Jim Sterling (The Jimquisition)

That trailer just left me with a lot of questions, and not in a good way.

It's weird that they assert that Sonic's been fighting villains who want to steal his power all his life, but they also reinterpreted Dr. Robotnik/Eggman to be a mundane human scientist from the mundane human world that he's just meeting for the first time. So who's been trying to steal his powers before now?

Speaking of whom, it's weird that they reinterpreted Robotnik/Eggman to be from the mundane normal world, yet are still playing him up as a wacky Mad Scientist cartoon supervillain. Like. Is this mundane normal person world or not? A normal person world doesn't produce cartoon doomlaser microbots.

But the thing that really gets me is what's not in the film. No Chaos Emeralds. No Tails or Knuckles or Amy. It's just Sonic and Robotnik. Which gives me the alarming feeling that they're reserving a lot of stuff for the sequel they're probably not going to get. This feels like an overly-optimistic "franchise-starter" film.

With an Everyman protagonist because the people making this movie felt really embarrassed about making a Sonic the Hedgehog movie and thought there had to be a white dude Everyman character or else audiences wouldn't be interested. The whole "Sonic travels to the REAL WORLD to fight REAL WORLD DOOMLASER ROBOTS with his best pal Whitebread Doucheman" premise just screams, "I did not want to make this movie, I drew the short straw, please don't put this on my resume."

Like. For real. How you gonna have Sonic bragging about "fighting for his friends" in the trailer and then put none of his friends in the movie?

I mean, the vast majority of these types of films have the bland human everyman accompanying the fantastical characters fans actually want to see. That's nothing new, and par for the course unfortunately.

The vast majority of films in general tend to have a bland Everyman main character. At some point years ago, someone convinced all of Hollywood's producers that every film's main character, every single one, had to be an Everyman figure played by the blandest white dude you can possibly sign.

It's that kind of weird Hollywood "Everybody Knows" common-sense logic that never actually holds up at the box office that white dude Everyman characters are a surefire way to guarantee success in your movie. You can always tell a producer's not really sure about a given movie when they've stapled an Everyman to the premise.

Some movies are built with an actual Everyman plot in mind. He's a chosen one or an outsider perspective or something. But others are just, "Hi, I'm Bob. I'm here to give the audience someone to relate to, 'cause they sure as hell aren't going to give a shit about anything else happening in this film! Ahaha nervous laughter...."

Which doesn't necessarily guarantee a movie's failure or anything. But it's never a good sign when an adaptation starts hedging its bets to find other appeals in case you don't like the material they're working with. The best adaptations make no apologies for the material they're adapting. The Lord of the Rings doesn't care if you think elves are silly; Legolas will skateboard a shield down a staircase shooting orcs if he wants to and you can't stop him.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Nov 12th 2019 at 5:36:25 AM

It doesn't help this was done before in X, and nobody liked Chris. The relatable characters are meant to be Sonic's supporting cast. Sonic's the pinball protagonist that can be in any situation, any premise and his raw charisma and fun-loving attitude carry the protagonist spot while remaining static, and it's his supporting cast that gets the substantial character development and spotlight stories.

The Adventure and Storybook games highlight this best, especially the latter, where Sonic can remain the same as he always is, yet bounce off the new settings and familiar characters in ways that make him fun to watch.

It helps that the cast embody a lot of different archetypes you can latch on to, from kid appeal sidekicks, brash rivals, cooperative friends, geniuses, tomboys, reserved sugar and ice types, a trio of screwball detectives, there's something for everyone, and in the center is sonic holding it all together.

I must be the only person who didn't mind Chris, even with his many mistakes.

You're not the only one. Chris got a ton of characterization come the third season. Even Eggman called the boy out on his selfishness. The thing is, he was a shut-in kid before then and had to actually slowly develop character. He's not popular, but he actually was realistically developed for being friends with fantastical creatures. It's also one of my favorite showings of Knuckles, who had a good heart and believed others had good inside of them, and he was right; Eggman absolutely had good inside of him, but doesn't often choose it.

I didn't mind Chris that much. But mainly because he's not the worst "shoehorned human character in a series ostensibly about fantastic beings" I've seen.

That would be Kicker from Transformers Energon.

Chris was just boring to me at first, inoffensive but unremarkable. Then he started stealing the spotlight from the rest of Sonic's friends, including some of their iconic scenes from the games, and I came to dislike the character over it.

Season 3 made him a lot better by aging him up and keeping him a side character.

I remember how Chris decided Sonic couldn't go home because he'd be alone again,makes him a Woobie scrappy honestly

Sonic is a franchise I don't "get it".

I mean, Sonic is a Mascot with Attitude franchise about anthropomorphic animals in an idyllic world fighting a Mad Scientist and his robot army. I think that's compelling (it certainly is to younger age demographics, good lord) and those of us who did grow up when it was at its height will most likely have nostalgia glasses for that premise. Mechanically, the twist that sets Sonic apart from other 2D platformers is momentum. The player has to accumulate and manage their momentum in order to traverse the (large and explorable) levels. This doesn't translate as well to 3D games, which is why they've sorta struggled, and some of the 2D games have likewise failed to click with the fanbase if that specific momentum mechanic isn't done right.

I've seen a vid before comparing Sonic to Mario on this front. The vid came to the conclusion that Mario's had more success than Sonic in the move to 3D because Mario's core gameplay mechanics are Boring, but Practical and very easy to build upon. Sonic otoh has the momentum mechanic to build upon, which is more complex and difficult to handle.

Another one I heard is that Mario was trying to be "fun" and Sonic tried to be "cool", though while it IS good point(lots of cringy Sonic storylines seems to be result of that), I don't fully agree with it since "cool" is "fun" depending on tastes.

That vid pointed out that the problem with "cool" is that it has a limited shelf-life.

That's why I prefer Mario to Sonic. Even Mario's worst games that aren't the most obvious whipping boy are merely "okay." Mario's got talented, consistent devs behind him.

Also I wouldn't mind bland human tagalong characters in films involving fantasy characters if, well, it didn't extensively focus on the bland human bloke more than, yanno, the title character. Fucking looking at you, Michael Bay and your first Transformers movie. And the second Beastmaster film.

As I've pointed out above, Sonic is a Mascot with Attitude - which is now largely a Discredited Trope and limited mostly to the mid-90s. Very few straight examples have survived that period and mostly still feel kind of dated: Rachet, Sly Cooper, Crash Bandicoot - their current popularity (and this goes for Sonic too) depend on a hefty dose of nostalgia to supplement the qualities that made them stand out from the pack in the first place.

Mario is ... kinda dull? This has the advantage of giving him a fairly timeless quality.

Edited by GoldenKaos on Nov 13th 2019 at 2:03:30 PM

Kinda like Mickey Mouse. Also I remember Miyamoto said that Mario and gang are akin to a sort of theater group that play different roles like Popeye. So we can get Mario and Bowser fighting to the death for the fate of the universe one second then golfing like buddies the next. I like that, really.

Also, like the redesigned Sonic but if hte movie puts more focus on his bland white bread human mate instead of, well, Sonic, then we got a problem.

That said, I can't imagine this movie turning out worse than the Mario Bros. movie.

So Sonic will at least have that to lord over Mario.

Actually, I think that'll be this movie's downfall. See, the Mario movie is a remarkable kind of bad. The kind of bad people watch for the sake of cringing. This Sonic movie, it seems like it'll just be unremarkably boring and safe. It'll be the Emoji movie: bad, with people complaining about it's existence for a week, and then everyone will promptly forget it existed because it really left no impression on anybody. Meanwhile, everybody will always remember the Mario movie.

A lot of people are forgetting that Japanese Nintendo fans respect the Mario movie in some weird way. Even Miyamoto said he liked it since it did its own thing rather than copy the games to a T.

I remember kinda liking the Mario movie when I watched it as a child with no real knowledge of the Mario games. Always was a fan of weirdness for it's own sake, though

On the Sonic movie, people who've seen test screenings described it as being unexceptional but reasonably good, with Jim Carrey's performance being the standout element

yeah that's what I think. The Sonic movie will probably be more technically competent, but not enough to make it actually good, so it'll just rot in mediocrity.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Nov 13th 2019 at 10:39:12 AM

Pretty much my expectation too.

If anything, they should have kept the Manhog design. It would have made the whole thing more memorable. Horribly bad and terrifying to look at, but memorable.

For a second, I thought you guys were talking about the Illumination Mario movie. I was confused for a second then remembered oh yeah, that crappy live action movie exists.