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

[PeterPancake]

1 minute ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

I ignored replaying to that part because it was missing most of what I was aiming at saying. I didn't say it is unrealistic for a runner's body to be buff... regardless if that even matters here when they made him have magical levels of speed... What actually I said was it is unrealistic for a giant bobblehead to be stuck on top of a buff tiny body. Which is part of why I like the teddy-bear Sonic slightly more because they made his head and body size more realistically proportionate with each other. For the most part only only certain extremely cartoon styles have massively huge heads.

Modern Sonic has a big head in proportion to his body. Why has Sonic having a big head suddenly become a problem?

[Lord-Dreamerz]

1 minute ago, PeterPancake said:

Modern Sonic has a big head in proportion to his body. Why has Sonic having a big head suddenly become a problem?

... Because this was a debate over realism of style? Last I was aware Modern Sonic is NOT realistic.... especially his head size.

[Sonic Fan J]

1 minute ago, PeterPancake said:

I think this is more so how a creature on another planet could have THEORETICALLY evolved. And the only thing we have to go on is animal biology and anatomy on Earth

Which is itself one of the problems. Everything about Sonic is fantastical and whimsical and even this movie design has to be to make anything in the context of the character. Trying to make something at once realistic, fantastical, whimsical, and grounded is a counterproductive. The production team gave themselves a challenge and a half and it unfortunately is not going to end pretty. Even if the movie is a commercial success it is likely the handling of Sonic's design will be a black mark on the character designer's careers even if the technical side is brilliantly executed. And why. Because the casual viewer won't care one way or the other, but the detail oriented will not stop themselves from panning what is arguable an adaption of a character in only the most superficial of details. Their work won't be appreciated by their peers or the fans beyond the most technical side of things.

5 minutes ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

I didn't say it is unrealistic for a runner's body to be buff

Actually a runner's body should be lithe, not buff. Being buff would create more mass that is less flexible to move resulting in reduced top speeds and ability to sprint for longer distances.

2 minutes ago, PeterPancake said:

Modern Sonic has a big head in proportion to his body. Why has Sonic having a big head suddenly become a problem?

Sonic having a big head that is bigger than his body only works in cartoons. In a realistic scenario all creatures have heads smaller than their bodies, especially bipeds as it is important for maintaining balance and protecting the brain from being an easy target.

[MadmanRB]

5 hours ago, Shiroi said:

If indeed this was an early version of the final design I’ve got to say it doesn’t look that bad. The eyes are a bit weird but apart from that I’m OK with this.

Hopefully the final design is as close to this as possible.

I can get behind something like this too, as long as it doesnt look grotesque like the Michel Bay turtles I am fine with this

[Lord-Dreamerz]

5 minutes ago, Sonic Fan J said:

Actually a runner's body should be lithe, not buff. Being buff would create more mass that is less flexible to move resulting in reduced top speeds and ability to sprint for longer distances.

Yeah I understand that. I was just making it clear that Sonic's body being buff or not and if that is realistic or not... was not the point of the argument I was making. I was simply trying to make a head to body size comparison statement.

[Jango]

Above all, he's still a talking animal in sneakers, it will, nor should, try to be grounded or realistic. This approach is incoherent on itself. 

[Sonic Fan J]

1 minute ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

Yeah I understand that. I was just making it clear that Sonic's body being buff or not and if that is realistic or not... was not the point of the argument I was making.

Oh no worries there I get that, but as my post was mostly in response to the necessitation of having to make stuff up to make Sonic work it was a nice example to continue showing the flaws of approaching a noodle limbed cartoon character realistic and everything that has to be consider for it which would continue to take the character further and further away from what they are. Sorry for the confusion.

2 minutes ago, Jango said:

Above all, he's still a talking animal in sneakers, it will, nor should, try to be grounded or realistic. This approach is incoherent on itself. 

I agree creatively, but you forget that this movie is about making money and that is based on market research not creativity. So as incoherent as it is someone read eth data and thought there was money to made with this approach regardless on what it was they were using to that end. Money talks, not art, unless it makes money.

[Multikaris]

3 hours ago, Jango said:

In a way or another, there's people ready to pay for any thing a franchise they like put on the market, even if it's clearly garbage (which this is). Every franchise has these, Sonic is no exception. It's just bad because when movies like this and Venom make money, the bar is set pretty low, and the devs get lazy, less creative and the final product will either be "just okay" or "outright bad". 

I for one hope this bombs hard and SEGA realize, just like they did in 2006, that they can't get away with a bad product and good products like Sonic Mania also do well and make money. I'd rather have my product called "the best Sonic game ever" than "the worst videogame adaption since Super Mario Bros."... 

Did we all forget about The Legend of Chun-Li? Or the works of Uwe Boll? Those were all far worse than the Mario movie.

[Milo]

7 hours ago, Adamis said:

I love how much you took whatever I said off context.

When did I even mention you guys should do this or that ? I just talked about myself, why do you feel attacked, there, sugah ? Stop putting words in my mouth, thank you. 

...

But I don't appreciate having someone I don't even know lecturing me on how I should do this or shouldn't do that, especially when you've been unable to read my post and understand that I wasn't talking about you.

Then don't jump into threads and insinuate people are Chicken Littles for expressing disapproval towards a design with comments like this:

Quote

But I don't need to SCREAM and PANIC and yell that THE FRANCHISE IS DOOMED.

 

7 hours ago, Adamis said:

Yes, it's sad they're making a (possible) trash movie. But for all we know, it might be better than we thought. Or worse. For now, neither you nor I know and it'll stay like that for a while.

...

Also, Dragon Ball Evolution didn't ruin Dragon Ball (it even led to two new movies then Dragon Ball Super) ; The last airbender didn't ruin the Avatar franchise, etc etc.

Already explained in my last post, which you didn't even bother to acknowledge. Bad products may not kill franchises in one swoop; but they do damage the series nonetheless and alter expectations on how people perceive how later projects turn out. And franchise continuing to put out projects after a disaster doesn't actually mean much if they (still) aren't very good to begin with.

7 hours ago, Adamis said:

Because, excuse me, but you (general "you"), the Sonic fans, are still buying their trash, right ? Forces, Lost World, Sonic Boom. (I bought the latter two second hand because I didn't want to give Sega my money for these bad games)Sure, we've been lucky to have a gem with Sonic Mania, But in recent years, what did we get ? What can we consider a good SONIC game since Generation ? And you know that Sega, as a business, sees with money. The game sells ? Good enough, they're happy and hop on the next project. And sometimes they listen to the fans, when we're lucky.

So maybe instead of being an annoyance on some forums, you could... I don't know, make your voice heard directly ? Don't pay for their "trash" products ? Don't support those ? Write them some letters ? Do something !

What does any of this have to do with my rebuttal about how Sonic products are received or the thread topic about the movie? Putting the spotlight on my personal investment and "contributions" towards this series is absolutely irrelevant.

[Dr Ryan]

BASELESS THEORY TIME:

Paramount leaked that early design to test 'eye reaction' with the general public following the backlash to the design.  Seems odd that it suddenly shows up after a year, at the height of people kicking off about the design?

I am basing this on literally NOTHING!

[SBR2]

51 minutes ago, Jango said:

Above all, he's still a talking animal in sneakers, it will, nor should, try to be grounded or realistic. This approach is incoherent on itself. 

I don't know what you mean. Nothing is more serious than Sonic. What with its tantrum throwing mad scientist who builds robot ladybugs to attack cartoon characters. 

[Remynaka]

 This is why we can't have nice things. :c 

[PeterPancake]

Again, just because the concept is ridiculous doesn't mean it has to be realized in a ridiculous way. The entire MCU is ridiculous but Marvel does a good job of immersing the audience into the universe and making them suspend their disbelief. Almost any fictional concept itself is abstract and ridiculous but the filmmakers execute that idea in a way that makes people BELIEVE in it. That's what has to happen for Sonic.

 

He's not anymore fantastical than Superman or the Ninja Turtles 

[Nicky Nicardo]

The more these maybe-fake/maybe-real posters keep getting leaked... the more badly I NEED to see a full reveal. xDD Seriously, I'm getting more and more curious and stoked with each passing day.

[Sonic Fan J]

6 minutes ago, PeterPancake said:

Again, just because the concept is ridiculous doesn't mean it has to be realized in a ridiculous way. The entire MCU is ridiculous but Marvel does a good job of immersing the audience into the universe and making them suspend their disbelief. Almost any fictional concept itself is abstract and ridiculous but the filmmakers execute that idea in a way that makes people BELIEVE in it. That's what has to happen for Sonic.

You're 100% right, just because it is ridiculous doesn't mean it has to be realized in a ridiculous way. That said, adapting Sonic by discarding everything about him from his design and native completely free from constraints medium is itself realizing the vision in a rather ridiculous way. A cartoon hedgehog can hold a more serious tone as proven in series with games like Adventure 2 without a need to turn him into something he is not; a real world creature. He's not designed to fit in the real world and was not created with that intention. Market research or no, changing him in such a way is pretty ridiculous. Next there going to Bugs Bunny or heck, if we want to be ridiculous let's say they'll do a Puyo Puyo live action adaption where the titular slimes are all human shaped body builders who talk like Venom. It's total ridiculousness but if it's realized in a serious manner it can surely be taken seriously.

4 minutes ago, PeterPancake said:

He's not anymore fantastical than Superman or the Ninja Turtles 

True, though his proportions and design are significantly more abstract and whimsical. The turtles and Superman especially still use human proportions so when they are adapted using human proportions no one bats an eye. Even Rocket in the MCU is adapted primarily from making an actual racoon bipedal, which doesn't take a lot of effort since racoons will stand on their hind legs and Rocket's design is still primarily based on a real racoon. Sonic on the other hand is designed without human proportions at all so when he is adapted to have human proportions it is seen as strange and unusual.

Sorry if I'm coming across in a passive-aggressive fashion here, but I'm primarily trying to make it obvious to see why people don't find your example convincing by using extremes to make it easier to see. You seem to have a hard time seeing the problem when it is described with calm logic so I figured perhaps an extreme example would make it easier to see. Giving a character who does not have human anatomy human anatomy as the basis for realistic just seems like a cheap cop and undermines the point to the character's design. Though, since noodle limbs are part of Sonic's design and you say they can't work in a live action setting I actually have a question for you. If I'm not misremembering you praised the Pokémon movie for it's realistic adaptions. As those are actually source material accurate, including the noodle limbs of Mr. Mime, I'm curious about your thoughts on it. Like Sonic, Mr. Mime is a fantastical creature and has noodle limbs as part of it's design that are being used in a live action adaption so I'm sure they must bother you. If not I'd like to hear what makes Mr. Mime different from Sonic and why it's fine for him to have noodle limbs and be source material accurate in a live action movie and not Sonic.

[Multikaris]

1 hour ago, SBR2 said:

I don't know what you mean. Nothing is more serious than Sonic. What with its tantrum throwing mad scientist who builds robot ladybugs to attack cartoon characters. 

And yet he also blows up the face of the planet, right? 

[horridus]

20 minutes ago, PeterPancake said:

Again, just because the concept is ridiculous doesn't mean it has to be realized in a ridiculous way. The entire MCU is ridiculous but Marvel does a good job of immersing the audience into the universe and making them suspend their disbelief. Almost any fictional concept itself is abstract and ridiculous but the filmmakers execute that idea in a way that makes people BELIEVE in it. That's what has to happen for Sonic.

He's not anymore fantastical than Superman or the Ninja Turtles 

That's not really a very good comparison. Superhero comic books in general have always held some degree of grounding in reality, even if only in terms of style. Superman and TMNT both were designed from a visual standpoint to be coexistent with realistic humans- 

When the time came for them to have live action film adaptations, by their very nature the transition was an easier one to pull off as both had been conceived with this reality in mind when designed. 

Part of the reason the Bay film Turtles were so poorly received was because the TMNT had already been portrayed in a realistic fashion before, and the redesign felt unnecessary in addition to being unappealing from a visual standpoint. 

Sonic the Hedgehog by contrast was designed explicitly as a cartoony character along the same lines as Felix the Cat and Mickey Mouse. Nothing about him or his world was ever meant to be 'real' the way superheroes or TMNT were, even after the redesigns.

Sonic is unusual for the sheer number of adaptations and spinoffs he's had over the years in the form of cartoons and comics. No matter the changes and the variations made, none of them ever attempted to make Sonic or his friends look 'realistic' (barring, maybe, certain artists on the Archie comics, but even that's a bit of a stretch and never really applied to Sonic himself). Heck. one of the big criticisms of Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 was the sudden presence of realistic looking humans looking odd alongside the more cartoony main characters, with the sole exception being Eggman himself. Sonic X was able to sidestep the issue by deign of being an Anime, and as such the contrast was easier to overlook.

In this case though, there is no similar luxury, and so far this attempt to make Sonic 'real' isn't really working, largely because its like trying to make a 'realistic' Mickey Mouse- you can't actually translate the character to real life without doing things that ultimately take away from the appeal of the design in the first place. That even on its own merits this redesign is looking pretty shoddy doesn't help at all, given that its made zero effort to actually translate Sonic's shoes. 

You're free to enjoy the redesign, and you're free to look forward to the movie. But frankly you're not giving a real convincing argument as to why virtually everyone else should feel similar.

[Blueknight V2.0]

8 minutes ago, horridus said:

Heck. one of the big criticisms of Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 was the sudden presence of realistic looking humans looking odd alongside the more cartoony main characters, with the sole exception being Eggman himself. Sonic X was able to sidestep the issue by deign of being an Anime, and as such the contrast was easier to overlook.

Well Shadow and 2006 had the same realistic humans (the latter includes Eggman). While Unleashed followed a route similar to Sonic X. So it's not like it's an unfamiliar concept in the series.

But from what I've seen so far, it seems the film might be a cross between Adventure and X. Exception is no other characters outside of Sonic and Eggman. Well maybe Metal Sonic and Chaos will get in.

18 minutes ago, horridus said:

given that its made zero effort to actually translate Sonic's shoes. 

Yeah, well it probably wouldn't have looked as odd if they used the Nike's on one of the previous pages. But they could've at least included his socks. Now I could see it work for Shadow, because he don't have any. But Shadow's hover shoes, they would have to keep the colors the same and gold rings.

[Red Hot Jack]

Anyway, those who saw the teaser already said it's a cartoon design, with realistic fur, so I'm relieved, for the face at least, the muscles still worry me, and the legs.

[Rowl]

Since Eggman is a human (I think) it makes sense that the Sonic universe would feature also humans as one of the main population. But so far they kinda have trouble designen them in away  so that they can bland in wit the rest of the regular Sonic characters. In SA andSA2 they kinda looked way to realistic, Sonic X humans looked more like NPCs from a Kingdom Hearts game, the ones in 06 looked even to realistic and the ones in Unleashed are designed more like characters from a Pixar movie.  

So far Sega and Sonic Team failed in designing the humans in a way that fit with the design of the Sonic universe.

[horridus]

15 minutes ago, Blue Knight/Bluestreak said:

Well Shadow and 2006 had the same realistic humans (the latter includes Eggman). While Unleashed followed a route similar to Sonic X. So it's not like it's an unfamiliar concept in the series.

I know. And before X, the Fleetway Comics long utilized the idea of Mobius as a separate place from Earth and had Sonic wind up on said planet in several stories. I used Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 as an example because that's where it got started in the games proper, and where the criticism about the choice first originated from. And I wouldn't really say Unleashed follows a 'similar' route to Sonic X given that the humans in that game are far more cartoonish than the humans in Sonic X, who while not hyper-realistic as the humans in the games had been until Unleashed, were still more realistic than Sonic or anyone from Sonic's world. The fact that the medium was animated helped to make the contrast a little less glaring, but the same cannot be said in this particular instance.

[Lord-Dreamerz]

33 minutes ago, Rowl said:

and the ones in Unleashed are designed more like characters from a Pixar movie.  

So far Sega and Sonic Team failed in designing the humans in a way that fit with the design of the Sonic universe.

Unleashed looked close enough to matching Sonic and gang in style to me, I wouldn't call that a fail. They were just as cartoony as Eggman is.... which should always be a example of who to match humans to. A classic looking disney-ish style seems about right to me.

[Salamander]

11 minutes ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

Unleashed looked closed enough to matching Sonic and gang in style to me, I wouldn't call that a fail. They were just as cartoony as Eggman is.... which should always be a example of who to match humans to. A classic looking disney-ish style seems about right to me.

Conversely, in '06 they made the mistake of warping Eggman's classic design to suit the realistic human world they'd designed, with ugly and laughable results.  Hmm, that sounds a lot like something I've seen recently, but I can't quite put my finger on it...  Of course, even in '06 they didn't make the mistake of trying to make Sonic "realistic" as well.  They knew what side their bread was buttered on in that regard, at least.

[Rowl]

14 minutes ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

Unleashed looked closed enough to matching Sonic and gang in style to me, I wouldn't call that a fail. They were just as cartoony as Eggman is.... which should always be a example of who to match humans to. A classic looking disney-ish style seems about right to me.

Close enough, but still doesn't really match with the regular art style. If you can take this background characters out of Sonic Unleashed and put them into a Pixar, Dreamworks and Bluesky movie, than they will bland in much better with those movies, than Sonic. If you can mistaken the humans designs from Unleashed with those from other movies, than it shows me, that they still didn't found the perfect art design for their human characters. 

[Scar]

Even with this new Poster leak or whatever, Sonic looks wrong. It just looks wrong.

I don't get why making the movie animated/stylised automatically pigeonholes it as a film for 7-8 year olds.

I mean who the fuck is going to look at that poster and thing "yes, this is perfect to take my 16 year old child to go see". This is the exact type of movie which will be watched primarily by parents and their young children, die-hard Sonic fans, or people in their mid-late 20s who are in it for a laugh. This is Smurfs, except we got Sonic now. And to make it worse, the edgier the story tries to be, the more ridiculous and meme-y the film will become. 

In trying to be taken seriously, this film will almost certainly be not taken seriously.