of them. I do believe that faithful adaptations can be good when there's enough to work with from the source material, but I don't believe that adaptations have to be faithful to be good or valid.
I'm not sure if I agree with the assessment of this having a heavier tone aimed at an older audience. The art style might be different, but the writing feels exactly the same as the final show.
ReplyDeleteWow, over 20 years later and I'm still out here figuring out Mega Man Voice Actors. Below is by no means a definitive list, but here's what I've figured out so far based on recognizability.
ReplyDeleteMegaMan/Aki Light - Max Mittelman
MegaMini -
Suna Light - Laura Bailey
Dr. Light - Fred Tatasciore
ElecMan - Steve Blum
Bert Wily -
TurbineMan - Travis Willingham
Sergeant Night -
GargantuMan - Roger Craig Smith
Seems to be a lot of folks that were working on the 2016 reboot of Ben 10, which would have been around the same time that this pilot was being produced. If anyone has any ideas for who the other characters might be, feel free to chime in!
The designs look far better in 2D than 3D, however, I totally see why they went with CG animation looking at how cheap it looks in motion (no such thing as "in-model" in this pilot), not even the later seasons of Ben 10 looked so janky
ReplyDeleteWell all I care about is the fact a MM12 and maybe more games could be coming out. The Ruby Spears MM I remember in the 90s was interesting, but if they do a MM cartoon, how about anime style and serious tone like the cutscenes we see in the PSX or even PSX2 or ZX games and actually tie it to the game storylines.
ReplyDeleteTbh, I am a fan of both This pilot and the final show, but if I were to keep anything from this, it would be that awesome Elec Man design.
ReplyDeleteI speculate that the reason why the show went from 2D to CGI was at least partially because we fans made sure to signal that the show was a brand risk through and through. From attacking the concept art, to the basic premise, and even adapting (heh heh) the Sonic fandom's fears about Sonic Boom as our own towards this show. Unlike Sega, though, there was nothing ever said about this series replacing Mega Man's legacy, but was all about creating something new with it.
ReplyDeleteThis show was not aimed at us. Neither this pilot nor the final product were. It was made for new fans, and it ended up awfully characteristic of us as a community to reject it so harshly.
I loved the direction it was going! Aki in the pilot is so quirky and I adore it! I immediately recognized the voice since I watched Future Avengers. I would've loved this if it weren't changed to CG animation.
ReplyDeleteAki and Suna Light are originally going have a Ben & Gwen Tennyson like sibling rivalry relationship. I am glad they dropped that & changed into it’s own thing in the final version.
ReplyDelete