Eddie Lebron's Fan Film, "Sonic"

Technically ChipCheezum and General Ironicus. When I think just "Retsupurae", I tend to think of Slowbeef and Diabetus.

 

Close enough, they're basically the B-team of RP. Hell, they cross over onto each other's channels often enough.

edit: whoop, quoted the wrong post.

 

Getting back to the ACTUAL FAN FILM HERE, here's my "critical" analysis.

At the beginning of the movie I liked the scenery of South Island (Although why what I presume is Station Square is on South Island is beyond me, maybe they were just going for a Post-Bane Gotham kinda thing with the abandoned city thing.) but when I first saw Brent Black then James Rolfe, I kinda saw what was gonna give this movie some likes (apart from Urkel fanboys). Internet celebs are just EVERYWHERE in this movie and rather than expand and make good characters, they just throw in cameos. I mean, did you see James Rolfe? He was almost laughing his ass off during his scene. The only internet celeb I liked during this was Doug Walker because he had no lines, and had a small purpose; being the first to see Sonic.

Speaking of Sonic "ZOMG U GAIZ JALEEL WHITE IZ BAK VOICING SONIC". Yeah, we know. Quite honestly while you can tell he ha aged, he did pretty well and caught the spirit of Sonic's attitude pretty well. He delivered his "Robuttnik" line EXACTLY like he used to back in the day.

Speaking of Robuttnik, he's okay. I could honestly care less about his outfit. His actor's pretty good, they just needed a bigger moustache. The musical score was nice for what it was, altough only 3 seconds of Green Hill Zone isn't really fan service in the auditory department.

Overall: 7/10.

 

It's funny cause he points out things that don't make sense!

+ - I remember when I found Doug Walker funny.  

 

I wish they'd gotten me to do that when I was up there working on the flick, I could've done my Robotnik voice and everything.

 

Eh, seemed weak to me. Probably just the script, though. Doug's reviewed AoStH and SATAM, he's not a complete dunce when it comes to Sonic.

Spoiler

Not gonna lie, though, I would totally see a short film where Chester A. Bum is a dictator.

 

Oh, I get it. That was the lost episode of "Demo Reel"!

Spoiler

Demo Reel was funnier. And that's sad.

 

I wonder if there's a video of James Rolfe trying out for Robotnik and Sonic...

 

You know, coming off of my monologue's about my problems with Classic Sonic's model in Generations, I think I've also put my finger on what it is I didn't like about the model they used here - outside of just basic aesthetic principles, because it does look pretty ugly on that note, as well.

My problem with it isn't that they tried to blend Sonic in with a real world environment, because that can work and be potentially pretty interesting - but, just like Sonic '06, when doing that with a character like Sonic who is so inherently "other" you're constantly going to walk over the Uncanny Valley on a dangerously thin path, particularly because we have something that looks and moves in a recognizably human way within the same frame. You have to, you know, be able to actually pull it off, because this is kind of one of those things that we know from trial and error can't be excused because of low-budget or whatever. And, I think the problem with both of these, in this context, is that they decided that they were just going to port Sonic's surreal, "silent animation through a cartoony Japanese lens" design straight over and base their character model off of the ones being used in the most recent games, and set them right next to live people. This doesn't work, because of what I mentioned previously, but there's an easy fix that I'm not sure why Labron and co., didn't take:

I mean, first of all, figure out what to do with his mouth, because Jesus. But, outside of that, really - all they had to do was to give Sonic some kind of physical definition, an underlying musculature. Nothing that changes the silhouette of the design or what is inherently "Sonic" about it, but something that at least lets us know that this is a character of flesh and bone like the rest of us, because as it is he kind of looks like an alien, and is entirely separate from everything else in the film, which is the problem and the thing that colors the entire film. It looks cheap. Just flesh out his arms and legs a little bit, and give his torso some kind of definable shape. Also, in keeping with that, maybe make the shoes and the gloves a little less cartoony - There's nothing wrong with a little change, and I feel this probably would've helped a lot. It would've given the character a physical weight and heft within the world Labron was trying to set up that was missing. And, while I'm not somebody who really has a preference either way, I do think that using Sonic's classic design would've helped, because it's a lot more malleable in this respect. I say this because there's one artist in particular who used to work on the Archie series who did the very same thing I'm talking about in the mid-nineties, and it's probably one of my favorite designs for the character besides Oshima's original sketches, overall. I can't remember his name, so it might be (haha) Ken Penders, for all I know.

And personally, I even like the "styled" approach to the spines, in theory if not in execution, because that's something that's always been implied to be true about the character.

 

EDIT: I realized what I was writing was tl;dr and almost preaching to the choir but in short, I just cringe/hate how he forces the idea that the concept of the character as a whole sucks and Mario's better; it was barely funny the first time and two decades later I don't think it's any better.

Spoiler

...That Doug Walker skit is nitpickey as shit. It's not funny in the slightest and it makes me wonder why nobody ever gave enough of a damn to make fun of the nonsensical shit MARIO does, because believe me there's a LOT of that.

"Why am I punching blocks?"

"Ok why the fuck would a vine come out of this yellow cube? And why is it hovering in the air in the first place? Is there some kind of anti-gravity technology I'm missing?"

"Why are there so many coins? Either I'm really rich or this place is really poor. And why are they all scattered around"

"Really? The princess... was captured by a giant turtle? Are you sure the guards weren't able to fight it off or anything? It's a FUCKING TURTLE."

"I'm sorry, I just don't understand why eating a mushroom makes you grow another two feet... or why a flower suddenly makes you shoot fireballs."


I'm sure there HAS been fun poked at this a few times, for example Smosh's "video games in real life," and internet webcomics that follow the same shtick of applying real logic to the video game world, but in Doug's attempted humor he just points out how everything doesn't make sense and seemingly says one series is better than the other in all respects. Knowing him, I know he doesn't think that's entirely the case, but even then the video points out all the ridiculous shit about the game series we already know. Just like we know it's fucking stupid a bunch of animals fly space-travelling fighter pilots to shoot down a giant monkey head... in space, and how it's fucking stupid a group of monkeys roll around in spheres in LSD-trip levels to get their bananas back from a professor monkey, and how we know it's fucking stupid woodland animals with superpowers are fighting a mad scientist who wants to deforestation everything to his own design. Ironically, the latter makes the most sense, and it's the series people rip on the most for "nonsensical" stuff.

tl;dr, why do people think saying child games make no sense is funny.


Then again I did chuckle at the bit near the end but that's it