I like the Sonic movie in spite of it not being anything like Sonic. I said on the first trailer that it looks like a generic superhero movie and when I saw the film it turned out it was a pretty good superhero movie. The second was a bit more Sonic but still in the same space so I enjoyed that too.
Iiii don't exactly agree with this, Carrey and the dude who plays Agent Stone have great chemistry and are just having a fucking blast, and I liked Tom a lot....in part because I will die on this hill, James Marsden is cute, and his character had good chemistry with his wife too. With both the movies, my main issue with them are scenes that were pretty clearly studio notes, some fucking suit being Hey There Fellow Kids and writing in the characters dancing to an outdated pop song from like ten years ago.
It's demonstrably true that people were less harsh on the movie due to the redesign, because there was this perception that the people working on the movie cared about Sonic and were listening to feedback. Even though they only cared as far as the movie not becoming a colossal bomb. And yes, people have critiqued the movie. But it's all in this air of "I hope the sequel shows improvement" or "I think it could've been better". And sometimes it has this notion that it's not worth getting worked up over, and that having strong negative opinions towards it is a sign you need to get a life. It's not the hostile hatefest driving it into the ground that would've occurred had the redesign not existed. The movie would've otherwise been a Morbius-style meme factory, but instead people are so much more fair to it than they are towards other, equally badly written kids' films. It's very bizarre to me. Honestly, it's an unpopular opinion of mine that the first movie was down-and-out dogshit, rather than simply mediocre.
I dont see the correlation of people critiquing it and saying "This could have been better" or "lets see what the sequel does better" to people being kinder to it purely because of the redesign. Like, yeah, we WOULD have been much more harsh to it without the redesign, everyone would have, why wouldnt they? Its pretty bad to have a main character look butt ugly for a whole movie. But it's your opinion, I dont think there has to even be a reason you feel that way. I just dont buy the ones you're listing
No it isn't. "A perception that someone really cared" has never carried any movie. I'm sure the people working on the Star Wars prequels cared immensely about them, especially George Lucas! But too bad, they're boring and crappy anyway. Critics don't care about that! They review the film they were given. Audiences didn't have the evil monster design to turn them away, but they accepted this perfectly-average film because audiences can be easy to please when there's not something horribly disgusting distracting them. This just sounds like a way of rationalizing how your opinion can differ so far from the majority but still be superior.
I do find it strange myself how people turned from hating the movie to loving it just because of the redesign. Even before it came out a lot of people were aggressively positive how awesome it would be because Sonic looked better. I've never seen either movie and its not something that matters to me. But I feel it is clearly true that the redesign caused a massive sentiment shift.
I wish the Sonic movie came out with cursed Sonic so that this terribly mediocre and droll movie franchise would never have been a thing and we'd all have something to laugh at. The 1993 Super Mario Bros movie is far superior to the 2023 Mario movie as well as the Sonic movie. Even the 2023 Mario movie is better than both Sonic movies combined. And I'm a SEGA fanboy. I love having hot takes. In all seriousness, just to note, I'm not knocking anyone that likes the Sonic movies. I've seen them both, and they have their moments. It just doesn't feel like Sonic to me at all and the movies generally aren't my cup of tea. I wish it was more something like the OVA.
I think it's mostly just that it's a lot easier to appreciate the good aspects of a movie when you don't have an abomination in your face the entire runtime.
I would definitely be a lot harsher on the movie if they hadn't changed Sonic's design. But like, is there really anything wrong with that? The redesign made the other elements of the movie a lot more palatable for me and I don't think that's a bad thing. It would have been weird as fuck to watch the Sonic/Tom bond and the more kid-targeted jokes with that fucking… thing instead of what we got.
If we had the Ugly Sonic design, I would have enjoyed the film(s), at least ironically. Having watched the first one twice, and now the second one once, I found them both to be largely terrible, aside from a few moments with Jim Carrey, the GUN Commander, and Knuckles. It's otherwise just some soulless by the numbers kids' movie shit with cringe dialogue and abysmal comedic timing and a lot of "I understood that reference!" bait. I definitely can't help but feel that the pervading mediocrity of the thing is given as much of a pass by as many Sonic fans (not critics or general audiences) as it is, less because of the raw "not having something ugly to look at", but more because of the surrounding context of "Sega listened!". At least for those who were around for the initial leaks and reveal and the subsequent marketing ride. I'm no stranger to enjoying trash media, or even stuff aimed at children, so it's not like I'm looking down from on high about this. But I do suspect that had the redesign been the thing the first trailer was shown with, the first film probably wouldn't have been as well received (specifically around here) by as many people as it was. As for the Star Wars prequels, among Star Wars fans (not critics or general audiences), I've definitely seen my fair share of retroactive "at least they cared back then, unlike with the shitty sequel trilogy!" takes. Hell, you can see it today in Sonic Discourse™ whenever the word "ambition" gets used to give certain otherwise bad games a pass. The context surrounding a work can and does color (and re-color) our experience of it. And like, that's okay? Even if that affected your enjoyment, your enjoyment is still your enjoyment, and you enjoyed it, so this suspicion really isn't the end of the world.
I think the idea that it's weird that people would be kinder to the movie because of an element that got better is at least a little rooted on (in?) the Gaming Magazine Approach to media. As if each area could be analyzed separately and the movie as a whole would be some kind of sum of its parts. I find that to simply not be true. Yes, the script and every other technical aspect of it would have largely been the same with Ugly Sonic... but the movie isn't the same. The script isn't the whole story. Which is why they sell movies instead of scripts. If it was just a PR stunt to make people feel good about being heard, good on them. It was a good PR stunt. The collective experience of the movie encompasses that too. So what? Maybe people who watch it for the first time some 15 years from now, without having lived that moment, will be less kind to it. Again, so what? Perceptions change, media are more than the sum of their parts and water is wet.
I mean, I never said that it was a PR stunt or that it's "weird" that people are kinder to the movie without Ugly Sonic. I also don't know what the "Gaming Magazine Approach to media" is. And you could say "so what?" to anyone's dumb opinion in here (such as mine that Marble Zone and Labyrinth Zone are fun, actually). What purpose does that serve?
I wasn't replying to you specifically, though (actually, I didn't take your post into account at all since it very clearly came from a personal perspective of how you approach media), and I explained what that approach is in my post. I'm mostly agreeing with JoeBro here.
People liking the movie because they changed the design is absolutely a valid reason to be favorable towards it. I'd imagine it's a lot easier for a casual audience member to like the protagonist when he doesn't look like shit. If you're a hardcore Sonic fan who still thinks the movie is shit regardless of the design, that's valid too. But like, I don't really understand trying to frame it around justifying the positive reception as being disingenuous because they changed the design. To me, that sounds like trying to rationalize your own feelings and putting the blame on others for feeling different than the majority. If you hate the movie, just own up to it. Who fucking cares if it's not the popular opinion, this whole franchise is built people shouting into the void about their opinions.
Its weird some of yall are saying that "if this thing was still ugly to look at people would be way harsher on it" as some kinda "gotcha" when that's pretty much the case with just about any visual media. First impressions are everything, and if someone goes into experiencing something with a negative frame of mind, they're more likely to look for something to bitch about, and vice versa if they go into it with a more neutral/positive mindset. Anyways yea, its a very "by the book" kids movie which sucks but also we're not gonna act like the movie being as successful as it was didnt give the franchise a much needed revival. Idrc about how the movies turn out now since we got an insane amount of Sonic content since then compared to the previous decade. Just gimme a R̶u̶s̶h̶ ̶4̶ Rush 3 and I'll be completely satisfied. Cmon SEGA, its easy money...
Just speaking out loud here and not addressing you directly. The possibility of the redesign being a huge PR stunt and planned from the start is absolute zero. Paramount lost a lot by making the move, but it paid off because they gained far more. We've seen enough of the production materials with the old design and the toylines they had were mostly scrapped. I think only the plushies survived. The biggest lost is the November release date. That's a fantastic release window for family films. They get a lot of legs from all the end of year holiday breaks. Even if the movie doesn't open as big, it can recoup its production cost thanks to the low drops from that busy period. That November 8th weekend had no family oriented products on the market and while it would have certainly been drowned out by Frozen 2's premiere two weeks later, it would still have enough screens to survive. Definitely would have taken a big cut by mid December with Jumanji and Star Wars out on the market. Above all, I'm expected to believe that Hollywood just happened to have the redesign in their pocket? The same studios that time and time again have botched numerous adaptions because they think they know better? I don't think I need to remind anyone about the Bay Transformers films or the live action TMNT, both from Paramount. Paramount built up good will by delaying the film and changing the design. Combined with the Valentines Day weekend, that lead to a successful opening and being the talk of the town among the movie biz that week. This was a course correction move. Then something weird happened, and Sonic 2 came out like 2 weeks after Sonic 1 to a big opening. Fastest turn around I'd ever seen.
Opinion of the day: Sonic has (almost) never been funny. Like, at all. I mean ok, it's been funny in unintentional ways. AoStH is funny due to its absurdity and shitpost qualities, but the actual, genuine jokes it makes in the show are not good. The attempted humor in the games falls so flat it ends up being adorable and charming, but not actually funny. Sonic X wasn't funny apart from some original jokes by the dub. Sonic Boom's few fleeting bits of humor are incredibly shallow, coming from either references and in-jokes, or characters acting out-of-character; this also goes for the Archie and IDW comics, as well as most fan content out there. The movies are sometimes funny, but they're so far removed from Sonic proper that I don't think they count. The games themselves can be hilarious when they glitch out, like 06...but again, that doesn't count. And the dozens of shorts and ads the social media team have put out over the years have been cute and charming, and they can get a smile out of me...but I've almost never "laughed" at Sonic in a way that felt organic. The one exception I can think of is Sonic Man, which becomes even funnier because it came from 06 of all things. EDIT: Ok, I like Chao in Space too. That was funny. Now you might think "well, Sonic isn't really meant to be funny, it's been to be an action-adventure plot" and I disagree. If you look at old ads for Sonic 1, and Ohshima's sketches, it's clear that they were inspired by 1930s and 1940s animated shorts, or even older silent comedies. And there are plenty of animated series out there that do action-adventure and balance it very well with gags, like Ducktales, Teen Titans, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles...so it's not like the two are mutually exclusive. The characters are all so expressive in some of these games, and they at one point hired Pontaff who have a history with Chuck Jones-style comedic timing and sight gags, so it feels like it's supposed to be funny, and yet...they just can't make it work, which is strange, because Crash Bandicoot can do it just fine. But when they go for the "Seinfeld" approach to comedy like in Boom, it doesn't work there either. Sonic's cast of characters just isn't strong enough to pull it off. They're not Looney Tunes and they're not the Muppets.
I'll agree that Sonic Boom is incredibly unfunny the majority of the time. But Sonic X (in Japanese) has tons of great humor. Also SatAM, which despite some failed attempts at humor, certainly has its moments. Also claiming AOSTH was only ever funny unintentionally is an odd take. The absurdity is supposed to be funny. It's not unintentional in most instances. Acting as though, for example, the Robotnik's song scene (from "Sonic's Song") isn't intentionally funny makes it seem like you haven't actually seen more than a few out of context meme clips from the show. Not to say that every episode or every joke is a winner for humor, but come on. I also don't think something necessarily has to be a gut busting knee slapper to be considered a genuine laugh. Sounds to me as if unlike Sonic, you don't chuckle.
