Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) movie

You could literally just scroll up less than a page and do some reading, but the short version is any of the following:
- Morbid curiosity
- Dedication bordering on obsession
- Fear of missing out

 

48 minutes? This is a feature film, not Sonic Forces.
Do we also have an obligation to buy all the crappy Sonic games that come out? I bought Mania, and before that Generations. Everything else that's been released in the last eight years is not worth my time and money.
Even if this film was free I wouldn't want to see it.

 

I guess it's that time of the year again where all the Retro members who don't want to support a Sonic product are going to be told to turn in our Sonic fandom badges by the true blue officers in the precinct. Call me when inspection day is over.

As for the bit about artistic visions and the threat of them being compromised by public reactions--I personally would rather not ignore the fact that the original design was an artistic vision that they wanted the public to pay money to see. We're not talking about something being made primarily for personal satisfaction like the Eddie Lebron fan film, this is a Hollywood blockbuster adaptation with a $90M+ budget. The studio thought the first Sonic movie design was a design that would sell movie tickets and sell merchandise (some of which escaped into the wild before the design retool).

Let's be real: that artistic vision that was the original design was only going to be protected as long as the studio felt confident it was going to make them money. Said confidence lasted a grand total of forty-eight hours after the trailer hit.

 

I'm going to see it out of morbid curiosity more than anything else at this point but this is pretty ridiculous. If you really don't like the direction this has taken or any of the decisions made, why should you pony up cash to go see it?

 

One thing I hope, but severely doubt the film will address is how long exactly Sonic was on "our" world before Tom discovers him.

I mean, surely he'd been here for quite some time considering he's familiar with a LOT of things which one would assume are native to Earth.

It almost adds credence to Humans (or a human-like species), and by proxy human technology already being present on Sonic's world (Station Square, G.U.N et all, anyone?).

 

Alright, I fully confess that my intent on those remarks was to ruffle the collective feathers. The hyperbolic response did not disappoint, right to the point of being called an authority collecting fan badges... Aerosol picked up on the underlying condescension, and it stems from the crux of my intention, which is this… Those of you who refuse to see the movie, is there no cognitive dissonance between time spent engaging in conversation, critiquing and lambasting a film, and the decision it’s… not worth your time and money? Cause it seems to me for all the time actually spent engaging with this film, that you actually have no intent of seeing, is a bit (trigger warning) disingenuous. I mean, what is the line, the monetary exchange of $10, as compared to the comparatively large amount of time and attention directed toward the film itself?


I’m not here to tell anyone what they SHOULD do, or to collect your “badges” by suggesting that, given the energy you are in fact investing, it might be worthwhile to follow through and actually see the film? But yes, I’m a nazi for asking people to consider the contradiction. So naturally I’ll get some responses about voting with dollars, which is why I was pointing out that $10 is really nothing, and the studio isn’t actually going to notice they are short your $10, and if your time is worth anything, then you’ve already spent more than $10 engaging on this film which most of you had self-admitted to holding said position from the very beginning.


Analogy:


Fred: I hate Blue Raspberry Ice Cream. Blue ice cream should be blueberry. The moment they announced they were making blue ice cream I knew it wasn’t going to be blueberry, and guess what, I was right, it’s blue raspberry! Yes, I know they decided to add some blue berries, but it’s still going to be 90% blue raspberry, and I won’t buy that!


Narrator: Fred continues to engage in an online community about Blue Ice Cream for the proceeding year and a half. Every few days he checks in and reads what others have to say about the blue ice cream and occasionally chimes in with his strong opinions. He collectively spends orders more time engaging on the film, then the actual time required to watch it.


Tom: Gee, Fred, all this talk about hating Blue Raspberry Ice Cream and that you won’t spent the $5 to try it because it’s not worth investing your time and energy… I know you’re not a big fan of blue raspberry, but aren’t you at least going to give it a try after engaging on the subject at length? I know you’ve been waiting decades for them to finally make blue ice cream…


Fred: It’s not worth my time or money, and anyone who suggests after exhausting all this passion on the subject, I ought to spend the $5 and actually try it is an idiot who wants my Blueberry Badge!

 

Jesus Christ, man.

Sonic is a thing that people here are interested in. The Sonic movie is a Sonic related thing that people here are interested in. That level of interest ranges from "I don't like it and won't watch it" to "I don't want to watch it and/or support it, but I want to talk about it because it's about a thing I'm interested in" and of course to "I want to watch it".

You sound like you've not developed an understanding of opinions and discussions. There's absolutely no contradiction.

 

It's completely not dissonant, in fact quite the opposite. If the marketing isn't advertising something which someone finds appealing enough to buy/see/use, them not parting with their money on it is completely justified, as in their opinion it would not be money well spent.

That is not up to you to decide for others, period. Also, (no offence) I sincerely find this such a bad take to almost the point of hilarity, because you come across to me as you basically trying to apply your financial opinions and situations onto others as if they're objective, across-the-board consistent for everyone. They are not.

While you might consider $10 "really nothing" to spend, someone else may disagree. They may be on a very tight budget as it is, and thus might choose to spend what little spare cash they do get extra carefully when considering entertainment/'luxuries'/non-essentials/etcetera. You're also not taking into consideration that a $10 ticket in one region, may be a $15 or even a $20 ticket in other regions.

Seconding this.

 

I’m aware of all these arguments which could pick at the fray of my statements. 99% of people can afford to see movies occasionally (“nu-uh its only 95%”). I sometimes forget how any successful statement at Sonic Retro has to dodge every speck of dust in the wind. I still think it’s a contradiction to claim something isn’t worth your time, and then spend significantly more time engaging with said thing. My statement is common sense, but please explain to me how ignorance is bliss.


To be clear, I’m not saying that someone must see the film to hold an opinion, I’m saying that the excuse that the film isn’t worth your time when you spend inordinately more time discussing it, is a contradiction on some level. This is obvious. But whatever, people are going to start responding to the responses anyway and purple-monkey-dishwasher…

 

"Hurr hurr hurr I'm not an asshole I was just baiting you to make a point"

 

And we'd all be quite poor if that were the case.
I'm not sure what you're trying to get at here, Vector. We talk about this movie because we like Sonic, but that sure as hell doesn't mean we wanna support everything with his name on it.

 

That's not what I said, that's what he said.

 

I mean that's kind of what you said too, isn't it? Or maybe I just didn't get it?

 

I didn’t say anyone should have to do anything, or that only X opinions are valid.


I said there is an element of cognitive dissonance in claiming it isn’t worth your time to experience something, but then expending significantly more time engaging with it. The very act of engaging on the phenomena is a devotion of time. Separate, but related to my point, would be that if you really want to develop your opinions, or make them carry more weight, it would make sense to actually experience the subject of your criticism. But, despite the fire and pitchforks, I’m making no claim that those who chose not to are invalidated.


Second, I wasn’t baiting people with my point, I said I “expected feathers to be ruffled” because unless you are part of the Fab 5 around here FUCKING EVERYTHING is considered a personal affront. What I am saying is common sense, and you would think I shit on the Queen of England.


I guess this is part of the fandom experience, but anything you say is always taken to the extreme, and then you have to defend yourself against every possible position you didn’t make, or that which others mischaracterized you as expressing.

Edit: Thank you Aerosol, that is a perfectly reasonable response to my statement, you are right, time and its value is subject to the individual.

 

Without spending more time responding than your post merits, this is enough for me to step in and say knock it off. If you have a point to make, you're perfectly capable of making it without trying to incite hostile reactions from people.

In response to your reply to Aerosol, it's not so much that time and its value is different person-to-person, though that is certainly true - but try to reconcile that to some people, talking about Sonic media, no matter how bad it is or is likely to be, is an entertaining pasttime. More entertaining than spending £10+ to sit down and watch a movie they may very well not enjoy? That's up to them. It's nothing to do with how they value their time and that's a dishonest assessment.

 

What? This isn't what's happening. There's zero contradiction here, one is time spent, one is money spent. They are not one and the same, at all. They are not on the same level.

Some people are spending time criticising something, and they find enough negative points to justify not spending money on that thing, which is completely understandable. I seriously do not think (and I mean this genuinely nicely) that you understand the topics/arguments at hand on a basic level.

Easy there dude. I can't speak for others, but I for one was not considering your posts "a personal affront". All I was attempting to do, was simply point out what I see as flaws in your statements, and your perspective regarding others spending money frankly comes off as closed-minded in my eyes. That's it.

I sincerely don't think that you even understand the arguments/scenario which you're talking about, to be honest. I'm lost regarding how else to conversate with you at this point. The whole interaction with you, and your responses, have baffled me.

I don't know what else to say, sorry.

 

My apologies that was not an admission of guilt, when I said [intended to ruffle feathers], what I meant was, I knew what I was going to say would ruffle feathers, because in my experience basically everything does, and chose to write it anyway.


I should really just stop writing anything on here. 75% of time this is the reaction. This happens to me nowhere else in my life. There is something very special about Sonic Retro.