Sonic the Hedgehog Cinematic Universe Thread (& Knuckles)

Yeah and I admitted i was misinformed (even though exact numbers aren't mentioned for whatever reason). I have an interest in box office and sales figures because it gives me an idea of the interest of general audiences. I will admit I was misinformed if I was because it gives me something to takeaway from where tastes are trending.

We know what the game reached so far. 2 million sales. That's after a huge year of Shadow push and selling 1.5 million units before the movie came out.

I'm not saying people didn't enjoy the film. I'm not saying it was a bad film. All I was saying was I didn't feel it impacted people enough to check out the source material.

That doesn't mean they won't come back for 4 or a Shadow spin off or new material. I just don't feel this movie made anyone understand why I love SA2 and still do to this day.

 

Oh no don't worry, the movie -and Shadow generations- made lots of people understand the appeal of SA2 and Shadow just fine, the game even proved that even including prominent elements from Shadow 2005 -one of the most panned games in the series- won't hinder the appeal of the character and his story, in some ways it enhanced it even, in that way the year of shadow was a huge success, revitalizing the interest in Shadow in a lot of ways either through games or outside it.
Now will just wait for the Shadow IDW one shot to bring the year of shadow to a close.

 

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Hey, in the long run we both do nothing but benefit from you being right. I think I'm still allowed to be skeptical but more Sonic material appealing to more people and more games being made isn't something I'm against in the slightest.

This isn't me running away or flipping anything I've said either. I am not in denial of movie 3s success. At least 40 million people saw the film.

I bring up the boost in game sales compared to other franchises genuinely curious at the profound jumps and why they happened. The only reason I thought it was notable was because 40 million people is comparable to the viewership of Last of Us and Fallout (around this point in release) and I want more people being into the Sonic games.

I could show you posts of mine genuinely hoping Shadow Generations could become the best selling sonic release ever, from around the time of release, too. I would be popping bottles if there were articles saying SA2 had a huge bump in units sold after Sonic 3 came out. I love seeing Sonic grow.

And I hope both continue to grow.

Edit : Adding this later on but



There is no denial from me the movies are doing great and are successful. I just wish i could understand why it's not trickling down the other parts of the franchise, especially the games.

 

It is trickling down. Your assumption that only the copies sold after the movie's release were impacted by the movie itself is simply flawed. The hype cycle around the movie was in full force by the time SxSG came out. That's what sells copies. SxSG got one of the biggest ad campaigns possible by essentially piggybacking off of S3's campaign. The numbers after the movie's release are just the smoke after the fire of the ad campaign. Not to mention SxSG only got the polish that it, like Frontiers before it, did because of the boost in revenue from the movies. It's all connected in cycle that constantly feeds and grows itself. Looking at the sales after the movie came out as if it's whole picture is missing the forest for the trees.

 

I just wish they would've taken a look at the SA2 Steam port and fixed some bells and whistles.

Even with mods support it can still be rough.

But I know it's not as easy as it sounds to do that in a business setting.

 

Well, in analysis, a lot of the fun is looking at past data and making assumptions and theories based on those numbers to understand how something else is doing.

I brought up other series that had bumps after the films release because that's typically how it goes. The benefits are clear in the aftermath of the films success. The effects on Mario were felt immediately for example.

Going to another medium and, and it's on my head constantly in the last few months, Lord of the Rings sold an additional 50 million copies in the three years between the films release. That's an unambiguous growth in fandom as the result of a major motion picture. I never denied sonic had a growth in fandom either. I always want it to sell MORE and do BETTER because I want Sonic to be great.

I always felt looking at how side and additional medias data after a major multimedia installment was a fair way to look at its growth and feel it's still valid.

Maybe you're absolutely that Shadow Generations benefited from the movie hype cycle and it's million copies that it sold in 3 days had everything to do with it. I was just giving my own independent analysis based on my knowledge of the subject and never tried to do so based on any biases because that is against the very nature of box office/sales figure following which is to just look at the numbers and try to figure out objective reasons for why they are the way they are.

I hope this time next year we find out Shadow Generations has cleared 3 million units. Because the only thing I gain is more people enjoying great sonic projects and that's all I want.

 

Oh yeah it's a flawed port. I think the big things are the lack of frame limiting, talking over each other in cutscenes and the rail grinding? That's the ones I noticed.

As I said before, I'd also like the Adventure games to get a better localisation and acting, even if at this point the cheese is part of the charm. I think the Adventure cast is still the most fitting voices for the characters, but the script and acting really isn't that good.

 

Well, Lord of the Rings had been a classic of literature for half a century, so a movie would naturally get people to pick up a copy based on the work’s good reputation.
Mario was a reliable franchise with a reputation for consistent quality lasting decades, so a movie would naturally spark an uptick based on the known quality of the source material.
Sonic the Hedgehog getting a movie is not going to have the same quick fortune as those brands. We’re only now finally clawing our way back up, with the baggage of an unfortunate public reputation that lasted a really long time. If you want to look for brand analogies, I’m sorry but Mario and LotR aren’t apt. We’re just only now beginning to earn the public’s trust again as a brand. We all love this guy and always have but for most of the world it’s a slow road back.

 

I actually had this conversation with some people who took me in good faith and they argued that Sonic might just be type of franchise where the media brand is just significantly more popular than the game side.

Sonic merchandise always performs well and the movies show there's an audience for the character. They just may not have any interest in the game side. That audience is growing but it might never be the main thing.

I still remember the days where there were legions of SATAM fans online who proudly didn't play any of the new games. Sonic Prime and Knuckles were huge hits on streaming. The Archie comics had many fans who didn't play the games too.

The movies might just be that. They appeal, in large numbers, to people who want to see entertaining family films but they don't have an interest in the games side.

I guess for me the disconnect comes from the fact that there are other franchises like this like Pokemon where the merchandise is the big thing but the games still sell significant numbers.

But in that way you can compare Sonic to Kirby which has always been extremely popular with merchandise but the games didn't reflect this popularity until the Switch generation. And for every Sonic game since 2020 to definitively have crossed a million units each there's clearly a dedicated audience to the gaming side and that's pretty rad.

The appeal of Sonic has always been the character more than quality of the games (though it goes without saying the two should go hand in hand) which is how he's made it out of 06 and Boom rough spots that many franchises never would have.

Sonic has an endless appeal as a marketing character which is why he can be revamped so often with no issue. And as long as the games sell well enough and consistently, that's just cherry on top for the franchise.

 

This person on Youtube has been doing rescores of various sonic 3 scenes and theyre way better than what we got in the real movie.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=HFX44IGyV8k
https://youtu.be/IYp2caAVF7w
I liked sonic 3s score, but I definitely wouldve liked the movie more if it were like this instead of what we got. The two I linked dont even use any songs the movie didnt include, theyre just utilized way better.

 

The City Escape one felt a little distracting but *man* the one for the movie climax is so good. When I watched it in theaters I remember reading "The Last Scene" and I think "Escape from the City" in the credits and then confusedly going "huh?! where do they play?!". I really hate how scoring in big movies is done nowadays, everyone is afraid of making a melody stand out (and linger). When I think about great scoring that stays with me, I think of anime from my childhood and how just listening to a few notes makes me go "Oh! That's Card Captor Sakura, isn't it?" just instantly thrown back to a particular scene where the tune plays, not even the opening or a particularly important song, just a background song from the anime. All that without having listened to the song or watched the anime in a decade. This *really* makes the beautiful melody of The Last Scene stand out and make Shadow's grief *really emotional*. Made me want to bawl my eyes out listening to him talk about how "a star still shines" while that plays.

 

Some of the re-scores definitely come off a little strong, but it's a very fun proof-of-concept. It would be nice to see a Sonic movie scored as well as the Mario movie was (unnecessary licensed music notwithstanding). I still remember gushing over the clip of Mario and Toad making their way to Peach's castle when that was put out.

As much as I enjoyed Sonic 3 (despite a couple of quibbles), the big climax getting cut in half by the dueling dual Robotniks felt like a major misstep. I'm glad to see fan edits like this one making the rounds that let the sequence play out in all the glory and hype that it should have, and with some killer alternate compositions.

 

Sonic 3 hitting Paramount + tomorrow

 

I didn’t jump at the opportunity to watch the first two (in fact I was years late) and didn’t see reason to start with this one. The only thing I feel toward it is mild curiosity of how they’d “adapt” Shadow’s story, and I had kind of resolved that unless some in the family wanted to see it, I was not throwing the movie a dime.

And even then that was just because most in my family don’t know anything about Sonic past the megadrive/genesis, and sort of the DIC cartoons (my mom even remarked one time that she used to play Sonic on the Nintendo as a kid, and later that Jaleel White used to play Sonic in everything including the games.) I am mildly curious how they’d feel about….

a version of what happened in SA2. What they’d think of it.

But with this foolish businesss endeavor of theirs, AHA! I’ve got them. Now, I don’t HAVE to throw the movie a dime. Not directly anyway.

Foolish mortals. You’ve played directly into my hands!

 

Keanu Reeves says he felt a lot of pressure voicing Shadow.

 

I'm going to put him in a hydraulic press

 

Because most of their titles are still buggy, rushed, games.

Anyway, did the films do well in Japan?

 

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My blu-ray disc of the Knuckles mini-series finally came in the mail, and I binged the whole thing. It had its moments, but it was a pretty big letdown toward the end.

The high point was definitely when they hid out at Wade's mother's house, where Knuckles had a shabbat dinner. It was heartwarming and funny in a way that's worth reliving multiple times, and something about Knuckles' friendship with Wendy Whipple (Wade's mom) just epitomizes wholesomeness. The rest of the series was just absurdist humor for the sake of absurdist humor and irony for the sake of irony, but this episode was a lot more cohesive and had enough heart to be engaging.

The series as a whole was good for 1 watch (no more, no less), but the episode titled "Shabbat" was fun enough to watch 3-4 more times.