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

[PeterPancake]

11 minutes ago, CaptainRobo said:

Found a interview with the writers. This is what they say about the development of the movie:

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What was it like seeing the interest in response to Sonic?

Josh Miller: That was really weird. The whole time we were working on the script, the design had come up here and there. We weren’t getting day to day updates, we were seeing updates maybe once a month.

Pat: We weren’t really concerned about that, we were concerned with making the story work. The one thing we would say to them was that he has to be cute and that people have to want to hug him. I guess that the first design wasn’t, but the new one is. It got there eventually.

This version of Sonic has been on his own for so long, that he’s even started quietly talking to himself. It’s a very sad way to approach the character. Where did the idea for that direction come from,?

Josh: It’s probably too long of a story to talk about all the permutations and ideas we had on the movie while working with [Jeff Fowler] our director before we landed on what you see in the movie. We knew that we wanted him to grow up on Earth so that he had the personality of an Earthling but in hiding. His arc for the movie is getting to join that community.

Pat: Right from the get-go we wanted Sonic to be this relatable kind of kid. You just wanted Sonic to have this deep yearning… It sort of came out as this idea of him being a stranger on a strange planet, sort of like Superman. But unlike Superman, he doesn’t look like a human so he’s sort of on the outside looking in. We also talked about The Little Mermaid in terms of wanting to be a part of things and he can never have it. Which seemed like a really powerful emotion that people could relate too.

Josh: Because we’ve seen him like watching TV and movies over people’s shoulders from outside… the idea of talking to himself was, like any kid, they were playing out these little fantasies all the time where he’s all the characters… because he doesn’t have any friends. His speed allows him to do that and play those characters. To play out those pop culture inspired influences in a way someone without super speed couldn’t do it.

Pat: When we came up with the baseball scene and the idea of him switching places playing all these different characters… it felt good, it felt cinematic. It felt like it would be a lot of fun, and that audiences would connect with that.

Was there ever any temptation to take Sonic more off-world for the film, or to use more of the flashy elements from other entries in the franchise?

Josh: The boring, practical reason [why we stayed on Earth] was because of the budget. It was made apparent to us what the limitations were. Everyone – the studio, the producers, our director, hoped that this is like what they did with The Purge, the first movie. Where you [can hint] at what greater world can be out there, and then if the first movie is a success then we can start opening that up. We kind of just wanted to get our foot in the movie door.

Pat: Just the practicality of it. Each CGI character costs a lot to make. In an early draft of this we had a lot of CG characters and a lot of the alien worlds.

Josh: And then one by one, it was like ‘you gotta cut this!’

 

Source: https://www.theilluminerdi.com/2020/02/12/sonic-the-hedgehog-writers-1/

Also found this.:

Wow. really? I didn't know about that. Do you have the source for that?

 

 

 

 

Sounds good! They played their cards right and now they gotta open up the Sonic universe 

[CaptainRobo]

According to Van who is one of the former writers for the movie, he say that he had only wrote the first draft of the movie before it got moved to Paramount.:

Here are some info from him.:

 

[Sega DogTagz]

25 minutes ago, CaptainRobo said:

 

Wow. really? I didn't know about that. Do you have the source for that?

 

Got reported in a couple places... here is one of them

 

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/05/sonics_co-creator_feels_responsible_for_movie_trailer_backlash

Quote

Speaking of that, I said I wanted to appear as an extra in a movie. It looks like they forgot. It was pretty long ago so I had actually forgotten too, but I would have liked to appear in a movie.

 

[JezMM]

No deviation from the average opinion for me here, saw it last night and really enjoyed it.

My main criticisms would be the embarrassing amount of "let's just mention a thing that exists" jokes (that often come off as "haha we're IRONICALLY mentioning a product but please still go and buy the product actually though" like the Olive Garden and Amazon jokes).  They also frequently stretch my belief about how much popular culture stuff Sonic could reasonably know about from being in hiding but... it's a cartoon, I pushed those thoughts aside even if I had to physically think about it mid-movie to do so.

The film could have definitely used just one more major action sequence somewhere I feel... more than anything it was just a disappointment that not a single action sequence wasn't shown off in the initial trailer.  Obviously they didn't have much to work with when making the trailer but yeah.  At least they didn't spoil

 

Robotnik using Sonic's quill to supercharge his Egg Mobile

though I guess.

Finally, a small one:

 

Sonic recieving his trademark shoes from Jojo was a sweet moment, but would've had way more emotional weight coming from a character Sonic actually had some sort of connection to before or after this moment - be that a more developed/utilised Jojo or someone else.  A humble origin story for a plot element that doesn't need one is always the best course of action if you're going to do an origin story at all, so I've no issue there, but yeah, just felt like it was missing a little certain something.  On that note: Sonic's sad, tattered old shoes for the first half of the movie REALLY add a lot to his backstory in this one and make him 5 times more sympathetic than he was already.

 

Anyway, other than those gripes, yeah, I had a really good time.  Ben and Jim nailed Sonic and Eggman, two of the best non-canon interpretations of both characters.  It felt like a foregone conclusion that a non-interactive media like a movie would give the characters space to grow and change within a story (in a way that the games couldn't... well they could but I understand their priorities lying elsewhere), but they could have messed it up still... but yeah, they didn't.  These are really nice little arcs for them, going from isolated > best friend and uptight > crazy respectively.  Tom and Maddie I didn't care hugely about but there's plenty of room for them to do more stuff with them in the sequel.  The comedy relief human cast were all great for their small roles though, I laughed at the Deputy, Crazy Extremely Observant Carl, Maddie's Sister and of course Agent Stone. Definitely hope they'd all return for a sequel.

And on that note, I'm glad the creators are being honest and saying "yeah all these limitations you've noticed, it's coz of budget, if this does well we can do more next time".  They have my absolute blessing to go and do just that.

I'm sure I have some other thoughts that I'm forgetting now but will come out from back and forth discussion so I'll leave it there.

Definitely a solid 7/10 movie in general, and as a fan, I'd say an 8/10 piece of Sonic media.

[Scritch the Cat]

While a limited budget would have been a valid, if depressing reason they couldn’t show more of Sonic’s game things, that we got a very detailed depiction of South Island, plus 

Spoiler

Longclaw, the echidnas, and Tails

, invalidates it.  3D assets are expensive to make, but once you have them you can keep reusing them and repurposing them in a way you can’t with 2D assets.  They had them, and so the lack of much more done with them is hard to forgive.  If nothing else, they should have spent a bit more time in that home world to establish more of what makes Sonic tick; both in terms of what his powers actually do and what memories haunt his psyche.

[Polkadi~☆]

38 minutes ago, Scritch the Cat said:

While a limited budget would have been a valid, if depressing reason they couldn’t show more of Sonic’s game things, that we got a very detailed depiction of South Island, plus 

  Reveal hidden contents

Longclaw, the echidnas, and Tails

, invalidates it.  3D assets are expensive to make, but once you have them you can keep reusing them and repurposing them in a way you can’t with 2D assets.  They had them, and so the lack of much more done with them is hard to forgive.  If nothing else, they should have spent a bit more time in that home world to establish more of what makes Sonic tick; both in terms of what his powers actually do and what memories haunt his psyche.

Rendering farms are expensive, especially for high quality CGI in 4K.

[Red Hot Jack]

14 hours ago, Sega DogTagz said:

 

Wouldn't pound your chest too hard for that one. It was quite literally the backlash to the original vision that pushed the movie back to the drawing board, slid it into an infinitely more favorable time slot, and dumped a buzz worthy level of free press into its lap that it wouldn't have had otherwise.

 

In an M. Night Shyamalan level plot twist, the negative nancies probably had more to do with the success of this film than the positive pete's. Everything came together as a result of the vitriol and lack of faith the masses had for the original vision. Without them, this movie would have been both visually unappealing and buried behind a time slot featuring the highest grossing animated film in the history of cinema.

I'm not boosting my ego, I'm trusting my (maybe blind, eh) love for Sonic… it's more like I had hope for the movie, and really wanted it to be good, not like "Haha told you it was good, you suck", I didn't say that at all. I'm aware that the movie being good is a miracle, even I didn't expect it to be THIS good, honestly. I'm as surprised as all of you. Nor did I expect the box office success tbh, because Sonic is not that well known, I figured it would do well because of Jim Carrey, the redesign story, the media buzz, etc. those were the signs to me. But not at this level, for sure.

[Vec]

Saw this on saturday with my niece and, I have to say we both liked it in our own ways: She liked it as a fun movie in general. I liked seeing all the references I could recognize and also Jim Carrey as Robotnik. Whoever though of him for the role really nailed it.

Also I was thinking...

Was Sonic the only one who got a redesign? Because Tails and the echidnas look like they might have been redesigned along him

[Tori Himemiya]

You know there's something that's been bothering me about this movie and its probably the one change I would do personally. And its... (Spoilered for size and well..spoilers)

Spoiler

Quill Energy

I know Sonic is supposed to be a super fast rodent and this serves as sort of a way to explain his powers but we really didn't need it. We all know Sonic can go fast without this apparent energy; He isn't the Flash with the Speed Force.

The problem here is that Robotnik gets too invested into this quill energy that has a ton of power to cause blackouts. He eventually retools his big Eggmobile to use its power. But that's the thing I find a bit too weird. They needed to have a reason for Robotnik to be obsessed with Sonic by him to constantly chase him and antagonize him. Why does this bother me so much? I feel like that quill energy could be interchangeable with well...

The Chaos Emeralds.

This would make much more sense if you think about it. Eggman/Robotnik is always getting those Chaos Emeralds in the games, often taunting that you never get them if you finish the game without collecting them. This was a thing since the first Sonic game as we all know. But you're probably thinking "well audiences wouldn't be too familiar with the Chaos Emeralds." I do wanna point this out.

The Chaos Emeralds were featured in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog as a 4 parter arc. Yes they do vastly different things but they still exist in this continuity. This is actually pretty notable because AoStH is a more cartoon-y show compared to SatAM but the fact they used the Chaos Emeralds here in this wacky world shows that its possible for them to be used in some form. But keep this is as a side note for now.

How can we implement the Chaos Emeralds to replace the quill energy? Its pretty simple really. We could have the Chaos Emeralds scattered across the universe since we're doing this whole "alternate world" business anyways. Tom could had found one of the Emeralds, not knowing what it is other than being a pretty rock. Sonic himself could had one of them on hand, given to him by Longclaw which would give more context for the Echidna tribe chasing them as we know from Sonic Adventure. Throughout the adventure Robotnik while discovering Sonic could had stumbled on the Chaos Emerald that Tom found due to the latter not knowing what it is and using that to power his machines that way. Quill energy does the same thing as the Chaos Emeralds in canon anyways so that's an easy fix with the only rewrites being why Sonic didn't bother to grab the Emerald away from him. The rest of the movie would pretty much be the same. Yeah I understand why they went with quill energy as a way to give Sonic an arc to find inner strength and control it but we can still do that with the Chaos Emeralds. He could find a way within himself to control the power of Chaos, you know that thing you can't control, and beat Robotnik by tapping into that power like in the games. Heck Sonic X did this with 2 Emeralds so its workable. Sonic would just grab the Emerald when he beats Robotnik.

What's more is that if they are giving us stingers and sequel hooks the Chaos Emeralds actually help in this regard over quill energy. They could be like the Infinity Stones where everyone is slowly finding them and bringing them together to hype up Super Sonic. They could had Robotnik finding a Chaos Emerald in Mushroom Hill and sort of tease the audience with it, showing he has a way to escape after all. Tails could also have his own Chaos Emerald too as a way of locating Sonic as well as again hyping more Chaos Emeralds out there.

I still think the Chaos Emeralds can work with general audiences. As I mentioned the Chaos Emeralds have appeared in multiple Sonic media, even in the less likely of sources, so I don't see how it would be a big pill to swallow. If they don't think that having a general concept of power works for the Emeralds they could go the route similar to AoStH where they all have different powers but that would be criticized as being too similar to the Infinity Stones. I think being general power sources would work since they went with quill energy anyways . I just don't know. I feel like quill energy doesn't seem as powerful or meaningful like the Chaos Emeralds. I think it also just looks weird in Robotnik's dashboard, if not weird in general. It kind of feel like Sonic has a power shedding problem in a way. I do feel like they slept on actual Sonic lore on this one.

My rant aside I still do think that the movie is still pretty solid. Its just that I kind of wish they would had used the game lore a bit more other than being a backdrop. I don't know what else to really say after all that. Maybe they could rectify this in the sequel? Who knows?

[Sonic Fan J]

I'll address your concerns @Crow the BOOLET though my answer probably won't be satisfying.

The answer that I have is that the movie is supposed to be about Sonic. The moment you throw in the Chaos Emeralds Sonic's relevancy to the plot collapses for as unusual a choice as 
 

Spoiler

quill energy is

it is a key component for the plot to work logically. Literally nothing in the movie would be able to follow the logic it does without that plot element. It may seem strange, and I would argue that really they didn't spend enough time developing that point to differentiate Movie!Sonic from other iterations of him, but for the story they wanted to tell it is integral. Sonic can't be a target if he lacks this plot point. Without it he just becomes a competitor in a contest rather than the prize itself. So for the movie's logic it s necessary, even if it disappoints you as a fan.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Chaos emeralds seem like something better saved for a sequel anyway. Even in the games they weren't really relevant to the actual plot until 3 & Knuckles and that was very, very, very loosely at that.

Adventure 1's a better example case and that was later.

[Stasis]

Just seen it a second time and enjoyed it even more this time around, it's a solid film. My first showing was 10am on Friday and was pretty empty. This time it was a lot busier and there was more of an atmosphere. Biggest laugh from the kids in this showing was when Sonic was in the bag. What some felt was a rather poor joke, the kids loved! Kids also liked Pretzel ladies sister, but not me. I have no idea why she dislikes Tom and I'm guessing there's a missing scene somewhere.  Jim Carrey nailed Robotnik and the music used when he's on screen gives him an ominous presence. Agent Stone is fun and I want him in the sequel. I also wanted to shout at the people leaving before the teaser in the credits, but luckily for some, kids were running around the theatre like Sonic and so were in there to see it and be surprised. Probably going to see it again in a day or two.

 

[Zulon Eredas]

9 hours ago, Austroid said:

Part of me wishes they never showed the footage of bald Jim Eggman at the end of the original trailer.

Imagine how much of a surprise it would've been seeing him like that. The way he was revealed was top notch!

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Though I wonder how his 'stache grew so much? According to his wrist device its only been 7 days since he arrived. Wacky ring portal shenanigans messed with his DNA maybe? lol

 

Spoiler

It actually looks like it says 87 days.

 

[Red Hot Jack]

Sequel ideas based on speculation and first things that come to mind after the hints in this movie:

Spoiler

1. The Emerald: it's mentioned in a book for the movie I think, it may or may not be connected to the Birth of Sonic, and the mystery of his speed power. I sure hope they explore that, one Emerald in sequel, and 7 in the 3rd one.

2. Tails and Tom: I can actually already picture the ending to the second movie… Sonic & Tails bond, Tom has issues with that, but at the end (if it's well written) I'm thinking Sonic could leave Earth to go on an adventure, and Tom will make Tails promise to look after his adopted son(ic). Would really be a sweet moment IMO.

3. Eggman: give him his weird badniks, plus animals inside them, please! An obviously since he has that Sonic fur… have him build Metal Sonic, he could be one of the main antagonists of the sequel along with him.

Now for the 3rd movie:

4. Introduce Knuckles: his entire kind was mysteriously wiped out, Knux thinks it was Sonic, because the war lords killed his mom... but it was actually Robotnik, creating a conflict between Sonic and Knuckles, so at the end they team up to fight Eggman, like in the game, mostly.

5. Third movie finally brings Super Sonic for the final battle. Likely Jim Carrey's final film in the role of Robotnik, so use him well.

6. Reveal that his Owl mom is alive, would be a cool twist honestly, and it will help unveal the origins of Sonic.

7. Robotnik dies at the end, explaining his absence in possible (?) future films, leaving the scene for a new scientist, either a daughter/nephew, a la Omelette, or a follower of his work, a la Agent Stone. Also the tease of Shadow for a fourth movie...

 

[Diogenes]

1 hour ago, Nina Cortex Jovahexeon said:

Chaos emeralds seem like something better saved for a sequel anyway. Even in the games they weren't really relevant to the actual plot until 3 & Knuckles and that was very, very, very loosely at that.

...they were directly relevant to the plot in the first game, just that they were only explained in the manual, because the game had no dialogue and practically no cutscenes.

[Jango]

Can't believe there's a chance in the future for a movie called Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

I'm gonna see Sonic on wednesday night with my gf. She's not a Sonic fan, but since I went with her to watch Detective Pikachu (which she is a fan), it's her duty now :V

I already spoiled myself a lot of stuff, but eh. Movie theater popcorn is always better. Plus, I'm going on the cheap day.

 

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

17 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

...they were directly relevant to the plot in the first game, just that they were only explained in the manual, because the game had no dialogue and practically no cutscenes.

Last I checked, those are only really mentioned under the "SECRET ZONE" category as a game element. They were never really mentioned story-wise in the manual.

[Diogenes]

14 minutes ago, Nina Cortex Jovahexeon said:

Last I checked, those are only really mentioned under the "SECRET ZONE" category as a game element. They were never really mentioned story-wise in the manual.

Well, the English manual, yeah. But the Japanese manual makes it clear that the emeralds are Eggman's ultimate goal. That's why they exist in the game at all; you collect them to prevent Eggman from doing so, which makes the difference between the good and bad (neutral?) endings. It'd make at least as much sense to use an emerald as the movie's macguffin as it does to invent a bag of warp rings or have people chase Sonic because of his innate powers.

[Wraith]

The only real benefit to not including the emeralds is that you have one less concept to introduce to a new audience. The movie's premise is simple enough as it is though that I don't think introducing them would have hurt it all that much.

I have a hard time caring either way since the movie wouldn't be all that different. If we're talking about what disappoints about the movie as fanservice there are much bigger problems. 

[Radiant Hero Ike]

I've only been skimming this thread so I may have missed someone else posting it here, but someone on Twitter found another easter egg.

 

[Rabid-Coot]

1 hour ago, Jango said:

Can't believe there's a chance in the future for a movie called Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

Splitting the third movie in to two parts would be game accurate.

[CaptainRobo]

New Sonic Render.:

Also an ad in a local small town in Malaysia.:

 

[JezMM]

9 hours ago, Scritch the Cat said:

While a limited budget would have been a valid, if depressing reason they couldn’t show more of Sonic’s game things, that we got a very detailed depiction of South Island, plus 

  Reveal hidden contents

Longclaw, the echidnas, and Tails

, invalidates it.  3D assets are expensive to make, but once you have them you can keep reusing them and repurposing them in a way you can’t with 2D assets.  They had them, and so the lack of much more done with them is hard to forgive.  If nothing else, they should have spent a bit more time in that home world to establish more of what makes Sonic tick; both in terms of what his powers actually do and what memories haunt his psyche.

Yeah you've kind of only gone halfway with the "3D is expensive" logic.  With animation, every single unique element has to have some work put into it, nothing comes for free.  They didn't make a big open video game environment, they created geometry for the exact shots they had planned out, they lit those shots exactly for what the shots needed, etc.  You'd probably be surprised at what limitations there are to what they created under the hood.

Plus, to be honest, people who aren't satisfied with the glimpse we got are probably those who never really cared for the live action angle in the first place.  No amount of time spent in Sonic's world would satisfy such people, they'd always want just a bit more, and it would only serve to delay the film's main identity as "Sonic on Earth". Spending more time before going to Earth would be really weird for the pacing, you'd have the in media res opening, then an introduction to Sonic's once normal life... then a bunch of stuff... then Sonic goes to earth, and then we have ANOTHER period of introduction as we now show you Sonic's current normal life and introduce the human cast too.  It'd just really clutter things up.  This movie isn't about Sonic in his own world - the film's pacing should embrace it.

3 hours ago, Radiant Hero Ike said:

I've only been skimming this thread so I may have missed someone else posting it here, but someone on Twitter found another easter egg.

  Hide contents

This is cool but I have to admit it felt like a no brainer to at least include a Crush 40 song on a radio in the background of a scene or something, a real shame that they didn't (though at least Friends showed up from Sonic Mania, I really wasn't expecting that).

[King Scoopa Koopa]

16 hours ago, Austroid said:

Part of me wishes they never showed the footage of bald Jim Eggman at the end of the original trailer.

Imagine how much of a surprise it would've been seeing him like that. The way he was revealed was top notch!

  Reveal hidden contents

Though I wonder how his 'stache grew so much? According to his wrist device its only been 7 days since he arrived. Wacky ring portal shenanigans messed with his DNA maybe? lol

 

I think it was a very deliberate, perhaps even desperate move to give people any sort of hope that this movie might be redeemable, effectively inserting a "but" into any conversation deriding it.

[NegaMix]

Saw the film earlier today; I thought it was okay, but ultimately uninteresting overall.

If I watch it again, it'll be on whatever streaming service it ends up on in the future.