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YMMV / Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)

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  • Adorkable: Sonic himself is a lot more happy-go-lucky and openly friendly to everyone than his more "cool" video game counterpart. His earnest desire to have friends, social awkwardness resulting from him being completely alone for most of his life and tendency to make pop culture references add to it.
  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • Did Sonic really think he couldn't have eventually found San Francisco on his own, before Tom could drive him there all the way from Montana? Or was that just his excuse to stay with Tom and hold off on leaving Earth and humanity behind for as long as possible?
    • Since the sequel revealed Rachel to be a single mother, does she want Maddie to divorce Tom because she's lonely and secretly envious of her sister's happiness, or is she just a plain simple jerkass?
    • When Robotnik screamed after first meeting Sonic was it because he was shocked at seeing a creature like Sonic or is it because Sonic looks a lot like a certain black hedgehog we see in the second movie? This implies Robotnik had known about the Ultimate Lifeform before and Sonic just confirmed his existence.
  • And You Thought It Would Fail:
    • Back when the idea of a Sonic film was first touted around in The '90s, both Super Mario Bros. and Street Fighter releasing a year apart from each other had cast an ugly and long-lasting shadow on the whole video game movie genre that was part of the reason it lingered in Development Hell for so long. Combining that with the negative reception of previous live-action/CGI-animated movies (Alvin and the Chipmunks, The Smurfs) and the tainted reputation of the franchise itself at that point, there was a good reason to have low expectations. Suffice to say (and together with Pokémon Detective Pikachu the previous year), the final product defied such low expectations.
    • After fans were unanimously creeped out by the teaser poster offering a glimpse of a more realistic design for Sonic, and an utterly disastrous initial trailer proving those fears correct, expectations for the film were pretty low, not helped by Paramount's banishing it to the Dump Months, even after promising to fix Sonic's character design. Even after the redesign has been revealed and was met with a much warmer reception, some people were still skeptical that the movie would perform well at the box office, let alone be a good film. Thankfully, said redesign got the movie decent critical reception and even warmer audience reception upon release. The movie actually performed ahead of earlier tracking and gave Paramount a solid hit (including having a better four-day release Stateside than Pokémon Detective Pikachu, due in part to opening on Valentine's Day), and possibly paving the way for a full-blown movie franchise. The movie did eventually make over $300 million from premieres without the aid of Japan or China, who had their premieres delayed because of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Looking at the finished product compared to the initial response is almost like discussing two entirely different works. And to top it off, a sequel was fast-tracked and released in April 2022, with a third movie and Paramount+ series in development, with near unanimous approval and joy.
    • The initial reaction to Jim Carrey's casting was generally one of complete bafflement, considering how he neither sounds nor looks anything like the iconically rotund villain of the games. It didn't help that Carrey's Hollywood movie career had been floating in shallow waters for the past six years following the critical failure of Dumb and Dumber To, and his hiring was seen by some as Stunt Casting by a studio desperate for a big celebrity name to play the villain. Post-release, it's widely agreed that Carrey absolutely nailed the character with his outrageously over-the-top, yet intimidating when necessary performance, and at times even sounds uncannily close to the gravelly-voiced character from the games.
  • Base-Breaking Character: Tom Wachowski, fans consider him a great Straight Man to play off Sonic, and serves an effective role of being The Heart of the film. Detractors meanwhile see Tom as a bland character given far too much screentime, with some even viewing the idea of Sonic’s First Friend being a police officer to be tone deaf, given the rebellious attitude associated with the franchise and/or the current political climate.
  • Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: If the scene of Dr. Robotnik enthusiastically dancing to "Where Evil Grows" while his computer analyzes Sonic's quill wasn't this in and of itself, the part where he turns on a holographic T-REX and pretends to dance headless after it bites where his head is definitely counts. However, due to Eggman's eccentric and goofy behaviour in various games and cartoons and fan works, some argue it fits just fine.
  • Bile Fascination: The initial response to the first trailer was that several viewers were interested in seeing the movie just to get a look at Sonic's terrible Unintentional Uncanny Valley design. After the redesign, which helped make the film surprisingly decent, quite a few people are hoping that the original cut of the film will be released in some form, expecting Sonic's original design to push the film into So Bad, It's Good territory (and also to see how bad Tails' original design was).
  • Cliché Storm: One of the primary criticisms of the film is that it has a lot of tropes associated with '90s road trip comedies — in particular, the How We Got Here opening scene, complete with the line "I know what you're thinking" — with some even suspecting the script was actually written back then when the games were first popular. Others, however, consider it a nice Genre Throwback.
  • Common Knowledge: The references to Olive Garden are often criticized by many for being blatant Product Placement, However, according to writer Pat Casey, the references to Olive Garden was never meant to promote the chain, rather it was intended to be just a joke that grew into a Running Gag over time.
  • Critical Dissonance: Similarly to Pokémon Detective Pikachu, it received average reviews from critics, which is still pretty good for a video game movie, though it was still enough to give it a "fresh" indicator on Rotten Tomatoes. The audience reaction has been more positive, if the audience/user scores on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic are anything to go by.
  • Crosses the Line Twice:
    • A lot of Robotnik's humour is this, due to him being an unrepentant asshole who insists on always being right about anything, no matter how petty. Being played by Jim Carrey helps.
    • The "is that your child" joke, while generally considered cringeworthy when it first appeared in the original trailer, ends up becoming this when given the full context and punchline in the movie proper. Tom responding by saying, "yes, it's a child, but it's not mine"? Not very funny. Tom immediately claiming that Sonic actually likes it in there to reassure the concerned bystanders, only for Sonic himself to immediately deny it? Kinda funny. Sonic then bringing up the fact Tom previously locked him in a pet cage and making things even worse? Pretty damn funny. Maddie awkwardly intervening by zipping it up so he can't make any more noise, causing the bystanders to slowly inch backwards with disturbed looks as Sonic whimpers about being scared of the dark? Cherry on top.
  • Crossover Ship: Sonic/Harley Quinn has been making the rounds in fanart, for irony's sake since both their movies have gone toe-to-toe against each other. Also, the carefree, fun-loving personality Sonic has in the movie would probably be right up Harley's alley.
  • Diagnosed by the Audience: Sonic has glaringly obvious hyperactivity, and performs many moves and gestures to avoid standing still. Due to the loneliness he has endured for 10 years, he also compulsively talks to himself — which he is aware of — and plays an entire game of baseball while pretending to be several players at once.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • Longclaw had no presence in the pre-release and advertising, and died as soon as the beginning of the movie, yet the fandom loves her for being a parental figure to Sonic to the point of sacrificing herself so that he could escape to Earth. Even some die-hard Sonic fans thought her addition was a non-issue, given how Sonic had different parental figures in other adaptations. Besides that, many found her character fascinating, wishing that she had stuck around a little longer. It's to the point where she got added into the Mobile Phone games Sonic Dash and Sonic Forces: Speed Battle as a Playable Character. The sequel even gave her a bit more posthumous importance as it revealed her connections to the Master Emerald.
    • The Echidna Tribe responsible for Sonic having to escape and Longclaw's demise only appear in the film's opening for a few minutes yet they have gained a massive fandom following. With some theorizing the tribe being living ancestors to Knuckles (in actuality, Knuckles was an actual member of the tribe).
    • Agent Stone gets a lot more appreciation than one might initially think, mostly for being the first sidekick of Dr. Robotnik/Eggman who isn't an idiot, a Jerkass or both. Being easily shippable and rather good looking helps. He is so popular amongst fans that there are fan-made mods that add him to the games.
    • Jojo obtained plenty of fans for her kindness and adorable willingness to be friends with Sonic right from the beginning in contrast to the usual horrified reactions he got; right up to giving him his trademark red trainers. With some even wishing she had gotten to be in more of the film.
  • Epileptic Trees:
    • Despite many people involved with the film's production debunking the idea, there is a sizable number of fans who believe that Sonic's original design and the first trailer was a publicity stunt by Paramount, with the film getting lots of attention and free press due to the massive backlash and the studio and filmmakers looking heroic after announcing the redesign.
    • Robotnik's background is something that some fans like to theorize due to his main counterpart's grandfather. The movie only states Robotnik grew in an orphanage, and worked with the government for many years. And with Shadow himself appearing in The Stinger of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, it's all but confirmed that Gerald Robotnik will at the very least be mentioned in Sonic 3.
    • Due to her more realistic design compared to Sonic and the other CG characters, it's believed that Longclaw is the only character from the original cut not to have undergone a significant redesign.
  • Evil Is Cool: Dr. Robotnik, as usual, but made even cooler by the fact that he's played by Jim Carrey, who really brings the character to life with his famous Large Ham acting, while also managing to seamlessly be legitimately sinister and frightening when he needs to be.
  • Fandom Heresy: Do not say that you prefer the original design over the finalized one, especially since that version of Sonic has been disowned by pretty much everyone who was ever involved with him and the studio delayed the movie to redesign Sonic in order to satisfy the fanbase, which ended up paying off massively. Even having an average or friendly opinion on the design while still not loving it will get you attacked, like what happened to a Tumblr Character account that had the old movie design being friends with other designs Sonic has had over the years before it closed down.
  • Fandom Rivalry:
    • Initially, people who were excited for Pokémon Detective Pikachu liked to make fun of this movie for completely missing the appeal of the franchise and the piss-poor special effects, especially by comparison. However, it was too one-sided to qualify for a Fandom Rivalry at the time, given that the movie didn't have a fandom to speak of. Now that the movie actually came out and public perception on it improved somewhat, there are plenty of debates over which one is better at averting Video Game Movies Suck. The fact that Sonic's opening weekend has surpassed Pikachu's opening weekend at the box office doesn't help, nor the fact that its final gross ended up slightly lower than that of Pikachu. note  Crosses into Friendly Fandoms with some fans upholding the two films as some sort of pedestals of hope for the future of video game movies, particularly theorists of these two films being the firstfruits of a hypothetical Smash Bros. Cinematic Universe.
    • A bit of a rivalry has developed between fans of this film and fans of the Sonic OVA, mainly over which one does a better job at adapting Sonic into a movie. Granted, there are many fans who find both to be good adaptations and films in their own rights, but a good amount tend to be at odds with each other.
    • In what appears to be a repeat of the '90s Nintendo vs. Sega rivalry, the Mario vs. Sonic rivalry would heat up again over this film and the sequel vs. The Super Mario Bros. Movie, with many heated arguments and fans coming to blows over how Mario's film stacks up against Sonic's films and whether the Sonic movies' more pragmatic approach works out better or worse than the Mario film's more faithful approach.
  • Fanfic Fuel:
    • Sonic's backstory, in particular the echidna tribe that chased after him. Is Knuckles related to the tribe? Why were they going after Sonic in the first place? At least, they were until the sequel eventually answered both.
    • The destruction caused by Sonic and Robotnik in China and Egypt. What type of repercussions could that bring about?
    • With Sonic essentially getting adopted by the Wachowskis by the end of the film, fans started wondering if other Sonic characters will also later get adopted, either by Tom and Maddie, or by a different human that gets involved.
      • One fanfic in particular sees Wade adopting Shadow and Silver.
    • The fandom is quite fond of "styleswapping", depicting movie-only characters in the style of the video games and vice-versa.
  • Fan Nickname:
    • The movie's title itself is often just called the "the Sonic movie" and after the sequel's announcement and release, "the Sonic 1 movie" or "Sonic Movie 1" in order to obviously avoid confusion to the franchise or both video games of the same name.
    • Some use the name "Carreybotnik" for Dr. Robotnik. More common is Jimbotnik.
    • Quite a few nicknames have popped up for the universally hated original design of Sonic, including "Mutant Sonic", "Teeth Sonic", and "Gremlin Sonic". Some also like to call him "Sanic", a reference to a popular Sonic meme, and due to not really looking like anything that exists in real-life, much less a hedgehog. In this video, KaiserNeko christened him "Jellicle Sonic". Jim Sterling dubbed him "Manhog". Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (in which the design reappeared as a character) simply called him "Ugly Sonic".
    • After Sonic got adopted by Tom and Maddie, plenty of fans started calling Sonic's movie incarnation "Sonic Wachowski" to honor said adoption.
  • Fanon: Sonic's home planet is never named in the film, but fans have taken to calling it "Mobius", the name of Sonic's world had in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), Sonic Underground and the Archie comics.
  • Fountain of Memes: The original design for Sonic became a go-to source of mockery for ripe internet memes once the film's trailer was posted, all on the basis of his infamous redesign alone. It got to the point that he actually reappeared in a film.
  • Friendly Fandoms: Fans of this movie and Lilo & Stitch tend to get along really well. Might have something to do with how they have a similar plot regarding a blue quirky superpowered alien fugitive finding a new family and home on Earth.
  • Gateway Series: This film is responsible for introducing many newcomers to the Sonic the Hedgehog series, which hadn't been popular with the peak mainstream since the 1990s.
  • He's Just Hiding: It's unlikely that Longclaw died at the hands of the Echidna Tribe at the start of the movie - while she did get shot and grounded, the injury doesn't come off as life threatening. The last time we see her, the tribe is charging towards her, though it is more likely that they are running for the ring portal she is guarding. This was Jossed in the sequel, confirming that Longclaw was killed in the ensuing fight, but took her attackers down with her.
  • Heartwarming in Hindsight: The movie's conflict begins after Sonic gets sad over having no one to celebrate his baseball victory with. The final scene from the sequel has Sonic playing baseball with Tails and Knuckles, alongside Tom and Maddie, the new friends he found on the way.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • When woken up by smelling salts, Sonic asks "Where am I?! What year is it?! Is The Rock president?!" Now The Rock is considering running for the Presidential Campaign in 2024.
    • Over a year-and-a-half later after this movie, James Marsden would play another town sheriff reluctantly helping the hero in completing their quest, though that time it's because he's already friends with the main character, instead of slowly becoming friends.
      • Adding to the hilarity somewhat is that in both stories, he's starring opposite of someone from DuckTales (2017) (Ben Schwartz here and Kimiko Glenn over there).
    • As Robotnik is trying to figure out a way to return home, he says "I'll be home by Christmas." While the sequel debuted in April 2022, the trailer was first dropped on December 2021. So he was technically correct.
    • With Paramount's permission Julien Bam, the German voice of Sonic in this movie, made a Stylistic Suck Gag Dub of the trailer as a way to advertise the movie. One of the things they did was to have all of Robotnik's lines be in heavy Auto-Tune. The sequel also has Eggman autotuning his voice after being empowered by the Master Emerald.
    • Both Chris Pratt and Charlie Day were considered as potential voice actors for Sonic. Skip ahead just a few years and both of them would go on to voice a different pair of video game heroes in a theatrical adaptation.
    • Sonic's dislike of mushrooms becomes even funnier when the Mario Movie also features its titular video game character having an aversion towards the food.
    • Even more hilarious Mario Movie comparisons is that both this movie and the Mario movie feature their own respective Big Bads merely spending their own free time dancing (in Robotnik's case) or singing (in Bowser's case) only to then be interrupted by their own respective second-in-commands (Agent Stone and Kamek).
    • The film Speed and its lead, Keanu Reeves, are referenced in this film with Sonic outright declaring Keanu as a national treasure. Come the third movie, Reeves would join the cast as Shadow....meaning Sonic's rival is being played by said national treasure.
  • Ho Yay: Dr. Robotnik and Agent Stone. The latter's utter loyalty to the former is one thing, but the "pin yourself to the wall" line? Robotnik also sticks his fingers in Stone’s mouth at one point, and after tasting one of Sonic's quills, subtly offers Stone to give it a try. The trailer for the sequel also has Stone celebrating Robotnik's return from space with a loud and ecstatic He's Back!.
  • Inferred Holocaust:
    • A rare example of this popping up before a film's release. One fan (over)analyzed the effects of Sonic knocking out the power grid "across the entire Pacific Northwest" and concluded that it would have killed 491 babies in neonatal care.note  It gets worse; the EMP was shown to even affect a low-orbiting satellite. How many aircrafts were caught in the blast, and how many of them were above populated areas at the time?
    • Dr. Robotnik chasing and shooting at Sonic in the middle of downtown San Francisco in the middle of the day. With Robotnik's pre-established lack of empathy for civilian casualties one can only wonder how many people were caught in the crossfire.
  • Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: While Robotnik is a rude, mad scientist who looks down and insults everyone he meets, at least he is extremely Laughably Evil which makes him an utter joy to watch and his over the top acting is fun and has an amusing charm to it. On the other hand, Rachel is an overbearing Sassy Black Woman, who hates Tom for no explained reasonnote  and wants her sister Maddie to divorce the poor guy even before he became a fugitive. It doesn't help that Rachel and Maddie are black and Tom is white, suggesting that the former may possibly be racist. She is so obnoxious that she had to be tied up to a chair and left behind in the Wachowskis' home, so that Tom and Maddie can help Sonic.
  • Just Here for Godzilla:
    • Once the first trailer was released, many people have said that they plan on watching the movie entirely for Jim Carrey as Robotnik, who looks to be having a lot of fun channeling his trademark 1990s-2000s comedic performances.
    • After Paramount's decision to redesign Sonic and to delay the film was revealed, a significant number of fans who otherwise weren't interested in the film said that they would pay to see it just because of the tremendous effort that the studio was willing to make to fix it. The key argument was that it's very commendable that the studio listened to audience concerns and made an adjustment, even at the cost of making the movie go overbudget.
  • Love to Hate: Dr. Robotnik in this movie is a thoroughly despicable sociopath, but his extremely hilarious personality and moments as well as Jim Carrey's over-the-top performance as him is so fun to watch that you can't help but love him anyway.
  • Memetic Badass: The animators. After the initial backlash to Sonic's design, no one actually expected it to get fixed... much less in three months. In addition to loving the new design, many fans have lauded the animators and production team for pulling it off on such a time crunch.
  • Memetic Mutation: On a separate page for the whole film series.
  • Memetic Psychopath:
  • Mis-blamed: When Moving Picture Company shuttered their Vancouver branch in December 2019, a number of articles pinned the blame on Sonic's second redesign, which MPC Vancouver did the bulk of, especially with reports of crunch going on behind the scenes even with the three-month delay (some would go on to lump Cats into the equation due to it also needing to be crunched out into theaters around the same time, though unlike Sonic, the results didn't pay off). In actuality, the shutdown was due to a corporate restructuring of their parent company Technicolor and taxing issue in the city.
  • Moe:
    • The finalized design of Sonic is generally agreed to look outright adorable, due to his large expressive eyes and his child-like attitude. Especially in contrast to the initial design, which was Ugly Cute at best.
    • Baby Sonic amps up the Cuteness Proximity more with its teeny tot size and Puppy-Dog Eyes, much like "Baby Yoda".
    • Jojo is such an adorable ball of sweetness who freely gives up a pair of sneakers (aka Sonic's signature shoes) to Sonic.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Robotnik crosses this line in the first act of the movie when he sadistically uses a Badnik drone to hold Tom at gunpoint for not fielding his questions and trying to hide "the anomaly", only narrowly failing to kill the man where he stands due to Sonic's intervention at the last moment.
  • More Popular Replacement: Human friends of Sonic have not really been sold well. Chris Thorndyke was disliked for being an unrelatable Spotlight-Stealing Squad and Princess Elise was disliked for being a Damsel Scrappy and having romantic interactions with Sonic. Tom, on the other hand, was warmly accepted by the fanbase for having a more relatable and dynamic personality, more moments of badass, and a cute fatherly relationship with the blue blur.
  • Narm Charm:
    • The Sega chant sounding operatic in the opening logos. For making such a big deal out of one of the most iconic sounds in video game history, it’s sure as hell to make one pumped up for the movie.
    • The idea of The Power of Love and The Power of Friendship normally would be a finger-gagging saccharine overdose that would make any filmgoer groan. However, what makes this so effective is that Sonic has been running for his life and his existence ever since he was 3-4 years old, and never on any world he has gone to has he been able to make any friendships or connections with any of the inhabitants, so he is understandably extremely lonely, which he shows early in the movie when he plays baseball by himself, and when he hits a home run... no one is in the stands to see it. Cue the tears when he starts to run around the bases at increasing speed in sheer heartbroken fury.
    • Sonic defeats Robotnik the same way he would in the games - by jumping on his flying machine until it explodes. It sounds overly literal for a videogame adaptation, but the film jazzes up the action enough to make it properly cinematic.
  • Older Than They Think:
    • An Echidna tribe was introduced in Sonic Adventure.
    • Longclaw is not the first owl character to appear in Sonic. Old Man Owl was introduced in the anime Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie.
    • The rings' utility as a warp transportation was introduced in Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics).
    • This isn't the first time in Sonic media that a giant explosion caused a wide-spread EMP. In issue #100 of Sonic the Comic, Super Sonic created a chaos energy explosion to escape his prison in the black asteroid, which also resulted in a planet-wide EMP.
  • One-Scene Wonder: Tails' cameo happened for about a minute at most, yet it got so much publicity that his cameo was almost pushed into Just Here for Godzilla territory.
  • Pandering to the Base: One of the more bizarre criticisms directed towards the movie was that the director's attempt at doing this with regards to Sonic's initial Unintentional Uncanny Valley design would set a bad precedent for the rest of the film industry, claiming that fans should not have this much of an influence on the filmmakers' decisions. This is still mostly drowned out by those who see Sonic's second redesign as a positive, though, as it's hard to imagine the movie being as successful as it was if the first redesign had been kept.
  • Questionable Casting:
    • The announcement that Jim Carrey would play Dr. Robotnik (Eggman) had fans initially call it a brazen case of both Stunt Casting and miscasting. While Carrey's signature slapstick and Large Ham persona are fitting for a character like Eggman, his voice and physical appearance aren't.note  However, reactions to his actual performance in promotional material have been much more positive, with many saying he's quite clearly having fun with the role. Plus, an interview where he describes Eggman's obsession with Sonic (that the latter is innocence that he's chasing after, but can never have) has been met with praise, saying he gets the character. Further praise came once the film actually came out and Carrey proved able to capture not only Eggman's comical side, but his genuinely threatening and dangerous side. And by the very end of the movie, he not only has the look down (sans body shape) but the voice down too.
    • Regarding Ben Schwartz's casting as Sonic, some fans were upset that Roger Craig Smith would not be reprising the role he held since 2010, while others pointed to Schwartz's extensive voice work, including his voice performances as Dewey Duck in DuckTales (2017) and Leonardo in Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, as a cause for enthusiasm for his portrayal as the hedgehog. It also helps that Schwartz himself is a huge fan of Sonic, and couldn't contain his excitement when his casting was announced, as well as the fact that Smith gave Schwartz his approval. When the initial trailer came out, people criticized his vocal performance, arguing he sounds too old and rather bored as Sonic. Following the second trailer featuring Sonic's updated design, he received a far more positive response overall, which demonstrates both far more of his vocal range and the eccentric, upbeat personality he gives to Sonic. This view became solidified when the movie was finally released, with Schwartz's performance frequently placed besides Carrey's as being one of the best aspects of the whole film.
    • The Latin American Spanish, German and European French Dubs got flak as well over their choices over who to voice Sonic. The former two picked YouTubers ("Luisito Comunica" and "Julien Bam", respectively) while the latter picked comedian Malik Bentalha, causing fans of those regions to think they were picked just because of their fame, due to their outright non-existent careers at voice acting prior to this movie. German and French fans complained the most as they already had well-established voice actors for Sonic due to the games being dubbed there (less so for Latin America where this doesn't happen, instead arriving in English or European Spanish dubs).
  • Rooting for the Empire: In the original trailer, Robotnik gets the best lines on account of Jim Carrey evoking the height of his '90s Large Ham comedy days, and his design looks decent◊. Compare that to Sonic, who's pretty bland in the first trailer and his design◊ lives in the Unintentional Uncanny Valley. This made a lot of fans root for Robotnik early on. This does not happen in the actual film, as Sonic's much cuter and more game-accurate redesign coupled with Ben Schwartz' voice-acting made him incredibly likeable and sympathetic, while Robotnik, though charismatic and Laughably Evil as can be, is a pitiless and thoroughly despicable sociopath.
  • Signature Scene:
    • Sonic's one-hedgehog baseball game where he realizes that he'll always be alone.
    • Sonic's Bullet Time run through the bar and messing with the patrons.
    • The Robotnik dance. Jimmy really hams it up.
    • The ending scene that shows Robotnik stranded on the Mushroom Planet, looking and even sounding more like his game appearance, all while he plots his revenge.
    • Tails' surprise cameo during the mid-credits scene.
    • Before it was even released, the most infamous scene being Sonic saying "Uh... meow?" when Tom encounters him for the first time.
  • Signature Song: Most people of the film's target audience most likely first heard "Where Evil Grows" by The Poppy Family from this movie, having turned into Dr. Robotnik's unofficial theme-song for most people after seeing him dance to it in his portable lab.
  • So Bad, It Was Better: While the reaction to the second trailer, and, later, the final movie, was overwhelmingly positive from audiences, there are some detractors thinking that the original cut could've been a So Bad, It's Good masterpiece comparable to The Room, with the finished product looking like any other run-of-the-mill family film. Even Sonic co-creator Yuji Naka, who supported the redesign, expressed interest in seeing a rough cut of the original version. There's also the way that Longclaw's design was clearly intended to work alongside the original Sonic, and— while not bad per se— clashes badly with the new one. And, of course, there are the fans who are left wondering what Tails looked like pre-redesign, in spite of Tyson Hesse's claim that he didn't even have a pre-redesign look to begin with.
  • So Okay, It's Average: The general response from critics leans towards the positive end of "mixed", with a 64% approval rating on review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes. Critics who disliked the film generally said that while the film is far from bad, the plot is a Cliché Storm of a Human-Focused Adaptation while most of the jokes won't be appreciated by parents or an older audience. Conversely, critics who liked the movie praised Jim Carrey's Laughably Evil performance as Doctor Robotnik and the studio's decision to change Sonic's design, while simultaneously saying the movie wasn't exactly going to set the world on fire. General audience reception has been far more positive, however.
  • Special Effect Failure:
    • Even pre-release, the first trailer had fans noticing this. The CGI doesn't integrate well in the slightest, looking more like something out of a cheap DTV movie than a big budget film. The scene where Tom first discovers Sonic and the truck scene being standout examples. Most fans likewise compared it to fellow 2019 video game movie Pokémon Detective Pikachu, citing that despite the Pokémon's cartoon-y look, the crew actually took the time to make the Pokémon feel life-like, whereas here it looks like they barely tried. And even though the updated CGI is regarded as a major step up following Sonic's redesign, some shots still have him lit incorrectly.
    • Special mention goes to a brief shot of Sonic throwing a ring to catch a falling Tom and Maddie and warp them back home. They are clearly lying on their backs on a green screen on the floor, looking less like an effect in a professional Hollywood film and more like a game of Sideways Scene on Whose Line Is It Anyway?.
    • The effects in the film itself are much better, but there are still a couple moments of this; due to the relatively short period of time the SFX team had to completely redo the effects on Sonic to fit the new redesign, there are a couple scenes where he's very clearly been edited into the scene.
  • Spiritual Adaptation: Many fans are regarding the movie as a Live-Action Adaptation of Sonic X, based on how Sonic is a alien from another world who lands on earth and has to befriend some humans in order to hide from the government.
  • Tainted by the Preview:
    • The early previews about the film's story and the Earth-based setting, the troubled production in making the film, and the minimal amount of connection to the games that inspired it, comparisons to Super Mario Bros. (1993) and Masters of the Universe are common, as well as referring to the general quality of film adaptations of video games.
    • Regarding the original design/trailer:
      • The first teaser poster showing a silhouette of the Sonic design in the movie drew massive backlash upon release. And this isn't just from American fans, but also from Japanese fans, as well. Further adding fuel to the fire is the fact that Sega themselves and all three of Sonic's creators have criticized Sonic's redesign.
      • The fact that Sonic was silhouetted in the teaser poster led many to accuse Paramount of not being confident in the film or Sonic's design, with some even believing that the secrecy of Sonic's movie design is so that the studio could gauge audience reaction to the redesign without committing to it so that they could make changes to it. Of course, when the full design was leaked in a promotional kit, the backlash subsided slightly. It doesn't help that Tim Miller has admitted that Sega wasn't entirely pleased with their design of Sonic's eyes, which were one of the things conspicuously concealed in the poster.
      • Sonic's disturbingly realistic, muscular legs were already the most heavily-criticized part of the first poster, so the fact that they were the only parts of him that appeared in the second (which places the camera at about the level of Sonic's groin) didn't help matters.
      • Back when it was released, the first trailer received a frigid reception, with over 60% dislikes. It made the film look like a mishmash of clichés that have been done to death and/or poorly received in prior video game movies, origin stories, and Human-Focused Adaptations. Then there's Sonic's resemblance to a furry naked child, Robotnik's unfaithful and uninteresting design, a lack of any other Sonic characters like Tails or Knuckles, and a cringeworthy joke near the end (that did manage to work in the film proper due to additional context):
        Woman: Do you have your child in that bag?
        Wachowski: No. I mean...yes, it's a child, but it's not mine.
        Man: [disturbed] ...That's not your child?
        Sonic: [inside the bag] Smells like body spray and an old ham sandwich!
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Moving the setting to the real-world United States instead of either the United Federation or Sonic's world, note  along with the film being a Human-Focused Adaptation with none of Sonic's supporting cast of fellow Funny Animals like Tails, Knuckles, and Amy anywhere to be found gave the film an initial sour reaction from the Sonic fanbase, though it did die down a lot after it was established that Sonic's world does exist and looks gorgeous. Likewise, Tails does show up in the end, and the inclusion of the Echidna tribe strongly implies the other characters may show up at some point in any potential sequels.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
    • Some feel that Longclaw deserved far more screen time and elaboration than she was given, due to her role as Sonic's caretaker and the mysteries surrounding her backstory as well as how she came to take Sonic under her wing. None of which is explained in the film proper before she's apparently killed.
    • The echidna tribe's brief appearance gave little explanation as to why they're after Sonic beyond Longclaw explaining they were after his powers. Not to mention how they could conceivably connect to Knuckles' potential appearance in the film series.
    • Major Bennington is played by freaking Neal McDonough, who has plenty of experience portraying military officials. The number of scenes Bennington gets? One. That's it. Even more egregious when you consider his prominence in the trailers.
    • Ditto the Air Force Chief of Staff: acclaimed actor, no stranger to military roles, gets exactly one scene despite featuring heavily in the trailers.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The biggest criticism of the film is that it focuses too much on the Earth setting and not enough on Sonic's home planet, with many feeling it would've helped the film feel more in-tune with the actual game series. On the other hand, film writers Casey and Miller have stated there were indeed more explicit game elements in an earlier draft of the film, but these were cut to prevent the film from being too oversaturated with them at the cost of storytelling quality or budget.
  • Unintentional Uncanny Valley: This was the immediate reaction to the teaser poster depicting a silhouetted Sonic, with more realistic proportions that make him look more like a human with Sonic's head than anything else. The reveal of his full design◊ accentuated this perception, with his eyes looking too small and realistic for the rest of the face and his legs and shoes looking too cartoon-y compared to the rest of the body. Once the trailer came out and he was seen in CGI, audiences collectively winced at his human-looking lips and teeth, which are at odds with the rest of his head being nonhuman. Audience reactions were so overwhelmingly negative that, in a rarity for the movie industry, the studio responded by completely overhauling their main character's design. His final appearance was much more cartoony, turning him from disturbing to downright cute.
  • Unexpected Character:
    • With how much the marketing painted Sonic and Robotnik as being the only established characters from the franchise in the movie, it was definitely a surprise that it was the Echidnas who first hunted Sonic for his powers and forced him out of his original home. As a bonus, Tyson Hesse confirmed that the one who shot down Longclaw was Pachacamac himself.
    • Also completely out of the blue, Tails shows up in The Stinger looking for Sonic. Not only were there no hints of him appearing at all in the movie in promotional material or merchandise, but even the more credible Content Leaks beforehand completely missed his appearance.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: In spite of the short amount of time the visual effects artists had to replace the old design with the new one, Sonic is very nicely implemented into the environment, slight lighting errors aside.
  • Woolseyism: In the French version:
    • Robotnik's "keep being you... sless." line is changed to "Stay super... fluous."
    • It also replaces every mention of Olive Garden with "Italian restaurant", since the brand is virtually unknown there.
  • WTH, Costuming Department?: The promotional kit and leaked images revealed that Sonic wears really generic Nike sneakers in the film, leading some to wonder why he isn't wearing the Sonic branded sneakers that Nike already makes which look a great deal more like Sonic's in-game shoes. However, the actual trailer has Sonic wearing PUMA shoes that look much more like his usual ones. Then after the redesign, he is seen wearing new shoes◊ that more resemble his in game shoes.
  • Win Back the Crowd: Reactions to the first trailer — especially about Sonic's design — were universally negative, and the film was delayed to fix the design. After the second trailer was released, reactions to the design and the general tone of the trailer itself were overwhelmingly positive to the point it had the best likes/dislikes ratio for a YouTube movie trailer in three years. The opening weekend bore this out further, with Sonic outpacing even the best projections and ended up taking in more over its first four days in America than even Pokémon Detective Pikachu.
  • The Woobie:
    • The titular Sonic gets an Adaptational Angst Upgrade here. He was forced to leave his home planet when he couldn't have been older than five, with the implication that his adoptive mother was killed. He then had to live alone, in a cave, for ten years, claiming that he loves his life on Earth but is actually desperately lonely, using his Super-Speed to pretend to interact with other people, has clear abandonment issues and longs for a real friend. Eventually this all becomes too much to bear for Sonic and his Emotional Powers cause a blackout across half the country — and to make matters worse, this attracts the attention of the government, and has them chasing him for the same reason he had to leave his home in the first place.
    • Despite being allied with Dr. Robotnik, it's hard not to feel bad for Agent Stone. Not only is he not really evil since he doesn't do anything villainous, but he's probably Robotnik's most competent sidekick who does everything he's told and even manages to look after the Doctor's wellbeing at some points. So what does he get in response? He gets treated like shit by his boss who abuses him verbally and even physically at some points. And the one time the Doctor compliments him for doing something right it's by him being yelled at. Lastly, on top of being presumably arrested by the military at the end, one can only imagine his reaction to finding out that his boss mysteriously disappeared.

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