Metroid

So rando topic, does anyone have voice actors in mind when they read the Manga?

For maximum irony points, I headcanon Mother Brain with Jennifer Hale's voice.

The Renegade Control ending with Fem Shep is exactly the voice I imagine for Mother Brain.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Feb 4th 2023 at 12:38:07 PM

A common theory is that he's from Bryyo, a planet in Prime 3, since the golems in the ruins greatly resemble him. What we know of Bryyo is that it underwent a war between the Lords of Science and the Primals, and all that's left of their civilization are the devolved Reptilicus. Aside from that we don't know much about how Kraid came to be or how he figures into the Space Pirates.

Anyway, I finally got and finished Metroid Dread. Geez that was much harder than any other Metroid game I've played. Towards the latter half I was actually missing the EMMIs and dreading the inevitable boss rooms.

I headcanon that Kraid reproduces by asexual budding and that's where the little Kraid comes from in Super. It's the simplest answer, though that doesn't mean it's the best one.

Voice actors: Jennifer Hale voiced Samus in the Prime trilogy, even tough it was 99% grunts, but since then I've had her as my default voice for Samus. I go back and forth on Mother Brain all the time. I often settle on Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, but I'm sure there would be some effect added to make her sound mechanical and I'm not sure what that would make McGlynn sound like. I also think it's a good idea to give Weavel a bigger role. Really, the only named pirates we have are Mother Brain and Ridley, assuming that Kraid isn't a commander or anything. Give Weavel a role so the others have another character to play off of. I picture him being voiced by Michael Ironside.

As to Ridley, Scott McNeil doing his Dinobot voice. 100%. It's important for Ridley to both be brutal and sadistic AND intelligent. Dinobot is really close. He isn't sadistic, but he does have a brutal streak and is always the first to suggest straight up murdering the enemy. He is also contemplative, and I think a Ridley that stops to reflect on issues gives him more depth than a guy who does nothing but talk about how cool it is is to kill. He will still have fun killing, but he needs to have more depth beyond that. Like, following Samus' defeat of him in Metroid 1/Zero Mission, he can have this steadily growing obsession that he has to kill Samus, because it's his fault she's alive at all, and he's responsible for everyone who died at her hand. Plus, that voice already sounds like it comes out a of a dinosaur/dragon.

Edited by WillKeaton on Feb 5th 2023 at 11:43:30 AM

I imagine Alesia Glidewell when I read Samus's monologues and such myself, though if Nikki García gets a chance to voice Samus in future Metroid games, her voice will probably supplant it.

Ditto on 's Mother Brain and Ridley voices for the same exact reasons, actually.

Edited by RacattackForce on Feb 5th 2023 at 2:09:32 PM

On Ridley having any kind of depth besides being an evil murdering space dragon, I do recall some old lore that said somewhere that Ridley is actually one of the few surviving members of his race because the Galactic Federation launched an extermination campaign on them for reasons.

That was back in the late 2000s IIRC.

Could have been fan lore or something.

If nothing else, Ridley's species is probably going to stay extinct as an excuse to not bring him or an Expy of him back.

They seem to want to move on from the past with new antagonists.

Yeah, I wonder what kind of antagonists they'll go with moving forward.

I'm excited. Like Other M relied too much on that Super Metroid nostalgia but Metroid Dread had the perfect balance between old and new.

I've never heard anything about Ridley's race being exterminated by the Federation, but there is a line from the original Metroid manual that says "It's the original life form of the planet Zebes," which I'm pretty sure is just mistranslated nonsense.

I do hope we get a new antagonistic faction in Prime 4. And based on the endings to Corruption and Federation Force, it'll probably be connected to Sylux.

Sylux, Sylux's backup dancers, and the inexplicably hyper-dangerous fauna of this random planet in the middle of nowhere.

Really, if they just make a faction with Sylux's general asthetic, they could roll with that. Sylux doesn't even need to be the Big Bad, just The Heavy.

The main games will probably never see Ridley and the Space Pirates ever again, but I'd be shocked if the Prime titles don't leverage the fact that they take place before Metroid II for all its worth and Prime 4 avoids using them for even a section or two.

Edited by RacattackForce on Feb 5th 2023 at 10:09:38 AM

What if we met another of Ridley's species and they're just a really nice dragon just lounging around in the boss room

It turns out their language is composed entirely of roars, fireballs and stabs, and Samus just doesn't have a translator.

Funnily enough, in the old Captain N Game Master comics, one member of Ridley's species is a respected Judge in the Federation.

Oh, I know this one. Racklas was a Federation judge, and Mother Brain's forces switched him out for Ridley, and somehow Samus was the only one who recognized there was a change. Then Ridley had Samus and Lana thrown in prison. This was chronicled in "Breakout."

Hard to say for sure what kind of people we're going to get in Prime 4, even assuming they're connected to Sylux, but in Metroid: Samus and Joey, one of the antagonists is a group called the Dominion, who are known as arms dealers, and are known for developing new cutting-edge weapons to sell, up to and including a copy power suit, and a robot designed to beat Samus based on her tech. I'm imagining the guys Sylux works with will be similar in nature to these guys, but that's a shot in the dark. Also, on the topic of Ridley's people, the final antagonists of that manga is the Greed Corps, which is led by Greed, who is a member of the same race as Ridley.

Edited by WillKeaton on Feb 5th 2023 at 8:23:01 AM

The downfall of Ridley's species is probably tied to his own genetic memory.

Imagine every generation you have more than double the amount of Ridleys running around.

Eventually you got a few in positions of power and There Can Be Only One and the resulting war leads to an extinction event.

I checked the Japanese manual, and in Ridley's description it says he's "A native creature to planet Zebes, being controlled by Mother Brain." (惑星ゼーベスの先住生物で、マザーブレインによってコントロールされている。) So the English manual is not mistranslated (though awkwardly worded), but it was retconned by every later game starting with Super Metroid whose manual describes Ridley as the top commander of the Space Pirates.

Makes you wonder if Ridley ever planned to backstab Mother Brain at one point.

I'm not sure he would, he seems the kind of guy who'd only betray his boss if said boss asked him to stop killing for sport. She'd give him missions like 'go to this space colony and reenact your favorite slasher movie' and he'd happily do so because he likes finger painting with intestines and blood.

It continues to ASTONISH ME that a seemingly wild beast with seemingly no characterization in the games is such a complex and developed character that even years later is being discussed.

It's thanks to his memorable intro in Super Metroid, and minimalist cast.

Why else would the Manga give both Ridley and Mother Brain a connection to Samus's backstory?

Fair point. He did seem fine with following her in the Manga.

I mean, they say he's the leader of the pirates, or at least A leader alongside Mother Brain, so he has to have some leadership abilities, right? Otherwise he's just a wild animal or a dumb brute.

I headcanon that when Ridley and Mother Brain first formed their alliance they both had contingency plans to kill the other in the event of betrayal, but over the years they found they worked really well together and actually enjoyed the other's company.

Edited by WillKeaton on Feb 5th 2023 at 8:32:25 AM

Meanwhile, poor Kraid is just sitting there, wondering when someone will retcon him into someone cool too. It's a minimalist cast, so it has to happen at sometime, right?

X7 Ah, the surprisingly well-written Valiant comics tie-in to Captain N, that actually knew who Samus was, unlike the TV show. Even if they did have a grown-ass woman lusting after a teenage boy...

Edited by Dracoblade on Feb 5th 2023 at 11:08:13 AM

The way I see it, Mother Brain promised Ridley all the carnage in the galaxy if he gives her the resources needed for galactic domination. And Ridley accepted because he enjoys killing and would love to do it on a bigger scale. It's like Cobra Commander and Zartan. Or Megatron and Lockdown. Or Palpatine and Cad Bane. One side hungers for world domination, while the other side doesn't care as long as they get paid and do dangerous missions.

Edited by Shadao on Feb 5th 2023 at 11:36:17 AM

If he was added the cast would stop being minimalist so no.

The Space Pirates were an odd bunch. It was never even made clear if it was a bunch of different races banded together or if there was a single Space Pirate race that was just really into performing experiments on their own bodies.

There's also the question of how the hell they recruited an extradimensional Eldritch Abomination (Phantoon) into their ranks.

And if they are all one species, then it's possible that Ridley and Kraid are simply particularly heavily modified Space Pirates.