Sonic the Hedgehog Cinematic Universe Thread (& Knuckles)

Ok, now that I'm more lucid, my thoughts:

I do think that the story of Wade coming to terms with his father abandoning him is kinda touching, but the way they did it is honestly a little insulting. It kinda felt like this was originally its own film and then they shoehorned Knuckles into it last minute. The humor doesn't even entirely bother me, but they should've played the emotional dynamic of this a bit more straight. I do think they were trying to make the heart of this series about coming to grips with your family trauma and moving past it, but there's a lot to be desired here.

The Knuckles' plot stuff has some good things going for it, but again ruins the presentation. GUN has two dirty agents who are in it for the money and revenge against a system that doesn't take them or their work seriously enough. The female agent got really compelling, albeit far too late, and then promptly disappeared after one scene following that. Their buyer is intriguing but we know next to nothing about him aside from an exposition dump late into the series and even then it doesn't explain fully what his ties to the good Doctor are or what his end goal is. Knuckles' story about adjusting to having a home make significant progress, especially in the episode where we visit Wade's home which is honestly the best episode in the series in my opinion, but we get no payoff for it. Instead Knuckles is pretty much missing through most of the last episode and it ends with a cheesy mid-jump shot without emotional payoff.

They were very clearly going for an 80s coming of age type story, but it comes off rather strange and at times inane. The whole dream sequence with the rock ballad show explaining Knuckles' power (honestly that whole episode) is really really dumb. The music is honestly take it or leave it, as someone born in 1996, I have no real attachment to it (I do like Holding Out For a Hero, but placement seems awfully random).

Also, if Wade's story is supposed to be standing up for himself, why is it that most of the time he's rushing to hide behind Knuckles? Even after the whole sword fight on bikes thing, that's his go-to. It makes Wade out to be more pitiful than he really should be.

All in all, the show felt very sloppy. It was set up decently over the first 2 episodes, has a very nice 3rd episode, and then it goes straight downhill. If this is supposed to be Wade's story of overcoming some of the trauma his dad inflicted on him and his family then fine, lean into it. You should also have Knuckles' own arc mirror that, how he can find a home through a family he has like Wade does. As it is, I don't think the show knows what it's message or story is trying to be...

 

I think we should give Wade and the writers more credit for + - not actually betraying Knuckles and instead letting him know who was waiting for him in the elevator   because that's pretty cool.

 

Yeah, it's nice seeing Wade ins't (that) dumb as we thought.

 

That really caught me by surprise. Said "holy shit" out loud and everything. This show made me really like Wade, and I'm genuinely excited to see him in the third movie, if he happens to appear.

 

Just finished this film with my roomies, and it was honestly quite an enjoyable romp. I agree that it is very Wade-centric, but his inclusion isn't an egregious sleight on humanity - admittedly, he was on the right path to take my heart, and I wish they enforced his development even harder with Knuckles alongside him. Now, I'm gonna go into a random list of things I've acknowledged about the series.

• The pacing suffers in very strange ways when the humans are involved - they stick to scenes for longer than they need to, interactions can be off-kilter as a result, and it can leave you with this aura of unease. Primary examples that come to mind are the two commentators for The Ocho, and the teensy segment with the kids on bikes.
  
• Editing and general VFX are solid for television. With burning vehicles, beaming ghosts, bountiful transitions, broken fingers and blazing fireworks (there's honestly a lotta fire), I don't think you'll fail to be impressed by the quality of the work, the weakness just lies in its intention.
• Once you start to stray away from the key Whipple family & Knuckles, the comedy becomes unfathomably dull for how well they presented it - There have been times when my roommates chuckled their butts off, it really does a lot of the heavy lifting, and is leagues better than any attempt made in the movies.
• The creative decisions are baffling, and I wish the show had a bit more time in the oven to cook proper - most of the new human characters (again, outside of the Whipple family) are half-baked and under-seasoned, the montages are numerous and vary wildly in taste...
  Spoiler

  There was a whole-ass rock opera featuring a hand-made puppeteered version of Iblis himself??? Like that's the most insane reference you can make at this point, right? And it was fun! An odd, fun concoction that you could tell folks enjoyed bringing to fruition!
  ... This show is funky tasting, and leaves you full enough for an appetizer, but has you wondering just how they're gonna treat the main course as you digest.

It is now midnight, and I shall be yearning for Sonic 3's arrival.

 

Oh yeah, I think the official wait for Sonic 3 movie trailer / teaser starts in May.

Paramount will probably share the voice reveal for Shadow first, tho'.

 

After watching it these are my predictions for the rumored Shadow spinoff:

-Shadow helps Agent Stone get back into the dating game.

-The Black Arms, a motorcycle gang of Green Hill retirees, caused trouble 50 years ago in their youth and are back again.

-Mephiles the Dark is a magician from the Soleanna circus who wants Shadow's quill to do real magic.

-One of the things Maria wanted to do on earth was visit a Sears.

But coming back to the Knuckles show. It's not a bad show, but I think the flaws of the movies are more noticeable here.

For example, the movies have these moments that are really touching, but then they undercut them with a joke. But in this show is that times ten.

This is not Paramount Sonic exclusive, but I think some creatives need to trust us and let us leave our comfort zones for a bit.

Can you imagine if when Mufasa dies and Simba is crying that he or another character says something like "I guess no more allowances." That's how these projects feel like sometimes.

We don't need the quips and jokes on every scene, and I think these Sonic live action projects suffer too much from this habit.

And I think that Wade is not a bad character, but along with the movies, they have the same struggle that Sonic X had.

The story of Chris wasn't bad. Even if he's rich a lot of kids probably identified with the feeling of missing their parents because they are at work. He actually has progression and grows.

But it has to struggle with the fact that most people are watching it because they want to see Sonic and his friends in action.

So both of these elements are at odds at times instead of balancing each other.

The movies also have this struggle, but I think they get away with it because they are short and to the point.

This series doesn't have that luxury because it's longer, and I'm guessing because of budget, Knuckles has to disappear and Wade has to carry the show.

But if you're in it for Knuckles then of course you're going to walk away with disappointment.

It also shares a trait with modern streaming shows where you feel this could have been a movie instead. I think it being shorter would have helped, especially since they were going to release all episodes at once anyway.

It also used some elements from the games that I guess are not going to be used again, or if they are, certain core elements have been changed.

Again, it's not a bad show. I just think it didn't quite strike the right balance between the Sonic elements and the live-action material.

I'll put this in spoilers because it's more specific:

Spoiler

Shout out to the person who wrote Wanda, because a character hasn't gotten on my nerves like this since Bill Burr and his gang in that episode of the Mandalorian. She should've been the main villain tbh.

 

It was alright. Effects were pretty good for a series made for streaming, and Knuckles and to a bigger extent Wade got some much needed development, and I'll never get tired of Idris' Knuckles or Cary Elwes and Wade feels much less like a one-dimensional joke now so I hope the development sticks. I agree with the complaints it dips in quality as it goes along and there could've been more Knuckles but I imagine they had to cut down on that and focus more on human family stuff for the sake of budget, something they not-so-happily point out during a certain infamous moment.

Either way it was fine. Not much better nor worse than Sonic 1, which is more than I was expecting.

 

Don't have much to add that hasn't already been said. I liked it enough that I'm hoping for a season 2 that has more focus on Knuckles. We did get some back story (with Iblis in it!?) so that was nice. I stayed away from previews and cast reveals, so Christpher Lloyd voicing Pachacamac was a nice surprise for me, as was Cary Elwes showing up lol.

 

Seen 2 episodes. It's enjoyable so far but man we really gotta solve the actor and CG creature driving in a car problem.

 

I watched it the other day and thought it was okay. It's not bad, but it's not good really either. I was going in expecting to see the show be based more around Knuckles and less around Wade, but yeah Knuckles is just a side character in a series named after him. Also why the hell do they always pick All the Small Things by Blink 182 when the band has much better songs?! Blink 182 is my favorite band of all time so hearing their music in Sonic related media was cool, but damn I'm getting tired of that one song. Yeah I know it's probably their most well known song, but meh. Also there really wasn't enough 90's music in the soundtrack either. I don't really see a 80's power ballad fitting Knuckles. I do admit I like the King Pin reference in the show though, loved that film growing up and it fits well with the bowling theme.

 

I'm just shocked they used Iblis at all. And creates so many questions about the future of the movie's universe. Like are they going to adapt 06? If so how do you bring back Iblis if Knuckles supposedly dealt with him? Seems strange. Although I guess I could make a theory-
Since Knuckles only defeated Iblis with pure strength and didn't seal away Iblis with the Chaos Emeralds, Iblis eventually came back and tracked Knuckles down to Earth since I guess the Flames of Disaster are now in Knuckles instead of Elise? I guess it's a way to adapt 06 and skirt around Sonic's weird relationship with Elise. But that's cutting out a huge part of 06... Maybe I'm just looking too deep into it, it's probably too risky of a move to adapt 06... But at the same time, they wouldn't be calling it 06, it'd be Sonic 4 or 5.

 

yeah I'm not surprised there's a focus around the human characters. CG is expensive so it was kind of odd to me to make a whole show, with I assume the same kind of TV budget, around a CG character. And the way you get around that is by not having said CG character in every frame unfortunately.

....cary elwes is in this tho?

 

There was a list that circulated earlier this month relating to rights to games Paramount was granted, and I'm not sure how up to date it is (it was apparently made in 2019) but it does list 06, so it looks like they acted on their ability to pull from it.

What's funny is the newest game they have on the list is Sonic Colors, and surprising omissions are Shadow and Unleashed. I still think it's a pretty workable list even if it did something like limit the characters available to ones that debut in those games because they have enough freedom to make stuff around that or outright change it into what they want. Even then, it would be weird if they couldn't negotiate for more.

 

It was fine. I disagree that it's among the worst Sonic media, I had plenty of laughs, enjoyed many scenes, and quite liked that I wasn't ever too sure what it'd do next. It did a good job embracing the ridiculous premise of dumb human + meathead alien while going over the top for better or worse.

 

Yeah but spoilers.

 

first episode was uploaded for free to YouTube. Insert your complaint about regional unavailability below.

 

Unavailable in Brazil. Sheesh.

 

Saw this behind the scenes pic of the Knuckles show on my Twitter feed. I'm really impressed with their stand in props:

Compared to Sonic 2, which looks like lame Happy Meal toys:

I'm kind of curious why the feel the need to update them though, they'd be just as effective for actors and animators, no?

 

Finished this today. Yeah, "Wade" definitely would've been a more accurate title, but it was honestly probably more entertaining than Sonic Prime.