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

[CaptainRobo]

New PSA and new render.:

https://twitter.com/TailsChannel/status/1208402359606489092

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

I love Superman, but making Sonic have Superman-like origins is so cringe, please no

[Gamecuber64]

10 minutes ago, Monkey Destruction Switch said:

I love Superman, but making Sonic have Superman-like origins is so cringe, please no

This is the same franchise that has a game where the character turns into a wherehog, another where he becomes a knight from a famous fictional story, a random spin off series where him and his siblings are a rock band, Sonic Boom somehow made Sonic satirical, etc.

It isn't really that surprising in my opinion. Also keep in mind that this is a film adaptation. It's kind of supposed to be different from the original franchise.

 

Anyway, I don't really think this will be exactly like Superman's origins story. What will probably happen is that it will explain what happened to Sonic's parents when he was a child and will also show how Sonic DECIDED or ACCIDENTALLY landed on Earth.

Honestly to me, this just sounds like Sonic X but with different humans and more of an origin story. I guarantee if a sequel happens, it will involve Tails and Sonic meeting for the first time and forming a brotherly bond.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

29 minutes ago, Gamecuber64 said:

This is the same franchise that has a game where the character turns into a wherehog, another where he becomes a knight from a famous fictional story, a random spin off series where him and his siblings are a rock band, Sonic Boom somehow made Sonic satirical, etc.

It isn't really that surprising in my opinion. Also keep in mind that this is a film adaptation. It's kind of supposed to be different from the original franchise.

 

Anyway, I don't really think this will be exactly like Superman's origins story. What will probably happen is that it will explain what happened to Sonic's parents when he was a child and will also show how Sonic DECIDED or ACCIDENTALLY landed on Earth.

Honestly to me, this just sounds like Sonic X but with different humans and more of an origin story. I guarantee if a sequel happens, it will involve Tails and Sonic meeting for the first time and forming a brotherly bond.

You literally just listed about 75% of things that people do find ridiculous or cringe, and implied “well if they did it before, it’s fine to do it now”. 

Literally the only one you don’t find tons of people complaining about in that list is Boom making Sonic a satirical straightman because his snarky personality already fits fine in that role. The fan base might be slightly more forgiving to the Werehog, and the sword, but outside of that, both are regularly mocked as things no one wanted from Sonic the Hedgehog.

Don’t even get me started on Underground, that’s ridiculed for it’s awful premise, and X is given tons of shit for the human stuff being the weakest part of the show, and many wished Season 3’s focus on Sonic’s world was the general premise. 

Just because the series did something stupid, bland, cringe, or ridiculous before doesn’t justify it now. It’s as stupid as when Toriyama rewrote Goku’s origins to be a Superman clone, completely removing the point that Goku’s defining trait is being a kind hearted Saiyan due to his growing up on Earth. 

[Gamecuber64]

On 12/21/2019 at 9:43 AM, Ryannumber1Santa said:

You literally just listed about 75% of things that people do find ridiculous or cringe, and implied “well if they did it before, it’s fine to do it now”. 

Literally the only one you don’t find tons of people complaining about in that list is Boom making Sonic a satirical straightman because his snarky personality already fits fine in that role. The fan base might be slightly more forgiving to the Werehog, and the sword, but outside of that, both are regularly mocked as things no one wanted from Sonic the Hedgehog.

Don’t even get me started on Underground, that’s ridiculed for it’s awful premise, and X is given tons of shit for the human stuff being the weakest part of the show, and many wished Season 3’s focus on Sonic’s world was the general premise. 

Just because the series did something stupid, bland, cringe, or ridiculous before doesn’t justify it now. It’s as stupid as when Toriyama rewrote Goku’s origins to be a Superman clone, completely removing the point that Goku’s defining trait is being a kind hearted Saiyan due to his growing up on Earth. 

Nobody wanted Boom either (even when it was running) until the second season. People are just now starting to see the charm in Unleashed. I'll give you Sonic Underground, I do agree it's pretty bad, though I've been oddly meeting a lot of people who remember and miss that series.

 

My point was mainly, once again, the whole "it's different therefore it's bad" stigma is getting out of hand, even to those still complaining about Unleashed. I have a feeling that even with a completely out of the ordinary origin story for Sonic, and an unfamiliar story, this could very well end up being decent. We're thinking way too much on "Why isn't the movie like (insert Sonic title). Why would they add this and that?" instead of just looking at how this might execute as a movie on its own.

 

Edit: Also most of the people who say the whole wherehog thing in Unleashed is cringey have never even played the game. All they know is that it got negative reception from critics and that Sonic turns into a wherehog.

 

And also general audiences who hardly know anything about Sonic aren't going to care so much that he has this kind of origin story.

[Scritch the Cat]

On 12/21/2019 at 3:09 AM, Sonario said:

Fair point but in my opinion, having him arrive as a baby and be randomly revealed as a teen while playing baseball is stupid. If they keep Baby Sonic, they should change how he's revealed. Maybe by having him go full speed to escape danger or even save people from a fire or something without being found out (a nice bit of early heroism to establish Sonic's character as more than just a Mascot with Tude)

You Wish what you will and you might have a point, but that isn't exactly the sort of thing that's easy to change.  If I remember correctly, the cast said filming was complete before "Shrek'sDonkey" leaked details about the movie on Reddit; many of which were corroborated since and none of which have been debunked.  If they have all of the footage of the live cast doing their thing pretending Sonic is there, and all of the voice work for Sonic recorded, then it's not too big a trick to take their footage and put in a new Sonic model if they have one.  But to film a new scene with new choreography and dialogue is much harder.

Meanwhile, I'm not exactly made more interested by the presence of baby Sonic, and if there are any jokes about diapers and drool, that could outright repulse me, but the bigger issue for me is that they're going into Sonic's origins.  Done well, that could set this apart from a lot of Sonic media in a good way, but the mythology they're spinning for this film seems so different that it's hard to expect it enabling more game-loyal material.

[CaptainRobo]

Look! Yuji and his sons grab a Sonic movie flyer.:

Here is the back of the flyer.

Here is what. It’s means and Yuji Naka’s response to this.:
Translation: "It says on the Sonic the Movie flyer that 'the mystery of Sonic, whose wish has been to have friends/alliance, will be revealed this spring!' and it sounds strange. At this rate, the mystery of his birth might as well be different from what Ohshima or I decided upon. Well, seeing his eyes not connected or the phrase 'I came to Earth to save our planet', it sounds like he is completely different character than the Sonic I know."

Sources:

https://twitter.com/SonicJPNews/status/1208789912390164480

https://twitter.com/SonicJPNews/status/1208789915720470528

[Scritch the Cat]

Did Yuji Naka or Naoto Oshima write any origin story for Sonic?  I can't say I recall reading anything about that.

Also, while we're looking at those photos, the Cats movie's character designs are far, far creepier than this movie's original Sonic design.

[Gamecuber64]

According to that guy on Reddit who RECENTLY claimed to have seen a test screening of the film, there is no political agenda or jokes about politics in this movie.

Gonna be honest, I hope this is true. I was a little bit afraid there'd be something involving that after looking through Patrick Casey and Jim Carrey's Twitter posts (they get very political), and the "Is the Rock president?" joke. You shouldn't make an iconic character like Sonic step into divisive territory like politics. A lot of movies and shows that have been recently doing that are getting praised by critics but absolutely demolished by audiences. Hollywood needs to just aim for the largest audience possible when it comes to stuff like this in my opinion.

[Almar]

7 hours ago, Scritch the Cat said:

Did Yuji Naka or Naoto Oshima write any origin story for Sonic?  I can't say I recall reading anything about that.

His adventures started in Oceania (Christmas Island) says Naka.

https://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?threads/unseen-naka-iizuka-maekawa-interviews.33744/#post-809336

"Sonic initially had critters and robots but Sonic Adventure have introduced humans suddenly. Why have you decided to add them?"

Action in Sonic's universe unfolded on Christmas Island from the very beginning, and accidentally things have happened the way there were only animals and robots in there. And later when Sonic made it to usual mega polis in Adventure, that's where he met humans.

He and the other fathers of Sonic envisioned him as being another in a long line of funny/talking animal characters (Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Roger Rabbit) who shares a world with humans. We repeatedly see signs of humans in the Genesis Era (Eggman himself, hieroglyphics in Sandoplis, Wacky Workbench Past's statue, Man of the Year). See the Echidnas' former civilization within train distance of a human city during Adventure One.

They also envisioned Sonic as more or less a punk kid who still fought those who tried to hurt those he cared for and ruin the land to serve their schemes (see Sonic OVA for a demonstration). That's not movie Sonic either.

 

[CaptainRobo]

1 hour ago, Gamecuber64 said:

According to that guy on Reddit who RECENTLY claimed to have seen a test screening of the film, there is no political agenda or jokes about politics in this movie.

Gonna be honest, I hope this is true. I was a little bit afraid there'd be something involving that after looking through Patrick Casey and Jim Carrey's Twitter posts (they get very political), and the "Is the Rock president?" joke. You shouldn't make an iconic character like Sonic step into divisive territory like politics. A lot of movies and shows that have been recently doing that are getting praised by critics but absolutely demolished by audiences. Hollywood needs to just aim for the largest audience possible when it comes to stuff like this in my opinion.

Oh, that's good. Just curious. Did he just answered that just now?

[Rabid-Coot]

All entertainment is political in some way maybe not in the specific ways that aren't being named here but there will be something.

[Sonic Warrior]

6 hours ago, Gamecuber64 said:

According to that guy on Reddit who RECENTLY claimed to have seen a test screening of the film, there is no political agenda or jokes about politics in this movie.

Gonna be honest, I hope this is true. I was a little bit afraid there'd be something involving that after looking through Patrick Casey and Jim Carrey's Twitter posts (they get very political), and the "Is the Rock president?" joke. You shouldn't make an iconic character like Sonic step into divisive territory like politics. A lot of movies and shows that have been recently doing that are getting praised by critics but absolutely demolished by audiences. Hollywood needs to just aim for the largest audience possible when it comes to stuff like this in my opinion.

 

Link? I wanna see it

[Palette]

48 minutes ago, Sonic Warrior said:

 

Link? I wanna see it

https://old.reddit.com/r/SonicTheMovie/comments/e8ujcs/my_screening_is_over_d/

You gotta dig a bit to find it [or alternatively you could just search through the OP's profile to find his responses, it's in there somewhere]

[Sonic Warrior]

53 minutes ago, Palette said:

https://old.reddit.com/r/SonicTheMovie/comments/e8ujcs/my_screening_is_over_d/

You gotta dig a bit to find it [or alternatively you could just search through the OP's profile to find his responses, it's in there somewhere]

 

Thanks!

[Scritch the Cat]

5 hours ago, Rabid-Coot said:

All entertainment is political in some way maybe not in the specific ways that aren't being named here but there will be something.

A common fallacy for taking the heat off of specifics.  All entertainment (or at least, a large amount) can be said to reflect real-world politics, but not all of it seeks to make real-world politics reflect it.  The former are observations; the latter are agendas.  A story set in medieval France might mention that France has a king.  That is not the same as pushing an agenda that France should have a king.  The specific works that get flak for being political are ones that have agendas.

I stand by my earlier statement that I wouldn't mind this film having environmentalist themes, incidentally.  Seems they're avoiding them, though.  It seems like they threw in a lot of extra superpowers less so Sonic could use them and more so they could be inconveniences that spark conflict.  Sonic in this film seems to cause his own conflict, instead of taking on a conflict out of personal values.  Getting preachy is annoying, but just shrinking back from any possible controversy isn't very admirable.

 

[Red Hot Jack]

I'm glad they are giving Sonic new things, might be unpopular but I still stand by my opinion that having Sonic and Robotnik with origin stories is a good move, I mean we shall see how it turns out and how it's executed but the idea is just refreshing. Baby Sonic being a thing is certainly… interesting, but I don't get the fuss, it's something we will see for like 2 seconds. A direct adaptation to Sonic 1 would be quite boring, although if they added stuff, the idea of it is still appealing to me, maybe for the sequel… I say badniks with critters in them are a must have though, shame they are not in this one.

[Sonic Fan J]

I think my personal problem with the idea of an origin story for Sonic and Eggman is that it isn't a story I'm interested in. The Japanese manual story for Sonic 1 told me that they knew each other before the South Island incident and that that was little more than when Eggman decided he could impede Sonic by putting animals in robots to use as hostages. That was enough for me and I'd be a lot happier just seeing any standalone Sonic story, including an original story, for a movie. And if you have to introduce Sonic to the audience using an audience surrogate using a character who would more naturally be involved in the Sonic/Eggman conflict like I've suggested in numerous example on this thread would work out just fine for me. Though if I do have another problem with it is that I'm one of the few Sonic fans who does not need Sonic humanized by seeing him through his own eyes. There are some very enjoyable Sonic stories that have been told through Sonic's perspective, but I've always liked him as some unobtainable larger than life figure who overcomes the odds even when they are overwhelmingly against him. Throw in this movie not just doing its own thing, but giving Sonic abilities he's never had while claiming it as a way to bring new people into the franchise is more than a little disingenuous to me. It makes me pretty glad actually that at least SEGA are treating the movie-verse as its own branch, which in itself kind of defeats the point to an origin story though.

[Razule]

On 12/20/2019 at 12:01 PM, Sonario said:

I'm hoping that's just a Chibi design or something. Cuz Baby Sonic would make his reveal a bit of a Bad Movie Logic moment where an exciteable, high strung kid spends many years well hidden and aware that his power would be sought but suddenly decides to forget all that to go out and play baseball and run at full speed years later. The baseball scene or even the running scene from Trailer 1 just seem like stupid plot convenient ways for him to get caught if he had no problem staying hidden for years prior.

Well, if it's not baby Sonic, he takes off his shoes at some point.

[Scritch the Cat]

Also, since when do chibi versions of characters exist in live-action/CGI films?

Regarding whether origin stories are good ideas, while I know that adaptations have been done it before, I don't see the utility of Sonic and Eggman knowing each other before becoming nemesises.  I do prefer the idea the first game seemed to present, which is that Sonic clashed with Eggman to stop his abuse of the environment and Sonic's animal friends.  That feud has ethical underpinnings that are more universal than any personal rivalry would be, while at the same time being simple to grasp, even in a game with no narrative text.  I accept that this is too simple for a movie plot, but I think they could've just embellished it instead of throwing out the original motives of the characters.  Movie Robotnik's main motive being to catch Sonic means they can't closely adapt any stories from the games.

[CaptainRobo]

New footage. It’s show some footage of Sonic getting some shoes from a kid.:

https://twitter.com/tailschannel/status/1209128117622718469

[Red Hot Jack]

4 hours ago, Sonic Fan J said:

I think my personal problem with the idea of an origin story for Sonic and Eggman is that it isn't a story I'm interested in. The Japanese manual story for Sonic 1 told me that they knew each other before the South Island incident and that that was little more than when Eggman decided he could impede Sonic by putting animals in robots to use as hostages. That was enough for me and I'd be a lot happier just seeing any standalone Sonic story, including an original story, for a movie. And if you have to introduce Sonic to the audience using an audience surrogate using a character who would more naturally be involved in the Sonic/Eggman conflict like I've suggested in numerous example on this thread would work out just fine for me. Though if I do have another problem with it is that I'm one of the few Sonic fans who does not need Sonic humanized by seeing him through his own eyes. There are some very enjoyable Sonic stories that have been told through Sonic's perspective, but I've always liked him as some unobtainable larger than life figure who overcomes the odds even when they are overwhelmingly against him. Throw in this movie not just doing its own thing, but giving Sonic abilities he's never had while claiming it as a way to bring new people into the franchise is more than a little disingenuous to me. It makes me pretty glad actually that at least SEGA are treating the movie-verse as its own branch, which in itself kind of defeats the point to an origin story though.

It's not a problem it's simply your opinion. I feel the same, but I feel like a direct adaptation of Sonic 1 would not be a story I'm interested in, unless they pulled the animals vs technology concept, that would have been intriguing. Now, as for what we are getting, I really hope it's not a Superman or Goku rip-off, but something unique. It really depends on what we will see. I wouldn't worry though about Baby Sonic or different shoes, no gloves, etc. because he becomes Sonic as we know him basically immediately. It only gives him progression, as for his character arc, I hope it isn't entirely out of character for him at the beginning, but at the same time I want something from it, something new that hasn't been done with Sonic before. If the movie is really trying, they will give us a decent "genesis" for both characters.

[Scritch the Cat]

On 12/21/2019 at 3:09 AM, Sonario said:

Fair point but in my opinion, having him arrive as a baby and be randomly revealed as a teen while playing baseball is stupid. If they keep Baby Sonic, they should change how he's revealed. Maybe by having him go full speed to escape danger or even save people from a fire or something without being found out (a nice bit of early heroism to establish Sonic's character as more than just a Mascot with Tude)

 

5 hours ago, Razule said:

Well, if it's not baby Sonic, he takes off his shoes at some point.

As someone who can read Katakana, I will inform you that the text above that thing does, in fact, say "Baby Sonic".  In English, incidentally.  Much of what is written in Katakana is actually English.

And you know what?  I think it's cute.  It's not what I wanted in this movie, I really hope there's no stereotypical baby antics, and who knows what it would have looked like had they kept the original design, but based on that image, it looks fine.

[Gamecuber64]

I zoomed in on the baby Sonic image. It kind of DOES look like he has paws of some sort. Those definitely are bare (I hate feet).

[Sega DogTagz]

Is it worth bringing up that CATS is showing us the worst case senario? It's uncanny valley designs were the source of jokes and distain from day 1 and it's getting crushed by critics. People are voting with their wallets and staying away.