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

[SaturnWolf]

Just now, Splash the Otter said:

So is there any chance of us getting a better movie later, or is Sonic's film career ruined forever?

If history has taught us one thing, it's that Sega does not care about how spectacularly something fails and doesn't learn from their mistakes.

They'll keep bumbling around with Sonic movies and we can hope they give us something half decent eventually.

[Milo]

So some comparison shots/gifs with Sonic and the live-action/animation hybrid movie Hop from Illumination (yes, Despicable Me/Minions Illumination) has been going around (this particular one was from tumblr) :

The main purpose people have been sharing this is because of the actor allusion in-joke, James Marsden playing a live-action character having to put up with a non-human character and driving them around. But the reason I'm bringing it up is just to compare how much worse the design and animation for Sonic is in this shot is compared to the one with E.B. (the CG rabbit) above.

I can actually make out E.B. to be belonging to one identifiable species compared to the game hedgehog/real-life hedgehog/midget human hodgepodge that's supposed to be Sonic.

You can see E.B. bouncing around in his seat (despite wearing a seatbelt), talking to James, and is making visible facial expressions all at the same. Sonic outside some barely visible movements (his quills on his head, his eyes refocusing) is just sitting there and staring at James. 

Most importantly, E.B.'s animation also has a lot of additional details going on to establish him in the environment; the movement of the seatbelt, the shadows he's casting (and the shadows also match his design, i.e. the seatbelt shadow matches his head and the seat shadow is based off of his ears), his ears/head reflection on the car hood, and the lighting environment that while not perfect, does match the color environment of the scene.

Sonic has...what, a generically-shaped blob of a shadow you can barely see against the cart seat? The lighting for him is unnaturally bright in a car that has a very dark color scheme. He might as well had been photoshopped in there. Any moderately talented image/video editor could easily cover him up and put someone or something else in that shot.

The absolute kicker is that Hop was released eight years ago in 2011, and was made on roughly two-thirds ($63M) of the budget of the Sonic Movie releasing in 2019 ($90M).

[Myst]

17 minutes ago, Splash the Otter said:

So is there any chance of us getting a better movie later, or is Sonic's film career ruined forever?

Depends on how well this one does in the box office. Hardcore fans might complain about Sonic being 'butchered' in this, but if little kids like it and want to see it, this movie might just make enough money for a sequel. The Smurfs & Alvin and the Chipmunks are a good example as they both got three films apiece.

Or it could be a box office bomb. Who knows?

[Kellodrawsalot]

So this movie is going to be about a badly cgi Sonic and Jim Carrey.

 

Because that's just Jim doing Jim. thats not Dr Robotnik.

[Nicky Nicardo]

Welp. It finally happened. I was called a Paramount PR intern for saying that I'm hyped for this movie and that even though Sonic did look not-so-good in SOME shots, he looked awesome in other shots. xDDD

[Tarnish]

15 minutes ago, Milo said:

So some comparison shots/gifs with Sonic and the live-action/animation hybrid movie Hop from Illumination (yes, Despicable Me/Minions Illumination) has been going around (this particular one was from tumblr) :

The main purpose people have been sharing this is because of the actor allusion in-joke, James Marsden playing a live-action character having to put up with a non-human character and driving them around. But the reason I'm bringing it up is just to compare how much worse the design and animation for Sonic is in this shot is compared to the one with E.B. (the CG rabbit) above.

I can actually make out E.B. to be belonging to one identifiable species compared to the game hedgehog/real-life hedgehog/midget human hodgepodge that's supposed to be Sonic.

You can see E.B. bouncing around in his seat (despite wearing a seatbelt), talking to James, and is making visible facial expressions all at the same. Sonic outside some barely visible movements (his quills on his head, his eyes refocusing) is just sitting there and staring at James. 

Most importantly, E.B.'s animation also has a lot of additional details going on to establish him in the environment; the movement of the seatbelt, the shadows he's casting (and the shadows also match his design, i.e. the seatbelt shadow matches his head and the seat shadow is based off of his ears), his ears/head reflection on the car hood, and the lighting environment that while not perfect, does match the color environment of the scene.

Sonic has...what, a generically-shaped blob of a shadow you can barely see against the cart seat? The lighting for him is unnaturally bright in a car that has a very dark color scheme. He might as well had been photoshopped in there. Any moderately talented image/video editor could easily cover him up and put someone or something else in that shot.

The absolute kicker is that Hop was released eight years ago in 2011, and was made on roughly two-thirds ($63M) of the budget of the Sonic Movie releasing in 2019 ($90M).

All of what you said is true, but it just dawned on my why exactly Sonic's design is so freakishly offputting: he looks kinda like he has a human face that's been painted over...

At least I'm getting kinda similar vibes as from this..

[Dr. Detective]

The second hand embarrassment I got from watching that trailer is going to be hard to top.

I guess, as a positive, Jim Carray made me chuckle a bit.

But... I'm gonna have to wait until I get home from work to properly lay out my thoughts on this... uh... I guess this is a film.

[ShadowSJG]

1 hour ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

It's not even that I think its good or bad...but it's so painfully mediocre. Everything about that trailer is the most by the numbers cliches you see in every children's movie trailer.

Even Carrey's lines are extremely generic and only carried by him hamming it up.

 

But clearly since some people are actually excited, I'm just an out of touch old man I guess.

Sonic looks bad

[Multikaris]

1 hour ago, Balding Spider said:

Keep in mind this is sort of the exception to the rule. I mean look at The Smurfs, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Yogi Bear, Scooby-Doo, Woody Woodpecker Fat Albert, or even 1977's Pete's Dragon.

Some of them came close with the designs, but were bad movies anyway, like Garfield and Woody Woodpecker. And then we have those who go on the extreme grit end, like this, the early DCEU, Michael Bay Stuff, and Dumbo. 

[Tracker_TD]

Let the dramatically better repaints... commence! 

[PeterPancake]

2 hours ago, Dr Ryan said:

It's a shame this trailer is getting GB 2016 levels of dislike on YouTube. I'm really looking forward to it but I think they're learning the hard way they shouldn't have fucked up his design.

Ehhh I'm starting to think the same tbh. I didnt expect this level of hate. Yes, the design was going to change, it HAD to because it's a completely different medium. But I feel like they should have stuck a lot closer to the original in terms of aesthetics.

[TheOcelot]

YongYea's thoughts:

Yep, he hates Sonic's design.

I also agree that the one good thing about this movie could be Jim Carrey's performance. I know he sounds a lot like Ace Ventura from his previous films, but I quite like it. I'm not saying Carrey can save this movie, god no, but he's the reason why I'm gonna watch it.

[PeterPancake]

54 minutes ago, Splash the Otter said:

So is there any chance of us getting a better movie later, or is Sonic's film career ruined forever?

Yes, I'd say so. Might be a long, long time, though. 

[MadmanRB]

1 hour ago, kimplix said:

Here have another poster to fill the few up more 

You know whats fucked up?

Conceptually I think this poster is the best use of this design so far.

I am being honest here, its actually quite epic when you look at it especially with those sparks of energy just coming from Sonics body.

 

However I would still rather see a more game accurate Sonic here.

[Muscles Maximum]

5 minutes ago, PeterPancake said:

Ehhh I'm starting to think the same tbh. I didnt expect this level of hate. Yes, the design was going to change, it HAD to because it's a completely different medium. But I feel like they should have stuck a lot closer to the original in terms of aesthetics.

I'm convinced you don't understand the appeal of this franchise. You don't understand the appeal of Sonic's design. You don't get it.

All you care about is Sonic being on the big screen. This is trash.

[ShadowSJG]

I can't get over how bad this design looks, FFS

[StaticMania]

Epic trailer, dudes.

I'm so pumped to not watch this flick, brah.

[SoniClub]

Okay so Sonic's design in motion is pretty much as bad as I was expecting. Beyond the proportions being completely off and those weirdly protruding leg bones, his face and eyes are just so distractingly misshapen and unpleasant to look at it was honestly hard to pay attention properly.  

Not really a fan of Carey even in his more reputable outings. And more importantly, his interpretation here seems really symptomatic of how this film is going to have very little to do with the franchise: Eggman is the bombastic, irascible, scheming, disgruntled, monolouging and moustache-twiddling star of the series, and I got absolutely zero of that from whatever Carey was doing. If you showed me that exchange with the soldier I wouldn't ever think that that was meant to be Eggman, which leaves me wondering if Carey has even seen anything of what the antagonist has come to be known for. This whole obnoxious, sassy ego-lord shtick felt completely incongruous to me, and not at all likeable. (There wasn't even a joke beyond him acting goofy, and the whole "your basic" comment was completely unrelated, no word play whatsoever. I'm not sure I understand those who believe Carey will "carry" this film as he left me completely unconvinced. But like I say, not a huge fan of the guy normally anyhow.) It's incredibly disappointing because Eggman is such an iconic pillar of the franchise and it would have been really interesting to see his character expanded beyond the games' simple plots or Boom's comedy. 

It is, of course, far too late for any of these poor decisions to be changed, but one thing that is completely baffling is the choice of song for the trailer. What does Gangster's Paradise have to do with anything? It certainly doesn't fit thematically and doesn't even fit the overall tone or the action sequences. I am honestly at a loss to understand how this was given the green light and sincerely believe that a better choice of song could have seriously reduced how bizarre this trailer comes across. 

I wish I could say I'm surprised but the direction of this franchise has always been an inconsistent clusterfuck, why would we get our hopes up that this film would be managed in a sensible manner? If you need any suggestion as to how this will be received — look at the like to dislike ration on this trailer already. This film is going to bomb and once again make Sonic a laughing stock and weird meme-fodder. I guess we'll have to see how it performs at the box office but I know one thing for sure, you won't see me queuing up to see it at theatres. You've kinda failed when a lifelong fan has *zero* desire to see the film. 

Honestly, I'm kinda stuck between disappointed and enraged at this point. The latter largely because this will likely be the only feature film we are ever going to get out of the franchise, and the project clearly has had some coin poured into it, yet this is what we get.

Edited February 2 by SoniClub

[Scritch the Cat]

34 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

Some of them came close with the designs, but were bad movies anyway, like Garfield and Woody Woodpecker. And then we have those who go on the extreme grit end, like this, the early DCEU, Michael Bay Stuff, and Dumbo. 

I think Burton Dumbo is cute.  Granted, I've only seen him in the trailer, but the same is true of this Sonic.

Meanwhile, upon repeated viewings, it looks like Sonic's mouth variety isn't just about the posters vs footage; his mouth actually looks different between every other scene shown and that shed scene.  Why this is I don't know, but if this is a work in progress I hope that wider mouth that actually looks made for his face is what we end up with; rather than the Clutch Cargo nightmare.

[ShadowSJG]

This looks nothing like Sonic at all! Like what the hell were they thinking?!

[MadmanRB]

18 minutes ago, Strong Guy said:

I'm convinced you don't understand the appeal of this franchise. You don't understand the appeal of Sonic's design. You don't get it.

All you care about is Sonic being on the big screen. This is trash.

Well me personally I dont mind design changes to characters for the big screen but make it make sense.

Sometimes game accuracy can go against you, especially looking at the 1994 street fighter film and its outfits.

I mean look at blanka for fucksake

 

 

I mean Jeez Louise!

 

I actually take CGI Sonic over this.

[Graystripe2000]

1 hour ago, Nicky Nicardo said:

Welp. It finally happened. I was called a Paramount PR intern for saying that I'm hyped for this movie and that even though Sonic did look not-so-good in SOME shots, he looked awesome in other shots. xDDD

People, PLEASE don’t do this and just let people have their opinions. Ugh.

[StaticMania]

Does anyone else think Sonic's face look worse than those leaked concept designs?

I think it looks worse, so...it kinda kills me.

[Graystripe2000]

1 hour ago, Splash the Otter said:

So is there any chance of us getting a better movie later, or is Sonic's film career ruined forever?

I say, it’s too early to be asking that, really.

[PeterPancake]

27 minutes ago, Strong Guy said:

I'm convinced you don't understand the appeal of this franchise. You don't understand the appeal of Sonic's design. You don't get it.

All you care about is Sonic being on the big screen. This is trash.

You'd be better served saying this to somebody who has NOT been a fan of this franchise for 20 years; played every single game minus the obscure arcade titles, is an avid reader of the comics (Pre-IDW) and has been around at all the highs and lows that this franchise has gone through. I was there on message boards hyping up '06 in 2005, I was around, defending Sonic Boom from criticism when the designs were revealed silhouette. Just because I  optimistic about this movie does not mean I have failed to grasp what defines Sonic as a character and the franchise overall. I'd like to ask you the same question -- what is the appeal of Sonic, exactly? And you'd be hard pressed to come up with an answer because the franchise formula has changed so many times, there are so many different interpretations and visions of this character, that a single definitive version of Sonic is impossible to lock down.