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


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26 minutes ago, Dr Ryan said:

I think MainJP and Blue Blood have nailed it with their replies already.

It's definitely a key part of the design. As important as the spikes IMO.

I mean... Look at Sonic Team's logo lol.

 

sonic_team_logo.png

Sonic's eyes is what makes this silhouette look nice, but...

But...what does it being Sonic Team's logo matter? It's just his head.

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I don’t care if movie!Sonic has mono eyes or not, they just need to big and expressive. One of my biggest issues with the initial design for movie!Sonic was that his eyes were too small and barely showed any emotion, especially in the scene where he screams. He’s supposed to look scared, but he really doesn’t! >< Hopefully this will be one of the things they improve, along with his mouth, head and hands (we know that he will have gloves at least). 

As for when the final design will be revealed, it’ll likely be before the end of 2019 since the movie comes out on Valentine’s Day next year, that’s only 5 months from now. Might be revealed in a final trailer or poster.

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5 hours ago, StaticMania said:

Sonic's eyes is what makes this silhouette look nice, but...

But...what does it being Sonic Team's logo matter? It's just his head.

I think the point flew right over your head.

The most iconic image in the brand is the Sonic Team logo: consisting of Sonic's head, which showcases the "mono-eye" design, which is the point of discussion.

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13 minutes ago, Indigo Rush said:

I think the point flew right over your head.

The most iconic image in the brand is the Sonic Team logo: consisting of Sonic's head, which showcases the "mono-eye" design, which is the point of discussion.

I'll be honest, I was more confused by the first time he brought it up than the post I quoted...

But okay, I get it.

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On 9/19/2019 at 8:02 AM, MainJP said:

YS5J4sk.jpg

How is that a minor detail? It makes up almost his entire face.

latest?cb=20130215112940

It's one of the first things people notice about his appearance. Across all of his official incarnations that's one of the most consistent elements of his design, dude!

I never saw it as important. In fact I never noticed it until a few years ago.

Quote

That explains the mental gymnastics. You could have just led with that instead of wasting time trying to say they aren't iconic.

What mental gymnastics?

23 hours ago, Dr Ryan said:

I think MainJP and Blue Blood have nailed it with their replies already.

It's definitely a key part of the design. As important as the spikes IMO.

I mean... Look at Sonic Team's logo lol.

 

sonic_team_logo.png

Fixed it for you. No need to thank me.

ST Logo Fixed.png

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The movie, on release week, will be dealing with The King’s Man, Fantasy Island, The Photograph, and What About Love (yes, it’s called that). The only film releasing the week prior is Birds of Prey (which I’m not sure what to think of based on the poster and leaked teaser trailer).

 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_films_of_2020

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When it comes to a new trailer, is there a general timetable we should be aware of? If this is in theaters in mid-February, then we're already closer to its release than when the first trailer dropped in relation to the initial November date. 

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Indigo, as far as the eye discussion goes, you may be more on the money than you think. The whole "two eyes lodged together" thing isn't just a potential compromise, it's how Sonic's eyes are actually structured. I know that might sound weird, so let me pull some sprites from the Sonic 1 title screen.

SonicEyes1.png.a6f35df4bd743deadc9fbf4e5066cf44.png

See how Sonic's eyelids are, despite touching each other, noticeably defined as separate objects? I know they aren't drawn like this in more recent depictions, but I think it's an important feature to note, since it shows us eye definition we usually wouldn't see.

Now what happens when he opens them all the way?

SonicEyes2.png.093e8f114bee66892acbe9918d15da9a.png

Okay, now there's no explicit separation between his left and right eyes as there was with his eyelids, but you can still make out the silhouette of two ovals touching each other. It's like they drew two cartoon eyes smooshed together and omitted the inner outlines. Try drawing an imaginary line between them and you'll see what I mean.

Now let's bring his eyebrows into the picture:

SonicEyes3.png.de19c9ca0340e670654d656d0b988819.png

As Sonic goes from his resting face to his "attitude" face, his brows come down and break up the silhouette of his eyes as they furrow. This is the most common expression we see Sonic with, so it's how people imagine him when they think of him. Unfortunately, since his unfurrowed-brow face is seen nowhere near as often, people seem to have forgotten all the details mentioned above and instead think of Sonic's eyes as being some kind of amorphous white mass with an inexplicable cleft on top.

Honestly, the whole idea that Sonic's eyes are somehow actually conjoined is such a weird case of fans taking a stylization feature way too literally.

 

Anyway, I guess the real question is whether or not Sonic would look okay with his eyes touching in a live-action setting. I mean, it's a no-brainer he'd have them like that in an animated feature, but Paramount made things hard for themselves by going the live-action route. The crew's first attempt ignored this design challenge altogether by just giving him those weird quasi-human eyes, but I'm not necessarily convinced that he needs to have all forms of cartoonishness expunged from his design to look believable next to real-life humans. Another cartoon character with similarly-shaped eyes also made the questionable leap to live action a few years back. It was Woody Woodpecker, of all characters. How did he do?

WoodyComparison.png.4b9b0177ff33eb48a9148c94ca96739d.png

Well, cartoon Woody's eyes are basically touching each other, much like Sonic's. If you erased the line between them, you'd have pretty much the same thing.

For his live action design, his eyes were pushed slightly farther apart, but were otherwise unchanged in size and shape, so they still feel like they belong to the same character.

I get that using the Woody Woodpecker movie as a positive example is weird, but for all the flak that movie caught, Woody's design wasn't complained about much. When people found him unsettling, it had more to do with his psychopathic tendencies than anything visual.

Does this mean that Sonic ought to take this approach? Well, I'm not going to say there's only one specific way to correctly adapt a cartoon character to live-action, but I think most of us would have vastly, vastly preferred a take like this to the one we got in the initial trailer.

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14 minutes ago, Domino said:

SonicEyes1.png.a6f35df4bd743deadc9fbf4e5066cf44.png

SonicEyes2.png.093e8f114bee66892acbe9918d15da9a.png

SonicEyes3.png.de19c9ca0340e670654d656d0b988819.png

I can't believe it's been staring at us this entire time. 

Thanks for bringing this one up! I feel a little less ridiculous now.

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Somehow I get the feeling that Sonic's sclera was only made white so it would be clear when he's blinking.

I don't think it would've "ruined" his design if he didn't have one and that whole area was the same color as his skin.

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No doubt this artist's idea has already been posted in here before but just since we're discussing the eye thing:

Now I'm not discussing the design as a whole here, just the eyes. I think this is the simplest and best solution to the whole thing. Just extend the centre of the eyeridge down to fully seperate the eyes, and make more use of his eye ridges to convey emotion.

Looking back at the original movie design, I'm amazed at how much empty space there is on Sonic's face because of how small the eyes are. Even for the "realistic" look they were going for it feels like the eyes were initially meant to be larger.

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2 hours ago, Domino said:

Indigo, as far as the eye discussion goes, you may be more on the money than you think. The whole "two eyes lodged together" thing isn't just a potential compromise, it's how Sonic's eyes are actually structured. I know that might sound weird, so let me pull some sprites from the Sonic 1 title screen.

SonicEyes1.png.a6f35df4bd743deadc9fbf4e5066cf44.png

Fair play man... I've been playing these games since '91... I've been an obsessed fan ever since. Sonic's probably the main thing that led me to move to Japan... but I never though about this. It has blown my mind despite hiding in plain sight this whole time haha. He DOES have two eyes!! Holy shit!! Great post!

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22 hours ago, Indigo Rush said:

So, this conversation has been reduced to subjectivity on what's "iconic" or not. If you never noticed Sonic's strange eyeball design, you're not paying attention. More important than Sonic's sclera being fused together however, is them being large and expressive. Sonic's large and expressive eyes are part and parcel to the character's look from the very beginning, and that's always been the case. Sonic was created to be a mascot-grade cartoon character, and those design philosophies are self-evident. Big expressive eyes, large gloved hands, simple shapes and a round and pudgy body shape are all classic cartoon traits. 

I'm not saying his eyes shouldn't be big and expressive, just that they shouldn't be connected.

22 hours ago, Indigo Rush said:

Go directly to Jail. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200.

What's that supposed to mean? Did I do something wrong?

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52 minutes ago, Myst said:

Luckily, the guy confirmed that it was specifically the scene he was working on that is going through this, and that the film will release normally, as planned. I was only able to upload one image, so I couldn’t show the second part of the conversation that shows this.”

 

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OP just now clarified that the scene (Opening scene on Sonic's planet) wasn't completely cut from the movie, just outsourced to a different studio.

Maybe they want to change how Sonic's planet looks (make it more like the games) or address fan complaints about the lack of Tails & Knuckles in the movie and squeeze in a cameo for them?

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Why did they want to make Sonic so real looking in the first place I really hope he comes out better after this delay. 

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Having had a little more time to think about it there's a chance that it could be a fake using low expectations to con people.

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