Eddie Lebron Sonic Movie: New Teaser Trailer!

[Tara]

No really, the more I think about this movie, the more I'm convinced it wasn't made by a fan but just someone who watched one episode of Sonic SatAM and said 'Yeah I get this!'

I wouldn't go that far.  I mean, the movie is pretty bad, but the creator did seem to have an adequate expanse of knowledge of the Sonic universe.  What killed it... well, I should say, one of the many things that killed it, was that it tried to pay homage to the entire franchise, not just a particular aspect of it.  If he would have just focused on the games or just the comics... it still would have been terrible, but at least then it would have been slightly more cohesive.

[ThisMachine]

"If I was able to redo anything in regards to the film, it'd probably be everything Sonic related."

 

Well that sums it up quite nicely.

[Sarah Jane Smith]

Gotta love that Sonic model. Every time he opened his mouth it was like:

 

[Gavvie]

I wouldn't go that far.  I mean, the movie is pretty bad, but the creator did seem to have an adequate expanse of knowledge of the Sonic universe.  What killed it... well, I should say, one of the many things that killed it, was that it tried to pay homage to the entire franchise, not just a particular aspect of it.  If he would have just focused on the games or just the comics... it still would have been terrible, but at least then it would have been slightly more cohesive.

 

This is pretty much my opinion of it, actually, along with quite a few other things that I just can't be arsed to type out right now. It tries to do too much in a short amount of time.

[Shawshank Redemption]

Retro's review of the fan film is up. It's a very detailed review.

 

http://www.sonicretro.org/2013/01/sonic-fan-film-the-retro-review/

 

Yep, they think it's pretty meh as well.

 

That review has way too much fanwank in it, and somehow is oblivious to all the bad cinematography in the film.

 

But one thing he's very right about: Robotnik's portrayal is pretty stupid and based on bad cartoons.

 

Even in the most serious 3d games, Eggman has a sense of fun to his diabolical schemes. He's enjoying himself while one upping Sonic.

 

In this tedious "fan" film? Not so much.

Edited January 18, 2013 by Sir Dwayne

[SchemingMinor]

Retro's review of the fan film is up. It's a very detailed review.

 

http://www.sonicretro.org/2013/01/sonic-fan-film-the-retro-review/

 

Yep, they think it's pretty meh as well.

 

That review pretty much said everything about Robotnik that I already touched upon in the last page, albeit much wordier and better.

[Tani Coyote]

Man this mass panning is disheartening.

On the film as a whole - I wasn't expecting Avatar or Titanic while walking into this. Considering what low budget he had to work with, I think it's pretty nice.

On Jaleel White - I thought he was adequate enough.

On Robotnik - There were some parts where his emotion wasn't there ("...Kill it!"), but I think his performance was neat overall. He could do without the outfit; he would have looked better in his Eggman garb. I dunno about anyone else, but his speech with regards to humanity was kind of chilling. Unfortunately it clashes with his goofy outfit.

On Robots - They could have used a different voice. Minor detail.

On Knuckles - Do the fingers really matter that much? If Sonic can be fuzzy I don't see why fingers are a sin.

On Sonic - His model was blocky in some scenes but overall I thought it was good.

Suggestions - The film should have been fully CGI. When I see the movie poster, or the scenes where Sonic's riding the missle or in Green Hill, I think they look fairly good. The models are good, and I congratulate Mr. Lebron's team in their design, but without a blockbuster budget it's very hard to make extensive CGI look well with real life settings.

This would have shortened the length presumably yes, but it's only a suggestion.

Overall I was satisfied with the film; I just remember that I can't expect an epic film due to budget constraints. Mr. Lebron worked with limited resources, and I think he created a short yet enjoyable film with it all.

==

So I've heard rumors of a possible Part II? If so I may have to consider donating some myself!

 

The way the movie ends I can't help but wonder. On one hand it's leading into the first game, but then there's Knuckles. So who knows. I just hope Mr. Lebron isn't discouraged by all the flak.

Edited January 19, 2013 by Ogilvie Maurice Hedgehog

[Badnik Mechanic]

Overall I was satisfied with the film; I just remember that I can't expect an epic film due to budget constraints. Mr. Lebron worked with limited resources, and I think he created a short yet enjoyable film with it all.

 

How long is it going to take before people realise that cinnematography and budget have no relation at all?

[Tara]

Overall I was satisfied with the film; I just remember that I can't expect an epic film due to budget constraints. Mr. Lebron worked with limited resources, and I think he created a short yet enjoyable film with it all.

There are videos on YouTube made without any budget at all that are more pleasant to look at, albeit they're not any "better" from a technical standpoint, as well as have a more cohesive narrative.  It doesn't cost a dime to write a good story.  (Well, it costs money for paper and pens, but I'm pretty sure if you have money for cutting edge CGI editing software and HD cameras, you probably have enough money for Microsoft Word) - Hiring someone to do so, maybe, but I don't think Eddie did that.

 

Now I didn't expect an anything AMAZING either, but at the very least I expected maybe something a little better.  At the very least, it would have been nice to have a Sonic model that wasn't totally repugnant.  Fuzzy Sonic just looks dreadful to me, and the acting sounds very... well, like acting.  Again, wasn't expecting anything terrific, but there's little excuse for such poor direction.

 

You don't need a good budget to have good CGI or good plot development, or good actors.  Good costumes, maybe.  Good locations, maybe.  Good equipment, certainly, but even if they had a one million dollar budget, the film still would have been mediocre at best.

 

Also, I wouldn't worry about Eddie being discouraged by the poor reception.  He seems to be taking it very well, and I commend him for being able to admit in the commentary that he may have failed to effectively communicate the message he intended.

[Tani Coyote]

Edited January 19, 2013 by Ogilvie Maurice Hedgehog

[Tara]

Budget -does- have correlation with how good the actors are (normally anyway) and how good the CGI would be, however.

Which is more what I'm getting at. It's unreasonable to expect CGI a la Avatar when you're only working on a few thousand USD at best.

Budget has no relation to CGI in the slightest.  All it takes is an artist who knows what it looks like and the ability to do so.

 

Here's an article where you can learn more about that.

[Tani Coyote]

Also, I wouldn't worry about Eddie being discouraged by the poor reception.  He seems to be taking it very well, and I commend him for being able to admit in the commentary that he may have failed to effectively communicate the message he intended.

 

Excellent. Hopefully there will be a Part II!

 

Or if nothing else Sega will take from this people actually wouldn't mind a movie. Now that they're hitched with Disney perhaps they should consider it.

 

Budget has no relation to CGI in the slightest.  All it takes is an artist who knows what it looks like and the ability to do so.

 

Here's an article where you can learn more about that.

 

Even if low budgets can be utilised efficiently (such as Tom Savini with cheap yet effective gore effects), I'm still finding it hard to believe they could have had CGI that didn't clash with such a low budget... you have your CGI where the object looks as if it was made of flesh and blood, but I can't think of any cases where that was in a low budget film/game/etc.

 

Which brings me back to my idea that it probably would have been better to go pure CGI. The scenes where he's fighting that Egg Carrier look nice, as does the one where he's running through Green Hill. The contrast is negligible and so, it looks good. On the other hand, that Gamma grabbing Doug Walker just looked horribly fake.

Edited January 19, 2013 by Ogilvie Maurice Hedgehog

[Badnik Mechanic]

Budget -does- have correlation with how good the actors are (normally anyway) and how good the CGI would be, however.

 

Which is more what I'm getting at. It's unreasonable to expect CGI a la Avatar when you're only working on a few thousand USD at best.

 

Yes but the majority of the complaints have very little to do with the 'quality' of something. Also who on earth was expecting this to be on the same level as Avatar?

 

Here are some examples of what this film does badly that have nothing to do with budget.

 

Sonic's design/look.

Knuckles design/look.

The cinnematography.

Editing.

Music choice/placement.

The story.

Casting (considering the names they got, I fail to see how badget was an issue on this).

The acting (James Rolfe looks like he's trying not to burst out laughing at the absurdity of his dialogue, the crowd in 'new york' don't have any reaction at all to the Egg fleets arrival, and Eggmans orgasm is... well.. just look at it).

The directing.

 

The budget excuse only really applies when we're talking about the quality of the CGI and the mise-en-scene. But when it comes to the actual important stuff like the cinnematography, I can take a phone and use that camera to film something with good cinnematography, granted the quality of the video will be terrible, but the actual method I've used to film would be correct.

 

Also the issue of the budget, there was obviously some budget because I doubt Sonic's VA and all those cameos did it for free. if thats the case, then we can put that one down to bad casting and ultimately bad directing because what budget there was there has blatently been miss-managed.

 

"Oh we have this money, what shall we spend it on?"

"Celebrity cameos!"

[Tara]

Excellent. Hopefully there will be a Part II!

 

Or if nothing else Sega will take from this people actually wouldn't mind a movie. Now that they're hitched with Disney perhaps they should consider it.

 

 

Even if low budgets can be utilised efficiently (such as Tom Savini with cheap yet effective gore effects), I'm still finding it hard to believe they could have had CGI that didn't clash with such a low budget... you have your CGI where the object looks as if it was made of flesh and blood, but I can't think of any cases where that was in a low budget film/game/etc.

 

Which brings me back to my idea that it probably would have been better to go pure CGI. The scenes where he's fighting that Egg Carrier look nice, as does the one where he's running through Green Hill. The contrast is negligible and so, it looks good. On the other hand, that Gamma grabbing Doug Walker just looked horribly fake.

The reason CGI films with breathtaking detail have million dollar budgets is because those are people who are not only known for doing good CGI and as a result get a much more exuberant paycheck for their efforts, but also because there are several different people, sometimes from several different companies.  When you have a large number of talented directors and other film makers asking for your service, you can afford to haggle for higher prices, because you know that if they want you bad enough, they will increase the budget to include you.

 

With that said, having beautifully-rendered CGI and a higher budget don't necessary correlate, but if he had a higher budget, he could probably have hired a more talented modeling team that naturally demand thousands of dollars.  So it LOOSELY correlates in that way, but with a bit of perfectionism and modification (granted, at the cost of delaying the film's release), he could have easily made something that looks AT LEAST aesthetically pleasing.

 

I'd have to agree that the film would probably look much more appealing in full CGI as opposed to live action, but the point of the film was supposed to be the dark, gritty live action movie that the eighties and early nineties were known for... which kind of automatically entails that it's not going to be very good, but at least the first Ninja Turtles movie was better than this, from a narrative standpoint.

Edited January 19, 2013 by Akito

[Tani Coyote]

I'd have to agree that the film would probably look much more appealing in full CGI as opposed to live action, but the point of the film was supposed to be the dark, gritty live action movie that the eighties and early nineties were known for... which kind of automatically entails that it's not going to be very good, but at least the first Ninja Turtles movie was better than this, from a narrative standpoint.

 

Hmm, I didn't hear that; I recall his goal to blend multiple continuities, but I must concur the darkness is hampered by some things. The darkness versus cartoonishness is all over the place. On one hand he has menacing ships and a menacing name, but he has a goofy outfit and goofy foot troops on the other. They really should have stuck to Gammas, Egg Guardians, etc. to illustrate he's a threat. Without giving some backstory that he has a repressed childhood or delights in catching his enemies off guard or something akin to that, the cartoony robots just are wrong.

 

They did show some serious darkness with the implied holocaust of furries and how he has deemed humanity a privilege, but it wasn't really played on. Where's the labor camps, the roboticisation chambers, etc.?

 

While I appreciate Mr. Lebron's efforts in trying to blend elements from all the continuities, it seems the film couldn't decide whether it wanted to be closer to the lighthearted cartooning of early games or the darkness of SatAM/the Adventure series. The Badniks could easily be made fairly dark if you begin to show the process of how they slowly suck the life out of someone before rendering them a husk... but it wasn't touched on. They were ordinary robots and just make Robotnik look goofy.

Edited January 19, 2013 by Ogilvie Maurice Hedgehog

[Tara]

Hmm, I didn't hear that; I recall his goal to blend multiple continuities, but I must concur the darkness is hampered by some things. The darkness versus cartoonishness is all over the place. On one hand he has menacing ships and a menacing name, but he has a goofy outfit and goofy foot troops on the other. They really should have stuck to Gammas, Egg Guardians, etc. to illustrate he's a threat. Without giving some backstory that he has a repressed childhood or delights in catching his enemies off guard or something akin to that, the cartoony robots just are wrong.

 

They did show some serious darkness with the implied holocaust of furries and how he has deemed humanity a privilege, but it wasn't really played on. Where's the labor camps, the roboticisation chambers, etc.?

 

While I appreciate Mr. Lebron's efforts in trying to blend elements from all the continuities, it seems the film couldn't decide whether it wanted to be closer to the lighthearted cartooning of early games or the darkness of SatAM/the Adventure series. The Badniks could easily be made fairly dark if you begin to show the process of how they slowly suck the life out of someone before rendering them a husk... but it wasn't touched on. They were ordinary robots and just make Robotnik look goofy.

Yeah, I did post earlier that the mixing of far too many continuities into one sort of makes the narrative flow poorly.  Not to mention it alienates those that aren't into those particular continuities.  I haven't read all the Archie comics, so if there's an Archie element in there that I missed, then there would be no way of me knowing.  I have watched all of SatAM and even have the entire series on DVD... and even some of the elements of that series presented in this movie passed me by completely.

 

If he would have just stuck with just one universe, the film still wouldn't have been magnificent, but it would have been improved tenfold.

[Shawshank Redemption]

They did show some serious darkness with the implied holocaust of furries and how he has deemed humanity a privilege, but it wasn't really played on. Where's the labor camps, the roboticisation chambers, etc.?

 

it seems the film couldn't decide whether it wanted to be closer to the lighthearted cartooning of early games or the darkness of SatAM/the Adventure series.

Just no on those terrible sci-fi horror ideas. That is getting as far away from Sonic as you can get.  

 

The Adventure games are not even as dark as this film tries to make Eggman. He always has wanted power and glory but he has a sense of fun about him and shows off to get attention.

 

He isn't some furry holocaust Hitler wannabe who makes people into robots except in bad Western cartoons/comics. 

[Harley Quinn]

Meh movie is meh.

 

Seriously, I'll forget about the majority of this by the end of tomorrow. Though I shudder at a lot of the blatant CGI....I just wish that Sonic's mouth didn't look like it came from the deepest pits of uncanny valley.

[Emerald Chaos]

In my opinion, the movie felt weak because he tried to imply a scope which just couldn't be done in the time given for the movie (nor I imagine, with his budget).The attempts to do so meant he was just darting all over the place, never letting anything develop.

 

In order for a movie like his to be successful, what he really should have gone for was something on a smaller scale and more character driven. Of course, that would've probably required Sonic to be on the screen more and for them to go through more headaches trying to animate him.

[Shawshank Redemption]

People have made amazing animated shorts on the smallest of budgets. It's obvious Eddie and his team just lacked the talent to do so.

 

Sonic's movements are less animated than a claymation character.

[Milo]

Don't know if this was mentioned already, but the video now has one million views. Presumably for all of the wrong reasons.

 

Then again, there's no such thing as bad publicity...

[DarkLight]

One thing I keep hearing about this film is that it supposedly takes place before Sonic 1. I have three reasons as to how that can't be the case.

 

1. The presence of Gamma-lookalikes and Egg Carriers. If Robotnik had these things to secure his world domination the whole time, why weren't they in the game and instead got him in his Mobile with a wrecking ball? The Buzzbombers and Motobugs are the only Badniks whose appearance actually makes sense in this film, but the Egg Carrier and E-100 robots were just there to throw in well-known game references.

 

2. The status of South Island and it's inhabitants. This one's probably more difficult for me to explain but I'll give it a try. We see and hear that Robotnik hates South Islanders and elimanates them from what he considers his ideal utopia sans Sonic (and maybe Knuckles, but I'll get to him next). Though the film pushes that Robotnik utilizes robotization to secure his control over people ala SatAM, none of this doesn't really match up with what he does in the game. As anyone should know, there's a big difference between turning flesh into metal and encasing animals in robotic shells. I don't mind that they threw in some other continuities to flesh things out, but if Robotnik really wanted them dead, why did suddenly start putting them in his robots in the game? What about the Buzzbombers and Motobugs I pointed out before? Are they robotizied animals that he decided to spare when he ran out of human test subjects? I'm not sure because there's nothing shown or implied that it's the case.

 

3.Knuckles, Knuckles, Knuckles, why are you here? Ignoring the obvious ''why isn't he guarding the Master Emerald?'' and the fingers nitpick, his little plot-tease at the end in Green Hill makes no sense and would be better suited if maybe Tails (and I say maybe since he didn't show up until Sonic 2) was there.  I feel that this one doesn't need as much explanation as the previous points but it's still so confusing.

 

I could mention how there are 7 Chaos Emeralds when the game only had 6 but I don't that one was really worth bringing up for pretty obvious reasons.

 

Like I said before, I have no problem with them meshing other canons into this film (albeit it still didn't help the narrative and even if they stuck to one canon, the film would still have it's issues), but to say that this all happenend before Sonic 1 is kind of impossible and comes off as some "All universes are canon to the games" bullcrap.

[Tara]

One thing I keep hearing about this film is that it supposedly takes place before Sonic 1. I have three reasons as to how that can't be the case.

 

1. The presence of Gamma-lookalikes and Egg Carriers. If Robotnik had these things to secure his world domination the whole time, why weren't they in the game and instead got him in his Mobile with a wrecking ball? The Buzzbombers and Motobugs are the only Badniks whose appearance actually makes sense in this film, but the Egg Carrier and E-100 robots were just there to throw in well-known game references.

 

2. The status of South Island and it's inhabitants. This one's probably more difficult for me to explain but I'll give it a try. We see and hear that Robotnik hates South Islanders and elimanates them from what he considers his ideal utopia sans Sonic (and maybe Knuckles, but I'll get to him next). Though the film pushes that Robotnik utilizes robotization to secure his control over people ala SatAM, none of this doesn't really match up with what he does in the game. As anyone should know, there's a big difference between turning flesh into metal and encasing animals in robotic shells. I don't mind that they threw in some other continuities to flesh things out, but if Robotnik really wanted them dead, why did suddenly start putting them in his robots in the game? What about the Buzzbombers and Motobugs I pointed out before? Are they robotizied animals that he decided to spare when he ran out of human test subjects? I'm not sure because there's nothing shown or implied that it's the case.

 

3.Knuckles, Knuckles, Knuckles, why are you here? Ignoring the obvious ''why isn't he guarding the Master Emerald?'' and the fingers nitpick, his little plot-tease at the end in Green Hill makes no sense and would be better suited if maybe Tails (and I say maybe since he didn't show up until Sonic 2) was there.  I feel that this one doesn't need as much explanation as the previous points but it's still so confusing.

 

I could mention how there are 7 Chaos Emeralds when the game only had 6 but I don't that one was really worth bringing up for pretty obvious reasons.

 

Like I said before, I have no problem with them meshing other canons into this film (albeit it still didn't help the narrative and even if they stuck to one canon, the film would still have it's issues), but to say that this all happenend before Sonic 1 is kind of impossible and comes off as some "All universes are canon to the games" bullcrap.

Well, the problem with all those arguments is that you're judging it on the assumption that Eddie actually wrote it with continuity in mind.  As far as I can see, I'm pretty sure he was just combining different elements of each Sonic universe and putting them into one.  Therefore, he could easily make the Egg Carrier and the Gammas something that was built prior to SA1, since it is his story not a direct representation of the games' storyline.

Edited January 20, 2013 by Akito

[Tani Coyote]

What would the reception have been if this was an animated project, actually? I just thought on that; animation is surely loads easier than CGI, and with a few good line artists, it could have been simply amazing I think. Picture if they got say, Evan Stanley or Tracy Yardley to do some work on it!

 

Just no on those terrible sci-fi horror ideas. That is getting as far away from Sonic as you can get.  

 

He isn't some furry holocaust Hitler wannabe who makes people into robots except in bad Western cartoons/comics. 

 

I'm not discussing whether the ideas should be in. I'm just discussing how the darkness isn't as fully touched on as it could be.

 

I think a lot of the reason Eggman wasn't able to have some of his goofy moments was the sheer length of the thing. Mr. Lebron was packing a ton of continuity into 16 minutes of film... lots of things are going to get left out as a result.

 

If Robotnik really wanted them dead, why did suddenly start putting them in his robots in the game? What about the Buzzbombers and Motobugs I pointed out before? Are they robotizied animals that he decided to spare when he ran out of human test subjects? I'm not sure because there's nothing shown or implied that it's the case.

 

In all fairness those weren't anthropomorphic animals that were put in Badniks, just ordinary ones. I presume Sonic, being some mutant half-man, half animal thingy, is still able to communicate with them or something if they're his "friends."

 

...yeah weird I know.

[SonikkuXM]

If you guys are so smart, then why don't you go make a movie? Hm? There's so much freakin' negativity surrounding this, it's so freaking stupid! You need money and computing power to RUN better grade special effects... You need people who actually know how to attain the special effects properly without crashing the computer, and you need a team of people to make a movie. A low budget movie means they can only grasp onto the people they can get, can only use the tools they have, and so on so forth. Try to afford the special effects team from Avatar. Go waltz over to Stan Winston Studios and the folks at ILM, two of the biggest special effects studios that I know, and try and hit them up for a low budget movie. They're gonna shake their heads and laugh. The cost of a movie period is highly influenced by the professionals behind it. So ya, go load up Anim8or on your crappy hard-drive and try to make a Blockbuster movie with your super special effects of doom with MSPaint and your sound effects of craptastic proportions from Audacity. Don't even get me started on the effort that's put into sounds in general. There's a complete score. Orchestrated if you will.

 

There are people that design and make the costumes. There's people who make the music. There's people who make the sound effects. There's people who map out the scenes. There are artists working around the clock on the scenes. The animators are trying to make the characters come to life, animating them. I have no idea if they used the motion capture in the movie, but seeing it's low budget, I feel that perhaps they didn't. So that's time and effort into keying every little motion frame, and then adding it to the recorded footage, adding environmental shading to the characters, making sure they work alright, adding the textures which are done in a seperate program and then uploaded, maybe tweaked, and tweaked again until it's just right... Everything has to flow as smoothly as possible with what tools they possess.

 

When you're starting new with people who have little to no acting experience, it will be awkward. It happens. Yes, they could do a better job. Yes, they could do this or that. But that's how an actor really becomes an actor is by the experience they earn with each little thing they do. It just makes me mad when people have no flipping idea what they're talking about in the first place. Reading through this thread, there are a lot of people who actually HAVE no idea. There's is an ENTIRE team behind the production of a movie. Go behind the scenes. It's chaos. Trust me.

 

Stop focusing on the negative side already. Go make your own movie if you dislike it so much, and get back to me when you do. I'll get my popcorn.