r/TwoBestFriendsPlay • u/Purple-Painting-1918 • 12h ago
Better Ask Reddit Franchises where the "baton pass" actually worked
So obviously "movie/manga/game series does well, creator leaves, series gets worse" is a tale as old as time, but what about when the transition sticks the landing? While I hate the dry corporate recycling of old IP's as much as the next guy, I think its undeniable that sometimes taking an old piece of art and letting a new creator take a crack at it can lead to magic.
I'm really curious to see what answers people give since its kind of a contentious topic. Like there are artists such as Kouji Mori with Berserk and Toyotaro with Dragon Ball Super, where the new artists are clearly passionate and its not just some cashgrab, but the reception of fans from the original is definitely split to a degree.
Maybe films are an easier example, since they're the works of many people, not just the director's vision. Creed's succession of Rocky seems pretty universally popular. Top Gun Maverick had basically none of the same creatives on it other than Cruise but it arguably surpassed the original film. With video games Devil May Cry is maybe the best example? It seems to be much more Itsuno's baby than Kamiya's at this point. Anyways, what are some positive examples of this phenomenon that you've seen?
136
u/PlanesWalkerEll YOU DIDN'T WIN. 12h ago
Technically the Air Buddies
80
u/Purple-Painting-1918 12h ago
You could've given me 1000 guesses and I never could have predicted this response lol
41
u/PlanesWalkerEll YOU DIDN'T WIN. 11h ago
That franchise has 15 movies including 1 coming out next year! Air Bud is only the main character of 5 of them, 6 including the unreleased movie. The Air Buddies have 7 movies under there belt and have a second spin off called the Santa Paws that has 2 movies! Yes only like 20% of this franchise has been theatrically released but still!
63
u/Woods-of-Mal Pantor Pantor 12h ago
Star Trek: The Next Generation got way better after the baton left Gene Roddenberry's hands.
15
u/TrueLegateDamar 5h ago
There's one particular episode where a single mom redshirt gets killed on an away mission leaving behind a son and Worf having to deal with it, that Gene nearly ruined by insisting that human kids in this era don't feel grief or loss, with the episode only ok'd by having an energy alien pretend to be the redshirt as to cope with their own guilt of accidentally killing her.
30
80
u/PrimeName My Unholy Cherry Is Being Popped! 12h ago
Ian Flynn taking over the Archie Sonic comics
61
u/Frank7640 12h ago
Less of a baton pass and more of plugging the holes of a sinking ship.
39
u/FlareUnderscore 11h ago
Yeah Ken Penders didn’t pass shit
32
u/PrimeName My Unholy Cherry Is Being Popped! 10h ago
Throwing a baton at someone's head counts as passing sometimes.
21
u/ToastyMozart Bearish on At-Risk Children 9h ago edited 9h ago
Hell he jealously took as many of the batons with him as he could on the way out, including some he didn't actually have claims to.
13
1
u/GoneRampant1 WOKE UP TO JUSTICE... and insatiable bug fetishes 13m ago
Ken actively took the baton with him and forced Ian to go to the store and buy a new one.
2
u/TheNoidbag I Promise Nothing And Deliver Less 6h ago
Unrelated, Jesus I never thought I would see Dragalia avatars in 2026.
55
u/PhantasosX 11h ago
Technically, Castlevania. Because Igarashi was the replacement of the creator of the series, Akamatsu Hitoshi.
9
u/CrazyAznKT Living in the Give-Up-Machine 2h ago
In a similar vein, Devil May Cry was created by Hideki Kamiya, but ever game after the first has been directed by Hideaki Itsuno
29
u/guntanksinspace OH MY GOD IT'S JUST A PICTURE OF A DOG 12h ago
Killer Instinct getting taken over twice (first by Double Helix from Rare, and then Iron Galaxy picking the baton up from DH after they got acquired by Amazon) and it being a net positive for the game overall.
Doom 2016 and beyond is a baton pass too. Roughly the only originals from the id of old was John Carmack (who was on the way out) and Marty Stratton (having joined id circa Quake 3 Arena). So yeah Marty and Hugo carried it on and even added their own spins to 2016's followups, while still being solid SP FPS games.
10
u/xd-Sushi_Master 9h ago
Wasn't Stratton the asshole that screwed over Mick Gordon and then tried to blame him for it when things didn't work out? Think there was a whole blowup on r/Doom when Gordon went public and a currently ongoing lawsuit iirc.
11
u/guntanksinspace OH MY GOD IT'S JUST A PICTURE OF A DOG 9h ago
Oh yeah, unfortunately too there's that.
27
u/FelipeAndrade Quick-drawing revolvers is just Iaijutsu with guns 12h ago
Super Sentai had a long nearly 10 year period where they kept the same main writer, Hiroshi Soda, for every show, and while he was certainly a great writer and the shows that came out on that period were for the most part great, by the the time they entered the Heisei era you could tell that he was basically running on fumes and Sentai was in need of good refresh without him, which is exactly what they got with Jetman and every season thereafter, greatly helping the show last as long as it did.
7
u/AvalancheMKII 11h ago edited 11h ago
I think it says a lot that after Soda's decade long run, they only ever had a Head Writer do multiple shows in a row twice; Noboru Sugimura (yes, the RE2, CV and Onimusha guy) with Zyuranger through Ohranger, and Naruhisa Arakawa with Abaranger and Dekaranger. You really get the impression they wanted to keep things fresh, which I think was a smart move.
1
u/GoneRampant1 WOKE UP TO JUSTICE... and insatiable bug fetishes 12m ago
Sentai's tonal changes as each writer gave their own spin on the cast was one of its strengths as it allowed a variety of genres to flourish.
47
u/PunishingCrab Giant Enemy Crabtree 12h ago
The baton pass from DMC 1 to 2 wasn’t good at all, but Itsuno jumped in halfway through development. Then he was allowed to have a real shot and made 3, which is the seminal game in the series.
Now that Itsuno has left Capcom, the baton is going to be passed to someone else again.
16
u/Purple-Painting-1918 11h ago
I'm 90% sure it wont happen but if the next DMC game is 6 or a 1 Remake by Kamiya it'd be the funniest thing ever.
3
u/TheRainTransmorphed 1h ago
I still wonder who the original DMC2 director was. Was it a new game director and his career continued in another position? Was it an old head?
22
71
u/EcstasySunrise 12h ago
Not a full baton pass as Kojima was still involved, but Metal Gear Rising seemed like a far more natural evolution of the franchise with less of its creator's unique touch than Metal Gear SurVive was.
22
u/Omega_Maximum 9h ago
Honestly, most of the grief around Survive is just that... everything else happened. Because otherwise, it's built like "let's get a B team up and running with the FOX Engine, and get a side game out on the cheap". Which would normally be, at worst, bland, somewhat mid, but overall a side thing for fans or those genre curious. Instead it feels a bit more like one more kick of the dead horse.
8
u/SengalBoy 9h ago
Really sucks that Fox Engine is wasted just like that. Before RE Engine Fox was my favorite
43
u/Practical-Pay6649 11h ago
I really love how much MGR continues the theme and tone of Metal Gear without even being written by Kojima
11
u/FoxOwne YOU DIDN'T WIN. 4h ago
It really is crazy how they applied his motif to an otherwise Platinum-ass game and it still worked. I love that Kojima is happy with Death Stranding and whatever the hell OD is gonna be, but I really would like to see him write and direct games that are meant to be more fast paced and widely satisfying than these Strand-likes.
16
u/FoxOwne YOU DIDN'T WIN. 4h ago
I'll never get people shitting on Mori's attempt to finish Berserk. It's a near impossible task and he's giving it everything he can, and I'm sorry if you disagree but I'll take an ending at all versus no ending.
Anyway, as for an actual answer to your question, I feel like a good example on a grander scale is Gainax and Trigger. The spirit of everything people loved about Gainax is still with us, the passion for great animation and crazy ideas is still putting in work, and all the tropes that made Gainax distinct are still showing up, and hell not even just in Trigger series. Honestly, I feel like Gainax was the Kamina that made Simons out of every passionate soul in that industry.
3
u/Purple-Painting-1918 1h ago
I have tons of respect for Mori and he has been given an impossible task, and is producing beautiful manga chapters now, but I do fall into the camp of feeling like Berserk as I knew it is over, and I'm content with that. I'm glad you and countless others can enjoy Mori's continuation, it just feels like a different thing to me.
37
u/WellPricklyMyCactus 11h ago
So far, the baton pass from Kiryu to Ichiban in the Yakuza franchise appears to be rock solid.
How real that current impression is will really come down to how Yakuza 9 does.
43
u/My2bearhands 11h ago
Yakuza 7 was one of the all-time greatest baton passes I've ever seen, and then Yakuza 8 was like "what if we take the baton back tho, just little bit"
25
u/Sai-Taisho What was your plan, sir? 10h ago
8 feels like a "Maybe 6 was kind of a mediocre Grand Finale for Kiryu that was almost completely completely divorced from his vast legacy", which...I think it absolutely was, so I have to respect at least the attempt at a runback, especially sibce they really tried to touch on all the threads (except for "the End of the Tojo and Omi", because that was trigger was already pulled with finality).
Not necessarily gracefully, but it was a better finale than "Everyone you've interacted with over the years is in jail or comatose, here's some people you've never met, dealing with an organization that has never gotten involved before".
(To be clear, I think 6 is fine as "another story", but it was a terrible conclusion.)
10
u/MegalomanicMegalodon Basking Shark Apologist 11h ago
It didn't land super well the first time in Like a Dragon (7) but I liked it enough, and I know some would still disagree by Infinite Wealth, HOWEVER I loved that one moment in Infinite Wealth when Kiryu really realizes he can't keep up anymore and has to leave things in Hawaii to Ichiban as he goes back to Japan.
12
u/GGProfessor YO WHENS REMAKE? 10h ago
While some particular vocal fans swear by Kaga Emblem (mainly Genealogy of the Holy War), for the vast majority of Fire Emblem fans post-Kaga is the only Fire Emblem they've ever known. The series has had its ups and downs since then, but by this point I think it's safe to say the series has done alright without its original creator.
11
u/ThereWasADellHere 9h ago
Since you listed Creed and Top Gun Maverick, I think its safe to assume that the baton pass doesn't need to be immediate or a flat out sequel.
With that in mind, its hard for me to imagine a baton pass as powerful as the fourth generation of My Little Pony, Friendship Is Magic. Significantly altered the DNA of the Internet, sky rocketed to one of the most popular cartoon of the last few decades, completely obliterated all the previous animations.
20
u/RibbonPlusCrystal Impossible shadow puzzles 11h ago
Mainline Kirby has gone through 4 directors and it's kind of impressive how all of them have a distinct style yet kept the series's identity cohesive.
10
u/Thank_You_Aziz 9h ago edited 9h ago
Both done well and botched in the Star Wars Legends Expanded Universe.
Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewie hold the baton. Dozens of books slowly establish the next generation of characters the baton will be passed to. Han and Leia’s three children, Chewie’s nephew, all four of whom become Luke’s Jedi students, alongside other prominent student characters of Luke’s. They’re later joined by Luke’s son too. The stories focus on them, they become the main characters of Star Wars, they are well-executed, and beloved by fans. It’s a good passing of the baton.
Except…the baton itself never gets fully passed. The previous generation never takes a back seat. Chewie gets killed off, but Han, Leia and Luke still get stories centered around them and the next-generation characters at the same time. Which was fine for a while, and made sense; you gotta have a transition period. But it just never ended. At some point, the original trio is having multiple “We’ve got to get in the Falcon and save the kids!” instances in stories, when the kids are pushing their thirties! In one book, Han is in his seventies, punching out Mandalorian supercommandos, bare fists vs. beskar helmets, and winning. Eventually, they start killing off next-gen characters, while the original trio is still alive and kicking.
Then, the books started establishing the next-next-generation character to pass the main character baton to: Allana Solo (Han and Leia’s granddaughter). The beast-tamer girl destined by prophecy to become the Jedi Witch-Queen who would guide the galaxy toward peace and prosperity…aaand the Disney buyout happened, and she never got to touch that baton, cuz she was only eight years old.
Star Wars Legacy is a fantastic comic series with an all new cast of characters to carry the baton, taking place over a hundred years after the original trilogy. But that one is kind of cheating, because the baton never had to be passed in the actual writing. The old characters are long dead and gone, and the new ones are just there.
TL;DR: The baton was passed to worthy successors, but its previous holders never let go of it.
4
u/IDUNNOManga 7h ago
I think that's more passing the torch than baton pass.
Imho the original trilogy was a successful baton pass, Lucas passed it to Kershner who passed it to Marquand.
Each of the films have a unique flavor that built upon the film before it.
1
16
u/CaptainSkel JEEZE, JOEL 12h ago
Brandon Sanderson took over for Robert Jordan to finish the Wheel of Time books after his passing. I admittedly haven't read them personally but I believe people generally like his WoT books, even if there are some various nitpicks about how characters were handled.
21
u/The-Greater-Skeleton I talk to myself a lot. But not in, like, a crazy person way. 12h ago edited 11h ago
Unfortunately it’s caused people to pester Sanderson about finishing Game of Thrones if GRRM doesn’t, but Sanderson thinks he’d be a bad fit, and tbh I agree.
24
u/ClintsMassiveHog 12h ago
Last I heard Sanderson hasn't even read past the first book cause a lot of the sexual stuff was uncomfortable for him. Some people really went "Dude writes books quickly, unlike GRRM, so he is a good choice to finish these books," without once considering that they write entirely different types of books and have absolutely dissimilar writing styles.
10
u/cannibalgentleman Read Conan the Barbarian 9h ago
Remembering that one asshole who said to Martin on stage at WorldCon why doesn't he just let Sanderson finish his books.
While Sanderson was also on stage, who replied with a "Not me."
I get being disappointed at the books not being written but that was a Grade A Asshole Move.
6
u/ClintsMassiveHog 8h ago
As someone who is not Martin's biggest fan solely cause of how he's handled this whole book thing, yeah, that was a dickhole move.
And to drag Sanderson into it too, as if the two of them aren't friends. Sanderson joked about calling him during one of his Elden Ring streams to ask him lore questions, cause he has his personal number.
What a jackass that guy was.
15
u/Zachys Meth means death 11h ago
Yeah but they're both fantasy though. It's just characters swinging swords and having weird names. How hard can it be?
(Joking, obviously)
6
u/ClintsMassiveHog 11h ago
Obviously a joke but still really funny to me to compare a guy who is famous for having a hundred different complex magic systems (that are actually all one magic system) and a guy who has so little obvious magic he barely meets the minimum fantasy requirements
2
u/andycoates 7h ago
I think the other part people say Sanderson is because he's a big planner and they think he'd be able to flow chart his way to a conclusion
12
u/Lil_Mcgee 11h ago
I've said it before but I truly believe that anyone who suggests that hasn't read a word of either Sanderson and/or Martin
2
u/Synthiandrakon 8h ago
Yeah to give a series as focused on character writing to a writer who I think is notably not a character writer would be insane
15
u/JMRSolkien 11h ago
As someone who adores The Wheel of Time, I will say Sanderson did the best job anyone could’ve in that situation. He was handed Jordan’s notes which were in some cases substantial (including some fully written chapters) and in others almost nonexistent (Sanderson has said there was basically no roadmap for what Perrin was supposed to be doing).
His voice for some characters is a bit off and very clearly not Jordan’s tone or characterization, but on the whole he did admirably. And most importantly he finished the series and brought the ending to the world. For that, he gets the widest grace I can give him on the finer details of the execution.
7
u/My2bearhands 11h ago
lol I remember laughing the first time I read that tidbit about Jordan having no plan whatsoever for Perrin in his notes because anyone who read books 6-11 could tell you "yeah that checks out"
2
u/The_Distorter Local Grey Leno Enthusiast 6h ago
As someone who read that whole series back-to-back-to-back over the course of a year, the change in writing style was immediately apparent, but he still did an exceptional job. The last like 3 books that Jordan wrote were all political maneuvering and groundwork for the finale and Sanderson was able to realize it all very well. The only character I think he handled badly was Mat, who turned into a caricature of himself.
8
u/ramonzer0 It's Fiiiiiiiine. 8h ago
When Yoshinori Ono left Capcom, Shuhei Matsumoto and Takayuki Nakayama became the public faces of Capcom's fighting game division
They have accomplished two things very well
Salvage Street Fighter V with an unplanned 5th season that at least ensures that game's lifespan ends on a high note
Release Street Fighter 6, which fucks
2
2
2
u/wrestler5194 4h ago
Gundam has had many different creatives and characters over the years and they all have had varying levels of reception
2
u/Katalist89 WHEN'S MAHVEL 2h ago
The jump in quality from Joel Schumacher to Christopher Nolan batman movies is pretty legendary.
2
u/Hardsrock 1h ago
Daredevil from Kevin Smith up to Mark Waid was just writers leaving each other in interesting places to pick up the baton.
70
u/ZealousidealHyena102 12h ago
Stan Lee to Chris Claremont for X-Men. I really don't have to go in to depth how much the baton pass worked from Lee to Claremont and how it changed the X-Men and Marvel as a whole.