Welcome back my dear paradise visitors, today is yet another day that my apartment is quaking on it’s foundations and that I feel like I am writing in a dwarven forge. So once more I need to resort to some low-hanging fruit of blogging. As the geeks that we are that opportunity arose when the new sonic trailer came out on the twelfth of november.
Redesign
Finally there some positivity on the internet! I haven’t heard a single person NOT liking sonics new design. I even heard little to no.. ‘better but still looks like doodoo’ type of comments. Credit where credit is due, this redesign is such a massive improvement in every single way. This feels like a live action Sonic. His shoes look the shoes the speedy hedgehog is supposed to wear and the blue blur also finally has gloves. The monstrous teeth are gone and even the eyes are fixed. By putting a patch of white fur under the nose the animators are walking a nice line of balance between biological possibilities and paying tribute to the original design. Even the personality seems to have gotten a bit reworked. The personality movie sonic now seems to have is that of the old tv shows. The adventures of Sonic. In terms of the video game universe it would allign more with that of “Classic Sonc’ compared to the more suave and cool “Sonic X’ personality. While movie sonic always felt more in line with the classic one, and from the offset throughout this seems like an origin story of sorts this trailer feels like an homage to Classic. While I like it I can see this becoming a bit more troublesome when we look at how this movie is made.
Who is it for?
While I am all about paying homage to the actual sonic I do think this rework and new trailer has brought a new issue to light. Who is this movie for? Jokes feel very slapsticky and aimed at the very young ones that carry on our legacy and make sonic a thing that can exist in the future. The thing is though, they don’t know Classic Sonic. Youth these days see the cool Sonic X guy participating n the olympics, they see Sonic Adventure 2 as THE classic. The kids of the fans of classic even might be a bit too old to enjoy this level of silly comedy.The movie caters to two audiences. The classic sonic fans and the kids of this day and age. While now it seems for the classic fans they have the right sonic this time around, the movie tone is somewhat off. It feels more like that smurfs movie back in the day than a movie for us millennials who chose the power of Blast-Processing and Saw that Sega does what Nntendon’t . Kids will enjoy the silly jokes and the action comedy moments of this movie.. but this is not their sonic. Theirs is a lot more bratty and would be more inclined to say..’ppppssssh , nothing personal kid’ rather then play baseballs with himself and make fun of himself. This is not their sonic. One can argue that little kids don’t notice but we really have to stop dumbing our kids down, of course they will notice.. they just don’t make angry salty tweets about it. ‘I saw this movie with the teacher…sonic did not have his scaff 0/10’ They aren’t that cynical yet. I get that this way you can combine both the old and the new viewers but to me it still feels like neither generation is going to absolutely love it. Clearly they DO care about their fans and listen so I feel like the clash in tones might make enough people dislike it enough not to see that sonic movie universe take root. Which is a shame because that first green hll one shot makes me wish we could get a second movie set in sonic’s world.
Love-Letter
That being said, I really like this trailer, I am simply concerned they are not aiming with enough focus to get a cohesive fanbase. The rest of this trailer feels completely different than the first one. The Gangsta’s Paradise trailer gave me vibes of Dragon Ball Evolution. They did not care about Sonic, or so it seemed. They butchered what made Sonic , the beloved character we all got so angry for. THIS trailer does, except for pacing it’s tone, exactly right. The music in the first half pays tribute to the Green Hill Zone theme and even more sonic music is used. ‘Super Sonic’ while not my cup of tea in music at least fits a lot better than friggin Gangsta’s Paradise. Sonic now has his classic elements and his speed has been showcased throughout the entire trailer in so many ways, with so many ways to convey his speed that it actually feels great. From the after images when he reads the comics, to the blinks to the light streaks it is all in this trailer. Jim Carrey as Dr Robotnik is also growing on me, mostly because he feels like a counterpart to Sonic, as he should be. The town name, road signs and even the way the rings are used all seem tributes to classic sonic. The way he uses rings to teleport is very much in line with how you enter bonus stages in Sonic 2 and so on. Kids might not get it .. but “they won’t notice because they are kids” Seeing sonic run on the great wall of China is a reference on it’s own and one could even argue the joke in the end of the trailer was kind of cute. Even little things how the Sega Logo is depicted as pixel art .. but each pixel s a moment of Sega history makes me feel that a lot of love for the franchise exists in the creative team and if not that they REALLY listened to the fans and REALLY nailed it on the head this time. The hedgehog has gotten some of the love he deserves.
Not CLEARED yet
The movie is not out of the woods yet though, I am eternally grateful that they listened and when I will go see this movie, which now I will and I tip my hats off to them foo all the work they did for the fans. However I am not fully convinced yet. Robotnik’s robots kind of lack their original charm and feel a bit too monotonous and not crazy enough, the tone of the trailer seems a bit too kiddy and some of the animation seems really sloppy. I get this movie is for kids but that doesn’t mean it has to be a looney tunes cartoon. The old sonic cartoons also had some dramatic moments it allowed the comedy to breathe. This new trailer throws joke after joke after joke. Aside from a few moments of action, which is no longer than 10 seconds total there is nothing but comedy, by the end it just feels sooo , in you face.
While these jokes tell you nothing about the plot and thus do not really spoil as much, as for example the first trailer kind of did at the end, like this it just doesn’t feel like an amazing movie to go too. As a result I feel about the same level of excitement for this as one of my favorite youtubes offering a special project o something.. or if I see people are doing a live action Dragon Ball Z thing in two months on youtube. I am excited to see it now, and I wasn’t before but I still think it will be mediocre at best. This trailer has convinced me 100 times over that it’s mediocrity from a good and well willing heart with a love for Sonic as well. That same heart might make me love this movie despite it’s flaws but that is something we will never find out in a trailer.
Pinkie's Paradise 