Sonic the Hedgehog Cinematic Universe Thread (& Knuckles)

If they give Sonic’s home planet a name and they call it anything but Planet Freedom, I’m boycotting the franchise. Try me, Sega.

 

"Mobius" and any other thing from the american "vision" of the franchise can stay in whatever non-game media it was on. It was bad enough to see AoStH Robotnik even in its own show. While I agree alternate media can have their own stuff, that stuff should stay in their own realm and away from any other Sonic "reality"; I don't want professor Pickle in the movies and I don't want sheriff Tom in the games.

 

What's the rationale there? Professor Pickle is a game character, same as Tails and Knuckles.

 

Humor me, because I'm ignorant to any Sonic games made in the last 20 years, but in the first Sonic movie, it is made clear that Sonic comes from a different world, right? Whether that's true in the games or not, I have no idea, but it's already been established as movie canon. So assuming that other world has a name, I'm hearing a lot of opposition to the idea that it might be called "Mobius." I can only assume that this is because there's another name for this other world which some people think is more official.

Considering that Mobius was the only name for Sonic's world used by Sega not just in the USA but in the Western world in general throughout most of his heyday in the 90s, I have to assume that if there is any alternate name for that world, it must be from the Japanese games. Of course, if that's true, I don't really understand the need to be beholden to any particular Japanese names if they weren't also used in the Western releases. There are tons of Mario characters with different names in Japan, but I never hear people clamoring for the Japanese names to be used.

So there's this other world that movie Sonic comes from...it's gotta have a name, but it seems that "Mobius" is one nostalgia itch that no one here wants scratched. Soo....what IS its name? I'm genuinely curious, since as I said, I'm only familiar with games up through Sonic Adventure, so I'm not aware of any other planets having names.

 

The name of the world of the games has been "Sonic's World", or the "Human World" for that one if the two were ever truly meant to be separate. They even disallowed the name-dropping of the name "Mobius" from the archie comic later in its life despite the connection it always had to that era, even after an extensive reset. SEGA or Sonic Team just really doesn't want stuff that's different to the games to the extent that the shows (or American series bibles that those shows are based on) have historically been, and I guess that having the planet be named Mobius or Earth is a sore spot for them.

Which makes the movie series an outlier because we have what is very explicitly OUR planet earth and what are very clearly alien planets with elements of the games naturally occurring there instead of Earth. The movies may very well get away with naming this alternate planet, but the IDW comics and the games themselves may never get the chance to, although they might not have a need to if they don't need to explain 2 separate planets.

 

Thanks. It sounds to me then that the games have no interest in being set anywhere in particular. Which makes sense. I've never once played a Mario game and wondered what planet it's taking place on - it's really beside the point. And leaving it undefined offers them much more freedom to do whatever they want in the future.

So I guess the way to go is to leave it all unnamed in the movie as well.
"Sonic, where did you come from?"
"Another planet."
"Oh, what's it called?"
"You wouldn't have heard of it."

 

Its one of those...fandom quirks, where fans of one particular Canon don't care for the other parts and want things as segregated as much as possible.

So you have fans of the games that want nothing from the Western canon at all in the games, and vice versa.


The games have never defined the world at all, fans just assumed it took place on Earth. But recent material has kind of put damper on things.

So yea, the planet is literally called "Sonic's World" nowadays. It has no actual name.

 

I just think of it as "earth" anyways, just a fictional one.
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Back to the topic, I'm actually not hearing anything about anyone showing up on any talk shows (although nobody really talked about when anybody showed up on them for the last movie) and I kind of want to watch those appearances if they do happen, even though it'll be one of the two three-minute slots they designate to actually talking about anything.
Also it's a shame Conan isn't doing anything because his last one with Jim Carrey was fucking GREAT even if it wasn't about Sonic most of the time. They just sat down and drew each other.

 

Sonic Adventure 2 came closest I think - buried in the final game's files is an alternate take of one of Maria's lines where she specifically refers to the planet as Earth, so it seems they intended to confirm this at one point in development. The finished cutscene instead uses a different take where the planet is left unnamed.

 

I thought Iizuka confirmed that the games appeared on Earth? Either way I couldn't care less about what they decided in the movie. Mobius seems to make the best sense, but it doesn't matter to me. I'd be perfectly happy if that was what they called it, and I find it weird that other people would be so vehemently against it.

Spoiler

I'd also be ok with calling it Planet Freedom

 

So the review embargo for the movie apparently lifted today. The reviews that have popped up have been largely unenthusiastic, but there are only about ten of them at the moment. I'm especially interested in how this movie lands with longtime Sonic fans and those that enjoyed the first one, since many critics will surely be well-outside of either of these categories.

Man, just wish there were more reviews. Barely anything here yet.

 

The main criticism I’m seeing is that it focuses too much on Sonic and not enough on the human characters.

Which… the movie’s fucking called Sonic the Hedgehog 2

 

The reviews I've seen have been generally positive (not raving or anything, but not negative) with the main criticism that it could have benefited from being a bit shorter. I've seen enough specific references to things from the games to say that at least some of the reviewers are familiar with them. Of course, if the movie is a hit with fans but bombs with non-fans, it would be a failure overall, so it's definitely also worth considering the opinion of people who have never played the games in their life.

 

I found the first movie painfully mediocre due to it’s focus on the generic human cast. I sincerely hope that audiences respond well to Tails and Knuckles and don’t echo this sentiment.

 

Out of the few reviews available that I've read, the Variety review was the only one that really had that sentiment that more of Tom and his family could had been used. Another review did also say they missed the relationship between Tom and Sonic (as Tom and his wife take a backseat in focus, and have their own B-plot going on with their wedding vacation), but that's about it.

To me, the more common sentiment in the more critical reviews that have been posted is that for a action-adventure film, its story and setpieces are derivative from other movies in the genre and it doesn't have much else enough going on to support its increased runtime (2:02 hrs compared to the first film's 1:39 hrs). Which, granted, was a similar complaint (lack of originality) regarding the first film too, though that was more of a an odd couple/fish out of water/alien on the run story.

Though again, this is just based on...what, eight-nine reviews out now despite the lifted embargo? It seems that most reviewers still haven't seen the movie yet or are still writing/editing reviews. Personally, I do think this should review better than the first film in the end, even if it's not by a whole lot. (It currently has the exact same MC metascore (47) and had the same RT Tomatometer (63%) that the first film holds.)

 

So I... Wondered if this would get posted here and... well here we are.



Here is something outstanding... None of the critics have said this.

This is the review which kick started this accusation.

The offending paragraph is the 2nd to last one and this is the offending line that has so many people up in arms.

It would’ve been plenty effective to focus just on keeping the Wachowski family together.
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First of all, that's not stating "Too little focus on the humans" but whatever let's just go with that as a baseline.


This review begins by the critic praising both the first movie and the first act of the 2nd for the scenes with Sonic and Tom/His family. They like the relationship Sonic has with these characters and they think it really works in both the first and opening acts of this movie. In fact to the reviewer, it's the strongest aspect of the movie.

This sentiment is also echoed by this person who has also seen the movie.

What happens after act 1, and I don't think this is spoiler territory since it's all over the marketing, Tom and his family effectively exit the film. All these other characters then come in, and the movie begins to lose it's focus.

By the end of the movie, it's all over the place. It relies heavily on over-used tropes that we've seen in similar movies, they specifically point out the dark clouds near apocalyptic end of the world scenario and that it never becomes as strong as the 1st act and none of the characters have as strong a dynamic or relationship as the opening act with Sonic and the Wachowski family does.


The reviewer then has the nerve to suggest... "Maybe it would have been as effective, to just keep the focus on the family."


The criticism isn't, there's too little focus on the humans, the criticisms are that the character dynamics and focus of the film is all over the place and by the final act and maybe it would have been stronger had the family dynamic been more present in the film.


Suddenly when you read the full article and see how this appears in the body of the work, it's not longer a controversy.


But that doesn't work as well for a twitter hot take.

 

Having just read the full article the reviewer specifically stated that he liked the first 90 minutes... in which I’m assuming lots of non-humans prominently feature as well. Guys let’s stay calm, wait for the film to come out, and avoid turning this critic’s nuanced review into some fanbase-uniting outrage-pole.

I posted earlier that I didn’t like the first film due to the focus on humans... but I think I prob should have waited to say anything until I saw the film for myself. Cuz being honest: I think a LOT could’ve been cut from the 1st movie. I personally have no investment in the Wachoski family unit so IF Sonic 2 is really overlong and I were critiquing it then I def wouldn’t be highlighting the need to emphasize that aspect. That said we need to remain respectful of folks who have different views. This movie coming out is a big deal for the franchise, and how WE ALL respond to the film’s reception could change people’s views on the sonic fanbase. We can disagree but there is no need to be disagreeable if u catch my drift

 

He's not a core character or a relevant enough plot device, and has a quite generic personality anyway. I guess he could appear as much as the GUN commander does on the first movie (and that's still not the same GUN guy from the games), but, to me, only the main cast (playable characters and relevant villains) are desirable to appear across all the media. I think someone has already explained the different canons feel separate enough to keep them equally separate; if they started looking too similar to each other, why have more than one canon? I'm ok with Mobius as the setting for the comics and TV shows because it somehow belonged to them even if it preceded them, but naming the world of the games when not even the games have done that... That's a totally different story. Similarly, Sonic's world in the movie and its absolutely explicit separation from Earth make "Mobius" a wrong choice, but they can call it anything new and I won't complain.

Well, I'll watch the movie on Friday and tell you any spoiler-free impression I might get. What you've already said from available reviews sounds like what I was expecting to happen, but it may just be the usual critics' thing and not what I thought. If the room is full of happy kids enjoying the film, that will be the only review I need to see, anyway.

 

How is the family stuff not as over-used as the apocalyptic stuff, though? They're both familiar cliches.

I've seen some people compare the reviews to the ones for Godzilla KOTM, but I feel like that's one of those things where you'd have to see the movie for yourself first.

 

Yes but that's a completely separate and different argument.

The issue here is that the critic is pointing out how strong the dynamic is with the family, but it goes away mid film and the focus ends up being all over the place to be replaced with these set pieces that look like they're from any old movie.

It never reaches the strength it did at the start because there's too much going on as a result it all feels weaker in comparison.

Hence why the reviewer suggests the focus on the family dynamic not be removed from the film.