New Sonic trailer, with updated design

[Bartmanhomer]

Say what you will about the Super Mario Bros movie, the casting was on point. Bob Hoskins and John Leguizzamo would have completely sold Mario and Luigi in a better-written movie.

The Super Mario Bros movie was a meh movie in my opinion.

[Traab]

Say what you will about the Super Mario Bros movie, the casting was on point. Bob Hoskins and John Leguizzamo would have completely sold Mario and Luigi in a better-written movie.

People sometimes like to talk smack about john but I tend to enjoy him in movies. I even found him really well cast in that romeo and juliet movie. "Peace? Peace?! I hate the word. As I hate Hell, all Montagues... and thee." Yeah the entire film, ESPECIALLY the starting scene was beyond absurd, but he did a really great job imo of being the intimidating "Oh no, TYBALT is here!" kind of guy. (I also loved the idea of setting the film in modern times with the original script)

[Peelee]

People sometimes like to talk smack about john but I tend to enjoy him in movies.

Whaaaaaa? Dude always gives a quality performance! I'll fight those people, Leguizamo's always awesome.

[Anonymouswizard]

Sonic not causing nightmares has killed my interest for seeing this in a cinema.

The thing that annoys me is that, if you want a) an origin story and b) a human main character, why tell Sonic's origin? I have little interest in knowing Sonic's origin, I suspect the game versioon is 'sonic be fast, one day Dr Robotnik started turning animals into robots, Sonic decided to save them'. The origin I want to see is Dr Robotnik, what drives a man to try to take over the world with hamster powered robots? What happened to make him embrace the name Eggman? Why does he keep leaving the Chaos Emeralds in Special Stages instead of in a safe on a space station?


The other things that could make me want to see this film are Mighty, Ray, and the complete removal of all dialogue. Mainly because I think M&R deserve more focus and because the removal of dialogue would make it more like the games I enjoy (consistingof Sonic Mania and occasioally thr first three).

[LaZodiac]

Sonic not causing nightmares has killed my interest for seeing this in a cinema.

The thing that annoys me is that, if you want a) an origin story and b) a human main character, why tell Sonic's origin? I have little interest in knowing Sonic's origin, I suspect the game versioon is 'sonic be fast, one day Dr Robotnik started turning animals into robots, Sonic decided to save them'. The origin I want to see is Dr Robotnik, what drives a man to try to take over the world with hamster powered robots? What happened to make him embrace the name Eggman? Why does he keep leaving the Chaos Emeralds in Special Stages instead of in a safe on a space station?


The other things that could make me want to see this film are Mighty, Ray, and the complete removal of all dialogue. Mainly because I think M&R deserve more focus and because the removal of dialogue would make it more like the games I enjoy (consistingof Sonic Mania and occasioally thr first three).

That's what they're doing though.

Like it's pretty clear Sonic doesn't have an Origin in this film, and that Eggman starts more serious and "realistically" dressed, and slowly deranges himself as he licks that quill of Sonic's he has (WHY WOULD ANYONE DO THIS BY THE WAY?????) so... yeah. You're getting what you want, AND Sonic is a nightmare amalgam.

[Anonymouswizard]

That's what they're doing though.

Like it's pretty clear Sonic doesn't have an Origin in this film, and that Eggman starts more serious and "realistically" dressed, and slowly deranges himself as he licks that quill of Sonic's he has (WHY WOULD ANYONE DO THIS BY THE WAY?????) so... yeah. You're getting what you want, AND Sonic is a nightmare amalgam.

Like a Robin Hood film with the Sherif of Nottingham as the main character? I can get behind that kind of film (although I do think it's suggesting Eggman is starting halfway through his origin story). Although it is being billed as a Sonic Origin Story, which makes me worried they're not going to focus on Eggman enough to give us a truly good Eggman Origin.

Side note: what's the big deal with origin stories? I don't care what the hero's origin is, I want to see them doing hero stuff! If I have to sit through one more Robin Hood or King Arthur film that insists on being an origin story I'm going to get angry, just start it in Sherwood Forest or Camelot (also, bring back Robin Hood the yeoman, not Robin Hood the noble).

Anyway, back to Sonic. I'm really unsure about Eggman as shown by the adverts, a lot of whether or not I enjoy this film is going to be based on how serious versus silly Eggman is. Serious all the time would of course be a disaster, but Eggman to me has never been a 100% silly villain and so I'm going to need some straight laced villain scenes alongside 'wacky fun stuff'.

[DigoDragon]

As to the trailer best so far, but still movie looks forgettable. Not horrid as compared to other kids movies but one that is just meh.

I'm wondering if the lack of other Sonic characters is because they want to put them at the end as a sequel hook. If so, that annoys me because really this movie could use a few more Sonic characters and less humans.

Say what you will about the Super Mario Bros movie, the casting was on point. Bob Hoskins and John Leguizzamo would have completely sold Mario and Luigi in a better-written movie.

My heart will always be with Lou Albano and Danny Wells.

[Velaryon]

I have no interest in seeing this movie whatsoever, but now I'm starting to feel slightly conflicted over it. Changing a movie in response to audience advice is very admirable, and something I wish more studios would do - so now I kind of want this movie to do well.
Not enough to actually watch it, I think, but still.

This pretty much encapsulates my feelings about the movie. I like that they responded to feedback and made changes, but I still think it's a bad concept and that Sonic, while certainly an improvement over the original design, still looks a LONG way from good.

I've yet to see a CGI-cartoon-anima-in-a-live-action-movie that looks at all good to me. I'll take Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Space Jam, even Coolworld over Detective Pikachu and Sonic any day.

People sometimes like to talk smack about john but I tend to enjoy him in movies. I even found him really well cast in that romeo and juliet movie. "Peace? Peace?! I hate the word. As I hate Hell, all Montagues... and thee." Yeah the entire film, ESPECIALLY the starting scene was beyond absurd, but he did a really great job imo of being the intimidating "Oh no, TYBALT is here!" kind of guy. (I also loved the idea of setting the film in modern times with the original script)

It's been 20+ years since I was forced to watch that movie in high school English class, but from what I remember John Leguizamo is the only person who put on a consistently good performance throughout the film. The guy playing Mercutio got it together pretty well for his death scene, but for the rest of the film he was pretty mediocre and everyone else was pretty bad throughout.

My heart will always be with Lou Albano and Danny Wells.

Same here, at least for the live action segments. As a kid I never saw the Super Mario Bros. Super Show on TV but I did have VHS tapes of a few episodes. It wasn't until I got the show on DVD that I discovered every episode was pretty much the same plot over and over, but the live action segments still hold up pretty well and are funny, plus the guests were always fun.

The movie, on the other hand, was terrible from start to finish.

[LaZodiac]

Like a Robin Hood film with the Sherif of Nottingham as the main character? I can get behind that kind of film (although I do think it's suggesting Eggman is starting halfway through his origin story). Although it is being billed as a Sonic Origin Story, which makes me worried they're not going to focus on Eggman enough to give us a truly good Eggman Origin.

Side note: what's the big deal with origin stories? I don't care what the hero's origin is, I want to see them doing hero stuff! If I have to sit through one more Robin Hood or King Arthur film that insists on being an origin story I'm going to get angry, just start it in Sherwood Forest or Camelot (also, bring back Robin Hood the yeoman, not Robin Hood the noble).

Anyway, back to Sonic. I'm really unsure about Eggman as shown by the adverts, a lot of whether or not I enjoy this film is going to be based on how serious versus silly Eggman is. Serious all the time would of course be a disaster, but Eggman to me has never been a 100% silly villain and so I'm going to need some straight laced villain scenes alongside 'wacky fun stuff'.

PEople like origin stories because one, people like it when stories start at the beginning. The Origin is usually "the period right when the exciting stuff is about to start". They're also good for aclimitizing to the world, or getting to know the character if they're new. They're also good for Franchising, since an origin story can be fairly self contained.

I mean he's Jim Carrey. He's gonna either suck a lot or be a highlight of the film. It seems like the intent is that he starts 100% serious and eventually evolves into like, 80% silly over the course of the film.

[Peelee]

My heart will always be with Lou Albano and Danny Wells.

Different styles of media. Captain Lou was amazing, but Bob Hoskins would be better for a full-length movie. Hoskins would have been terrible in the SMBSS, though. Hell, the captain could have handled the whole 22 minutes live action if they'd let him. They're both fantastic Marios in their own rights.

[Anonymouswizard]

PEople like origin stories because one, people like it when stories start at the beginning. The Origin is usually "the period right when the exciting stuff is about to start". They're also good for aclimitizing to the world, or getting to know the character if they're new. They're also good for Franchising, since an origin story can be fairly self contained.

Yes, but sometimes, sometimes it's nowhere near the most interesting point of the story, especially if we've seen it before. I'm not sure if we've had a Sonic+Eggman Origin, so it might be worthwhile from that perspective, but it's about as simple a setup as 'Robin Hood ishiding in Sherwood Forest, the Sheriff of Nottingham is hunting him'. I don't strictly need to know why Robin is hiding in the forest to enjoy the story, because the characters are archetypal and there's a lot of things you can do with them.

Like, in this case I'm willing to give it a pass, but if we get another Sonic movie attempt in say five years and it's another origin story, I'll be annoyed in the same way that every Robin Hood film that's been released in my lifetime has been an orign story and annoys me (I didn't even bother seeing the last, because I like Robin Hood*).

Anyway, back to Sonic. Part of my problem is that I'm going to compare these to the Sonic Mania shorts, which I found really entertaining partially because they stuck to the very roots and kept things simple. Everything I've seen about this film seems to be 'we're making it more complicated, therefore we need an origin story to explain it'.

* What? It's pretty much the one English myth that is well known in other countries. King Arthur is Welsh.

I mean he's Jim Carrey. He's gonna either suck a lot or be a highlight of the film. It seems like the intent is that he starts 100% serious and eventually evolves into like, 80% silly over the course of the film.

I got the impression that he begins at about 40% serious and just plumets. Especially if that 'who's in charge here' scene is from early on. But who can say.

[Strigon]

Sonic not causing nightmares has killed my interest for seeing this in a cinema.

I'm sort of with you there. I still might actually see the movie, mostly because I like the theatre experience and because Jim Carrey looks like he actually might be entertaining to watch (in a low-brow, "let's turn our brains off and just enjoy some escapism for a couple hours" sort of way,) but as much as I respect their commitment to the redesign, I was most interested in the movie for the meme. Without that? I dunno, would anyone watch The Room if Tommy Wiseau weren't so awesome at being awful?
Seriously, I have no acting experience to speak of, but I physically cannot be as bad an actor as him. No matter how hard I try, I always make "Oh, hi, Mark" sound way more natural than he does. It's an eternal mark of shame for me.

... The origin I want to see is Dr Robotnik, what drives a man to try to take over the world with hamster powered robots? What happened to make him embrace the name Eggman? Why does he keep leaving the Chaos Emeralds in Special Stages instead of in a safe on a space station?

I always thought he hated that name, and Sonic called him that deliberately to antagonize him.

...
Side note: what's the big deal with origin stories? I don't care what the hero's origin is, I want to see them doing hero stuff! If I have to sit through one more Robin Hood or King Arthur film that insists on being an origin story I'm going to get angry, just start it in Sherwood Forest or Camelot (also, bring back Robin Hood the yeoman, not Robin Hood the noble).

Anyway, back to Sonic. I'm really unsure about Eggman as shown by the adverts, a lot of whether or not I enjoy this film is going to be based on how serious versus silly Eggman is. Serious all the time would of course be a disaster, but Eggman to me has never been a 100% silly villain and so I'm going to need some straight laced villain scenes alongside 'wacky fun stuff'.

I'm with you on the origin story front, too. Usually, I find them terribly boring, because they take about a third of the movie at least.
In some cases, they're necessary; most of the MCU heroes, for example, were unfamiliar enough to the general population to warrant them. But things like Batman, Spiderman or Superman don't need origin stories anymore. We all know how they came to be, and we don't need to see it again. Throw in a few minute of flashbacks for the people who are genuinely out of the loop if you must, but don't give us 40 minutes of an average guy, or someone who's just gotten powers but isn't doing anything.
Megamind did this very well; five minutes in, and we know all we need to know.
The new Spiderman movies did it even better - by not doing it. We still get to see his first real supervillains, but we don't have to go through the whole "normal Peter Parker in high school" shtick again.

Finally, that's what makes me genuinely hope for a sequel. That last scene in the original trailer? With bald Jim Carrey in the desert? I want more of that already, and it's clear we aren't going to get it.
The movie will never get a sequel, of course, because anyone genre savvy enough to care about Sonic will recognize how little effort was put forth into this movie, but I still want it.

[Zevox]

I always thought he hated that name, and Sonic called him that deliberately to antagonize him.

As far as I'm aware his own feelings on it or where the nickname originated in-universe aren't ever addressed. It basically came about because of a localization issue - in Japan he was always called Eggman, but the American localization of the Genesis games called him Robotnik instead, apparently without consulting the Japanese developers. When Sonic Adventure came around they changed it so that he'd be called Eggman everywhere, but it's technically a nickname, and Doctor Ivo Robotnik is his "real" name that just never gets actually used anymore.

[LaZodiac]

Yeah that's basically the idea. In the first cutscene where Sonic meets Eggman in Adventure he says something like "hey that's not my name" and that's all it's ever brought up with.

[Anonymouswizard]

Yeah that's basically the idea. In the first cutscene where Sonic meets Eggman in Adventure he says something like "hey that's not my name" and that's all it's ever brought up with.

He's actually a it stroppy about it, but yeah. It's pretty much an excuse to change to Eggman, but it's so weirds to just have the one line and not a more developed switchover.

[Millstone85]

it's so weirds to just have the one line and not a more developed switchover.

I believe Nintendo had a similar experience with localization:



Nice way to merge her Japanese and American names into one.
But, AFAIK, her "last name" was never mentioned afterward.

[Peelee]

I believe Nintendo had a similar experience with localization:



Nice way to merge her Japanese and American names into one.
But, AFAIK, her "last name" was never mentioned afterward.

When I played that as a kid I thought peach was the kind of cake she made.

[DigoDragon]

Same here, at least for the live action segments. As a kid I never saw the Super Mario Bros. Super Show on TV but I did have VHS tapes of a few episodes. It wasn't until I got the show on DVD that I discovered every episode was pretty much the same plot over and over, but the live action segments still hold up pretty well and are funny, plus the guests were always fun.

Indeed yeah. The cartoon was pretty silly, but Lou always felt like the best voice of Mario in my mind.

Different styles of media. Captain Lou was amazing, but Bob Hoskins would be better for a full-length movie. Hoskins would have been terrible in the SMBSS, though. Hell, the captain could have handled the whole 22 minutes live action if they'd let him. They're both fantastic Marios in their own rights.

I think Lou could do a movie, except for that little annoying detail that he's been deceased for quite some time.

I mean he's Jim Carrey. He's gonna either suck a lot or be a highlight of the film. It seems like the intent is that he starts 100% serious and eventually evolves into like, 80% silly over the course of the film.

Something my wife mentioned when she saw the trailer, and that I wonder too, is why didn't they have Carrey just look the part of Dr. Robotnik from the beginning? We both think Carrey could potentially be a great hammy Robotnik and possibly steal the movie, but waiting until much later in the movie to look the part seemed unnecessary.

[Traab]

For me the problem with jim carrey is, he either plays jim carrey in costume, or he plays a real role. I loved the truman show for example. It was a great example of the kind of acting he could do, but he tends to fall back into variations of fire marshall bill from In Living Color. Ace ventura, Me myself and irene, the grinch, the mask, (he was able to do kinda both with that too be fair, ipkiss was fairly decent of a character) and now this robotnik. Zany hyper mannerisms and exaggerated facial expressions combined with silliness.

[LaZodiac]

They have Eggman started sane (well, as sane as you can be if your immediate reaction to seeeing a blue quill charged with magical lightning is to lick it) is to show first hand WHY people are after Sonic's power tm, it's very powerful but also very corrupting. It's a way of making the movie feel deeper thematically.

[Rodin]

I got the impression that he begins at about 40% serious and just plumets. Especially if that 'who's in charge here' scene is from early on. But who can say.

That scene alone killed any enthusiasm I had* for this movie.

It's a scene that makes me want to punch both the character AND the writer who came up with the scene. It's offensively stupid.

It's also a scene that they thought was a highlight of the comedy good enough to put into the trailer. That's as good as the comedy gets. Can you imagine how much worse the rest of the comedy is going to be?

No, I don't think there will be anything worth paying money to see here. I do expect it to be entertainingly bad though. I look forward to seeing it torn apart on Youtube.


*not that there was a lot of it to begin with

[Zevox]

That scene alone killed any enthusiasm I had* for this movie.

It's a scene that makes me want to punch both the character AND the writer who came up with the scene. It's offensively stupid.

It's also a scene that they thought was a highlight of the comedy good enough to put into the trailer. That's as good as the comedy gets. Can you imagine how much worse the rest of the comedy is going to be?

No, I don't think there will be anything worth paying money to see here. I do expect it to be entertainingly bad though. I look forward to seeing it torn apart on Youtube.


*not that there was a lot of it to begin with

Very much agreed. Robotnik is one of the chief reasons (along with the "Sonic in the real world" premise) that even the genuinely much improved redesign and the far superior tone of the second trailer don't change my interest in the film, and that scene is Exhibit A for why, both for those reasons and because it makes it impossible to ever take the character seriously. And while Robotnik isn't a 100% serious Grand Admiral Thrawn type villain by any means, he's definitely not one you're supposed to find utterly idiotic and non-threatening either, which is where a scene like that leaves him.

[Floogal]

I don't know, compare the two 90's Sonic cartoons. On the menacing <--> goofy scale, "Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog" was quite far to the right, "Sonic the Hedgehog" was quite far the left. So there's precedent for a variety of interpretations. (Both had great voice actors for their roles.)

[Traab]

Plus, among his brilliant plans for defeating sonic he had a wrecking ball swinging around under his flying machine and that was pretty much his first try at killing sonic, it didnt get much less silly from there.

[Peelee]

So I've actually heard nothing but good things about this movie. To the point that I'm fully planning on seeing it now, which is a complete 180 and not something I'd have thought I'd say before it came out.

[flat_footed]

I have seen it, and will say I was very surprised how much I enjoyed the movie.

[MCerberus]

So I've actually heard nothing but good things about this movie. To the point that I'm fully planning on seeing it now, which is a complete 180 and not something I'd have thought I'd say before it came out.

It's very, very tropey with the base plot being pretty stock. It's pretty much carried by the tissue around that skeleton being done better than similar movies except the criminally underrated Rocky and Bullwinkle movie. So if you're okay with that and would enjoy peak Jim Carrey it's a solid watch

[Bartmanhomer]

I saw Sonic The Hedgehog movie last week and I'm going to tell you my review of the movie.

Spoiler: My Thoughts On Sonic The Hedgehog

Show

Ok Sonic The Hedgehog was actually an origin movie. Sonic comes from another dimension he was raised by an owl The Echinacea raids and shot Sonic adopted mother. He went to Earth and met a human named Mick Wachowski. (I think that his name.) He met and fought Dr Robotnik )(Eggman) who was thin with hair and a short moustache. Sonic defeated and send him to the Mushroom dimension. In the end, Eggman was fatter, longer moustache and bald. And Tails arrived at Earth to look for Sonic. This movie was good. I enjoy everything about it. I'm glad that they resigned Sonic even though I like the old design but that just my opinion. I enjoy it because the movie was funny and Jim Carrey did a good job performing Eggman. The only issue I have with this movie is just not award-winning material. I'll give this movie 4 out of 5 stars.

[Psyren]

Saw it (don't judge me, we weren't able to see Birds of Prey at the theater we went too and didn't feel like going elsewhere), and it was... fine. I had a lot of little nitpicks (how does Sonic know what things like Uber and livestreaming are from living in a podunk 100-person small town in Montana? And the whole roadtrip scenario strained disbelief too.) Sonic's dialogue and actions were also the sort of cringey "how do you do fellow kids" behavior that I expect a bunch of executives imagine Gen Z talks and acts like - e.g. Sonic does the floss dance, because of course he does - but as far as video game movies go I've seen much much worse, so this was... fine.

Sonic himself was a bit annoying, but James Marsden was funny and likeable, and Jim Carrey wasn't as bad as I thought he was going to be from the trailers. The origin of the "Eggman" moniker was fairly contrived but at least they got that out of the way.

The beginning with the owl felt like it belonged in a completely different movie.

[Lemmy]

I'm hearing mostly good things about Sonic. I think I'll use the holidays to see it.

Worst case scenario... I spend 90 min watching a dumb summer comedy. It's not like there's anything else to see, anyway.