Sonic the Hedgehog Cinematic Universe (now with open spoilers)

That would certainly be the Anime way to do it, but yea I don't think Sonic should get a power up just to overcome Knuckles. Just have Sonic either use hits wits to outsmart Knuckles or just have him and Tails tag team him.

The latter is probably more likely given this is Sonic and Tails' first outing so teaming up to take down Knuckles is a good way to solidify their friendship. AND it protects Knuckles as he would still be way stronger than them individually.

 

What I'm thinking is it's a Chaos Emerald, in spite of the size, and in the third movie Eggman will be all "Look, I found evidence that there's 6 more!" so that the trilogy can be capped off with Super Sonic fighting some massive creation of Eggman's.

But who knows.

 

I tuned into the game awards to see what might be said about Metroid Dread primarily, but was definitely interested in seeing the Sonic 2 trailer, too. I was lucky to catch it as it happened, as I usually miss this sort of event during live streams and my internet connection was inexplicably in and out that night for some reason. Fortunately, I was able to catch the trailer as it happened.

Way back, I kept thinking the best case scenario for this film would be a straight adaptation of Mega Drive Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and of course with Knuckles in it, bringing in story elements from 3/K as well. That was my best case scenario, but I thought it would be unlikely. Well, as the trailer was nearing release, I became more optimistic. I thought, “Wouldn't it be great if someone working on the film was like ‘Ok let's do what the fans won't expect and actually be 100% true to the games' story. Do the unexpected.’”

It appears they're going this route. Normally, that type of thing never ever happens. It has space stuff, the Tornado, the Master Emerald, badniks from the games...that in and of itself is surprising. It doesn't feel like pandering so far, either. It seems they've played the Mega Drive games and have taken notes.

I have no complaints about any character's voice at this stage. In fact, the voice of Knuckles here is similar to what I used to think Sonic should sound like when I was a kid. They can't just go back and change Sonic's voice without raising eyebrows at this point, and I've grown to really like movie Sonic's voice honestly, but a deep raspy voice for Knuckles is perfect IMO.

I am actually quite cynical about things like this. Hollywood films, etc. I am a cynical bastard and the first movie was delightful even if it didn't bring in much of the games' canon. It was better than what I had expected it to be. Not great, but quite a bit of fun if you can just accept it as a Hollywood video game adaptation. It could have been so much worse.

This time, they are attempting to nail it. ‘Attempting’ probably being the operative word here, but this could be so much worse than what it is looking to be. The Death Egg, West Side Island, Angel Island all might even make it in at this rate (let's hope). Let's hope because from what is shown, they're not going in the wrong direction. That much seems clear.

With Tyson on this... with Colleen, too. With Jim Carrey actually looking like a great choice for Eggman/Robotnik. Well... no major complaints at this point. Aerial battles in the Tornado and Buzz Bombers... the emeralds... I am thinking they know exactly what they're doing and they're taking the high road. The road less traveled by video game adaptations. I will definitely go see it.

One thing I am dreading however is if they bring in Shadow in this or the next one. I've always found Shadow to be super lame, but I know I am in the minority by holding that opinion. Shadow has always been, to me, like Poochie the Dog from that old Simpsons episode. Just a dumb, derivative character meant to bring in new fans because he's “cool” but that is just me and my dislike of Shadow.

If they do indeed cover all the major plot points of Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 & Knuckles in this one, it would be nice to go in a Sonic CD direction for the next one instead of Adventure. But that's just me and my dumb opinion.

 

Hey, it wasn't that long ago that that seemed like the majority opinion. :P People might not be as, uhh, "passionate" about it nowadays, but you're not alone.

And one of the reasons people hated him back in the day is that Shadow's original arc is awfully derivative of Knuckles, to the point that it turned him into a bit of an afterthought. (Rivals Sonic's abilities and contrasts his personality, initially a mysterious loner working with Robotnik, realizes the error of his ways and helps the good guys win, any alliance with Sonic and pals is always tenuous 'cause they can't get along...) And since some version of that is definitely what Knuckles is gonna go through in movie 2, they're gonna need to make Shadow quite different if they don't want movie 3 to come across as a rehash.

 

I'm ok with movie Sonic in Sonic frontiers if the alternative is discount Sonic from all the recent games, but I get why some people don't want that design in games, and I too think that's not exactly the design to go for, just a good reference for a Sonic model in realistic environments, just as the Unleashed model could be brought back and it would already be an improvement. Those of you who have tried it in its recent return to XBox consoles will judge better than me, but the model of the game needs to change.

Back to the movie, I have a theory: 7 chaos emeralds may be too much when you have the master emerald and characters which powers that behave like coming from some chaos emerald... And maybe that's what's going on, that these furries bear chaos powers within and they'll introduce enough of them in the third movie (Amy, Shadow, Silver and Blaze?) so they can lend their power to Sonic to become Super and fight the Death Egg or whatever. I know, not exactly the game canon, but at this point you have to excuse those furry superpowers somehow.

 

I don’t think the movie design needs to be in the games but it’d be cool to see.

I think adding fur to the characters would be enough of an update to the game models. I do not understand why some are so strictly against it. It adds detail and would blend well with realistic environments...not saying it’s bad as is...just a pro to using fur.

I mentioned on the other board many non-live action cgi characters have fur texture in their movies and look fine. Nobody complains that something like Zootopia uses fur texture. It’d be the same difference with game Sonic.

As for the chaos emeralds I’d love to see live action special stages. It could be some kind of other dimension that mixes elements from the game special stages. I think this would be really cool to see turned “real”. Could even keep the link of their powers. That they require certain abilities to get through.

 

On the topic of putting Movie Sonic in the games: I have no desire for Movie Sonic to be in the game nor do I have any desire for the current Game Sonic design to change, but I'm not necessarily against a change. It's not like the current design is sacred in any way. It's already been changed from what I grew up with, so while I don't see any reason to change the design, I don't have any real issue with it either.

 

Knuckles and Shadow are only superficially similar to each other, there's a lot of difference that just go over people's heads. For one, Knuckles is a loner due to being isolated from society and his conflict with Sonic was due to being manipulated by Eggman, as well as possessing a bigger temper. The reason Knuckles became an afterthought is because Sega stopped caring about him because Sonic's had other rivals past Shadow's introduction, and Shadow never became an afterthought. By the time Sonic Adventure rolled around, they were already stretching themselves thin to justify a conflict between Sonic and Knuckles and literally just played the same scenario of the latter being tricked in Sonic 3..

So it really just comes down to what the writers can come up with for Knuckles past this movie or if his arc will just be wrapped up here.

 

https://sea.ign.com/sonic-the-hedge...confirms-which-emerald-appears-in-the-trailer

The emerald shown in the trailer is indeed the Master Emerald.

 

Weird that they would skip the Chaos Emeralds and go straight to the Master Emerald. But I'll worry about that when the movie gets here.

 

Having one Macguffin makes sense for a 2 hour film as opposed to seven.

 

I guess they didn't want Master Emerald to be "oversized"?

 

Probably. At least it's still bigger than the Chaos Emeralds.

 

The Chaos Emeralds could be introduced at the end of this movie, and be the main plot for a third one.

 

Nah, Eggman just came across it while it was in Small Mode.

 

This. Not to mention having seven of them will likely give people Infinity Stone/MCU vibes which could cause them to go "Oh god are we gonna have ANOTHER cinematic universe to follow?".

If they do put the seven Chaos Emeralds into this universe I do wonder how they will handle it. Will they cram it into a third movie (bad idea)? Spread it over two movies (better idea but kinda risky)? Spread the hunt for each emerald into multiple sequels and/or spinoff films/shows (manageable but very risky)?

 

One key difference between the Chaos Emeralds and Infinity Stones is that the emeralds are seven iterations of the same macguffin, while the stones were seven unique macguffins. The emeralds are thus much more like the Dragon Balls that may've served as their inspiration. I don't think collecting the emeralds necessitates taking place over more than one movie, much like how the Dragon Balls were often collected within minutes of an episode/movie after the initial collection spanning several episodes in the first season. I think it would be best for at least a single emerald to be stumbled upon by the end of this movie, but after that the rest can be collected in the third. In subsequent films, or perhaps a spinoff show, they could be collected in a montage sequence as none of the emeralds are unique beyond their colour or where they happen to be presently located.

 

Six.