I was a huge critic of the entire existience of this film. I felt it was needless, and would just be an excuse to hurt the brand further. That the character, though beloved by some of us here, had lost his modern relevance and was best regulated to getting a few game releases here and there while eternally being doomed to live in Mario's shadow after a harsh gaming culture war from the late 90s and early 2000s. Kids and modern gamers literally have no reason to care about Sonic anymore, so it's just best when we do get the few titles we want every once in awhile and enjoy them when they're of quality. But there was a single moment that proved how oh-so-very wrong I was. Spoiler When Tails appeared at the end, all the little kids in our audience shouted his name and got more excited than I'd seen young kids get any time even in bigger IPs like Star Wars, Transformers, and even the Marvel stuff. Sure, the general audience loved the cameo, but for that ever so brief moment I went back to my own childhood where seeing Tails pop up in the games and cartoons was my favorite thing, and flying around as him in Sonic 3 was my dream video game character. I truly didn't expect that reaction from young kids now, who aren't even supposed to know much about Sonic anymore. The movie was enjoyable on its own merits, but that proves to me we do need a Sonic 2 AND 3 (& Knuckles) in theaters.
I know a lot of work went into this movie behind the scenes, so congratulations to all the artists, animators, and Tyson Hesse for the job well done on Sonic's character redesign. As for the movie itself... I haven't seen it yet because my feelings are very much in line with Josh's well put “perspective number one” described below but I'm lacking “perspective number two” on this. If you enjoyed the movie, that's totally fine. I'm not here to tell anyone how to feel, I just want to share my subjective perspective on why I'm not excited about this film. I've got a few reasons, but I think the main one is this movie feels like another soft reboot of the franchise. New backstory, new look, new feel. For some, this might be a positive, and Boxer Hockey makes a great point on how taking this direction could help steer the franchise away from it's more broken aspects. For me though, it's kind of tiring. I grew up with the Genesis titles and really enjoyed the colorful, detailed, over-the-top 90's aesthetic. I later played the Adventure games as they came out and grew to enjoy the rock & roll attitude, convolution, and edginess that spanned from Sonic Adventure to Shadow the Hedgehog. Then, I even enjoyed the Saturday morning cartoon vibe that came with Colors, Generations, and Lost World to a degree. I don't think any of these versions of Sonic have seen their greatest potential because SEGA and Sonic Team could not stop and won't stop reinventing Sonic as a brand. This goes for game-play and world building. Instead of investing in any of the previous versions of Sonic that we're familiar with, SEGA is again launching a new universe of Sonic with this movie, and I'm... kind of over it? I'm not interested in another new Sonic at this point. All I'm really interested in from this franchise is for SEGA to take what they have from the Genesis, Adventure, or Boost games and truly invest in those existing ideas. Great movies could have been made from any of these eras of Sonic, but SEGA chose to abandon established concepts with exciting potential for a “new” direction. I get it though; they wanted to cast a wide net with this film, and from the ticket sales and reception, it seems to have worked. It looks like this movie could be fun in its own right, but I'm not interested in supporting SEGA's decision to soft reboot the series again. If this movie's potential sequel includes more ideas, settings, and characters from the games, I'll give that a chance.
I would love that if (more likely when) we get a sequel, that they recreate Sonic 2’s boxart for the film posters. Imagine Sonic and Tails standing there with a big 2 and Jim Carrey staring over them.
Nah man David Humphrey's still hasn't been topped as the best Shadow voice in my opinion. Griffith's worked for me as an 'amnesiac' Shadow, but his first voice always naturally had this calm, calculated, and in control prose about it that I wish they were able to bring back to the character.
I'm very happy to see that the movie has been doing awesome! I went and seen it on Thursday after work and I loved it overall. My wife also loved it too. There were things I didn't like, but it is a movie aimed towards children. Spoiler The flossing was dumb, and the Sanic meme which is overused made an appearance in the movie. I also felt that there was a bit too much product placement throughout the entire film, but I did get a kick out of the Olive Garden jokes. Looks like we got yet another Sonic lore to add to the list. I loved the easter eggs added throughout the movie too. My favorite one was probably "DAC" on Dr. Robotnik's control panel, and the map that Sonic has with the different worlds. The map itself had so many references, that I didn't even notice all of them when I first seen the movie. (Honestly the only one that I spotted was the Mushroom world which was a node to Mushroom Hill and the Sun found in concept art for Sonic 1.) I even loved the Sega Movie opening, it made me smile seeing all those Sega games on the big screen. Love it or hate it, this movie is helping the franchise and I bet there's going to be new fans checking out the games because of the movie's positive ratings. Also Tails looked amazing in the post credits scene, and I honestly can only hope we will be getting a sequel in the future. Detective Pikachu is getting one, and it didn't even do as well as Sonic did!
having no authority figures or social interaction will absolutely delay social development in real life, so for reasons I won't elaborate upon I empathized with that a lot
My guess on how they could do sequels Spoiler: Spoilers Sonic 2 - Tails comes to Earth. Basically ignore Owl lady entirely (assumed dead). Robotnik escapes Mushroom world to Sonic's world, finds Knuckles, tricks him into taking him back home and fight Sonic. Found out Robotnik tricked him, stop him, end movie. Sonic 3 - Robotnik creates his Death Egg or ARK, creates either Metal Sonic or Shadow to fight Sonic.
Spoiler The only product placement I didn't mind was Olive Garden. I come from a small town like Green Hills and Olive Garden is as fancy as it gets, so I definitely see the angle they were going with haha.
Spoiler I'm a little surprised people think the Olive Garden thing was product placement and not just a tongue-in-cheek jab at a lousy restaurant. The Zillow one is definitely as blatant and laughable as you can get, and I think that must have set people off to think that any reference to something contemporary was PP.
Spoiler It honestly felt like both. I got some serious Wayne's World vibes from how blatant the Olive Garden plugs were, and that made them hilarious.
I was thinking about Metal Sonic likely being in a sequel. It occurs to me that they'll likely tweak his design to be more of a carbon copy of Sonic, particularly the quills. Just a random thought.
Spoiler Yeah, it felt like both to me as well. And you're right, after Olive Garden and their app gets brought up along with the slogan all they needed to do was wink at the camera like in Wayne's World.
Spoiler Does anyone else wish the Echidna tribe had a bit more of a presence in the movie? The backstory between Sonic and Longclaw felt super short in my opinion.
Watched it again and I think I liked it even more the second time. I really, really liked how they went about characterizing Sonic and emphasizing the contrast between him and Robotnik. still can't believe we're in the timeline where this movie is good
Spoiler funny thing about that, I went to college in Grand Forks, ND. The local food critic a few years into my college career reviewed the newly-opened Olive Garden and it became a meme. So yeah I absolutely buy this and I do wonder if it's the OG brand leaning into it.
Spoiler I thought about that too. I know for some people Olive Garden is a shitty restaurant, but it usually comes from people that grew up in a place with more choices to eat out. So the way the movie plays the joke is perfect. There's a reason why Tom ends pocketing the gift card, because he knows he has no choice. Might as well save 50 bucks lol. Spoiler I also wished it was longer, but apparently they couldn't focus too much on that part of the movie because of the budget. Here's hoping they get a bigger budget next time so we can see more of it.
something odd I've been seeing on twitter lately is people *blaming the Sonic movie* for getting the VFX studio that worked on it closed? which is odd to me because their last project was actually that inexplicable day one patch for Cats that came out like three days before they all got laid off. clearly we are formidable, being able to orchestrate studio closings.
Well the news for it closing was directly after the hullabaloo about the redesign so it's not surprising that uh...people linked the two.
I think, rather ironically, that my biggest problem with the whole movie was pacing. It was paced too damn fast and needed a bit more breathing room, or felt like it in any case. Who knows though, if it became a 2 hour movie it might lose some of it's appeal so I'm hesitant to offer suggestions on what would and wouldn't make it better.
I would've been invested in a 2-hour movie. If others have said they're interested in hearing more of the origins part of the movie, that's definitely something they could've delved into more.
