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

[Gatestormer]

Basically, a Sonic game that relies too much on dark and serious crap can come off as really cheesy and poorly executed.

To be fair, so can a Sonic game that relies too much on being lighthearted and funny.

[shdowhunt60]

The idea of a blue hedgehog running around at the speed of sound, going through loop de loops and battling a fat scientist with a moustache and goofy grin sounds pretty whacky to me. =P

Okay, and I still don't get it.

Everything in Sonic 1 is still played straight. I'm not getting where it is I'm supposed to be going "WOOOOOOOAH! THIS IS SO WACKY AND GOOFY! LOL111!!1!1!". It's the energy of what's being presented. Yes, it certainly all is very whimsical... But I'm not getting "wacky".

That's why the idea of a Sonic game, or movie in this case, relying too much on the dark and edgy is ridiculous for a game series like Sonic the hedgehog. Sonic Adventure 1 balanced out the epic, dark (ish) story with the goofy cartoony stuff and so did the sequel to an extent. Then there's Sonic Unleashed and Sonic and the Black Knight...

Basically, a Sonic game that relies too much on dark and serious crap can come off as really cheesy and poorly executed.

Okay, and?

Look, I maintain the reason why this crap "doesn't" work is because it "hasn't" worked. Because, quite frankly, as many before me have established, people have done this with cartoon characters before, and succeeded. Why Sonic arbitrarily can't, has to do with people being irrational about the whole thing. Which is pretty damn sad, all things considered, because I do see people doing stuff like this well with the Sonic cast.

[Salamander]

The more immersed you are in a franchise, the harder it is to detach yourself from your emotional investment in it.  As a fan, it's hard not to take things more seriously than they are.  There's only so dark and edgy you can get before the juxtaposition with an exaggeratedly-drawn, primary-coloured, anthropomorphic cast becomes ludicrous (truly comedic, ironically).  I don't think anyone here is proposing anything that goes as far as the Shadow the Hedgehog game, but this is the kind of perspective that ultimately resulted in Shadow, I think.

[shdowhunt60]

The more immersed you are in a franchise, the harder it is to detach yourself from your emotional investment in it.  As a fan, it's hard not to take things more seriously than they are.  There's only so dark and edgy you can get before the juxtaposition with an exaggeratedly-drawn, primary-coloured, anthropomorphic cast becomes ludicrous (truly comedic, ironically).  I don't think anyone here is proposing anything that goes as far as the Shadow the Hedgehog game, but this is the kind of perspective that ultimately resulted in Shadow, I think.

Once again: Shadow happened, because Iizuka had no damned idea what was doing. You can replace the Sonic cast with a bunch of androgynous anime teenagers, and it would still bomb, because at the end of the day, the narrative is complete and utter trash. At no level, is Shadow even remotely functional, save for ironic ones, because of how utterly asinine it is.

[Myst]

Actually all you said was...

 

 

 

Which we all know from Sonic 1, this isn't true.

 

Sonic 1 never was wacky and silly, IMO. Maybe a little lighthearted, like Green Hill and the title screen, but I never got the wacky and silly vibe I got from games like Mario. Final Zone's music was downright intense. Those drums when the level started always got my adrenaline going.

 

Stuff like Lost World, (despite the classic badniks) feels like Sonic for preschoolers. (Not gameplay, I mean overall tone and look of the world Sonic inhabits.)

 

Again, I do want there to be some comedy in Sonic, I just don't want it to be overbearing like it has been lately. I want a serious 'core' to the story, and I want Eggman to not be a bumbling ridiculous joke of a character.

 

The idea of a blue hedgehog running around at the speed of sound, going through loop de loops and battling a fat scientist with a moustache and goofy grin sounds pretty whacky to me. =P

 

The Ninja Turtles have handled seriousness from time to time (The 2003 series had some dark moments, like Baxter Stockman having his EYE TAKEN OUT for failing Shredder. This happened time and time again in the series, until Baxter was nothing more than a head on a robot spider) The 2014 movie had Arkham Asylum-style thugs attacking a subway with machine guns, and a scene during the opening credits featuring a dead body lying on the pavement. I haven't read the comics myself but I heard they've been pretty dark at times.

 

And they're a bunch of teenage turtles who skateboard, eat pizza and yell cowabunga. The Transformers are a bunch of alien robot cars (One of which rides a flame-breathing robot dinosaur and carries a giant sword) and those movies are played almost completely straight.

 

Batman is a guy who dresses up like a bat and fights a clown, a green plant-woman and a man who can shoot ice from his hands.

 

It's fiction, who cares how ridiculous the characters themselves may be, just craft a good story around it, and it won't matter.

[Gabz Girl]

To be fair, so can a Sonic game that relies too much on being lighthearted and funny.

 

D'oh, you're right. XD;; I totally forgot about that.

 

It just needs a certain balance to be a good story, a good amount of humour but also some decent action and an epic, "dark" story. If it goes too dark, it's bad. If it goes too funneh and lighthearted, it's bad.

[Myst]

It just needs a certain balance to be a good story, a good amount of humour but also some decent action and an epic, "dark" story. If it goes too dark, it's bad. If it goes too funneh and lighthearted, it's bad.

 

Exactly. That's what I want. Eggman being so clumsy and having his machines mock him is just too silly for my tastes. I want an Eggman that I can percieve as an actual threat who can pose a real challenge to Sonic.

[Willsy]

IMO, they should keep Eggman the way he currently is in terms of personality. Eggman is probably my favourite villain in a video game because of the way he is, and Mike Pollock's delivery is absolutely sublime. I agree that I would like to see more scenes where Eggman is a formidable threat to Sonic, but they shouldn't change his personality. Too many games follow the dark and serious villain route and Eggman is honestly a breath of fresh air from that. I dint really think that Eggman as a character is the problem here, but rather how the stories are written.

[Sylvia Sylvain]

[Milo]

Given how he's the boss of Sonic Team nowadays and he's said anything related to Sonic has to passes through him first, this isn't really anything of a surprise.

That said, Iizuka monitoring the film isn't going to make it any better or any worse, given the track record of film adaptations of video games in general, live-action/CG hybrid adaptations of stylized works in general (Paddington is to date the sole exception to the rule), and the track record of the studios producing/distributing it. The worst of it I can think of is that the script may be requested by him to be retooled to be closer to the writing in the current games.

[Johnny Boy]

Given how he's the boss of Sonic Team nowadays and he's said anything related to Sonic has to passes through him first, this isn't really anything of a surprise.

That said, Iizuka monitoring the film isn't going to make it any better or any worse, given the track record of film adaptations of video games in general, live-action/CG hybrid adaptations of stylized works in general (Paddington is to date the sole exception to the rule), and the track record of the studios producing/distributing it. The worst of it I can think of is that the script may be requested by him to be retooled to be closer to the writing in the current games.

Oh dear Arceus, please no.

[andrewtuell1991]

The Ninja Turtles have handled seriousness from time to time (The 2003 series had some dark moments, like Baxter Stockman having his EYE TAKEN OUT for failing Shredder. This happened time and time again in the series, until Baxter was nothing more than a head on a robot spider) The 2014 movie had Arkham Asylum-style thugs attacking a subway with machine guns, and a scene during the opening credits featuring a dead body lying on the pavement. I haven't read the comics myself but I heard they've been pretty dark at times.

 

And they're a bunch of teenage turtles who skateboard, eat pizza and yell cowabunga. The Transformers are a bunch of alien robot cars (One of which rides a flame-breathing robot dinosaur and carries a giant sword) and those movies are played almost completely straight.

 

The difference is that TMNT was originally grim and dark.  The Mirage comics are the origins of the franchise not that crappy Fred Wolf cartoon.  The reason the 2014 movie was so terrible is because is took more notes from the horrid 1987 series instead of the original comics.

 

In regards to Sonic, I agree with the others that Adventure 1, along with Secret Rings and Black Knight, is the right tone to aim for in Sonic media.  Not to childish not to dark-grim, just the right balance.  I really don't wanna see space AIDS, government conspiracies, political drivel, and the crap the Shadow and 2006 pulled to ever reappear nor should be the Nick Jr. levels of writing Heroes and every game from Colors onwards has been giving us.

[Myst]

I was bored, so in my anticipation for the movie, I wrote what I'd like to see from the teaser trailer..

 

San Fransico, daytime. A businessman gets into a taxi and tells the cabbie his destination. (audio from the taxi's radio is heard through the next few seconds of the trailer)

 

Sony/Original Films Logos

 

Radio DJ says Good Morning and talks about the weather. Various shots of San Fransico, calm and peaceful. Some people ordering coffee in a cafe, then a shot of the beach, some teens are seen running towards the ocean with surfboards in hand.

Some townspeople are seen a tossing a frisbee in the park, A loud explosion is seen far off in the distance. Audio from the car radio stops. People stop and look in awe towards the horizon. Suddenly, a blue blur flies by. People jump out of the way to dodge it.

 

City streets. The blue blur flies through traffic, causing cars to fly into the air, and breaking windows on nearby buildings.

 

City Streets. Quiet. The chaos seems to have stopped. There's wreckage everywhere. Toppled cars, broken windows, a fire hydrant spraying water into the street. Sirens are faintly heard in the background. The blue blur managed to carve a line into the streets as it quickly passed by, which stretches out as far as the eye can see.

 

A Police Officer looks at the damage, completely bewildered. A whooshing sound is heard. The Officer looks up and backs out of the way. A street sign (with a bent pole) falls from the sky, and lands on the ground, reading 'Speed Limit 60'

 

Camera slowly pans out from overhead, revealing the outline of Sonic's head is carved into the city streets.

 

The words 'Summer 2016' flashes by quickly, accompanied by the familar ring chime.

 

I would love to see something like this. I realize the movie hasn't started filming yet, but I could see some other department of Sony whipping up a teaser to basically tell the public that the movie is happening. They could attach it to their other videogame movie, 'Pixels' or perhaps Goosebumps, another kid-friendly movie, being released by Original Film.

[RawEdge]

A balance between light-hearted and serious, is anyone else thinking this should be like a Marvel Studios movie?

 

I think the tone and humor of the Marvel Studios films would fit great with the Sonic movie, those movies are funny when they need to be (more than other CBM studios) but are serious and intense when the moment or situation calls for it, also the Marvel Studios movies are very character driven, something I think would fit right in with Sonic and co.

 

I just hope they try to make something cool and enjoyable out of this and go for that 2000's cool feeling Sonic had which should result in a movie akin to Avengers, Big Hero 6, The Incredibles, How to train your dragon, etc. and hopefully they don't get scared anytime during production and go the easy (and lamer) route of making a Smurfs/Sonic Colors mash-up.

[Tenko]

I realize that Sega seems to be against anything not representing its current direction and incarnation of the characters, generally due to wanting marketing and advertising for the current products...that and the "classic" branch seems to be individually handled from the current stuff.

But Sonic was at his height in the Mega Drive era, the games were well received, everyone (aka Joe Public that isn't a fan) knows the classic cast, much more so than the other characters that have joined since then, and it was the time he was at the peak of his popularity with his face on literally everything, he was far more "cool" in the mid 90's than he ever has been since, even the Adventure series didn't reach the heights or popularity that the Mega Drive era achieved. It's just plain facts.

Personally I would imagine a more "classic" type movie, with only the older bare bones cast, even if they have to be in modern form, especially if its gunna pull the origin story, would make more sense. But maybe that's just me.

[Failinhearts]

Given how he's the boss of Sonic Team nowadays and he's said anything related to Sonic has to passes through him first, this isn't really anything of a surprise.

That said, Iizuka monitoring the film isn't going to make it any better or any worse, given the track record of film adaptations of video games in general, live-action/CG hybrid adaptations of stylized works in general (Paddington is to date the sole exception to the rule), and the track record of the studios producing/distributing it. The worst of it I can think of is that the script may be requested by him to be retooled to be closer to the writing in the current games.

If I hear "Baldy Nosehair" uttered in this movie, I'm done.

(I'd TRULY lose faith in this film if Pontac and Graff are involved. The Lost World story still gives me a bad taste in my mouth to this day.)

[darkhero1337]

I heard the writer for this movie was the same guy who wrote for the Fast and Furious series so im hoping the story would contain a good balance of action, comedy, and drama

[-blank-]

I heard the writer for this movie was the same guy who wrote for the Fast and Furious series so im hoping the story would contain a good balance of action, comedy, and drama

 

If we don't get a climatic race between Sonic and Eggman, I will be very disappointed.

[Tani Coyote]

They could attach it to their other videogame movie, 'Pixels' or perhaps Goosebumps, another kid-friendly movie, being released by Original Film.

I will be very, very disappointed if this film doesn't get cross-promotion out the ass.

Sony needs to definitely bundle any trailer or teaser with their other video game films, especially the platformer-themed ones, provided the trailer is ready.

If that PG-13 rating doesn't hold and it's PG, it definitely needs to be plugged in breaks on the Sonic Boom cartoon.

I have no doubt Archie will make some mention of it as well, but I'm mentioning them just for completeness.

[Spooky Mulder]

Any word if there's anything new info in this massive wikileaks dump of Sony emails about the Sonic movie project?

[kboyrulez12345]

Yeah, I've been wondering this myself. If we got info on Sony wanting to make a Super Smash Bros movie, how come we don't have any info on Sonic the Hedgehog yet. It must be really far into pre production.

[TCB]

So apparently this is new? Maybe? I dunno you guys probably would know.

There was a chance the movie wouldn't been a thing...ok well as far as Sony nearly losing the rights for it anyway as ScrewAttack reports.

http://www.screwattack.com/news/sony-nearly-lost-sonic-hedgehog-rights-due-possible-columbia-selloff

[Tani Coyote]

Just stumbled across the Wikileaks series of e-mails indicating concerns of a "conflict" between the Console Wars and Sonic films.

What. Just what.

Thank God one of the employees actually has intelligence and said "one's fiction, one's non-fiction, how is this a conflict?"

[Tenko]

To be fair tho, while there is a documentary version of Console Wars coming, the movie itself is being penned as a fictional exaggeration of events. So while it has non-fiction elements it is going to be a fictional telling of said events. Tho like you say, it is rooted far more in actual real life history and events than a movie about Sonic the Hedgehog could ever be.

[Badnik Mechanic]

So I was thinking today.

 

Whilst there has been no official word on the release date, the assumption is that it's coming in 2016 so it's on par with the 25th anniversary. (Though I'm not sure anymore how likely that is since we don't have a cast list yet).

 

Well that would mean that the trailer for the film would be coming this year, or early next year (assuming it's going to be 2017).

 

The thing with trailers, these days, you slap them on youtube in order to get them out there, however, they still end up on the front of movies when you go to the cinema. 

 

And most of the time they're appropriate to the film they're showing?

 

Is it also in context with the studio? So Disney films show only Disney trailers before it? And so on?

 

So can we predict a possible trailer date based on what kids films are coming out? Off the top of my head there is...

 

Hotel Transylavania 2 - Sept 25th and Popeye (2016).

 

======================

 

Also I found these listings for possible release date/period: 

 

Untitled project from Sony Pictures Animation: September 25th 2016 http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=spatba16.htm

 

Untitled project from Sony Pictures Animation: September 22nd 2017. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=spatba17.htm