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

[Scritch the Cat]

Even in Japan, one of the early mangas gave Sonic peers that were anthropomorphic animals.

I may be reaching a bit here, but I get the impression that Naoto Oshima and Yuji Naka had somewhat different ideas about Sonic.  Oshima, who actually designed him, did so with the intention of appealing to many, many people.  Naka, who designed and programmed much of the game, did so based on what he personally found cool, and Sonic (or as he was known then, Mr Needlemouse) was chosen from a stable of mascot choices since a hedgehog's spike ball ability fit with a fast, marble track/pinball-like game.  In turn, a stereotypical extreme sports persona fit him well.  

I think initially, what America got was more close to Naka's vision, at least in how Sonic was marketed.  But as ideas of what's cool change, Sonic seems to have started leaning more heavily on his more timeless qualities.

Also nostalgia.  When he debuted, Sonic's games were billed around being cutting edge; demonstrating the power of new consoles.  That remained part of Sonic's image up through the first Sonic Adventure, but if that didn't die with the Dreamcast, it almost certainly died with Sonic 2006.  So I don't think it likely that Sonic will ever be THE cool game again.

 

[CaptainRobo]

New storyboards

https://www.instagram.com/p/B6wRxvgDhWw/?hl=en

https://www.instagram.com/p/B617kjtDT9A/?hl=en

[Scritch the Cat]

2 hours ago, Rosaleia said:

Oh heavens no. The last thing I'd want is a direct revival of SatAM. Its just too dated at this point to do that. Like... Could you IMAGINE Antoine working the way he initially did in the year 2020?

I think his being French, combined with cowardice and pretension, would probably be too racist for modern audiences.  But as to making a character an unlikable jerk mostly so you can root for Sonic against him when it comes to them liking the same woman, I could actually see that happening it modern cartoons, because it has.  Miraculous Ladybug also did that.  That's not to say it's a good idea, though, and making a single character a source of comic relief in an overall serious show is almost always annoying.

2 hours ago, Rosaleia said:

And I felt like Sally needed to be toned down in a few areas. They made her too involved in the story and at times I felt like she was too mature for a child character. Especially in the comics where they would give her a more womanly body and practically made her jailbait with a 25 year old Geoffrey St. John.

I think Nicole is more nerf-worthy than Sally, and wouldn't mind Sally gaining more computer skills to compensate.  A tiny computer owned by someone who lives in the backwoods, scrounging most technology, somehow being more powerful than the computers owned by someone with control of the planet's resources and said to be an evil genius, was absurd even then, and now that most audiences understand computers much better it would be a real blow to any ability to take the show seriously.  However, a sentient, biological character being a good programmer and hacker is always viable.

As to age, I seriously wish the series would stop even declaring what it is.  In fact, I wish most would.  It's nothing but trouble when it gets in the way of the character being allowed to do various things, and so inconsequential every other time that to me, age should just be a ballpark of baby, child, adult and senior.  Moreover, most characters would fit comfortably in the adult column without any alterations to their role.

[Scritch the Cat]

1 hour ago, CaptainRobo said:

New storyboards

https://www.instagram.com/p/B6wRxvgDhWw/?hl=en

https://www.instagram.com/p/B617kjtDT9A/?hl=en

Now I have someone to blame (perhaps erroneously) for badniks that look even duller than the ones in Sonic 06.  Though I must say, Heiko von Drengenberg is the most awesome name I've encountered in years.

[Almar]

1 hour ago, Scritch the Cat said:

It's interesting how in the West, a default assumption seems to be that an antropomorphic animal can't live in a world that also includes humans.  Much like the romance bit, somehow all sorts of different anthropomorphic species can exist in such a world, but not humans.  Not sure how true that is or isn't in Japan.

It's easy enough to have both Humies and Anthros. Just treat them as inhabitants of the world who look way different. Doubly when Sonic and Co. in stories like OVA show no real signs of living in societies notably different than human ones. The upcoming movie goes with some "wacky fish out of water surrounded by totally flat not wacky humans (beside Eggman)" story.

[Multikaris]

2 hours ago, Scritch the Cat said:

Even in Japan, one of the early mangas gave Sonic peers that were anthropomorphic animals.

I may be reaching a bit here, but I get the impression that Naoto Oshima and Yuji Naka had somewhat different ideas about Sonic.  Oshima, who actually designed him, did so with the intention of appealing to many, many people.  Naka, who designed and programmed much of the game, did so based on what he personally found cool, and Sonic (or as he was known then, Mr Needlemouse) was chosen from a stable of mascot choices since a hedgehog's spike ball ability fit with a fast, marble track/pinball-like game.  In turn, a stereotypical extreme sports persona fit him well.  

I think initially, what America got was more close to Naka's vision, at least in how Sonic was marketed.  But as ideas of what's cool change, Sonic seems to have started leaning more heavily on his more timeless qualities.

Also nostalgia.  When he debuted, Sonic's games were billed around being cutting edge; demonstrating the power of new consoles.  That remained part of Sonic's image up through the first Sonic Adventure, but if that didn't die with the Dreamcast, it almost certainly died with Sonic 2006.  So I don't think it likely that Sonic will ever be THE cool game again.

 

Unleashed also fell into that attempt to be cutting edge, and was the last game to do so, outside of minor gimmicks on the later Nintendo-exclusives. The series truly stepped away from cutting-edge visuals with Lost World, before Mania pushed the envelope of 2D animations.

[Rabid-Coot]

4 hours ago, Scritch the Cat said:

Now I have someone to blame (perhaps erroneously) for badniks that look even duller than the ones in Sonic 06.  Though I must say, Heiko von Drengenberg is the most awesome name I've encountered in years.

They might not be to blame for the badnik designs, story board artists take the script and lay it out in sketch form so they have a rough idea of what things would look like before filming. They'll probably be basing their work on another persons concept art.

 

[StaticMania]

28 minutes ago, Rabid-Coot said:

They'll probably be basing their work on another persons concept art.

Yeah, accurate. There's no reason to blame the storyboard artist when they're job isn't to design things.

[Rabid-Coot]

2 hours ago, StaticMania said:

Yeah, accurate. There's no reason to blame the storyboard artist when they're job isn't to design things.

I would place any blame at the writing, directing or producer level. They would be the ones setting up that Sonic will fight some sci-fi looking drones then picking a design from the concpts to develop for the film.

[Sonario]

Might be an unpopular opinion, but I actually like that Dr Robotnik has sleek, functional and compact robots at first along with a more stable and sensible state of mind, showing that he really is a serious scientifically minded practically thinking inventor, before slowly slipping into more wacky and impractical design choices as his sanity slips and his narcissism and eccentricity grows.

The efficient, nondescript looking drones and machines shows his practicality putting more focus into functionality than style. He doesn't care how his machines look, only that they do their jobs right. They're just tools for him to use and the only thing that matters is how well they work. His drones are kinda like the Swatbots from SATAM, the designs don't scream Eggman like Egg Pawns do, but they're useful all-purpose grunts regardless. The "Eggmobile" jet is also pretty cool in that regard, minimalist and generic looking, yet fast and maneuverable enough to chase Sonic across the Great Wall and packing enough firepower to blow up trucks.

Then he'd slowly become more unhinged and start putting a lot of personal touches into things, becoming less practical and more stylistic. Putting a logo here and there and making some cool looking but impractical designs (like the animal themed Badniks with their vibrant colors and unnecessary parts) would slowly descend into pasting his face onto everything he can with Egg Pawns and Egg Flappers and the Death Egg Robot and the likes. The minimalist jet thing transitioning into the True Eggmobile with an arsenal of impractical overkill weapons like wrecking balls and giant hammers would be great.

[Myst]

37 minutes ago, Sonario said:

Might be an unpopular opinion, but I actually like that Dr Robotnik has sleek, functional and compact robots at first along with a more stable and sensible state of mind, showing that he really is a serious scientifically minded practically thinking inventor, before slowly slipping into more wacky and impractical design choices as his sanity slips and his narcissism and eccentricity grows.

The efficient, nondescript looking drones and machines shows his practicality putting more focus into functionality than style. He doesn't care how his machines look, only that they do their jobs right. They're just tools for him to use and the only thing that matters is how well they work. His drones are kinda like the Swatbots from SATAM, the designs don't scream Eggman like Egg Pawns do, but they're useful all-purpose grunts regardless. The "Eggmobile" jet is also pretty cool in that regard, minimalist and generic looking, yet fast and maneuverable enough to chase Sonic across the Great Wall and packing enough firepower to blow up trucks.

Then he'd slowly become more unhinged and start putting a lot of personal touches into things, becoming less practical and more stylistic. Putting a logo here and there and making some cool looking but impractical designs (like the animal themed Badniks with their vibrant colors and unnecessary parts) would slowly descend into pasting his face onto everything he can with Egg Pawns and Egg Flappers and the Death Egg Robot and the likes. The minimalist jet thing transitioning into the True Eggmobile with an arsenal of impractical overkill weapons like wrecking balls and giant hammers would be great.

Very well said. I hope this movie does well enough to get a sequel so we can see more of Jim's Robotnik looking and acting as we know him from the games.

[StaticMania]

Eggman is a practical genius.

Look at this fish robot that is designed to be a fish.

Not a single unnecessary detail.

Can't wait to see THAT in the movie.

[Sonario]

1 hour ago, StaticMania said:

Eggman is a practical genius.

Look at this fish robot that is designed to be a fish.

Not a single unnecessary detail.

Can't wait to see THAT in the movie.

Current Robotnik would probably just make some kind of tiny submarine drone with an inbuilt propeller instead. Maybe using holograms to disguise it as a fish if it's really necessary. Watching that sort of design evolve into this kind of fully stylstic classic badnik would be pretty unique.

 

1 hour ago, Myst said:

Very well said. I hope this movie does well enough to get a sequel so we can see more of Jim's Robotnik looking and acting as we know him from the games.

Exactly. That's another reason I want this movie to do well, since it means things established here will be further developed and evolved later on. Robotnik for example. The end of the first trailer really shows some serious contrast with the rest of Robotnik. Full Robotnik Jim Carrey would really shine in a sequel. Maybe we'll even hear some classsic quotes like GET A LOAD OF THIS

[Diogenes]

Personally I would've rather they got Eggman's sense of style right the first time instead of having bland robots in the one movie we know will be made and waiting until unlikely hypothetical sequels to give them actual personality and appeal.

[Salamander]

To be honest, it seems ludicrous that we should accept what will probably be the only movie representing one of the series's most beloved characters as a completely different person for 90-100% of the runtime, and betrays an obvious lack of interest in the source material.

[Sonario]

30 minutes ago, FFWF said:

To be honest, it seems ludicrous that we should accept what will probably be the only movie representing one of the series's most beloved characters as a completely different person for 90-100% of the runtime, and betrays an obvious lack of interest in the source material.

Joker did that and that worked out brilliantly. Sure it was a deep, dark, slowburn character study of something completely different and I'm comparing apples and oranges but it was sort of an origin story too. It started out super different from what you'd expect fom Joker, yet it exceeded expectations instead of subverting them. I'm not expecting Movie Sonic to do something anywhere close to that, but at the very least it will be another fun little adventure for the Blue Blur like AOSTH or X. I find the differences to be refreshing as its doing its own thing instead of being just a 1:1 adaptation. Sure they took it too far with the eye-meltingly bad design, but they're turning things around again from what we've seen. Now that Sonic doesn't look like something out of your worst nightmares anymore and the tone seems to be something you'd excpect from a Sonic movie, I say the missing things aren't really essential anymore. Let it do its own thing and let's see how it goes.

And this movie is something I've been looking forward to as a Dr Robotnik Origin Story from the first trailer. Seeing a kooky, inssfferable yet sensible superintelligent scientist devolve into The Eggman himself is something I really want to see, even if it won't be the main focus or the best part of the movie judging by the second trailer.

[StaticMania]

1 hour ago, Sonario said:

Current Robotnik would probably just make some kind of tiny submarine drone with an inbuilt propeller instead.

Sonic Generations

I was trying to get the ones from Colours, but it's close enough.

The Choppers from Sonic Forces are a lot slicker looking, not the cartoony type of simple.

[Sonario]

48 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

Sonic Generations

I was trying to get the ones from Colours, but it's close enough.

The Choppers from Sonic Forces are a lot slicker looking, not the cartoony type of simple.

By "Current Robotnik", I meant Movie Robotnik pre-huge-mustache. I feel like he'd start with utilitarian drones but then start making cool stylistic but impractical and possibly more expensive designs like these after slipping into his real personality.

[Almar]

1 hour ago, Sonario said:

Joker did that and that worked out brilliantly. Sure it was a deep, dark, slowburn character study of something completely different and I'm comparing apples and oranges but it was sort of an origin story too. It started out super different from what you'd expect fom Joker, yet it exceeded expectations instead of subverting them.

Terrible example:

1. There are already enough interpretations of the Joker where's he's "serious" (just not overly flamboyant/campy) and/or legit sympathetic (The Dark Knight and/or The Killing Joke). He was even introduced by Finger and Kane as just a serial killer/mobster with a clown gimmick.

2. Joker has no real connection with Batman's other appearances, not even the movies like Justice League (and the man behind it has no interest in doing sequels). It's really just Taxi Driver meets King of Comedy. Critics even complained that the appearances of the Waynes were forced (especially the part where Thomas and Martha get shot).

3. It was made by legit talented men who know film. Enough that the film stands on its own if you don't care for Batman. Nothing says the Sonic movie will do such.

1 hour ago, Sonario said:

Now that Sonic doesn't look like something out of your worst nightmares anymore and the tone seems to be something you'd excpect from a Sonic movie, I say the missing things aren't really essential anymore. Let it do its own thing and let's see how it goes.

Still waiting to see the movie show Sonic's actual personality he had back when his franchise wasn't a huge laughingstock. Not what's again, "Ezra Miller's Flash meets Deadpool."

1 hour ago, Sonario said:

And this movie is something I've been looking forward to as a Dr Robotnik Origin Story from the first trailer. Seeing a kooky, inssfferable yet sensible superintelligent scientist devolve into The Eggman himself is something I really want to see, even if it won't be the main focus or the best part of the movie judging by the second trailer.

Considering even Sonic Team doesn't get Eggman's character right anymore, I wouldn't count on the ones doing the film to do so.

16 hours ago, Rosaleia said:

I mean... Okay. But Sonic's creation was a team effort, one. And two, his ideas weren't as profitable as the west's. He couldn't even get Japanese invested in Sonic.

Considering his team were the ones who made the games that were a hit in the West, I'm not sure what you're on about. Especially when I noted that he had a team with him back in Adventure One (which was the first game to show Sonic talking with humans).

[Gamecuber64]

I think that when Robotnick gets more crazier throughout the film, his robots will be more practical and more insane. That's my prediction at least. 

 

Also are people really just now noticing that Sonic has a bag when he keeps his rings? I keep seeing posts about it online. I noticed that like as soon as the redesign trailer released.

[Sonario]

On 1/4/2020 at 1:51 PM, Almar said:

Considering even Sonic Team doesn't get Eggman's character right anymore, I wouldn't count on the ones doing the film to do so.

I dunno, his character seems fine in most of his appearances to me. Forces was the only real fluke. Lost World and TSR were fine. Plus Mike pretty much has Eggman's character down pat to me at least, judging by his appearances in the Twitter Takeovers. Also, I wouldn't really judge the movie by the trailers or expect the worst just yet. Let's see what we get first. What I saw seems pretty promising of a Pre-Eggman Robotnik to me. And there's no reason to assume that Post-Eggman Robotnik would automatically be done wrong either.

 

[Gamecuber64]

...This movie comes out in less than a month and I've seen almost zero ads for it in the US. Detective Pikachu promoted itself way earlier than this Sonic movie did. Gonna be honest guys...not looking good. $70 million in box office isn't a bad estimate for how this movie could perform. I hope I'm wrong though. I think it may surpass a lot of other films this February because there doesn't seem to be a lot of interesting movies that month, but I won't be shocked if it does poorly in the box office because of no one even being aware of its release.

[The Famous Sonic]

The Sonic Movie is sponsoring family movies on Channel 5 in the UK. That's the only ad for the movie I've seen so far. 

[Gamecuber64]

28 minutes ago, The Famous Sonic said:

The Sonic Movie is sponsoring family movies on Channel 5 in the UK. That's the only ad for the movie I've seen so far. 

Like I said, not in the US (which has a population of over 300 million people)

[Rabid-Coot]

3 hours ago, Gamecuber64 said:

...This movie comes out in less than a month and I've seen almost zero ads for it in the US.

Its 5 and a half weeks, final trailer/tickets on sale will be soon followed by a bunch of TV spots.

We know from that competition that the premier is near the end of the month (around the 25th?)  so I expect marketing to have ramped up by then.