Sonic Live Action Movie Thread (Read OP for topic rules) "Trailer 2 on Page 482)

[Marco9966]

1 minute ago, Eurisko said:

I would expect it’s the backlash on social media and YouTube that’s done it.

Its good that the general public is also outraged, its because its a movie. I wish Sonic games would generate this attention so that SEGA decides to fix its games.

Only hardcore fans complained about the games.

[Wittymations]

3 minutes ago, Gabz Girl said:

Welp. Guess that means we’ll see little if any changes to Sonic’s design. =| The director’s comment seems to be working though since everybody is straight away thinking they’ll make real drastic changes! 

Which might ultimately lead to bigger backlash. It's one thing to release a bad product, it's another to release a bad product and have the label of being a "liar" even if it's not the intent of the director.

Unless the animators are hyped to crunch time a new model and work passionately for little pay, this particular part is kinda dead in the water. A new model that keeps true to Sonic's gamey design it's going to have  to get a loooooot of work done to not look terribly animated. The alternative is trying to just do small tweaks when the fans have already decided what the director meant for him.

Last choice is just delaying the movie. Annnnnnnnnnnnd, well, businesses don't like delays.

Even if it goes well, this movie has a lot more problems than how fugly Sonic looks.

 

 

[Tarnish]

4 minutes ago, Marco9966 said:

Its good that the general public is also outraged, its because its a movie. I wish Sonic games would generate this attention so that SEGA decides to fix its games.

Only hardcore fans complained about the games.

Because only 'hardcore fans' have problems with the games it seems. For the mainstream (the part that cares) boosting endlessly with comedic characters seems good enough.

[PeterPancake]

 

Would people be happy with this?

[Eurisko]

28 minutes ago, Marco9966 said:

Its good that the general public is also outraged, its because its a movie. I wish Sonic games would generate this attention so that SEGA decides to fix its games.

Only hardcore fans complained about the games.

It’s also a lot to with that Sonic was an important part of a lot of people’s childhoods and THAT design isn’t what folks remember. 

[Lord-Dreamerz]

11 minutes ago, PeterPancake said:

 

Would people be happy with this?

The muzzle and chin look little strange. It would look better with this head below.
 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

[Tarnish]

12 minutes ago, PeterPancake said:

 

Would people be happy with this?

A step in the right direction, only a dozen more left.

[PeterPancake]

6 minutes ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

The muzzle and chin look little strange. It would look better with this head below.
 

  Hide contents

 

 

 

 

 

I guess. But trying to find a way to blend the movie style with a more accurate design. The mouth is that way so Schwartz can do mocap

Sonic is an alien with different anatomical psychology from humans/Earth animals so I think the cyclone eye could have worked under that logic 

[Lord-Dreamerz]

Just now, PeterPancake said:

I guess. But trying to find a way to blend the movie style with a more accurate design. 

Sonic is an alien with different anatomical psychology from humans/Earth animals so I think the cyclone eye could have worked under that logic 

Isn't that what those 2 pics are doing? And i'm only counting the head here. Not saying they need to change the body myself... tho I do think maybe bigger hands and tight gloves would be nice.

[Tornado]

10 hours ago, KHCast said:

I’m honestly a bit surprised that people are positively reacting to the notion that these animators possibly may have to go under extensive crunch periods to make adjustment. 

People are positively reacting to the fact that their obvious concerns have been validated once the public at large got wind of the movie; despite all the Paramount gladhanding that had/has been going on in this thread about how artistic intent will be ruined or how this is just Sonic fans overreacting or how "SONIC NEEDS TO LOOK LIKE THAT BECAUSE THIS IS LIVE ACTION HYBRID!!!" The effect it will have on the creative team will naturally be so low down on the thoughts of the minds of commenters that it is probably irrelevant; just like it is for the people in the trenches for all entertainment products. It's about 80 years too late for anyone in that field to be surprised about potential crunch time in the end due to changes even if complete character redesigns this late are generally rare; and I would be more surprised if the movie wasn't delayed anyway.

 

8 hours ago, Alexios31 said:

Absolutely devastated by the re-design. This was the Sonic for the MOVIE. People needed to accept that. Now I fear the movie will be delayed significantly. Just a real damn shame if you ask me. 

We don't need to even talk about a different franchise to note how absurd this is.

[Salamander]

The best I see coming out of this is maybe a better face, or a better overall build with a delay.  But... while I think that the director's acknowledgement of the unappealing nature of the Sonic design is welcome, if there really isn't time to do anything more than minor tweaks, then I would rather they just release the movie and be damned rather than overwork their animators.  I particularly don't think the movie is going to be worth a delay, even with a full design swap, because we already know that the movie's problems don't end there.

The fact is that I think the nature of the movie and the ultimate public response to it has already been more or less set in stone with the trailer release.  It'll be a mediocre action flick with technically proficient but aesthetically bad CGI which'll make moderate returns off children with low standards and parents who want to see a generic Jim Carrey performance; and it's not going to be any more than that without just tossing the whole thing in the bin.  The result has been determined and the whole affair is already finished, it's just being dragged out for another six months.  Just release it on-demand or direct-to-DVD and be done with it if you've given up on it doing well at all.

[Muscles Maximum]

12 hours ago, PeterPancake said:

I wish Tails was in this movie. I could have easily imagined the money shot of trailer being Sonic jumping off a building from an explosion and then being caught by Tails and flying out of frame. 

Imagining a long mangey manlet Tails flying through the sky in this pile of trash movie would be absolutely ridiculous. 

I’m happy we don’t get to see any other characters mauled by this repulsive “”””“realism””””” art direction. 

[Lord-Dreamerz]

 

Hahaa! Ok that gave me a good laugh. Well if nothing else this movie certainly got people active again when it comes to talking about Sonic.

[Tarnish]

4 minutes ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

 

Hahaa! Ok that gave me a good laugh. Well this movie certainly got people active again when it comes to talking about Sonic.

That's cool..and what are the changes?

[Wittymations]

Just now, PeterPancake said:

I guess. But trying to find a way to blend the movie style with a more accurate design. 

Sonic is an alien with different anatomical psychology from humans/Earth animals so I think the cyclone eye could have worked under that logic 

Peeps can do all the way from a purely suggested design standpoints. The real issue honestly comes from what's already animated and having to change the model proportions (and the rig) to avoid clipping and weird issues that come with swapping out models.

I don't have any experience with Autodesk (or even Blender for that matter,) but here's what happens when you try to give some models different animations or poses in SFM. Keep in mind, SFM is generally easier than Autodesk.

So, I decided to load up SFM and start up an old file - Spinning Egg Zone Episode 1 (plug plug plug)

I just chose a random scene to work with, very simple to kinda demostrate a point about model swapping. So, in this scene, I'm just doing some easy movements in montages.

So, we have the glorious doc here, right? He's pointing and going "Microtransactions!"

 

He's also floating because camera tricks and I'm lazy. Camera tricks will be less viable in a movie partly shot in live action.

 

So, Eggman and Sonic have the same names of most bones here and using the same rigs with the same name is helpful in some situations. We can technically slap Ivo's current animation (or pose in this case) but the results are... beautiful.

 

 

Okay, but Eggman is significantly taller than Sonic and obviously doesn't have the same body shape. I have Sonic over to the side here, also floating as well, because lazy.

 

And a close up of his very interesting arms-to-the-side pose.

 

So, let's get someone a bit different here. Blaze is only a little bit taller than Sonic, so she's less of an extreme.

 

We make her rig name match Sonic's and we get... not the worst result, but you can see some fuckity is going on here.

 

We put up a fresh Blaze and we can see some unusual behavior is going on here. Her ankles are broke, for one.

And there's some weirdness going on with her fingers. It really look like someone took a sledgehammer and went to town on her bones.

I wasn't planning on doing this, but here's a bonus one. Shadow, right? He's basically a carbon copy of Sonic. What happens when you give him the pose. Boom.

You can see the breaking of ankles returns, as well as some wild quill work. It doesn't smooth out.

Super Sonic, basically an exact copy minus the quills. Feet aren't broken, but the hair, my guy. The hair.

 

Sooooooo... what this is meant to do is show what you could expect from them simply trying to replace the model. Issues will arrive. If the new model is shorter, you can expect it to break. If it has different sizes in certain spots (and it will) it's going to break. It did here and these are just poses. Now, imagine actual animation. And they have to look good because this isn't a nerd doing a satire animated series like me, this is full on industry work.

I chose extreme cases to just really make a point and give an idea.

[CaptainRobo]

Translation: I am grateful to all the fans.

[Tornado]

Though they can save time, for scenes that are already well along, if they simply skip doing ones where using the original animation wouldn't be obvious compared to the redone stuff. Tracking shots, ones with obscured angles, etc. Aladdin had some character design changes late in development, and Disney simply left many of the original animation in in scenes where you had to look close (and know to look in the first place) to notice it.

[Sonic Fan J]

15 hours ago, Shadowlax said:

Not you , the movie studio

You are fine

Oh, mind the rant then.

1 hour ago, Tara said:

Wait wh-

omg

I think what really gets to me here though isn't just that Sonic was being talked about in light of the backlash, but that the band played Green Hill unprompted and caught Colbert himself off guard as he not only wasn't expecting it, but recognized it. Sonic (and Green Hill Zone as well it seems) is so iconic that that even people you would think are just mocking it because it's the currently popular thing to do actually recognize the most iconic aspects of the franchise. That just makes the fact that this movie has gone the direction it has that much more daft. And why does a noodle limb character need to have a drastic overhaul when it's already as iconic as it is, no less at it's peak competing with Mickey Mouse for recognition. You know, that white glove wearing, noodle limb character whose only real change in 90 years has been his eyes? When you've been favorably compared to that for your silhouette no less why would you even want to change that?

1 hour ago, Tarnish said:

"Am I out of touch? No, it's the audience who are wrong."

That this meme has been posted so much that I got the reference and thought of another meme makes me both laugh and cry 

But more seriously on the subject at hand, it's nice to see that someone involved near the top has finally recognized the backlash, but this really is a matter of too little too late. Even before the design was hinted at with the silhouette the basic ideology of this movie did not read like Sonic which would have been fine if language like "creating brand awareness" wasn't being thrown around so casually especially in light of the brand already being globally known. What it had needed was shot in the arm to give it life again, building upon the success of what it was always good at like Mania and the Mania shorts demonstrated it can still do. Even if you wanted to go into a deeper story the franchise has always been able to support deeper stories, even if they have arguably not been told well. But to claim that you are a fan and then throw it all out where the only recognizable thing is really the bullet points of Sonic's design, which were translated horribly and with next to no faith in the iconic design just paints the creatives at the top in a bad light. Unfortunately there isn't really any saving this product at this point to me as the design was far from the only problem for me at least, though not being able to even look at the movie because of it does make for a hard sell even if everything else was good. there's a reason I very much locked onto this fan interpretation for the longest time

It looked like Sonic and could have worked with some more tweaks in a real world setting. Instead we got the design we did attached to a story and setting that do not fit the character or the franchise. Now we've been provided a promise to fix only a third of that and to a capacity that can not be trusted due the time crunch required to do anything of worth. As a result I'm for certain that when this movie inevitably comes across my screen and I see Sonic's hairy blue human glutes sliding under his skin as he stretches I'll still be turning away in disgust and making the abysmal crunch time the animation teams will have to go through not worth it. As I said, it's too little too late in every capacity and it will amaze me if this movie manages to find any success. But hey, good will goes a long way and from the sounds of it acknowledging the backlash has earned Jeff Fowler at least quite a bit. The next 6 months are going to be very interesting to be sure involving this movie, but it's also going to be like navigating rapids during a hurricane at night from inside of a barrel.

[PeterPancake]

19 minutes ago, WittyUsername said:

Peeps can do all the way from a purely suggested design standpoints. The real issue honestly comes from what's already animated and having to change the model proportions (and the rig) to avoid clipping and weird issues that come with swapping out models.

I don't have any experience with Autodesk (or even Blender for that matter,) but here's what happens when you try to give some models different animations or poses in SFM. Keep in mind, SFM is generally easier than Autodesk.

So, I decided to load up SFM and start up an old file - Spinning Egg Zone Episode 1 (plug plug plug)

I just chose a random scene to work with, very simple to kinda demostrate a point about model swapping. So, in this scene, I'm just doing some easy movements in montages.

So, we have the glorious doc here, right? He's pointing and going "Microtransactions!"

 

He's also floating because camera tricks and I'm lazy. Camera tricks will be less viable in a movie partly shot in live action.

 

So, Eggman and Sonic have the same names of most bones here and using the same rigs with the same name is helpful in some situations. We can technically slap Ivo's current animation (or pose in this case) but the results are... beautiful.

 

 

Okay, but Eggman is significantly taller than Sonic and obviously doesn't have the same body shape. I have Sonic over to the side here, also floating as well, because lazy.

 

And a close up of his very interesting arms-to-the-side pose.

 

So, let's get someone a bit different here. Blaze is only a little bit taller than Sonic, so she's less of an extreme.

 

We make her rig name match Sonic's and we get... not the worst result, but you can see some fuckity is going on here.

 

We put up a fresh Blaze and we can see some unusual behavior is going on here. Her ankles are broke, for one.

And there's some weirdness going on with her fingers. It really look like someone took a sledgehammer and went to town on her bones.

I wasn't planning on doing this, but here's a bonus one. Shadow, right? He's basically a carbon copy of Sonic. What happens when you give him the pose. Boom.

You can see the breaking of ankles returns, as well as some wild quill work. It doesn't smooth out.

Super Sonic, basically an exact copy minus the quills. Feet aren't broken, but the hair, my guy. The hair.

 

Sooooooo... what this is meant to do is show what you could expect from them simply trying to replace the model. Issues will arrive. If the new model is shorter, you can expect it to break. If it has different sizes in certain spots (and it will) it's going to break. It did here and these are just poses. Now, imagine actual animation. And they have to look good because this isn't a nerd doing a satire animated series like me, this is full on industry work.

I chose extreme cases to just really make a point and give an idea.

Uhh, that's not good. They'll have to delay the movie 

[Remynaka]

I wished they listen to the first bit of backlash. But if showing me the rings and how the animations are gonna cause those people massive overtime is posed to make me feel sorry for them. I wont and dont. This isnt sone free movie given to us. They want us to pay for it. So if you want my money. You make a product that's worth it. Period. 

[Wittymations]

15 minutes ago, Tornado said:

Though they can save time, for scenes that are already well along, if they simply skip doing ones where using the original animation wouldn't be obvious compared to the redone stuff. Tracking shots, ones with obscured angles, etc. Aladdin had some character design changes late in development, and Disney simply left many of the original animation in in scenes where you had to look close (and know to look in the first place) to notice it.

This will certainly be possible in a few cases and one that certainly stands out to me in Sonic will be high speed scenes. Running really fast, you could just leave the old model in place. However, if history has shown me anything is that these live-action/animated movies are full of dialogue, whacky antics, weird dancing numbers and... poop jokes. I can't see too many instances they can get away with this. I might be wrong, too.

Also, didn't know that about Aladdin. Interesting.

5 minutes ago, PeterPancake said:

Uhh, that's not good. They'll have to delay the movie 

Maybe, maybe not. The likely answer is to crunch time it. It really depends on what they do to redesign the model. It might not even be anything too significant.

1 minute ago, Remynaka said:

Fuck delaying it. Cancel that trash and just make it all cgi using the normal designs its known for. You know like his appearance in that one Disney film that came out recently. Seriously paramount how stupid are you?

Come on, you know that's not going to happen. They're not going to waste the millions already invested in it and a full on CGI movie, while would certainly be the better choice from a fan perspective, is just even more expensive. They're going to release it and regain some money. Honestly, it's probably still going to make money back even if it's trash.

 

[Remynaka]

 

4 minutes ago, WittyUsername said:

This will certainly be possible in a few cases and one that certainly stands out to me in Sonic will be high speed scenes. Running really fast, you could just leave the old model in place. However, if history has shown me anything is that these live-action/animated movies are full of dialogue, whacky antics, weird dancing numbers and... poop jokes. I can't see too many instances they can get away with this. I might be wrong, too.

Also, didn't know that about Aladdin. Interesting.

Maybe, maybe not. The likely answer is to crunch time it. It really depends on what they do to redesign the model. It might not even be anything too significant.

Come on, you know that's not going to happen. They're not going to waste the millions already invested in it and a full on CGI movie, while would certainly be the better choice from a fan perspective, is just even more expensive. They're going to release it and regain some money. Honestly, it's probably still going to make money back even if it's trash.

 

Yeah I know. But still.. I'm just floored how they miss the mark so BAD

[CaptainRobo]

I really can’t believe that this had turned into a big mess. I really hope the animators who are working on this are ok. This is going to be a lot of work for them.

[Meta77]

Does anyone know of any kids complaining or not wanting to see the film or is it just adults. Reason I am asking is for another video I want to do but I've been browsing comments of mixed reactions and most goty children did not mind the look and say their kids were excited while other fans as just themselves were not. If the latter I'm guessing this is what paramount was basing on rather than having gamers of the 90s in mind?

[Pawn]

Let's not start flooding the topic with memes.