[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtCtQpclpY8[/youtube]
After many years of anticipation, the Sonic Fan Film has been completed and is now available to watch online. The 20-minute live-action picture, written and directed by Eddie LeBron and released through Blue Core Studios has garnered much attention, in part as it sees Jaleel White voice Sonic the Hedgehog once more (for those who have been living under a rock, White voiced Sonic in The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and SatAM back in the 90s).
In the 24 hours since its release, the film has already racked up an ultra-impressive 200,000 views on youtube – if you haven’t checked it out yet, watch it above and see what all of the fuss is about.
Very disappointing film. The models clashed badly with the environment, Sonic’s model looked outright bad, the writing was bad, it was just…..uggghhhhh.
….i couldn’t agree more…..
And Knuckles has fingers!! WTF!!
LOL
How about that flirting between Sonic and the GUN girl?
I just threw-up a little in my mouth. Honestly they should just stop letting him have human interaction with girls at least. God, stuff like that makes me sick! >.<
^This
Is Sparta!
For a non-profit spec film, this was good. Could’ve been improved on, but I appreciate that Blue Core made this.
I can’t watch…my knowledge of Sonic fan projects leads me to believe this will lead to lots of nasty commentary about the creativity level of the fandom.
Sorry but…I didn’t like it…I don’t think it was that good to how everyone is strangely hyping it up to be. I didn’t have high expectations for this. But then it just got even lower for me, Cause the whole time I’m like “What the hell? what is going on? ” I’m constantly siting here questioning why did they go with this direction. It may be a Fan/Spec(whatever you guys come up with next) film, which it is assumed to be low budget, but that doesn’t mean it gets to get special treatment and its automatically good.
However it IS a good attempt and the fact that its free, but to me, it just seems they barely put in effort into it and spent money on things that shouldn’t really matter, Like Sonic’s fur…that just made it look weird and I question how they think its good. It’s like they looked at the models and said fuck it, instead of going back and tuning it up a bit.
The things that bothered me the most with this Film….Too many Internet Stars that are there for no reason. Seriously, I find them there just to be an attraction. It’s like “OH LOOK, ITS BRENTALFLOSS AND NOSTALGIA CRITIC, THAT MEANS ITS AUTOMATICALLY GOOD”….No…it doesn’t they’re just there for no reason really.
Another thing that bother me, and I mean the most, Was the CGI effects with the real-life background, The only time when it actually looked good was with the E-Series….but just no, it didn’t look good overall, it really clashes. It just seems Sonic show be in a full CGI or animation, because being truthful here Real-life and Sonic don’t mix at all. Especially the transition to how he saw Green Hill Zone from a real-life looking background, That just didn’t look at right.
The only thing I could seriously enjoy about this film, Was Eggman’s actor, who I must say puts on a VERY GOOD SHOW, and when Sonic is not in the film lol. And going back to the models, Eggman’s Stache wasn’t long for some reason…and Knuckles……has…..Fingered……Gloves??? I KNOW its a small nitpick, but my inner Sonic Fanboy had rage when I saw that.
Overall, It was a nice attempt, and I appreciate Eddie Leborn and the people who helped and I congratulate them for that….But no…It doesn’t work, and really I don’t think it’ll convince Sega either. Sonic is a cartoon, animation or even CGI is what makes him shine the most, real-life wont cut it, Pure examples are Doomsday zone(the CGI fan film, where the guy made over the weekend because he was bored.), Night of the Werehog, The sonic shorts in Unleashed, and the OVA. I want to like this, but just…….No…..
Well it’s actually very good for a fan film and has a LOT of effort. If you can’t see the hard work put into it then you are blind of what effort it takes to make a film.
That’s not to say that the film is all that great. But it doesn’t mean they lacked effort. There was plenty of that. Do you see how well the imagery looks? How well the audio is? The shots are beautiful. The camera work and lighting is great.
What was lacking is the story and acting. The animation was lacking a bit too, some places more than others, and that’s where it gets the excuse. Due to it being a fan film. For a fan film, it was great but some things still coulda been better. For a feature film, it’d probably be great for the early 90’sā¦ lol
However their ability to make Sonic look like he was actually there (in some of the shots) was pretty good. He just looked weird. lol
I would consider watching this if Sonic was NOT voiced by Jaleel White. It’s cool of him to join a fan project like that, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s the most overrated Sonic VA EVER, and the only reason people think he makes a good Sonic is nostalgia, ugh. He makes Sonic sound like some obnoxious and immature teenager who’s always trying to be cool and failing at it… which I suppose was intentional, since that’s the way Sonic was portrayed in Dic’s asinine Sonic cartoons. But that only makes things worse, since I just cannot stand Sonic’s portrayal in those shows. He wasn’t cool at all in them; he was an overgrown child who spent more time gloating and trying to be cool (ie: overusing annoying catchphrases such as “Way past cool!” (*cringe*) and coming up with immature nicknames such as “Robuttnik” and “Swatbutts”) than he did getting the job done. I’ll take any of Sonic’s game VAs (yes, even Jason Griffith) and portrayals (even his cheesy Heroes incarnation) over that crap any day of the week, thank you very much.
Really? Nitpicking on Sonic’s portrayal in the DiC cartoons? That doesn’t even have anything to do with the fan film. I’m not saying the fan film was good, it was pretty god awful, but honestly I had no problem with Sonic’s immaturity in the cartoons. Because he was immature; he was a clown to hide his insecurities. (At least in the SatAM portrayal, AoStH is another can of worms) Think about it: the only family he ever knew had been taken from him by Robotnik, so he dealt with it by playing the fool, using humor to mask his pain and avoid the issue.
That’s not nitpicking. That’s just his opinion. He’s just saying he didn’t like that portrayal. I don’t hate it as much as he does. I liked all 3 cartoons, some more than others obviously. I like Jaleel White’s voice. But at the same time I’m not deaf or blind, and I don’t disagree with any of the points made about how Sonic was anything but cool in those cartoons and those catchphrases SUCK but they’re recognizable and funny.
If I ever made a movie and gave him those phrases, they’d be references for nostalgia and I’d have a difficult time working them in.
It’s like if I made a Power Rangers movie, I’d make it where it could be taken seriously (the situation and the concept) and somehow work in the phrase “It’s Morphin Time” at least once without trying to sound TOO cheesy for nostalgia’s sake. lol
He didn’t really do that. He didn’t hide his pain when he was sad. He was also mostly cocky about things unrelated to that. He actually DREAMS about Chilli Dogs! lol He had his family taken from him in Underground as well, twice, technically, before finding his siblings but never finding his own mother.
Even then, it’s possible someone just doesn’t like that version of Sonic. I mean, thinking about it and then thinking about Sonic and Tails in Emerald Hill Zone at the beginning of Sonic 2ā¦ totally different. xD
I know is this a non-profit movie.But,this movie sucks.I mean,Dr.Robotnik,can you stick a fake mustache on your face?!Thats gonna make you look better.And Sonic.OMG,how much hairspary did you used?I rather to see they film this movie into CG .Anyway,I’m very disappoint at this movie.
Pretty nice effects for a fan film, I really liked the Gamma robots, the actors however, weren’t really all that great :/
Although seeing James Rolfe in there was a surprise and really made my day.
ZOMG, same here. Same with that guy with the glasses Doug Walker((He cannot pull off serious no matter how hard he tries, I still wanna laugh when he does facial expressions))
The film could of benefited more with a much higher frame rate. 24 frames per second is just not going to cut it especially if it is Sonic.
24 fps is the proper frame rate for a film, except in the UK. Then it’s like 30 or something like that…
At first sight, I was excited to see this but god is this terrible. Sonic’s model is flat out strange and some actors looked really wooden (I’m looking straight at G.U.N). Also Knuckles now has fingers we can see.
I thought is was poor and left a bad impression on the sonic fan base considering it has been viewed 283,000 times this has a negative impact on the Sonic franchise along with all the bad games… *sigh* why is Sonic plagued with horrible media?
Not sure how I feel about this. The mix of poor CGI mixed with real life footage felt strange. Towards the end when it showed Sonic running around a CG Green Hill looked a whole lot better than when he was interacting with the real world. Probably would have looked better if the whole film were like that, although I appreciate it would have taken more time to animate everything.
Jaleel made a welcome return even though his voice sounded slightly rough (probably down to his age and how many years he’s been away from the role of Sonic). However, I image if he had provided voices for a cartoon with animation to the standards of SATAM it wouldn’t seem so odd (as opposed to voicing a creepy hairy Sonic…)
It was cool so see James Rolfe make a cameo as it’s well known he’s a big time Sonic fan. The actor who played Robotnik was pretty cool too.
Definitely some cool ideas in this and it’s great to see there are people passionate enough about the Sonic universe that something like this is produced… but Knuckles with fingers? C’mon…
Ditto everything you just said.
I Liked it, It had flaws but it had good stuff too, like Jaleel did an amazing job voicing Sonic, Sonic was nicely animated and Robotniks actor was great, the bad well all the other actors were meh very flat and the cameo’s were a waste of time, too many cameo’s tbh. Sonic’s fanbase is screwed up I must admit, they all act like this was meant to be some big hollywood film, its only a fan film and it was done pretty well, even if it was a cinema film with a big budget, fans will still moan at the lack of certain characters or sonic’s blue is too bright or something like that. Remember people Sonic is a franchise built and made for one thing only : Entertainment.
Also : Yuji Naka liked the film.
*Sigh*…I HATE comments like these….
The fan film had flaws everywhere, and it being fan-made does not make it immune from criticism.I won’t just mindlessly agree with Naka just because he programmed Sonic in the video games for so long.
I consistently hate how anybody with ANY SMIDGE OF A NEGATIVE REACTION TO ANYTHING is instantly ousted despite their nature of commentary and thus must baselessly praise it just so they can stay on the safe side of the debate.
Freaking Sheep, Think for yourself, not hid behind others. If I thought the film was bad, I think the film is bad.
Oh I’m sorry. Yuji Naka liked this film? Back off everyone, an old Sonic programmer liked this film!
The most crucial part is the one that anyone with a long enough lunch break can do. The plot. What plot is there? Robotnik is triggered by literally nothing, Sonic comes out of complete nowhere, the environments clash, random mythos from both the comics and the games are slapped together with no sort of connecting tether, why is there a human population on the surface of Mobius, where are the other “South Islanders” if they include that mythos, why does Gamma exist when for a fact he was part of the E-100 series, a series that was created during the events of Adventure, the endless cameos did not help the film, and the dialogue was the stalest I’ve ever heard.
When the pure center of ANY enjoyable movie, the writing and plot, are terrible, then the movie is terrible regardless of what effort went into it.
You know, I’m actually thinking he probably liked it for it’s quality being made by a fan in terms of the technical work behind it. Not in terms of writing and acting.
It’s sort’ve like fan games. While fan games are actually pretty good, you can tell when a fan game is a fan game. It’s just got some slop to it somehow. At least to ME. Like, there’s always something about it that makes it feel like it’s not professional and you can tell. lol idky.
I appreciate the effort and the concept is good, but it does feel like they just said “Good enough” and called it a day.
I know you’ll all hate me for saying this but…that was amazing. Best explanation of before Sonic 1 ever. And excuse my asking but isn’t Knux voiced by Egoraptor?
Actually as a prequel to Sonic 1 is makes no freaking sense whatsoever
Why was Knuckles off Angel Island?
Why was Gamma there? Hell why was there an army of Gammas?
THREE Egg carriers? before Sonic 1?
Egman has three Chaos emeralds?
This dosnt make any sense, and just throws in random references, no thought was put into making this a prequel
I think it did have some amazing points when you look at it overall.
But it didn’t really explain anything. o.o
I found this to be kinda awesome. I mean, there are a lot of flaws like Sonic’s model and the G.U.N troopers Power Rangers-like acting, but for a bunch of fans, quite impressive. I liked the music score too. Knuckles fingers were weird too. But I still really liked this, it’s not like I could do any better myself lol.
That depends on what you mean by that. You mean do any better designing the models? Any better recording the audio? Any better shooting the film? Any better casting and directing? Or any better with lighting or writing?
Cuz if I had the money and the crew, and I was the writer and/or director, I think I probably coulda done a little better.
I probably coulda done at least as good if I were in the other things. Since I know how. But those other things are fine. The part that faults I think even Eddie coulda done better.
Good luck to his next film tho. š
Sure some of the models were a bit dodgy, Sonic looked a bit weird and the pacing was a bit off… but have I ever made an 18 minute live action/CGI film? No, well then shut the hell up Me! ;-D
I was surprised to a see the geek cameos, and I really liked the weathered an worn robot/ship designs, plus the genocidal xenophobic Dr Robotnik was fun.
As an artist and someone who knows how hard 3D animation can be, I can’t bitch about something that was a bit off, but essentially free and not that bad. Although, Knuckles did go uncredited… NOOOOOO
I hate the “Id like to see you make a short film!”argument
You can criticize something without having to upstage it personally you know
You say argument, I say valid point. The first thing I thought when watching the film was “hmm, the robots look a bit out of place, and the acting’s not very professional, and…” then remembered I will never make anything of this scale and told myself to stop being so picky.
I ain’t fantastic, but it’s not worth the ‘ruined forever’ nonsense I’ve been reading around the net.
Well you know what, I COULD write a better script. But I still say I dont need to have to be able to to say its a bad script.
not too bad. I liked to for the most part. I liked that James Rolfe and Doug Walker made cameos and how Robotnik was creepy as hell. also love how the outfits were done for the GUN soldiers.
I loved Robotnik in this. His ‘kill all the talking animals’ philosophy made alot more sense from a xenophobic angle.
lol yeah man Robotnik is pretty awesome in this… just creepy is all lol sort of the feeling I got from the SatAM Robotnik
…And what better day for this to be posted on the site than Freakout Friday, eh?
Um….hello…. hello…can anyone here me…please I need to know if anyone could pick up the phone….
BECAUSE!! I!! FRIGGIN!! CALLED IT!!!
Cameos on a Disney film is better than this. Hell, a Christmas Special told through animatics is better than this.
Someone tell Mr. Lebaron that Visual FX will not save your movie alone. You need a little something called Writers.
Oh god… what have they done to sonic?!?
“Kill it”
of all the worst things that could happen, this is THE… WORST… POSSIBLE… THING!!! DX
Just so my opinion doesn’t start any ranting,
I’ll just say this:
7 out of 10.
That is all.
BLARGH, KNIKERS WITH FINGERS
Really, why does that remind me of “BLARGH, SANC GREEN EYES” too much? Talk about nitpicky… Story, acting, fine, but Knuckles’ gloves? Really, guys?
In any case, sure, the film can be cringeworthy, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. š Props to LeBron for showing that such a concept can be done! If it does come true, then I can only hope it would be in the right hands… You know how Hollywood can get…
Ironically this reminded alot of what Michael Bay would produce.
Alot of unfitting military action, booming soundtrack, poorly paced script, wooding acting and pointless cameos. Hell in this 18 minute video Sonic only appears for 5 of them.
I think we can expect more from both Hollywood and fan films
We’re all kidding about that. Who the hell honestly cared about Knickers fingers? The point everyone is trying to make is that the plot was bad and the writing was horrible, not Knickers fingers.
my god knuckles has fingers!!
Well it’s not very good, but it’s not unwatchable or anything. So it’s better than I expected but worse than I wish.
I really enjoyed this film and I honestly don’t care about its flaws. Jesus guys, show some respect.
I definitely was expecting a little more, especially with all the hype and it taking 2 1/2 years and all, but overall? It wasn’t bad. Sure, every time I saw the hairy Sonic model up close I cringed, and there really wasn’t much to the paper-thin plot, but overall it was pretty goddamn impressive.
THEY SHOULD HAVE AT LEAST GIVEN HIM THE SONIC HEROES-SONIC UNLEASHED VOICE ACTOR!!!!!
They should also at least worked a bit better on Sonic’s quills…
Out of ALL the things you could have complained about with this film, you ended up picking the 2 least important of them all…. Just glorious…
If anyone cares as to what my thoughts are on this… you should probably check out the SSMB thread where most of my thoughts are.
But this is a bad film, and when I say bad film, I mean the basic film-making process, it’s just so bad in every way that it could be about anything and it still wouldn’t be a good movie. And no the fact it’s a ‘fan-film’ doesn’t excuse the problems I have with it as they mainly boil down to how you use the camera and create a movie as apposed to ‘that CG looks so fake.’
I agree,I rather see They making this movie into animation.Coz Sonic&Robotnik looks horrible in ‘real world’
Im going to be honest, i didnt expected the way this movie to end up as it did.
I found the effects suprar and the story was boring.
Though coming from a fanfilm, is quite impressive.
I didn’t like it much but it’s just a fan film so not worth getting annoyed about. It was a good effort and I appreciated all the cameos from internet people, even if they weren’t used very well.
As usual, you people are too damn negative. – –
Everyone seems to think they qualify as a critic these days. >>
Erm, anyone CAN be a critic. Its called having an opinion.
Having an opinion and just whining and nitpicking aren’t the same thing.
The word “opinion” keeps being used as some sort of barrier or excuse to say whatever people want, regardless of how thoughtless, baseless, or downright uncalled for it is. That shit needs to stop.
Well actually…
The vast majority of the comments I have read on this are quite justified. I’ve only seen one or two comments from people which would be considered unjust criticism.
However… when I try to find justification from the people who think this was good… I’ve yet to see anything which extends outside of ‘AVGN was in it!’
I’m a fan of AVGN, but didn’t even notice his cameo until I watched a commentary. He’s nothing without his pocket protector. NOTHING.
It is not perfect but i enjoyed it and i dint think the story was that bad. I have read really bad fanficts that is worse than this story. Is there anyone on here that have read My immortal? It is so bad that i cant stop laughing! XD
I would think Sonic fans would be grateful for a film like this but considering the fan base i’ll shut up now
I find it rather offensive that people offering critique of the movie are being shot down just because of it being fan made. Fan-made or not, it failed on the basics of movie making. You can love it or hate it, but AS A FACT this movie did not meet the plot reqs.
People are Nitpicking the living crap out of this film.
I liked it, and im not afraid to admit it.
7/10 for me as well.
I liked Sonics personality and how he was written
I liked the music
I liked eggmans actor
I enjoyed the cameos (I didnt see them as a cop out, WHY NOT put cameos in there…)
I liked the CGI
I liked the mixed sonic universe stuff
I liked Jaleels performance
I thought the acting was good for a low budget film
I appreciate the hard work that was put into this
There are things I didnt like but they have already been said.
Felt like I needed to stick up for it a bit
And for the people saying after 2 1/2 years you expected more…
I just dont get it…
The film making process is VERY LONG.
The people in the industry get paid to make films and it is THEIR job!
Its what they do for a living.
The people who made this did it for almost nothing.
I am IMPRESSED that they were able to even finish this…
2 1/2 years is completely reasonable.
It’s 16 mins. If it was longer I would understand, but it’s 16 mins.
They were paid.
They got a ton of donations and they’re still asking for donations now even though the project is over.
Guys, I’m not sure if you noticed but Sonic Underground is now available on iTunes in the U.S. for some odd reason O.o here are the links: https://itunes.apple.com/us/tv-season/sonic-underground-vol.-1/id564058562
https://itunes.apple.com/us/tv-season/sonic-underground-vol.-2/id564060012
Eh, it’s…. nice.
Not immensely good, but every Eggman scene here is fantastic. The E-100 robots look great, so I’ve got no complaints on the bad guys’ end. And I won’t be redundant and call Sonic’s model bad.
I think the greatest weakness in this guy’s animation is his lack of weight in the models’ interactions. Sonic doesn’t bounce off badniks, he hovers over them while they explode. No recoil, no momentum, it’s something carried over from his Megaman film, and it really takes me out of the moment. I certainly glad I watched it, though.
It was better than I expected from watching the trailers, but that’s not saying much. I still say Sonic looks too much like the Werehog from the front. I noticed later that the extra hairs were actually supposed to look like a real hedgehog’s spines, but I would have preferred something a little more traditional.
I did like the battle droids, the Egg Carrier, and the actor who played Robotnik. My favorite part was when Sonic ran around Green Hill Zone at the end. It would have been nice if there was more of that and less of Sonic just running around a generic wooded area.
I’m surprised nobody mentioned this point regarding the plot:
IT’S HEAVILY BASED ON THE U.S. CANON.
Well what’s wrong with that? I was raised on the U.S Canon , the mascot with a tude was the whole reason I loved Sonic in the first place and that canon gave birth to the Archie series. So why is this a problem?
Because it just shows how invested he really was in the property in the first place. It shouts:
“Hey Sonic fans, I’m going to make a movie about him!! …Now I never actually played a single game but I used to watch the cartoon! Ya know BACK IN THE DAY when he was voiced by Urkle and Robotnik was really evil. Yeah, I’ve seen a few Youtube vids about the new games, and it looked alright, but I hate how they turned Robotnik into ‘EGGMAN’. That is so lame! I want my movie to be like my CHILDHOODZ!!”
Congrats Eddie. You just joined the ranks of every other Hollywood hack who’s only experience with video games are the following: An arcade machine. An NES. A Playstation. and an XBOX.
A lot of people are saying things to the effect of “It’s not as if I could make anything this good!! Stop being so harsh!!”
Ask yourself this though – if you had studied film and considered yourself a filmmaker, and you had a crew of other people who considered themselves experienced in their own fields (be it sound, lighting, camera-operators etc.) and you had money donated to you through Kick Started, Indie-go-go or what ever Blue Core Studios used – could you do better then? Because that’s what these guys had going for them. Additionally, they worked with ‘professional’ actors (apparently).
The Good:
– It’s an ambitious project that actually got completed!
– Some of the action sequences were pretty good (the missile part for example).
– The CGI on the badniks and E-series robots was very good. Sonic wasn’t bad, although he moved oddly and had a ridiculously big mouth!
– The Green Hill sequence was pretty cool (although it didn’t blend in with the rest of the film at all!)
– Robotnik – this actor was by far the best part of the movie!
The Bad:
– The script. WTF? This had amature fan-film written all over it. Piss-poor dialogue that sounded like it’d been written by a 10-year-old, and NO PLOT WHAT-SO-EVER. Just a series of unexplained events that let to a random action sequence. I sincerely believe I could write a better script in the next hour.
– The actors. Most of them sucked. This movie was like something you’d see on the sci fi channel at 2AM. I cringed throughout. The GUN soldiers didn’t seem to have a clue what they were doing. There was no formation to them. It just seemed to be a couple of people holding a rocked launcher with two on a random look out. There wasn’t even anything about. And those robots make big clunking noises – you’d hear them a mile off. Why so on edge? I’m pretty sure that if you sent those guys to an actual war they’d be dead in minutes.
– The mixing together of games, TV shows , old games, recent games and the UK comics was a daft move that wasn’t going to appeal to anyone! Especially since this was meant to be a prequel.
– Why give Knuckles fingers? They must have known this would piss everyone off. Either that of judging by the overall poor-quality of his model, he was just stuck in at the last minute and they couldn’t be arsed making a completely new hand.
– The score was too serious (as was the film). There was nothing ‘Sonic’ about it.
– The sound design was very poor – this is often an afterthought in low-budget/amature/independent shorts. This couldn’t be more true here.
– Recurring green-screen explosions that you can get off YouTube looked pretty naff.
I have following this movie for years and really wanted to like it. Good on the team for completing it, but this is just your stereotypical fan movie. A letdown!
Well, it was bad, but not really for the nitpicky reasons a lot of people are saying. I really didn’t care about:
-Knuckles had fingers. I personally think the oven mitt thing would look kind of silly in live action.
-It’s not based on “insert specific version of sonic here”. Even Sega can’t keep things straight in relation to Sonic’s world and its consistency. If anything needs a bit of interpretation and reworking, it’s the story.
I can kind of see where he was going with the merging of different versions. He just went about it completely wrong. Really, the most important thing is that you get Sonic right, and you get the tone right. Sonic was done right for the most part, unfortunately his dialogue was worthless. The overall tone was a disaster as well. A torture scene? Seriously? Just because an incredible director was able to turn a stagnant franchise into The Dark Knight Trilogy, doesn’t mean the same will work for the world of a Blue Hedgehog and a mad scientist.
Apparently anyone who dislikes this movie can have an opinion but if someone dares like this movie they get chewed out, lighten up! I give a 7/10 and
I won’t say anything about the production, because that’d just be met with “BUT IT’S A FAN FILM” which, okay fine. You’re not going to get the best acting, the most accurate military portrayals, or better blending between live-action and CGI on a fan-film budget, so credit where credit is due, the E-100 robots looked excellent.
But the biggest issue I could have with this is the tone and general direction. The only way you could really have Sonic coexist with normal humans is if you pull it off the way the Adventure series did, by not putting too much thought into it. You didn’t have people going “Oh man, is that a giant mutant freak thing that vaguely resembles a hedgehog?” for the first half hour of the DC/GCN/PS2/Xbox games. They were there, they’re known heroes, no one really questioned it more than that. Other than that, there is no non-cringeworthy way of handling Sonic’s interactions in a serious setting. Sonic 06 tried and we know how that ended. Sonic X did, but got away with it by being a cartoon. The Archie comics can do it simply because it has 20 years’ worth of established universe to back it up.
I don’t get why “Live action movie!” has to mean “Serious business drama with military units thrown in.” Just because Transformers did it doesn’t mean every single other live-action adaptation has to follow in the same direction. If you’re going to make a Sonic film, don’t mix it in the human world unless you -really- know what you’re doing, and don’t make it such serious business. Sonic’s appeal is his Bugs Bunny brand of “cool.” If the surrounding setting is too serious, his trademark cheesiness instead of being a part of his character, instead sticks out like a sore thumb and makes everyone cringe. Why put yourself into that hole?
Rewatch the intro to Sonic CD, rewatch the intro to Sonic Unleashed, read the manuals to the genesis/megadrive games, watch the trailers for Sonic Generations, and get a sense of how Sonic should be portrayed in an animated setting. Don’t just try and recreate Sonic Adventure but “more realistic,” Sonic 06 already tried that, Sonic X already tried that. And definitely don’t just shove references into every hole you can. The screen in the background labeled “MARBLE ZONE” was cool. “The Blue Blur last sighted in the Green Hill Zone,” was a bit forced. Not every forest in every fan work ever has to be Green Hill Zone.
From a technical standpoint, especially with consideration to whatever constraints inexperience and tight budgets the production team might have had, this was really well done, and you can see the effort put into it.
From a “But can you call this ‘Sonic’?” standpoint, the answer is no, no you can’t. I don’t know what this is. It looks like someone played Sonic Adventure, got the complete wrong idea of the Sonic universe, and, after a week or so reading through the Sonic Wiki, decided to make a movie out of whatever story elements had the least cohesive relevance to each other.
Props to Jaleel White for being a part of this. I enjoyed his performance. The lines might have been cheesy, but that’s really only a problem because the rest of the movie is trying too hard to be serious.
Stop nitpicking about continuity errors. It’s not supposed to fit into the storyline. It’s an indie film exploring the concepts of a reimagined Sonic continuity.
As soon as the title said “Sonic” not “Sonic the Hedgehog” I knew it was going to bad.
I really enjoyed this film. I thought it was fun and if I had a choice to see it completed, I would want to see a full length feature film on this. All this film needs is a little cleaning of the sharp edges. This movie is well put together for just a fan film.