Sonic the Hedgehog Cinematic Universe Thread (& Knuckles)

I never got why people thought this was going to be some kind of faithful adaptation of SA2. It’s not SA2: The Movie, it’s the third Sonic movie. It takes inspiration from SA2 the same way Sonic 2 took inspiration from Sonic 3&K, and it never claimed to do otherwise. I thought I was going crazy when people were speculating that they’d have Rouge, the Biolizard, Gerald being executed by firing squad, etc.

That’s kind of their schtick, for better or worse. It takes all types I suppose.

 

That’s kind of why I intimated this was never going to be 1:1 - at the end of the day, writers are going to write.

If it is a choice between the writers for Sonic we had and those for, let say, Episode 9 of Star Wars - I know who I’m picking!

 

I never expected or wanted Movie 3 to follow SA2 completely accurate with no changes, movies should be their own thing.

However I felt the tone of Sonic Adventure 2 and the mature way it told it's story could have been executed in a live action film. And I feel that story with its epic moments and beautiful emotional pathos would have gotten a lot of attention from movie goers.

I know this is both the highest grossing Sonic movie and it has great fan/critical reception but I still believe the ways the movie watered/toned down many of my favorite moments and story beats led to a movie where people liked it but I doubt anyone became a Shadow super fan as a result of this film, because he's nowhere as entertaining as Movie Knuckles was in the 2nd film, or as mysterious and charismatic as he was in the original Sonic Adventure 2.

I'm sure I'll have less to complain about come movie 4 because it will hopefully focus more on movie lore and CD is a much simpler plot to expand on without affecting what made it special, so it'll be fine in the end, just wanted more people to see and love one of my favorite stories of all time in a way that made them realize why it clicked to me so much.

 

I still think some people gas up a little too much the story in Adventrure 2. It's not bad, I liked it, but a lot of it and how it was made didn't aged well, personally think movie did some stuff better, not everything, but some felt executed better.

I still think they could mix elements between Sonic CD and Heroes, and maybe, even OVA.

 

I think so, too.

It's a lot of fun for what it is trying to be, but I think I've seen plenty of similar tone and writing done better.

(This actually goes for the movie, too, I just think the movie is much stronger when it comes to theme.)

Having replayed them recently, I even think SA1 has a better story – I still think Gamma's narrative even reaches fantastic levels of storytelling with how it handles its contained unique perspective and recontextualises the rest of the story and we haven't had that quality since.

There's just so many details that bother me.

Sonic and Shadow being mixed up makes no sense and is taken completely seriously (it's a very peculiar kind of framing to me, where it's kind of maybe comedic sometimes, but also taken very seriously), The Biolizard could've at least been hinted earlier and been just a little bit of a bigger part of the story.

Crucially, Maria should've been an actual character. I don't think we actually even learn about her illness in SA2. The only reason I ended up caring about Shadow is because of that sincere sendoff and his participation in the final story, which told me they weren't just trying to make a "cooler Sonic" and at least tried to make a new character with a story of his own.

SA2 also walked back Amy's growth from SA1 and just repeated Knuckles' story from SA1 without any of the substance that had.

I really do want them both voice acted and scripted much better as far as localisation goes, though.

 

I know they're going to do more with Shadow given the popularity of the character but I am curious if they're going to go the show route or a spin off film.

I think a show either late this year or sometime next year would be great during the gap between films.

Knuckles was the most watched Paramount Plus original afterall (at least in its first weekend) and I bet a Shadow snow of a good quality could easily surpass Knuckles viewership.

Guess we'll see soon enough.

 

He never really stopped being considered that. The failure of the " meta " era is kinda proof that the shift that was taken wasn't really an audience that ever had the potential to care about these concepts. Kids always liked the character, so did the people who grew up with him. This film and the new material is just shining a light on how none of that actually ever changed. Sonic like many japanese franchises in the late 00's early 10's took some tumbles and made shifts to appeal to what they thought the western audience would want.

Thankfully we didn't get SmC shadow may cry or whatever.

I'm curious because he is at his core a very different guy with very different motivations than his game counter part. I want to see where they take him

I don't think its unreasonable for people to assume one of the few games who's story is actualy held in some regard and might be one of the most culturally relevant sonic games...period and one that was so successful it shifted how the franchise told stories and created characters might be a story worth sticking closer to. As well as the classic sonic stories that the first two films adapted , didn't have much story actually! They had to create a narrative that would last a films length that worked within the framework of what the first film set up.

Now I had 0 expectations because the the contract for these films was drafted in like 2010 the first film fitting for that time is alvin and the chipmunks but sonic, and was almost doomed to weird ugly grimlin sonic by an executive who thought he knew better and also wanted to make and uncritical unsatirical adaptation of star ship troopers. Most people aren't giant nerds like myself to know information and understand the full implications of everything i just said. They likely saw the first two filmed gave them leeway because they were classic stories with less meat on the bones. It also doesn't help that some of the changes made may have been to facilitate more screen time for jim. All i'm saying is, it isn't crazy for a person to think maybe this was going to be closer to sa2 and be disappointed, it wasn't

 

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's crazy to expect Sonic 3 to be a little more faithful to the source material but I do think "fool me once, shame on you - fool me twice, shame on me" is applicable here. I distinctly remember seeing a video review of the second movie that described it (positively) as "more of a Sonic movie" and it's just... not. Then we got a Knuckles show about his dumb friend and bowling, apparently. I haven't watched it and don't plan to. I think Ben Schwartz is a funny and talented guy who is perfect for this version of Sonic, but I also think this Sonic is nothing like the one I actually like and care about. I genuinely can't imagine how Sonic Adventure 2 would even work with these versions of the characters. What I can imagine is a sequel to Paramount's Sonic 2 movie where Shadow's in it and some of the set pieces are borrowed from SA2, which I'm guessing is what we got with this movie. I haven't watched it and don't plan to.

Like, not to be mean, but did we even watch the same trailers? I was interested enough to watch the first one and that told me all I needed to know - "konichiwhaaaaaa??" and "hahaha he called you a Pokemon" are Sonic movie jokes, not Sonic Adventure 2. It was clear from the start what kind of movie this would be.

 

I can be disappointed it's not something else it could have been even knowing that it isn't (to some extent) going into it, because I think the alternative would still have been outright better for the franchise long term.

If I had to speculate why this movie is the way it is, I would say it was both the insistence on being a comedy and cartoonish in nature, an obsession with experimenting with unnecessary time travel elements that ultimately never made it in, and probably some of the strikes leaving little room in the critical last moments to clean it up or pivot properly for filming.

I would have to say that SA2's story as a whole is probably the most compatible with what they're doing right now while still sticking to only things that can be done on Earth. From the perspective of just after Sonic 2, Many of the characters who make the story of SA2 what it is have nothing conflicting with their inclusion, at least nothing that couldn't be tweaked slightly (or retconed in the "we'll just contradict it anyways" way that certain elements in 3 were despite the events of 2)
Gerald didn't need to be alive. He lives through flashbacks, his grief through Shadow and later Biolizard (who could be written as the monster Shadow Could Be / Is Not). Robotnik lazing around instead of getting back up and going "Hm I wonder what happened to my family, oh what's this, hidden files relating to my family from 50 years ago? Let's go find out more." is such a weird choice. I don't need Rouge to show up (But she could, I guess, if you wanted to do a sideplot of her pursuing the emeralds like everyone else / following up on master emerald rumors), I don't need Amy to show up (her biggest role in the story is giving Shadow a conclusion he could maybe reach on his own that would be even more powerful) I would like a president to show up and sort of represent humanity in the way he was intended for SA2 but I don't think anyone cares about seeing even fictional presidents right now so who knows what'd happen there, I think they easily could have had the base Shadow lived in still be the ark but have it be like, one that launched, landed back and was properly shut down and sealed off, And then it still goes back up with the power of Shadow but the cannon needs a power source that was identified as being on earth but never located (until the last movie)
If you need some hijinks for Tom and Maddie to do, have them go to an auction for a loose Chaos Emerald or something like that. Even still there's room for the "don't loose who you are" thing the movie was already going for.
Tom, Maddie, Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles are already characters that roll with the punches. You can put them in any scenario and they will write themselves out, but focusing so much on them in 3 doing all these random things soley to avoid involving Shadow is a waste.
As for Biolizard, I imagine him being a small regular old salamander (Maria's pet?) that grows into a humanoid monster in the vein of what Rava and the Lizards would have been in Sonic 1, with a life support system powered by a Shadow Chaos Drive (it dies or something, Maria says something about memories living on, Shadow gives it to Gerald who notices a reaction to the chaos energy and builds said system to show how far he's going in the pursuit of his cure even though Maria has shown she's basically accepted death as a possibility...) growing crystals instead of blisters just to give it one thing it can rightfully tone down, and that is also something to fight at the end. (I guess I'm taking inspiration from Superman and Lois' Doomsday here? So that's a thing.)

Like I can go on. I hope this paints at least some picture of what I mean? Moments that mean something, a story that is faithful to what makes SA2 unique but not to a fault and properly utilizes original elements in this universe in a creative way, isn't afraid to be goofy at times but is not cartoonish... And there's moments still to fill in. Maybe hints at a Shadow adaptation? I barely even said anything about what anyone would be doing in the race to get the emeralds. Maybe you could even work in a "Because you just told me, fox boy" in there????

 

I mean, being disappointed that it wasn’t the movie you envisioned makes sense, even if your previous posts about it were a bit high on the “Jesus christ please settle down” scale. But this one kind of devolves into fanfiction? Like, “Here’s how they could have stuck exactly to the original story beats that I liked except instead of those story beats they’re things I made up.”

I can be upset the Knuckles series didn’t have enough Knuckles or that they changed Pachacamac into a friendly ghost, but being disappointed because he didn’t turn out to be evil and summon Chaos who floods Reno and Knuckles unleashes the flames of disaster by crying because Wade got hit by a truck and then Iblis and Chaos fight until Knuckles turns super and beats them and also my character Blorpo shows up to make out with him… that’s on me.

 

For me, a big screen movie is a chance for them to capture what I love about a series/work and show what elements about it resonated to me so much that made me a big fan in the first place.

That's why I loved The Avengers films. They weren't text accurate in the slightest but each film captured the spirit of the comics and did so in a way that appealed to people to the tune of billions of dollars.

That's why I really like Sonic the Hedgehog 2. I felt it added just enough mainstream elements while capturing the spirit and tone of the early Sonic games. While also doing it's own things where it needed to like movie Knuckles.

I genuinely do believe that movie 3 was good but it didn't capture the frantic energy and emotional weight of Sonic Adventure 2's plot. I get it, they want these to be fun films that are light and jumpy, but I'd say you could do that with most Sonic stories and not harm them (why I'm excited for movie 4 it will be nice to see them do their own thing for a bit), but SA2 lives by its serious tone.

I dont mind changes to the source material either. The second half of the Dune book is a series of deliberate anticlimaxes that wouldn't have been satisfying in a film. So I'm glad the film went for a more traditional epic structure while staying true to the focus on the fall of Paul's moral character. (And adding to the point, despite the popularity of the book, I can say confidently few people in the community had issues with the films changes)

I think everyone involved in the movie did every decision with the best intentions in mind, I just kept help feeling the entire thing could have been even more entertaining. And make people understand I love Sonic, not just because he's cool and blue, but because they aren't afraid to tell compelling and emotionally grabbing stories with him too.

But if this movie got anyone into Sonic who wasn't before, one day hopefully they will check out SA2 and love it as much as they loved movie 3, and that's all I can ask for

 

As far as expectations go, the previous movies set the precedent that this is its own universe with its own version of the characters, like SATAM, AoSTH, Sonic Boom, Sonic Prime, even Sonic Underground.

And that's exactly what I expected from movie 3 because that's what they've been doing so far.

Getting a 1:1 adaption that suddenly gave you the game version of the characters just didn't seem likely. I also find this option boring, myself. If I want to go play SA2, I'll go play SA2 and I think a slavish truncated version would probably be much worse than a flexible one that does its own thing with its own universe (and tone) it created with what came before.

The movie universe being really obviously designed to be distinct also actually protects any of the original material.

If you don't like these movies, you can just ignore them and the games are still the games.

 

I wonder how much of the expectation of direct adaptations is generational. 90s kids grew up with their regions’ respective comics which adapted the games to varying degrees (usually not particularly closely), but were clearly separate from the games themselves. The cartoons were also all distinct continuities with their own tones and atmospheres as well. I suppose Sonic wasn’t particularly different in characterization between those series like he is in the films, but Tails and Robotnik certainly were. Even the OVA, while close to what we called the “Segasonic” canon at the time, was its own deal with its own world and characterizations.

Nobody would have expected any of these to adapt the games closely, even though I think all of us wanted to see their favorite Sonic game stories recreated on screen. A Sonic CD cartoon would have been cool for sure, but as far as I know there weren’t people who saw the Pseudo Sonic episode and thought “Sonic CD had been RUINED! Is Sonic the Hedgehog a fucking joke to you?!”

Meanwhile, the fans born after that era had Sonic X, which tried to stick to the game characterizations for the most part and adapted the Adventure games without too many changes to their overall plots. And by then the only remaining comic series was Archie which had stopped doing its half-assed adaptations and it wasn’t long before Ian Flynn was brought in to clean things up and make the world and characters align more closely with the games.

I can’t really speak for any generations after that, though. If I had to guess I think a lot of younger people got their ideas on what Sonic should and shouldn’t be via YouTube or Twitter since there was such a dearth of meaningful Sonic content during the 2010s.

 

I mean it's also a difference in what there is to adapt. It's not like Tails being the boy-genius was so obvious in 2 and 3K that SatAM and Archie were just incredibly foolish to not portray him that way. But you can't miss it in the Adventure games. I think people expected Sonic adaptations to become more like the games because the games themselves became more like movies.

 

That’s a good point! There was a lot more left to the imagination in the old days just by the nature of the games themselves, so there was some wiggle room there. I guess there also wasn’t as much expectation for cartoons or movies to adapt our favorite games faithfully because they never really had before. Most of the creators in the 80s/90s weren’t all that familiar with the source material and were just doing their own thing.

 

From what I understand, people are not really concerned about what adaptations should be, rather what they shouldn't be.
If these movies kept the same story, setting and characterization but didn't include the typical children's Hollywood movie characteristics, people who don't necessarily like the movie right now would at least be more lenient,the differences wouldn't matter that much.
The CGI/live action hybrid, the samey music, the self aware catchphrases and jokes etc.
There's an undeniable "Alvin and the chipmunks" energy to these movies that were present from their very inception and that brings a strong sense of cynicism, it makes these movies come off as extremely insincere and cash grab-y, and yeah, they are.

I'm gonna make a weird comparison here,
Think of MCU's guardians of the galaxy.
Those movies are considered some of the best MCU has ever offered. They are universaly beloved and deeply sincere. Their differences from the source material never stopped them from being considered great.
However, by the end of the day, they are MCU movies, bloated big budget movies designed to sell to a mass audience that don't even care about the comics and the artists responsible for them.
That cynicism sours the entire experience, and I don't think you can do much about it.

 

Shadow has never been less of a joke than he is *right now*. He got a full game for himself and it is unanimously praised not just by fans but critics alike, with consensus barely ever seen in the franchise. Game critics are literally saying "wow, this is a great character, why didn't they bring back Shadow sooner?" this was unthinkable 18 years ago, 10 years ago, 6 years ago, even, where he was seen outside of the fandom, and often inside it also, as an attempt to just make "cooler, edgier Sonic", as a joke. "The Year of Shadow" has been extremely successful in not only revitalizing interest in the character, but getting the character to be even *more* liked and be taken seriously. Even I'm a convert! I used to feel conflicted about the character, I thought all the developments he had post Sonic Adventure 2 were stupid, I used to think people were right in reading the character as a dumb attempt at "edge", I used to blame him as a symbol of Sonic as a franchise not knowing what it was about and "jumping the shark". Now I think... he's really cool!

The movie clearly understands Shadow and takes him seriously. The movie really does lean into his tragic characteristics and barely ever gives him jokes, the humor of the movie is placed in all the other characters instead. If anything, the only problem I had with the movie's portrayal of him is just that we don't get enough of Shadow in the runtime. I said this before, but I think that as far as a "family comedy movie" goes, it adapts a lot of Shadow's backstory very faithfully and well, and carries on what I think is important about it. In his whole fight with Sonic, he clearly wants Sonic to just outright kill him because he's so struck with grief and doesn't know what else to do to make this go away. He has his inhibitor rings in this adaptation but never unlocks them against Sonic even when he's outmatched. "This pain, is all I know", him begging Sonic to just strike him in the heart too. For a movie trilogy that began as just "buddy cop Alvin and the Chipmunks comedy" that's *fucking dark*. And like I said earlier, a wide release blockbuster american movie about Sonic can't just be Sonic Adventure 2. Sonic Adventure 2 is the way that it is because of cultural differences between Japan and West and what can be seen as an appropriate story for kids. A story like this to be adapted the way that it was for a wide release american Sonic movie would have been unthinkable even just 6 years ago. This is a really fantastic and faithful adaptation all things considered - the fact that the movies are framed as family comedies, the difficulties in adapting Shadow's story, etc.

I urge people who think they "need" the validation of a big blockbuster to tell you that the stories you like matter to rethink your mindset. Not only because you'll find much better, much more resonant stories in much more remote and small places, but because you yourself matter! You liking Sonic Adventure 2 matters! Other people not sharing the same feeling as you about Shadow or Sonic Adventure 2 doesn't make your feelings matter less! And also, it's a *very* beloved game and character right now, so let go of the feeling that you need complete consensus by everyone else on it too.

 

A new load of storyboards dropped on the portfolio page of Cole Harrington, a storyboard artist on the film, showing earlier versions of several sequences:

- Alive After All: The scene where Team Sonic find out Robotnik is still alive. Interestingly, while this early version differs in some ways from the used version, it doesn't include any equivalent for the flashback scene showing how Stone saved Robotnik after the previous film, which actually made it as far as being shot. Presumably that whole sequence was added after this version, only to just end up on the cutting room floor again!
- Heist Plan: The scene where Team Sonic plan their G.U.N. HQ heist - this version is intercut with Team Robotnik planning their own heist, including Shadow referencing the "like taking candy from a baby" line from Shadow the Hedgehog.
- Infiltrate and Dance: The scene where Team Sonic prep for their heist, and the Robotniks infiltrate G.U.N. HQ - largely similar to the final version, though some interesting differences include a bunch of celebrity cameos for Tom's hologram disguise which didn't pan out, and Sonic clearly having nipped off to buy a bunch of tourist tat inbetween shots while he's stuck waiting for the plan to commence.
- Chase: A more action-packed version of Sonic's entry into G.U.N. HQ - in this version, Shadow spots him launching himself off Tower Bridge and follows, resulting in a chase between the two through G.U.N. HQ itself.
- Ivo vs. Gerald Bridge Fight: A completely different take on the battle between the two Robotniks - instead of all the bizarre comedic nanotech, this one largely focuses on the two combatting each other with laser-firing finger-guns. Ivo also manages to take out Gerald himself before Tails and Knuckles arrive.

Interesting to see what could have been. One thing of note is that Gerald seems to be played (or written, I guess) much more straight in these earlier versions - based on this, I'm guessing Jim Carrey may have been a large influence in the more off-kilter version of the character seen in the finished film.

 

The contradiction of being a product to sell/be successful vs. good sincere storytelling is pretty interesting to me in this context because it's one of those cases where I feel like the product-y nature of these movies is so clear to see, but I personally also see sincerity under it all and while the first two movies ultimately were dragged down by what I consider the most product-y elements of them pretty heavily (the pop culture references and human character involvement), I gave the third one a chance because I saw that soul under there and it ended up being my favourite of the three because it cut down on these elements.

These elements exist in the hopes of connecting with general audiences that don't know anything about Sonic; to sell this product they created to them, but I also dislike the pop culture references specifically from a writing stand point.

I think I straight-up dislike them in pretty much every movie that does them, even, because it is kind of riding on the coattail of the writing and success of other movies, not its own.

To me it shows insecurity and lack of faith for the movie to stand on its own, maybe even laziness.

The Sonic movies generally use them better than many others because they are relevant to characters (Sonic learned about the human world through pop culture stuff; Knuckles is scared of ghosts, thus the Caspar reference), but I still feel these movies would work without any kind of reference uttered ever.

Yet despite them, the heart of all three movies did end up reaching me because I ended up liking all three, even if the first two were more like 5-6/10 and the third one was 8ish/10 for me.

I think it's an interesting element to think about.

Imagine if any classic movie was just laced with contemporary references?

Really also gives me the sense these movies might not age too well.

 

The pop reference stuff is a weird Hollywood impulse that I think stems all the way back to Disney's Aladdin. It was a huge hit and a big part of it was Robin Williams being cast as the Genie and having him do several referential jokes and having bits of his stand-up comedy straight up be used in-character. This started a trend of using famous actors and referential humor in kids cartoon movies to give them an "ironic edge" over other kids movies, market them towards adults by saying "hey it's not just going to be boring for you, there's going to be jokes YOU will laugh at too!". Shrek being so wildly popular and pushing the edgy humor further also contributed hugely to this. Thirty years later, referential ironic humor and famous funny actors have become commonplace in kids movies and it's a hell of an uphill battle to try to convince execs to make a big budgeted kids movie that doesn't have that. The argument of "but it'll age the movie!" doesn't matter because immediate profits are much more important than any potential small profits that come later. I also dislike the pop culture stuff because they're not just time-specific, but often place-specific as well, and it teaches non-American kids to overvalue American culture