Skylanders Acadamy

Yep. There is going to be an animated T.V. series based on the game series, and it's going to be made directly by Activision under their new studio.

They even have Eric Rogers, a writer from Futurama.

I can't say I'm surprised that this game is getting a show. It seems to be pretty popular. A kid's cartoon is inevitable.

About time. I always thought the commercials were pretty charming and felt that the characters would work really well in a full-fledged cartoon.

And with that, I say:

Look at this cast. Justin Long, Ashley Tisdale... Norm Macdonald!

Huh, while I haven't played any of the Skylanders games, this sounds like this could turn out to be a pretty good show with those writers and actors/actresses.

It's oddly funny because the writer they announced to be involved started off in Futurama.

But yes, I too think this could be a good thing. Heck, the only reason I'm not doing Skylanders more often is mostly because my Portal of Power literally died on me. Even when I got new batteries.

I honestly just think this is to promote more $200 toys that lost it's touch with me the moment the second one came out.

Will Spyro be in it as the main character and not just as a one-off marketing gimmick to sell stuff to nostalgic adults?

Spyro and Cynder are gone it seems since there are no new figures of them and their old figures don't seem to be restocked.

I don't get why they used Spyro as a sort of mascot for the original Skylanders since I doubt the target audience they're looking for(Kids) knew much about Spyro. Unless the Legends series ended around when Skylanders started. But even then the Legends games didn't really seem like the kind of games a lot of young kids would be interested in.

I don't have any history with Spyro, nor did I pay particular attention to Skylanders when it debuted, but I kind of always felt that people's reaction to the characters being "reduced to cameos" was overblown. To me, they always felt like cameos. -shrug-

I suspect the lack of figures lately is probably due to lack of sales or something along those lines.

Anyways, I'm looking forward to the cartoon. The commercials for the games were enough to sell me on the concept in the first place. :b

Uggggggggghhhhh, why did Spyro have to get The Other Darrin-ed? Josh Keaton was the best Spyro voice since Tom Kenny! Ah, well, hopefully this next guy will be okay. They'd just better keep Kaos's actor from the games...

As a massive Spyro fan, I'm really hoping this series focuses on Spyro as the main character (like the tie-in comics and novels do). This seems like the kind of series that could really suffer from Loads And Loads Of Characters if the writers try to give every single Skylander equal screentime.

I'm guessing this show will be led by Spyro and Stealth Elf while regular NPCs like Mags and Flynn and Cali serve as "staff", and other characters like Tessa and other Skylanders and/or villains have episodes in the limelight.

(BTW, welcome back to Western Animaton, Invader Zim!)

#10
Legend of Spyro trilogy ended and Skylanders began. The ending of former has the world shattered (not destroyed, heh) into various floating land masses.

Ok, the connection is not outright confirmed, but heavily implied. The main villain of the Legend trilogy, Malefor, has been mentioned in the profiles of various characters.

edited 1st Feb '16 7:54:07 PM by Malco

Malefor actually showed up in the Skylanders comic. He looked exactly the same as in Legend of Spyro (but wearing armor) and mentioned that he'd battled Spyro before, which Spyro himself didn't seem to remember. It's definitely implied that Skylanders is happening after Legend of Spyro, what with Dawn of the Dragon talking about how "the world was remade" and "a new age has begun" and everything. Skylanders Spyro is probably some kinda reincarnation of Legend Spyro. Also, Legend Malefor was last seen being Dragged Off to Hell by dragon spirits, and Skylanders Malefor calls himself "the King of the Underworld." That could be another connection.

My personal theory is that the Legend games happen in the ancient past, and then the classic Spyro games happen thousands of years after them, and then Skylanders happens years after the classic games. Spyro's homeworld in Skylanders is heavily implied to be the worlds from the classic games. The "Machine of Doom" book mentions that Spyro was in Summer Forest when he first met Eon.

The multiple Spyros, Sparxes, Hunters, and Cynders can be Hand Waved as destiny/reincarnation/descendants/whatever.

edited 1st Feb '16 9:08:47 PM by spashthebandragon

Possible that both Cynder and Hex died making them undead who's lived for a long time, and Skylanders Spyro is the reincarnation.

Or that since Malefor (or "a" Malefor, in case he's also a legacy) is still around, I guess the reincarnation works, so the latest Cynder probably just fought Malefor and was saved from certain demise by the latest Spyro.

So this makes Malefor now the Satanic Archetype or performing similar roles to Hades/Thanatos, I guess?

edited 2nd Feb '16 2:31:24 AM by Malco

Well, it'd be yet another example of Everybody Hates Hades, but yeah.

I wonder how the show will handle the toys aspect of Skylanders? The comics just kinda skim over that part, and the way it's done in the video games really opens up a whole lot of Fridge Logic.

One of the trailers for the first game shows some kids finding some Skylanders toys in a smoking, magical crater on Earth. It's implied that all humans are Portal Masters, so they presumably just sent the Skylanders back to Earth (and probably found a Portal of Power toy in the crater, too, since we see one in Eon's Citadel right before Kaos blows it up). Pretty straightforward so far.

But then the second game makes it all really confusing by showing some Skylanders in a toy store in the opening cutscene. Of course, it was just supposed to be a Leaning on the Fourth Wall joke and I'm probably reading way too far into it, but why exactly would the toys be in a polished, official-looking toystore? I'd buy them being in a used toy store or a garage sale or something, but how could they be in a plastic display case exactly like the ones in real life?

And why was Spyro one of the toys in the case? In-universe, the Skylanders are individual people, not a whole race of identical creatures like Pikachu. So... the Portal Master player character turned Spyro back into a toy after the ending cutscene of the first game and then sold him to a toy store?

I can only conclude that once the Skylanders got to Earth, Activision sent a bunch of thugs to round them up from all the kids who happened to stumble across them and then started selling the captured Skylanders in stores across the nation.

Oh my God. It all makes sense. Don't you see? Activision has been in league with Kaos all along!

edited 2nd Feb '16 7:27:55 AM by spashthebandragon

In Trap Team's promos it's just kids finding a portal and toys in the attic of their (presumably Uncle).

In Superchargers' promos it's the Skylanders doing vehicular stunts on Earth along with real-world stunt professionals.

The last one is probably the one that makes the least sense in context so it seems to be the direction they are taking. They'll probably gradually "forget" the toys to life gimmick from now on, save for calling the players as "Portal Masters" because it's always been like that.

I think the Toys To Life is making the Expanded Universe kind of hard to write? Heh heh heh.

That said, they probably put the Kaos toy in a toy store conveniently next to a Portal so he can come back for Giants... :p

edited 2nd Feb '16 5:50:00 PM by Malco

I'm still kind of annoyed someone got my actual Spyro topic locked but his name tends to dominate Skylander threads. How does that even work?

Spyro is effectively finished, he has been replaced by Skylanders. I can accept that. If anything annoys me to see him kept around rather than retired.

Trying to tie the Legend Of and Insomniac trio trilogies into one continuity also rubs me the wrong way. I can see the appeal of both(I didn't get Legend Of's until "Eternal Night") but they're pretty much irreconcilable from both a narrative and game play perspective. I've been told some of the non Insomniac games in between serve as a sort of bridge, from a game play perspective since the latter two have a heavier emphasis on combat, but the latter two are a softer continuity reboot themselves, so that doesn't solve the narrative issue.

Well, yeah, obviously Legend of Spyro has a much darker tone, but so what? Classic Megaman and Megaman X are still the same continuity even though X is a lot darker.

And even if you don't like the "all one timeline" theory, it's still pretty obvious that the Skylanders Spyro is meant to be a Composite Character between his classic and Legends self. He's got the moves (flaming/charging/headbash) and attitude of classic Spyro with the backstory of Legend Spyro. And Sparx has no arms and eats butterflies like his classic self (Heck, they even got the same voice actor back to do his buzzing-noises), but his face looks a lot more like Legend Sparx.

Anyways, out of curiosity, why did your Spyro thread get locked?

edited 3rd Feb '16 7:35:32 AM by spashthebandragon

Okay, here we go. I see no reason Spyro shouldn't have his own thread.

Let's try and keep all the Spyro-centric discussion over there.

I can't really see Justin Long pulling off Spyro that well, if he is the one doing it.

I guess I'm too familiar with the Tom Kenny rendition, I think that one was the best IMO.

Jess Harnell was pretty good too though in Hero's Tail.

I also liked Tom Kenny, but I wasn't a fan of Spyro's higher, scratchier voices in the first game and Hero's Tail and dang it what am I doing I JUST started a new thread for talking about Spyro instead of doing it in the Skylanders thread.

Said Skylanders thread is Giants only and is probably not appropriate to get bumped anyway, unless I'm missing anything. <3

You're welcome to start a new Skylanders thread if you want.

Though talking about the video games in this thread until the TV show comes out is probably okay.

#18

I consider Spyro rebooted at least 3x (Skylanders barely included because of its tenuous relationship with "the ending of" Legends and having Malefor references) so I wouldn't link Insomniac to Sierra to Legends.

I don't see the need to right now, there's nothing much to talk about the Skylanders videogames anyway. This expanded universe stuff might be cool though, when this Academy show comes out. I also may have to check out the plots in the novels or IDW comics.

Unfortunately, I'm not the resident Spyro expert so I can't contribute too much. If only my girlfriend was a troper. And she's kinda busy too.