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

[Badnik Mechanic]

7 minutes ago, Detective Indigo said:

EDIT: Just saw the trailer. Toilet humor. Are you sure?

You saw the one with him surfing the toilet didn't you?

That trailer is shit. The last trailer they released is much better and the movie is NOTHING like that trailer.

If the topic still exists, look for the SSMB  thread about it.

[Indigo Rush]

I trust you with my ilfe, Hogfather.

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

I do want to see Sonic taken to the Broadway scene. That would be cool

[Mr. Armstrong]

On 11/2/2016 at 6:35 PM, Myst said:

If this movie were based on SatAM, I would leave the fanbase entirely. The movie is the only thing left keeping me interested in the franchise. Making it SatAM based would kill it for me.

I will never understand the stupid divisions between Sonic fanbase, I personally do not care if it is based on games or SatAM while the movie is good I'll be happy, and if in such case the movie is based on SatAM (which I doubt) this will serve to awake nostalgic in many (myself included) we have good memories of that series who for some reason or another have turned away from the franchise and this could bring them back to the franchise.

Another aspect to consider is Sega making this movie to attract more public to the franchise, for I have read so far this movie is not directed towards to the fanbase.

[Tenko]

Hope Sony releases their own statement or press release on upcoming movies sometime soon. I would like to see Penders eat his own words. Poor Jason is getting swamped by misdirects on Twitter from the guy, insisting that because Sony haven't said a peep since 2014 that the movie is in trouble or that Sony have ditched Sega. That apparently this latest news from Sega's CEO is one sided and spells doom for the project. Almost implying that Sega are drawing attention to find a new partner. Dudes still a madman.

[a knothole resident]

2018?!!   But I dont plan to live that long!

[Silly name the animal]

6 hours ago, LeTreuBleu said:

What annoys me is everybody coming to the conclusion that it's somehow guaranteed to be bad, despite the fact that we literally haven't even see any physical aspect(s) of the movie whatsoever yet.  The only thing we know about it right now is that it's of Sonic brand, and is set for 2018.

So many ignorant people who don't think things through... -____-

The same thing happened for the 25th anniversary game in the Thea's of the same name.   People were already giving up on the game, even thought we don't much about it.

[Blacklightning]

10 hours ago, Mr. Armstrong said:

I will never understand the stupid divisions between Sonic fanbase,

Frankly, you have nobody to blame but Sega for this, because they themselves drew those lines - ideally in the best case you'd want a singular focus for the brand or at the very least a main one, but in their minds it seems they'd rather establish dozens of mutually exclusive spinoff series and outright sub-brands that are forced to compete for each other's attention rather than provide basically free publicity for one another. Fans shouldn't have to take sides based on their personal preferences because their personal preferences should cover the entire fucking brand, and the massive dissonance between them (and for that matter, the still-growing quantity of them) actively works against that.

Sonic is hardly an isolated case in this regard - DmC, for example, had a crapton of shit shoveled its way over how little regard it had for the legacy of the series even despite being an arguably decent game, dragging its name through the mud to sell a more or less unrelated concept basically through brandname alone. Of course, what also separates Sonic from the rest of them is that most publishers aren't fucking stupid enough to keep pulling that shit after they're called out for it right on square one.

[Milo]

16 hours ago, Indigo Rush said:

Name me one CGI-Live Action kids film in the past decade that's been good.

One.

 

16 hours ago, Detective Hogfather said:

Paddington.

Yeah, 2014's Paddington (despite what the trailers would make it out to be) is actually brilliant. The 2006 film adaptation Charlotte's Web was rather decent too (Charlotte the Spider and Templeton the Rat are CG characters, the rest of the animal cast are played by live animals though), though it unfortunately was a financial underperformer. And I guess one can count 2015's The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water too, though I think it's a bit disingenuous for it to count as the majority of the film is traditionally animated (taking up roughly 2/3rds of the film).

But with that said, those three films are exceptions to the rule. I mean, when you look at the rest of the past decade...

- 2006's Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties (sequel to 2004's Garfield)

- 2007's Underdog

- 2007's Alvin and the Chipmunks and its sequels The Squeakquel (2009), Chipwrecked (2011), and The Road Chip (2015)

- 2009's G-Force

- 2010's Marmaduke

- 2010's Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (sequel to 2001's Cats and Dogs)

- 2010's Yogi Bear

- 2011's Hop

- 2011's The Smurfs and its sequel The Smurfs 2 (2013)

- 2014's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

All of these films are centered on fictional characters (most of them animals) depicted in CG, aimed at kids/families, and (save for G-Force and Hop) are based on existing IPs. The highest rated film of this bunch on RT is the first Alvin and the Chipmunks, at 27%, with Marmaduke bottoming out at 9%. Metacritic in comparison has G-Force and Hop tied at 41 as the highest rated (both rated as mixed) and AotC: Chipwrecked being the lowest-rated at 27 (rated as negative).

So in a total of 17 films, that's fourteen films of this specific genre that turned out to be mediocre/awful against three films that turned out to be decent/fantastic.

So I hope you'll forgive me at not being impressed at the old tired sentiment that expecting the Sonic movie to suck is being "ignorant" on the pure basis of it still being in pre-production. Anyone who is seriously pushing this particular point I'd argue is deliberately ignoring the history of these type of films purely to rail against negative opinions in favor of positive ones.

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

Though I'm not a fan of the story, I hope the movie looks somewhat like this in terms of style choices:

 

[Milo]

Eh, the Sonic fan film kinda had the right concept with its depiction of the robots, and given their budget/dedication to the product I'd say they tried their best, but the execution still falls flat. They're pretty conspicuous in their appearance, and they don't seem to have any weight to them when they're animated. They don't really seem there.

Their depiction of Sonic though? The further away we stay from that BLOO BLUR, the better. Their CG Sonic render sits at the border town between the uncanny valley (their "realistic" take on Sonic is just...poor, to put it nicely) and unintentional hilarity (the facial reactions don't have much range outside of looking like he's drunk in a stupor and having a huge mouth-agape grin that can draw flies). That doesn't even get into the rest of that project's dodgy effects, like the explosions and aerial ships.

[Enesephus]

3 minutes ago, Mikyeong said:

Though I'm not a fan of the story, I hope the movie looks somewhat like this in terms of style choices:

 

Nope, nuh-uh. I'm sorry, I've always considered myself an optimist regarding all things Sonic. I was optimistic about Lost World, I was optimistic about Sonic Boom (both the cartoon and the games), and I've been optimistic about the 25th anniversary so far. I want to be optimistic about this, too, and I'm really trying to think of a way this live action gimmick could work, but I just can't get behind it, and looking at that ^ thing just reminds me why I'm so against this stupid, stupid idea. 

Now, I know I'm making a big deal of this live action thing, and make no mistake, I'm not going to write off this movie until I at least see a trailer, and even then I'll probably still go see it. I just... this stupid live action gimmick... hopefully they surprise me...

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

31 minutes ago, Inspector Gabe said:

Eh, the Sonic fan film kinda had the right concept with its depiction of the robots, and given their budget/dedication to the product I'd say they tried their best, but the execution still falls flat. They're pretty conspicuous in their appearance, and they don't seem to have any weight to them when they're animated. They don't really seem there.

Their depiction of Sonic though? The further away we stay from that BLOO BLUR, the better. Their CG Sonic render sits at the border town between the uncanny valley (their "realistic" take on Sonic is just...poor, to put it nicely) and unintentional hilarity (the facial reactions don't have much range outside of looking like he's drunk in a stupor and having a huge mouth-agape grin that can draw flies). That doesn't even get into the rest of that project's dodgy effects, like the explosions and aerial ships.

Yeah, I do have to agree that Sonic was kinda... ugh. 

I wonder if that's where Sonic Boom got their "fingers the echidna" idea from though?

[Lord-Dreamerz]

1 hour ago, Mikyeong said:

Though I'm not a fan of the story, I hope the movie looks somewhat like this in terms of style choices:

 

That fan film is literally THE example in every singe way of what they shouldn’t ever do. I would argue it's among the worse things they could do. No joke, I would actually pay money for it to never happen if that was our only choice... :T

[Hyp3hat]

Looking at that fan film and saying 'See? The new Sonic movie is going to suck!' is a little bit disingenuous. That was made by literal amateurs for no money. Whereas that Turtles movie (which is steaming hot garbage) at least blends the two convincingly because it was filmed and animated by a small armies worth of professionals.

On the other hand, Sonic 06 showed us that photorealistic humans + a blue hedgehog = a trip straight down the uncanny valley. Sonic's really difficult to blend with the real world because he's a literal cartoon character. 

[shdowhunt60]

I do still wonder if they're going to basically do the whole Sonic X thing, where Sonic and company are plonked into an alternate dimension, all the while the movie's creators completely fail to have enough self-awareness to realize that this is an inherently subversive premise that really is only effective if there's something to actually subvert.

[Johnny Boy]

20 minutes ago, shdowhunt60 said:

I do still wonder if they're going to basically do the whole Sonic X thing, where Sonic and company are plonked into an alternate dimension, all the while the movie's creators completely fail to have enough self-awareness to realize that this is an inherently subversive premise that really is only effective if there's something to actually subvert.

And run the risk of Sonic being a secondary character in his own movie thanks to having a useless human sidekick? No thanks.

[Hyp3hat]

Yeah, Sonic X's formula doesn't lend itself to a movie.

The main narrative of the OG Sonic games could easily lend itself to a movie - all you'd have to do is give Sonic a reason to run to the right and jump on robots. The dynamic Sonic & Tails have in the last few games could easily be turned into a movie. Easier than it would be in a game, tbh.

Where turning the Adventure games into movies gets a bit dicey is that the plot of those games is ropey. Sonic Adventure's basic plot resolves everything, but the second you hit the Super Sonic story it just becomes messy. Rouge has no bearing on Adventure 2's plot (and is just fucking weird sexy furry design), Shadow's motivations are never really explained, and Gerald's video message before a firing squad is the biggest plothole I've ever seen. 

The Adventure plots are in service to the needs of providing great games. They fall apart under scrutiny, and they aren't great writing. But the building blocks are there - Chaos, The Ark, Shadow, etc could be used to make a good narrative, but you need decent writers. Shadow The Hedgehog proved that, in it's way, by fucking up Shadow's entire character.

 

 

[MudHunter]

Just realized that the The Flash movie is coming in 2018 aswell

 

Who's gonna come out faster 'do

[SSF1991]

On 2/12/2016 at 7:27 AM, Blacklightning said:

Frankly, you have nobody to blame but Sega for this, because they themselves drew those lines - ideally in the best case you'd want a singular focus for the brand or at the very least a main one, but in their minds it seems they'd rather establish dozens of mutually exclusive spinoff series and outright sub-brands that are forced to compete for each other's attention rather than provide basically free publicity for one another. Fans shouldn't have to take sides based on their personal preferences because their personal preferences should cover the entire fucking brand, and the massive dissonance between them (and for that matter, the still-growing quantity of them) actively works against that.

Popular franchises like Mario, Sonic, Crash (when Naughty Dog was making the games, anyway) will do this. They make many spinoffs and a lot are either sports or a different game genre entirely with a different gameplay formula. Is that the developer's fault? No. They're keeping a popular franchise alive. It all comes down to how your fanbase will react to this. And a lot of fanbases don't have any problem with this. In fact, they embrace it so long as the game's good and no one "takes sides". And, honestly, if you just stick with the same thing over the entire brand, then it's going to get stale. That's why spinoffs are spinoffs and main games are main games. It's to keep things fresh while not ruining the charm that the main games created. Not to mention the changeover to 3D can impact a gameplay style significantly, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. SEGA has simply done what is common practice.

However, the problem behind the division has nothing to do with SEGA. The problem is just how close-minded the fanbase has become in the last decade. A lot of people have the mindset of "this is how Sonic works and if it doesn't abide by this formula then it automatically sucks". A lot don't think outside the box and realize that they are not the only fans, that others have a different vision for the franchise. And, most importantly, a lot don't realize that spinoffs are spinoffs for a reason. "Everything has to be the same, over and over again...every game is a main series game". Every game style has the potential to be a hit for SEGA.

I just don't think it's fair to blame SEGA for doing common practice with game development. Or for the actions of their fans, which SEGA has no capability to control. SEGA is a developer/publisher, not a babysitter.

[DaddlerTheDalek]

2 hours ago, MudHunter said:

Just realized that the The Flash movie is coming in 2018 aswell

 

Who's gonna come out faster 'do

Lol. You're right. Sonic vs Flash.

 

 

[Blacklightning]

1 hour ago, SSF1991 said:

Popular franchises like Mario, Sonic, Crash (when Naughty Dog was making the games, anyway) will do this.

That's besides the point. Of course other publishers can get away with making spinoffs period, that goes without saying. The distinction here is that Sonic treats them as entirely seperate branches of the brand instead of, well, spinoffs, and as a result the franchise doesn't really have a single identity to identify with anymore. This wasn't a problem for, say, Crash, because there was always an obvious main series of games and all the spinoffs drew a quantifiable amount of inspiration from them, so Crash was always visibly Crash despite the game's context. Even CTR, which was a fucking kart racer, kept everything in the same general styles and aesthetics of the main games even when they weren't outright designing characters and items around existing ones as nods to the franchise it's based on.

When was the last time this has been the case for Sonic? Boom has proven that even fundemental character designs aren't sacred anymore, much less a consistent gameplay style that breeds familiarity and polish over time. And honestly, for what good the show's done, I'm convinced it's more in spite of that than because of it. Again, this isn't the whole problem, because Sega doesn't treat this as a spinoff - rather, something closer to a competing brand. Context is pretty important, too, which is funny when you mention this:

Quote

In fact, they embrace it so long as the game's good

Because that's not what's fucking happening.

Other franchises can afford to do this because they already have a solid, heavily polished base of gameplay and theming that the rest of the franchise can safely revolve around, to the point that they arguably don't even need spinoffs to keep things fresh. In fact, the "freshening up" part of it is already typically implemented within incremental sequels themselves anyway, like extra gear that compliments the originals (Halo, Unreal Tournament, or hell, fighting games in general if you extend that to characters), whole new gameplay mechanics that work in tandem with the core gameplay they've built up to that point (Smash, Elder Scrolls/Fallout, even Zelda in many ways), or for that matter just devising level specific gimmicks that plays around with how the core gameplay interacts with it - which as it so happens, was a thing that Sonic himself did pretty regularly up until around the Unleashed mark. There's a pretty big difference between keeping things from "getting stale" and reinventing the wheel every few games for virtually no damned reason.

I mean honestly, consumer trust - let alone fandom trust - is at its lowest point for ten years, are we actually still entertaining the notion of splitting games into entirely different genres and design focuses when they should be refocusing on things that people enjoy Sonic's games for in the first place? I don't feel like it should be asking much that Sonic should have a solid foundation before we start stacking irrelevant shit on top of it.

One other pet peeve:

Quote

Not to mention the changeover to 3D can impact a gameplay style significantly, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.

Sonic Adventure was released nearly two decades ago, so let's not pretend they haven't had aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall the time in the world to get their shit together since.

[SSF1991]

2 hours ago, Blacklightning said:

That's besides the point. Of course other publishers can get away with making spinoffs period, that goes without saying. The distinction here is that Sonic treats them as entirely seperate branches of the brand instead of, well, spinoffs, and as a result the franchise doesn't really have a single identity to identify with anymore. This wasn't a problem for, say, Crash, because there was always an obvious main series of games and all the spinoffs drew a quantifiable amount of inspiration from them, so Crash was always visibly Crash despite the game's context. Even CTR, which was a fucking kart racer, kept everything in the same general styles and aesthetics of the main games even when they weren't outright designing characters and items around existing ones as nods to the franchise it's based on.

When was the last time this has been the case for Sonic? Boom has proven that even fundemental character designs aren't sacred anymore, much less a consistent gameplay style that breeds familiarity and polish over time. And honestly, for what good the show's done, I'm convinced it's more in spite of that than because of it. Again, this isn't the whole problem, because Sega doesn't treat this as a spinoff - rather, something closer to a competing brand. Context is pretty important, too, which is funny when you mention this:

SEGA has only said Boom was a separate branch. Maybe they're treating it as such because it is? That doesn't make it any less of a spinoff, though. There are two types of spin-offs. There's the spinoff media, where a media product is inspired from an existing product or franchise. Usually these focus on an established character, topic, or setting. Examples of this include the Riders games. Then there's the spinoff product, which is a brand new product that uses the brand of another product that is more established. Spinoff products are also called brand extentions. The Boom games fall into this.

Mario doesn't have an identity. You're either collecting stars or platforming.

And as for the main games, it's pretty damn obvious. Sonic 1, 2, 3, the Adventure games, the boost games all get major treatment and all give off similar vibes. You platform, you destroy robots, you stop Eggman, you save the world. In fact, the only main game that had ambition similar to a spin-off was Lost World and that was only because of how experimental it was.

Quote

Because that's not what's fucking happening.

Other franchises can afford to do this because they already have a solid, heavily polished base of gameplay and theming that the rest of the franchise can safely revolve around, to the point that they arguably don't even need spinoffs to keep things fresh. In fact, the "freshening up" part of it is already typically implemented within incremental sequels themselves anyway, like extra gear that compliments the originals (Halo, Unreal Tournament, or hell, fighting games in general if you extend that to characters), whole new gameplay mechanics that work in tandem with the core gameplay they've built up to that point (Smash, Elder Scrolls/Fallout, even Zelda in many ways), or for that matter just devising level specific gimmicks that plays around with how the core gameplay interacts with it - which as it so happens, was a thing that Sonic himself did pretty regularly up until around the Unleashed mark. There's a pretty big difference between keeping things from "getting stale" and reinventing the wheel every few games for virtually no damned reason.

I mean honestly, consumer trust - let alone fandom trust - is at its lowest point for ten years, are we actually still entertaining the notion of splitting games into entirely different genres and design focuses when they should be refocusing on things that people enjoy Sonic's games for in the first place? I don't feel like it should be asking much that Sonic should have a solid foundation before we start stacking irrelevant shit on top of it.

Yeah, and when Sonic has had a heavily polished base of gameplay with the boost games they still had spinoffs. People still hated them. And when this gameplay style was refined, people hated that too. It doesn't matter how well made the main games are or how much things are reinvented or polished. They still get hate because it's not "my type of Sonic".

My point has nothing to do with the quality of the main games. Because it doesn't matter. It's not SEGA's fault that there has been an increasing number of fans out there that are close-minded and just don't care about games that don't appeal to their style alone. And this wasn't so evident in 2008. I sure didn't see it in 2010. I didn't even see this in 2013.

 

2 hours ago, Blacklightning said:

Sonic Adventure was released nearly two decades ago, so let's not pretend they haven't had aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall the time in the world to get their shit together since.

I wasn't talking about now. I was talking about.then, when this was an issue.

[Blacklightning]

7 minutes ago, SSF1991 said:

SEGA has only said Boom was a separate branch. Maybe they're treating it as such because it is? That doesn't make it any less of a spinoff, though.

That also doesn't really address my point. If anything it kind of reinforces it? It's Sega dividing the Sonic franchise into mutually exclusive branches in an era where they're being constantly mocked for it, and with pretty good reason - it's the franchise being used as a springboard for completely unrelated concepts to sell them on brand name, or as an utterly cynical ploy to appeal to demographs that frankly weren't out of their reach with the material they already had anyway. So if you were trying to reaffirm that... good job, I guess?

Quote

Mario doesn't have an identity. You're either collecting stars or platforming.

And as for the main games, it's pretty damn obvious. Sonic 1, 2, 3, the Adventure games, the boost games all get major treatment and all give off similar vibes. You platform, you destroy robots, you stop Eggman, you save the world. In fact, the only main game that had ambition similar to a spin-off was Lost World and that was only because of how experimental it was.

This is an identity as a series we're talking about, not as a character  - so in the context of that, the exact methodology of jumping and collecting shit is an identity. Trying to sum it up in just two words is kind of a gross oversimplification. There are quirks in the movement of every Mario game that have been shared since the original game most of them are based on was made back in 1996, so despite the polish they've added to it since, a lot of the same tricks and strategies are just as viable in Mario 64 as they are in Galaxy. Sonic, for all its presumptions of a "main" series, doesn't do that. Nothing that works in Sonic 3 works in Adventure, nothing that works in Adventure works in Unleashed, and nothing that works in Unleashed works in Sonic 3. Hell, the fact that you even have to divide them into categories like "classic", "adventure" and "boost" kinda speaks volumes for my overall point - that Sonic has become such an inconsistent mess that the divisions have to be categorized in the first place. This might sound incredibly pedantic, but I think it should go without saying that if people can identify the exact wear pattern in Sonic's shoes to tell whether or not they're reusing the same model for render poses, they are going to fucking notice if the physics in a once primarily physics-based game are fundementally flawed.

In that regard, Boom and Lost World are hardly the only examples - only the most blatant ones. This is a problem that's been growing for quite some time, regardless of whatever leniency the series has been granted until now, and the behaviour of these fans:

Quote

It's not SEGA's fault that there has been an increasing number of fans out there that are close-minded and just don't care about games that don't appeal to their style alone.

Is simply a product of their own behaviour. The fans are divided because the games are literally divided, and there is no real middle ground between them. Let's not pretend that the behaviour of these fans is somehow an isolated incident just because they're loud and obnoxious, because there is some very real cause and effect going on here. It's not even like they're alone in thinking this.

And to be blunt, if you think it's closed-minded to want to be able to properly roll again in a Sonic game when it's always been his defining trait, then I have no idea what to say to you. Other than that you probably shouldn't make blanket statements based on what your average comments section thinks.

[SSF1991]

Quote

It's Sega dividing the Sonic franchise into mutually exclusive branches

Yes, and I told you that the only games that have branched were the Boom games. Not all spinoffs are mutually exclusive branches. Your point was that SEGA has been doing this all the time, when it has only happened once.

53 minutes ago, Blacklightning said:

And to be blunt, if you think it's closed-minded to want to be able to properly roll again in a Sonic game when it's always been his defining trait, then I have no idea what to say to you. Other than that you probably shouldn't make blanket statements based on what your average comments section thinks.

Yes, and he's been able to properly roll. In Sonic 4, in Colors, even in Lost World. That has not changed. He's been able to roll into a ball. You can still Spin Dash, homing attack, all these moves that have been in the franchise's game style for years.

So it's a "blanket statement based on my average comment section" simply because I ask people to not be so one-sided in a debate? I hate the Call of Duty franchise, I think it's very stale, but I understand why it's so popular and people love them. Do I think there's too much of it? Yes, but there's people that love it anyway and I respect that. Here's an even better example. I got really tired with the boost gameplay by the time Generations came out, but I understand why people still love the formula. Same with a lot of franchises I couldn't get into.

It's not a blanket statement to wish people would drop the "my way or the highway" mindset. It's understandable that there's a particular game style you want, but to basically cast off everyone else in the fanbase who are interested in different game styles because "I want this to happen" just reeks of entitlement. And even with the various gameplay styles SEGA has made, spinoffs or not, the point I'm making is that this has no effect on the way fans interpret it. Fans interpret games on their own. They debate with others about games on their own. They reach their own opinions. Not SEGA.