Sonic the Hedgehog Cinematic Universe Thread (& Knuckles)

Fowler, you're one of us now, don't you ever forget that.

WRAHAHA

 

I'm hoping that with the film's success, Paramount would be more inclined to let him and the writers actually implement all their crazy shit instead of telling them there's no money for it. Having a clean slate in development helps too.

 

Completely different thing. Sonic is a CG character requiring only a voice role that Roger was more than capable of doing (IMO, maybe you might disagree), while Eggman is a human role and Mike Pollock is not a live action actor so I would never make that analogy. The whole point you make about how this is a “different” Sonic only drives home the point that this isn’t SEGA’s Sonic, and is not what I want to see.

Chill out dude, just because I peacefully state an opinion that’s against the majority doesn’t mean you have to respond angrily to it. Would be very glad to discuss this peacefully with fellow Sonic fans.

 

A Sonic fan proper might give the movie a chance, at the very least.
I also preferred something closer to the games' story, but at least I didn't deem it a waste of time.
I don't give a damn Roger Craig Smith didn't voice Sonic.
Ben Schwartz actually did a fine job at portraying Sonic.
I wouldn't even mind if Ben took the role from now on.

 

I have to respectfully disagree with the “you have to give it a chance to be allowed to have an opinion.” That’s what trailers and clips are for, and I’ve seen enough to know that it’s just not my cup of tea.

For instance, I’ve seen enough footage of Pokémon Sword & Shield to understand that the game is an incomplete buggy mess, and haven’t played it despite considering the pre-2013 Pokémon games to be my favorite game series. I shouldn’t have to force myself to like everything Game Freak shits out just to call myself a Pokémon fan. I personally think there hasn’t been a good Pokémon game since 2012 (And yes I’ve played the 3DS games, they suck) but that doesn’t mean that I’m not allowed to be a Pokémon fan.

And likewise, I shouldn’t have to force myself to be interested in seeing this “Sonic” film where he has electric powers and Eggman has hair in order to be a “proper” Sonic fan. You shouldn’t have to like everything that’s put out in a franchise in order to be a “true” fan, let alone watching a piece of media that’s status as an official part of the franchise is debatable due to SEGA’s lack of involvement and no mentioning on social media prior to release. This is somewhat like those CD-I Zelda games I would say - technically legally allowed to exist due to past events, but not an official piece of media that the parent company wants to use as a representation of the series.

 

lmao I'm not angry. I simply find it laughable that you think Roger Craig Smith 'deserves' the role. Also, what you say about Mike Pollock is incorrect, and my analogy is sound. Mike Pollock is not just a voice actor. He's an actor. He has performed on stage. But, he isn't a bankable movie star to play the main villain in a theatrical motion picture. Just like Roger Craig Smith isn't a bankable movie star/voice actor to play the main protagonist. Ben Schwartz was a much better casting choice for the film regardless.

And I'm not going to say you have to watch the movie. That's your choice, and it doesn't make you any less a Sonic fan. But I do think the stuff you're complaining about is kind of reaching. Like, sure, not in a million years would I say I wanted Sonic's theatrical debut to be anything other than a traditionally animated adventure film based on the original games. That said, what we did get was a heck of a lot more enjoyable than I thought it would be, and the only way they can go in a sequel is up. Unless someone makes some really big mistakes...

 

It seems everyone has forgotten that this movie started with Sony with SEGA being heavily involved until it somehow passed onto Paramount and Sega couldn't get in edge-wise.

 

While in theory i understand all this, in practice it's way different

Detective pikatchu maybe not contradicting any other pokemon media directly on paper, but in reality its a far removed thing from either games or anime, it had different tone and atmosphere, it focus on something different.

It's also a boring movie and not that good, in fact sonic movie was way better, despite "not following the games"

which leads me to the next point, the fact that you need to say "sonic voice actor since 2010" at all actually point to something important:

Sonic was never consistent, even under SEGA.

Why sonic voice actor had to be changed in 2010? why it had to be changed in 2004?
Eggman looked way different in sonic 2006, then they changed it back cause reasons, to speak nothing of the jump between classic eggman and adventure eggman.

Amy had a huge redesign in adventure 1 as well, in fact even in her flashback scene you see her adventure design still.

Master emerald was supposed to be on angel island in sonic 3, but in adventure you see it on a different location, even if you somehow said its still angel island , the location doesn't make any sense with what established in sonic 3

there are billions of maps and world for sonic games, and each one had green hill zone on a different location

sometimes it fantastical world with no humans and only animals, sometimes the world is full of humans

and even then, humans shape and style can differ greatly, from the goofy looking ones in sonic adventure, to realistic depictions in sonic 2006, to pixar-esque designs in sonic unleashed, then suddenly humans disappeared in colors

Classic sonic in Generations was clearly "from the past" but suddenly in Forces he is from "another dimension!"

Chaos Emeralds changed shapes between classic games and modern games, and do you remember when there was actually EIGHT chaos emeralds in Sonic the Fighters? of course that fact was never mentioned again.

i can go on and on, but the point is: Sonic was never consistent, and all of that UNDER SEGA, to speak nothing of other media featuring Sonic

So i don't see what's important about SEGA involvement, when they don't even have consistent world in the first place, and who knows, maybe if they were more involved we would end up with lesser product, cause i sure didn't enjoy detective pikatchu movie one bit despite looking forward to it more than Sonic movie at some time, Pokemon company involvement don't mean shit to me in the end.

 

Maybe that was the tradeoff for Paramount getting the rights.

 

I'm getting tired of this "That's not my Sonic, so this thing isn't really Sonic at all". Sonic has had multiple alternate takes since day one, and a lot of them aren't even from videogames. What I've watched in the movie wasn't exactly "Sonic" as I understand it, but was proper enough. Bear in mind the story for the first movie is depicting a beginning, so a more childish, still not heroic enough Sonic is quite appropiate in this sceneario. I wasn't satisfied with Robotnik's depiction, but the way his relationship with Sonic starts makes enough sense to have him look like that; tbh, it's his transformation in videogame eggman what looked wrong for me, but they had to force it a bit.

I went to watch the movie only after a lot people told me "Hey! It's actually good!", and only to check if that was true. What I found was a movie for kids that wasn't for me because it really was for kids, but was good enough for me to pay attention, and the stuff for Sonic fans was good to keep us interested if we had to take some kids to watch it (How dared they to call him "modern"?). I felt I was watching true Sonic stuff, and, on the kids behalf, I think that movie, unlike others of its kind, doesn't insult kids' intelligence. The movie ended, and it was obvious for me a sequel was needed, not for me, but for kids that enjoy this stuff a lot more than me. And, still, I'm buying the DVD because I want to pause it and double-check every easter egg for fans I didn't notice at the cinema.

So, to put it simple, the movie may or may not be for you, but don't say it's not ok because it wasn't exactly like the games. Someone who played Detective Pikachu (the videogame) told me the movie was almost exactly like the game, and I still like Detective Pikachu more than the Sonic movie because family-friendly deadpool tone, but that doesn't mean is automatically better for everyone's tastes.

Well, it seems like MH MD beat me to a lot of my points while I was writing.

 

Do correct me if I’m wrong, but I took a quick look at Mike Pollock’s discography and I can’t find any live action work that he’s done. I recall he mentioned he’s done theater in an interview but he said in that same interview that he prefers to do voice roles. I think it would be quite unreasonable to expect Mike Pollock to play a live-action Eggman but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect Roger Craig Smith to voice a CG Sonic since he’s already done that numerous times. You brought up the point how they replaced Drummond for no reason and then Griffith for no reason and I totally agree. I would prefer that they kept Drummond from the start not necessarily due to me preferring his Sonic over anyone else’s (I do think Drummond’s Sonic was the best Sonic though, but that’s just my personal opinion) but because I believe in consistency and continuity. Hence why I think it’s unnecessary to introduce yet another English Sonic VA. I’ve personally never heard of Ben Schwartz until the movie. I can respect if you don’t like Roger’s Sonic voice, and although I myself prefer Drummond and stated previously I’m not a huge fan of Roger’s voice, at the same time I don’t think he’s terrible and have accepted his voice as the current official Sonic voice for English-language Sonic media, and would much rather hear a familiar voice playing Sonic rather than yet another new VA.

I guess my feeling is, I watched Detective Pikachu because as a Pokémon fan, everything I saw in the pre-release material felt like to me, an official part of the Pokémon franchise. But as a Sonic fan, and I’m sure many others felt the same when they saw the first trailer, that this wasn’t an official part of the Sonic franchise (and SEGA themselves might agree), regardless of SEGA’s inconsistency in their own Sonic games since 2008.

 

I think this is actually way more likely than people realize. The Sonic movie was the most visibly successful piece of Sonic media in at least fifteen years, and has brought the franchise back into the mainstream. SEGA won't ignore that, and will likely act to bring their games more inline with the depiction in the movies. I don't know what that looks like yet, but I think the grey suits running the show are probably going to treat the films as the leading part of the franchise going forward, not the games

 

They’re gonna cast Tom Holland as Tails.

Calling it right now.

 

You're right that he has said he prefers voice work, but as far as I know, most actors who do a lot of voice work have said the same thing. Because it's easier. I'm sure he would be perfectly capable of playing Eggman in live-action. Maybe he should dub Jim Carrey's performance.

I like consistency as much as the next guy, but I don't want things to be consistently bad. The majority of the current voice cast in the games is, IMO, miscast for these characters. There's a good chance the movie version of Sonic wouldn't have given me a strong emotional connection had Smith's voice been used, and that's the biggest thing holding the movie together for me. I would much rather have a new, better voice take over for the movie role, and that's what Ben Schwartz is.

Also, Detective Pikachu was awful, and I wouldn't even be surprised if the Pokémon Company's involvement was part of the reason why, considering the quality of the anime English dub since they took it over from 4Kids of all people in 2006-ish(?). I'm actually a bit upset that they chose not to adapt Red's story, and instead opted for a random Japan-only spinoff game.

 

Detective Pikachu was released worldwide.

Also I would hated a Gen 1 retread. I haven't seen the Pikachu movie yet, but a Red story could not be done in one movie.

 

Well others have already said most of what I wanted to say but the reasons given for being against the movie are extremely petty and very pretentious.

Sega’s involvement was not needed regardless of who made it. What gigantic difference would this have made? It’s as close to the source material as a prequel/origin movie could have been.

Changing voice actors is a total non-issue. It doesn’t need to be addressed.

Sonic’s eyes NEEDED to be separated. Sorry they just did. I too saw the post about the bootleg toy but that does not validate Movie Sonic as “counterfeit”. 1 big eye with 2 pupils would have been very odd. I love Sonic. Like more than anything in all of entertainment but this was a necessary change.

Dr. Robotniks changes were perfectly reasonable in this early portrayal of the character.

Like mentioned before the whole “not my Sonic for reasons” is just as arbitrary and could be applied to anything past the original video game.

 

Hmm. It must've slipped past my radar, I thought it stayed in Japan. Perhaps it's because of the two year release gap.

Gen 1 has never been done justice in a screen adaptation. I'd like to see it done, though I guess I'd prefer a proper animated version. I just think it's a shame they went with the script we got with Detective Pikachu.

 

I really just want the sequel to be a loose adaptation of Sonic 2. I would love to see movie versions of Chemical Plant, Hill Top, and Oil Ocean. Casino Night would be awesome too, but as awesome as it is as a video game level, I don't really know how it could be justified as something that actually existed.

The plot could be something like, Robotnik comes across Sonic's homeworld while trying to get back to Earth, and detects high levels of chaos energy (which in my headcanon is the source of Sonic's powers in the movie), which of course are coming from the chaos emeralds. Robotnik begins a robot invasion of the planet in search of the chaos emeralds, so Longclaw sends Tails (I'm assuming this is how Tails knows Sonic even exists) to find Sonic and bring him back to help stop Robotnik. The movie would be about Sonic and Tails becoming friends over the course of the journey and discovering that chaos energy is powered by friendship (the two times in the first movie that Sonic was 'supercharged' was the scene where he was alone in the baseball field, which I guess would be a negative charge since there he would have been powered by loneliness; and the ending where Tom calls Sonic his friend). I would much rather see a movie about Sonic and Tails becoming friends than the one we got about Sonic and some random human.

I didn't care for the human characters (other than Eggman) in the first movie, so I have no problem with ditching them in the sequel. Sonic's world has so much more story potential, even if they just adapted the stories of Sonic 2 and 3&K, I would gladly go see a movie(s) about those stories.