Jay's Chatterbox: Some thoughts on Sonic

Hellooo, fiendish friends! I would like to take a moment to talk about something I found pretty interesting. Something maybe not everyone would be interested in talking about. Or, possibly, extremely interested in talking about. Sonic does have some extremely dedicated fans, after all.

But when I went and saw The Batman, it came as no surprise that the trailer for the second Sonic movie came on. And this got me thinking about the first one and everything that happened in the production of it up until its release. And I think this is actually a pretty interesting piece of internet history.

So, here we go!

For those who forgot due to everything that happened to the world shortly after the movie's release, here's a recap: Sonic the Hedgehog was announced as a movie. Everyone had mixed feelings about it up until the release of the model for Sonic. Then, everyone was much less mixed. So much so that the studio went back and reworked him to look a little closer to his classic look. Everyone was happy, everyone saw the movie, and it was a good time. Exactly what you would expect out of a Sonic movie.

But it was so successful, it got itself a sequel. Complete with the next two fan favorites; Tails and Knuckles. And Idris Elba as Knuckles? Perfection

Is this a strange thing to happen? Not really. Movies get sequels all the time. It's more about the fact that fans were pretty much able to convince (bully) a studio into reworking a design. Would Sonic have been as popular without it? Probably not.

Sonic also did something that, up until this point, had rarely been done before. It made a watchable video game movie.

Now, an argument I've always had is Sonic is not strictly video games. He was also a few popular Saturday morning cartoons as well as a comic book. It's pretty similar to how Pokemon goes. But unlike Pokemon, Sonic is always the center focus. With Pokemon, the center focus changes from Ash, to the player, to some other trainer.

Does this mean I don't count Detective Pikachu in this? No, I am. That's why I say “rarely.” (also, it was Ryan Renyolds guys, c'mon. It won out the gate.) Also, no one was screwing up on Pikachu's design, which makes it a little less interesting.

But, we move onto the sequel. We have two new players. We have Jim Carrey Robotnik. What we're watching is a pretty close adaptation to the games themselves, if you ask me. And that could lead into more of the issue with video game movies. It's a little concerning, but that's not gonna stop me from seeing it.

But that's what I got for you today, folks. Just a few little things that have been on my mind. At some point after its release, you'll find a review about the movie. And someday soon, I'll probably come back and talk about the less watchable video game movies. (Looking at you, Mario Bros 93!) But until then...

Fare Thee Well!