Sonic Movie 3 - Spoiler Thread (Open spoilers within, beware)

Are you pondering what I'm pondering?

It's Shadow. Shadow and Agent Stone, Stone, Stone, Stone~

 

Oh I'm on team Shadow and Rockwell. I don't feel they got Krysten Ritter to just use her in a few scenes in this movie.

 

I'm of the opinion she's the next big bad after Robotnik, helming the G.U.N. that goes after Sonic and friends in my speculation about the Time Travelling Metal Sonic thing, should Jim Carrey not reprise the role for the next one.

 

I really hope Stone gets to be one of the big players in 4. A heartbroken Stone with no purpose after Eggman's death looking to achieve what his boss couldn't and rule the world would be cool and have some real potential for emotional scenes. Although granted maybe the themes of learning to let go may be a dry well now.

 

I do need a Stone spin off though. Love that guy.

 

god. what a good fucking movie. im not gonna say they did everything right, ive already seen a lot of my criticisms written out by others here in this thread, but god. they made a good movie! they did adventure 2 justice, mostly!

i feel like what's likely they'll do from here is adapt heroes, since amy and shadow are involved in that, and metal sonic showed up; him acting on his own to surpass his master and sonic alike is a pretty logical move forward.
to be honest, i thought metal sonic was what robotnik wanted sonic's quill for; in the movie it only ever comes up again meaningfully when he uses it to kancho gerald to death, but he couldve done whatever the hell off screen.
maybe the metals have a bit of sonic quill in them, or he synthesized sonic's energy for them, or something? who knows

i could also kind of see them doing 06, and id be cautiously optimistic for it. theyve shown they can do right by the stories they're adapting, and honestly it'd likely be an improvement on the source material. difficult to say how they'd move forward without robotnik around, but i trust them a lot more to adapt it competently now than i would have after just 2.

either way, if 3 were to be the last one? perfectly happy with that. i did hear that 4 is in production; hopefully it's good.

that could... genuinely be interesting. the brief funny bit they had together in the movie, where they were hanging out eating guac and watching novelas in the crab, worked surprisingly well, and like...
one guy is just starting to get over the worst tragedy of his life after 50 years on pause, and the other just had the worst tragedy of his life happen right before his eyes... they gotta figure out how to move on and what they want to do to move forward in life, together. genuinely good hook for a mini-series. plenty of room for them to bumble into hijinks on the way as is pretty standard for these movies too.

 

I only have one major complaint that really drags this film down for me.

No Olive Garden.

 

sure, but we got chao garden instead!
speaking of which: you know what to do, sega. make it happen. (and do it on the east coast too, im begging you. theres more places than just california.)

 

Clearly Walters arranged the meeting at the Garden thinking it was for Olives, but it was for Chao.

 

How do you think I feel as a Canadian in the prairies....
No symphonies, no restaurants, no pop ups, no motorcycles, no launch events, I'm starving here.

 

If they're going to do Sonic Heroes, I first want a noir detective show staring the Chaotix.

 

I saw the film last night with my sister who, while not someone I'd describe as a Sonic fan, has a lot of love for and knowledge of the series by proxy. She was the Tails to my Sonic whenever we played the Mega Drive originals, grew up with the various 90s cartoons and has always had to put up with my enjoyment of the franchise. She absolutely loved it, which to me is a very good sign. To be able to fill so much of a film with a game plot she's fairly unfamiliar with - I think the only part of SA2 she really knows is the soundtrack, mainly Escape From The City and Live and Learn - yet still make it extremely accessible and entertaining, is a home run as far as what these films are trying to be and do. It also filled my heart with joy to see so many younger fans among the audience. I shared a moment with a kid surely no older than thirteen two seats from me, during the mid-credits scene when Metal Sonic(s) showed up, both of us rising from our seats a little and gasping. "This is so fucking cool" he said. That children are still getting into and enjoying this franchise really does put me in touch with my inner child in a way the movie itself never could, and I love it.

As for what I thought of the actual movie? Avoiding actual film critique, anyway, as cinema isn't what you go to see a franchise movie about a talking blue hedgehog for. So, it's definitely the best of the trilogy thus far, that much is clear to me. It does often feel like it's in maybe too much of a rush to move from scene to scene, but when you have this much ground to cover in a less-than-two hour runtime, it's understandable. That it manages to squeeze so much character out of literally anybody who is on screen for longer than 30 seconds is pretty miraculous. The star of the show by virtue of his relevance to the plot, Shadow is fantastic, whether it's reluctantly mellow during the Maria flashbacks, angry-yet-stoic for the majority, or remorseful in the back third, he's consistently fun to watch. I surely can't be the only one who found him adorable in the flashback scenes. The scenes where he shows up to surprise characters on their way into the darkened labs are also genuinely a bit unsettling, though I think the masterful lighting work had a big role to play in that. Keanu did as well as you'd expect and while I don't necessarily think the quality of his performance was mind-blowing, he does suit the character well. I can understand why some people were frustrated with Gerald and his role in the movie, though I can believe they may have tried to play him closer to what was presented in Adventure 2 only to reverse course as it probably wouldn't fit this universe and the tone they're going for with it. Besides, it was an excuse for double Carrey fun and as someone that normally hates comedy dance routines in movies, the one here was genuinely pretty hilarious. Carrey was just a joy as usual, and one of the biggest laughs from me was simply the face he makes when one of the Eclipse Cannon keys falls in front of him. He's just brilliant.

The little easter eggs were a joy, too. The E.G.G.M.A.N. ringtone playing for less than a second, the Sonic 3 act clear music, the Chaos Drives on the shelves in the Chao Garden, the Biolizard reference, the subtle use of some game music sprinkled throughout. Even the more overt ones ("No food or movies?!") were appreciated. I knew as soon as they started redirecting the cannon that it was about to hit the moon and when it happened I marked out. It's so nice to see them get more and more confident to use these elements in each outing and have the audience be accepting of them every time because of that. It feels more 'earned'.

Finally, I can't wait to see where the mid-credits sequence goes. As a childhood STC Enjoyer, I am salivating at the possibilities presented by multitudes of Metals. If it's even slightly adjacent to the Brotherhood of Metallix, it's a win for me. Amy's design is also very cute and I'm now curious as to who they're going to get voicing her. I for one can't wait for another one of these, both for the answers to these questions, but also... They're just so damn fun!

 

My thoughts on the ending is that it's leading to Sonic Heroes personally, not Sonic CD. I think a metal sonic army is going to replace the Metal Shadow army, because having an army of shadow clones immediately in the stinger for Sonic 3 wouldn't have made much sense IMO. If they want to do a villain beyond Robotnik, Metal Sonic is the best choice since that's pretty much exactly what the plot to Sonic Heroes was. I think if the Sonic movie franchise is going to do a plot about time travel, they'll do it once, and Sonic 06 has a lot more to mine from in terms of plot than Sonic CD. Especially with Shadow now being the biggest star in the Sonic world, since Sonic 06 has Shadow doing a lot more for the plot than Sonic himself. I consider Mephiles almost more of a Shadow villain than Sonic one despite him killing Sonic, because of how many times Shadow fights Mephiles (and how mad Mephiles keeps getting that Shadow doesn't remember him each time).

Plus the idea of a "history of trunks" like anime companion for Silver would be incredible.

I see over and over again people saying Sonic 3 is "like dragon ball z" as a huge compliment. Sonic plots never got more DBZ-like than Sonic 06, which was just a huge rip off of the Cell Saga, which was everyone's favorite bit of DBZ anyways.

 

Tails spinoff please.

 

I actually dislike tails' characterization since like Sonic Adventure 2. I really hate how they've done the same thing they've done to Donatello in the Ninja Turtles, sort of flanderized his intelligence so that it's now not just a quirk but the dominant, overwhelming personality trait to the detriment of everything else. Like Tails having to use jetpacks in the race with sonic. I hate that stuff. I always thought Tails figuring out to spin his tails like a propeller to speed up was a much more natural way to speed tails up while not coming off as Jimmy Newtron contrived while also showing that he's pretty smart to figure that out. I liked when Tails was a gear head who could fix planes, not designing alien translators. I'll say the Sonic movies actually have done a slightly better job at having Tails join in on the action and be right there with Sonic, as he's been much more sidelined in the games. But still, I really wish we could go back to the days where Tails was more like Batman's Robin or DKC's Diddy Kong, someone who is ready and willing to take up Sonic's mantle and step in when he's not around.

On the subject of Tails' role changing, it's absolutely criminal in Sonic Generations that there is no way to have classic tails follow Sonic. That was very much a defining mechanic in the classic games.

 

Sonic 2 features Tails seemingly getting shot down in Sonic's plane. Once you finish Wing Fortress, Tails suddenly reappears with the Tornado equipped with a rocket that allows them to catch up to a space shuttle liftoff! I think Tails was always a mechanical genius.

 

That's literally what a gear head is. My dad was an airforce mechanic, he repaired jet engines. Gear heads always start young. My dad was building go-karts by taking apart and redesigning lawn mower engines at age 12. My dad is a gear head. He can't design alien translators.

"Gear head" is a very specific set of skills, there is no such thing as just being brilliant at everything. It's flanderization to take Tails being a gear head in Sonic 2, and extrapolate it to him being Dr. Robotnik's genius rival. That's just not a believable escilation of intelligence.

There's a huge difference between "tails is pretty bright and is a tip top mechanic" and "Tails can literally display every measure of intelligence to the tip top peak in every category." One is is a personality quirk, the other is trying to make Tails' intelligence the equivalent of Sonic's speed in terms of special sauce, when it very clearly was not originally. One is how bright kids actually are, the other is Dexter's Labratory.

The type of gear head intelligence Tails displays in Sonic 2 is not considered the type of intelligence they display for him later in the series. Gear Heads in pop culture aren't shown to be ultra geniuses. Tim the Toolman Tailor basically displayed Tails skill set in Sonic 2, grunt grunt "MORE POWER" like a caveman. We don't treat Gear Heads like Einstein because being good with engines doesn't make you a super genius, someone who can solve linguistic riddles, build mechanical biped tanks, hack ancient machines, determine the nature of the fabric of time and space, etc.

As for why it's annoying that they've changed Tails' characterization from bright gear head to jimmy newtron is because gear heads tend to have their own culture and mentality, much like how you'll hear about the "engineer mindset." Tails being a gear head originally spoke towards a specific personality. Contrast how other bright gear heads in pop culture are depicted vs Jimmy Newtron, Dexter's Labratory, Donatello, etc. Examples would include Sparky in Speed Racer, or Razor in Swat Cats, or Wildcat in Tailspin. Gear Head implies a completely different type of personality and character than the timid, nerdy stereotype Tails has taken on. They took what was a pretty cool character quirk and turned it into a caricature that is way less interesting.

When I see this:



I think of this:



not this:



More than just the characterization, the main reason I hate what they've done to tails is because, in function, he went from being the equivalent of Krillin, to being the equivalent of Bulma in terms of role. And bleeeeeh I hate that.

 

to be fair we had a discussion in one of the other threads recently about how honestly, Maria (who is basically The Core of Shadow's backstory) isn't much of anything in SA2? And honestly he isn't much of anything in SA2 either - he has the fewest number of stages of all of the characters (literally, has four and only four stages) and his characterization consists of "tragic backstory", "wants revenge", "turns out maria wouldn't have wanted that", "okay I'll save the world now and die". The more fleshing out of his character came in games after, which this movie isn't really meant to cover.

the "tragic accident with a gun" only happened because they were about to attempt a direct and unambiguous act of violence. the soldiers would not have been there attempting to fire at them if they really didn't want to fire at them. Walter runs in and is like "that is a fucking child you monsters" and the guy still fires his gun!

 

See, to me that scene looked like Shadow and Gerald were the main targets.

But let's say all three of them were targets. Just having Walters there and intervene as the voice of reason takes some edge off GUN. The rest actually listened to him too minus the idiot that fired.

The ones from SA2 and what we know from what went down is that they were committed and in it to win it. Those fuckers did not touch their hearts and stopped.

And perhaps this is my interpretation (at least for SA2/Shadow since in X we see it was deliberate) but the soldier that shot Maria seems to have aiming for her.

That's what I mean when the events of the movie were less extreme.

 

If they do a Shadow spin-off I’d love them to try and do a sort of Shadow 05/Shadow Generations mashup where Black Doom tries to have Shadow lead an invasion, using some sort of time manipulation to bring Maria and Gerald back from the past as a bargaining chip.

I think it could even help expand on this little detail from Shadow Gens where Shadow is taken aback seeing Gerald for a second because he remembers how his creator had gone insane and tried to destroy Earth, messing with Shadow’s mind to do so.

Since in the movie Gerald is alive and well, his manipulation is a lot more personal, with him directly convincing Shadow that revenge and destruction is the right path. I feel like Shadow meeting the old Gerald, from before 50 years of festering rage drove him insane, would be even more impactful and conflicting. Especially considering the insane hateful Gerald would be a lot fresher in his mind, and the mind of the audience.

(Apologies if my formatting and pacing is a bit weird, this is my first post)