Mario survived it's movie disaster, because it was still a media juggernaut backed up by some solidly crafted games, not to mention that it was released early on in the Mario lifespan. Sonic's been on shaky ground from the beginning, with some truly terrible games. There are some good games, sure, but historically and even to this day, SEGA regarded Sonic as less of a video game series and more of a great branding opportunity - with some utterly baffling instances of them whoring out the name. It hasn't got that solid consistent foundation that Mario does. Combine that with the fact that we're in the social media age and Sonic fans can be notoriously...passionate about the series, I can't see the franchise as a whole shake off this CG monstrosity in the same way that Nintendo did with the Mario movie.
Name a legitimately bad Mario game. But seriously, I tuned out of the movie hype lately and now I'm thinking there's some hope this will end up being leagues better than a Chipmunks reboot. That's not saying much, but it's gonna be worth it.
Ooh ooh ooh Mario is Missing Mario's Time Machine IIRC the IBM PC port of Donkey Kong is pretty hopeless, and I think there's at least one wonky conversion of (Punch Ball) Mario Bros. to one of the Japanese computers. If your body reacts badly to the Virtual Boy you could argue Mario Clash or Mario's Tennis have the ability to make you physically unwell - there are Sonic games that can give you headaches but I don't know of any that are renowned for motion sickness. Some aren't necessarily "bad" but are symbols of Nintendo's contempt for its audience, e.g. later Mario Party games, Paper Mario post-Thousand Year Door, full price New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe. Re-releasing that original NES Mario Bros. rather than the later revision(s) that let you turn in mid-air. Jury's out on Hotel Mario - I've never played it.
I mean, what's seriously going to happen? People are going to regard Sonic as a laughing stock, still, again? I think that people are forgetting how recent Mania is, and how much of a routine punching bag Sonic has consistently been for God knows how long. Shadow and 06 have already been brought up. Unleashed was, as its biggest fans will never let you forget, excessively harshly received by the press, as if on principle alone. Sonic Boom was a disaster, and Forces is already famously remembered as being "aggressively mediocre". It's not without its bright spots. Colors and Generations still get airplay as "the good ones from almost a decade ago", and Mania's been met with almost nothing but high praise. In the case of Mania, though, every review makes sure to beat it over your head that this game is a passion project largely created by the fans themselves. The Genesis and Adventure games, when not accused of "having always been bad", are still all too often looked at as rare moments of genius, rather than indicative of the brand's usual quality. So when this film comes out, and it's garbage, and does poorly, the general public is very likely to say "oh, business as usual", and move on. Because the brand is, largely, a joke. It's been a joke for ages. The official Social Media accounts have been balls deep in self depreciating humor for nearly a decade at this point. Shit like Mania isn't going to go anywhere as a result of a bad Sonic movie being seen as bad by a population that probably tends to view Sonic things as bad anyway, outside of "those unspecified good ones from a long time ago and that new fangame". It's especially not going anywhere in an age where pop culture nostalgia is way more in than it ever needed to be. Mario may have been "invincible" because of the media juggernaut he is, but Sonic is "invincible" because he's been practically canonized as the industry's village idiot. That carries its own flavor of unshakable clout. Like at worst he just won't get another stab at a movie for a couple of decades. So if that's what you were hoping for, then I guess you should be terrified.
Video game movie adaptations have been notoriously trash for decades and have never in any discernible precedent done any lasting damage to the video games they were based on - let alone the doom and gloom of torpedoing an entire brand. Sometimes the film is good as with Mortal Kombat which had a positive effect on the games - and more often than not they're disastrous films like Street Fighter that did nothing to affect the eventual release and immense success of Street Fighter 4. The film may tarnish Sonic's mainstream image, temporarily, but I think the games have assaulted that image enough already without a film having any lasting or consequential impact. Sonic will be fine, like he always is, and hopefully a successor to Mania will be announced this year to get us all feeling positive again. The film is nothing to worry about. Video games have been surviving bad Hollywood adaptations since the dawn of the video game industry and Sonic is no different.
Yeah, parents will google Sonic's career and immediately recognize his weirdness. I've got a wild theory about the realistic fur: Did you ever look at the old artworks and think "Man, and I thought it looked cool back then."? The Heroes boxart for example. Clearly a product of its time (because it looks outdated as hell). The same could happen to the CGI in Unleashed or Generations when we're used to better graphics and all. But a photo realistic character model helps to avoid that because of... photo realism. Should be timeless. Now what if it's an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bring Sonic to Hollywood and they didn't want to mess that up?
Super Mario Bros. Special for Sharp X1 and NEC PC-8801 computers is Sonic GBA before Sonic GBA existed. (*blows dust off Wikipedia search bar* This was developed by Hudson Soft, but it's officially licensed by Nintendo. It's a "enhanced" port; it features the same graphics and controls, but it also has different level layouts, new items, and new enemies adapted from those from Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong. So it can technically be said to be the first sequel to the original SMB on NES.) With that said, most if not all of the Mario games we've listed are pretty obscure outside the Mario fandom (if not the videogame fandom) and are either badly done ports or entries of the smaller spinoff branches. Concerning the flagship platforming games (2D and 3D), Mario's got a near-spotless track record. Even the NSMB era of games that are constantly derided as stale, most of them have review metascores in the mid-high 80s. The exception is NSMB 2 and that's still at a respectable "good, but not great" 78 MC. *slow clap*
Considering the reaction I saw in Discord and Telegram, about this film, I am with you on that! I also spoke to my longtime friend Shayne Thames and she was like also... "Unfortunately its true"
I'm honestly excited for this movie. Whether it's good or bad, I think it'll certainly be interesting. And I'm not ruling out the possibility of it ending up being good (although I'm certainly not expecting it)
This is the part where I show my age - I was playing this back in 2006! Back then, the Western world didn't even know the Sharp X1 existed. They probably still don't understand the significance of porting a cutting-edge console game to underpowered home computers as early as 1986 - in the context of the PC-8801 and X1 libraries as they were at the time, even without scrolling it's fairly impressive. Less impressive is the realisation that I've been playing these things for the best part of 15 years. But I'm derailing - I just wanted to make use of all of this horrible knowledge I've acquired over the years.
You guys are vastly overestimating how many non-gamers are actually aware of Sonic's modern reputation. Also, let's be real: this is the same country that gave Micheal Bay hundreds of millions for the Transformers movies. The idea that the average movie goer has any semblance of taste and standards and won't eat this garbage up to shut their kids up and leave without ever thinking about it again is comical.
Aaron and Iizuka met with the movie team to personally deliver feedback. Not likely much can happen if the movie is done filming, but it could probably change the way it's marketed.
Well, Aaron certainly knows his Sonic so it's good he was there - but yeah too late in the game now if the movie is in post-production. We're going to have accept our inevitable fate. Unless Jim Carrey saves us.
Oh. Oh no... Oh my god. This is not gonna be another DCEU-all-the-critics-are-just-paid-off-by-Marvel conspiracy cult, is it?
Iizuka, not Lizuka. I see people make this mistake all the time and it's honestly such a pet peeve Anyway... Yeah, this will just be a formality meeting. From what little we know about the movie, it's been almost entirely out of SEGA's hands from the beginning. Feedback delivered in the meeting won't improve anything.
hey guess what guys i used my elite neural network hackmaster skills to crack into ruby's twitter account and steal his pre-prepared feedback statement about the movie on the behalf of the film crew: "My suggestion would be to expect few to no character design changes, so that if or when you do notice any minor updates in the final cut of the movie, you'll appreciate them. I think this is better than people really expecting them to change too much, and conversely expecting something different than they get when they purchase their tickets. Keeping expectations realistic is the key." I see the Illumination checks have cleared! Critics never want to give Sonic a fair shot, they just don't understand true film kino! They're more content with their "New" Super Formula Bros. with pasta quips! Don't let them ruin your day, be a TRUE SONIC FAN and see it day 1! #TrueBlueInitiativeTheMovie #SUPPORTSONICFILMS
I'm not really happy about the movie but I'm going to see it anyway, who knows... maybe I'll like it :p
