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January 24, 2025

VGFlicks: Sonic the Hedgehog (Part 1)


Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4 – Part 5

Oh, this is going to be a big one. I knew it would be, I have so much to say about it. Besides, the time couldn’t be better, with Sonic 3 being in a hot competition with Disney. (God, I hate the very concept of Mufasa. I’m so glad Shadow kicked that movie’s teeth in, even if just for a few weeks.)

If you’ve been reading this blog since 2020, then you know that I’ve been rather closely monitoring the Sonic movie-verse, publishing a quick review of each film shortly after seeing it in theaters and even going out of my way to get the Knuckles mini-series on DVD. I have a soft spot for the film franchise, owing to reasons I’ll get into before discussing the movie proper. It helps that I’m a fan of the game franchise it takes its inspiration from. In fact, there is so damn much to say… I’ll get to it right away!


The background

Sonic has been a successful franchise since the ‘90s, so talks of a movie have existed since that decade. Live-action, of course; there has been one animated film in 1996. I won’t get through all the details, but after some time at Sony, the movie rights changed hands, landing at Paramount in 2017. Jeff Fowler was set to direct; it would be his live-action debut. He already had experience with the Sonic franchise, having directed the animated cutscenes for 2005’s Shadow the Hedgehog. Casting-wise, I won’t discuss the whole timeline of who joined when, other than Ben Schwartz joining to voice Sonic in August 2018, when principal photography took place the following month and ended in October. The finished product was set for release in theaters in November 2019.

Pictures resurfaced of concept art featuring other actors as the human lead, such as Mr. America’s Ass, I mean Captain America, Chris Evans; but he was likely too busy. James Marsden was announced in May. I only bring it up because of the picture.


Which shows a design not as bad as, but still relatively close to, Ugly Sonic.

Apologies in advance for the nightmares.
Phew. I knew I couldn’t discuss the film without doing a whole bit about this… thing. The small eyes, the more humanoid shape, those teeth… in my heart, I know I would never accept this as a Sonic. He’s way too far removed from the original, and this look reeks of trying to be too “realistic” while also being completely “alien”. It’s as though making the design pleasing to the eye was never a factor. It’s not like there was an excuse for doing something so different. Detective Pikachu came out in theaters a month after the first trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog dropped, and the Pokémon film’s updated “realistic” designs (involving fur and skin textures) were well-received, both in the film itself and in all promotional material prior to it. SEGA nor Yuji Naka weren’t big on design, either.

On the left: The GOOD version.
On the right: The Wish or Temu knock-off. Which one are
the kids making fun of these days...
Fan reception, though? Nuclear. Nobody liked the reveal. There were red flags just from the reveal of the silhouette. The trailer is, to this day, a source of mockery. The extreme reaction forced Fowler and the SFX team to readjust real fast, even bringing in Tyson Hesse, who worked on Sonic games and comics, to lead the character design change. The film, originally set for release on November 8th, 2019, was pushed back to February 14th, 2020 (a great time to release franchise starters, I’ve noticed), giving four months to toss out Ugly Sonic and have him replaced by a more faithful look. The change cost an extra 5 million $, and the visual effect companies charged with integrating Sonic had to work insane crunch hours to get the film ready on time. On the one hand, this was a positive change, as it turned the film from a guaranteed bomb and mockery into a success. On the other, I bemoan that we had to pass by that in the first place.

There was even a myth going around that the ugly design was a stunt on the film’s part, to stir up controversy and discussion, with the “good” design already existing and shelved for when reaction to the worse design drops. No such thing as bad publicity, yadda yadda. If that was true, it would be an utterly STUPID thing to do. Why would the film spend more money on a BAD design if the faithful one was RIGHT THERE from the start, and would have been showered in praise from Day 1? Also, much of the marketing up to that point, including merchandise, was based on the old design, which wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been the intention all along.

This one doesn't look too bad, but
you can tell which version it's
supposed to be.

(And hey, Ugly Sonic then showed up in that Chip ‘n’ Dale movie, so…)

So, the film comes out on Valentines’ Day 2020, and is a roaring success… in fact, probably the biggest success of 2020, considering it came out roughly a month before the Covid-19 pandemic got so bad that the whole planet friggin’ shut down. From late March to August (nearly half a year), movie theaters were closed. Which means that for several people, the Sonic movie was the last film they saw in theaters in 2020. (Heck, I think I didn’t return to theaters until 2021.) And though it stands on its own merits, the Sonic movie became a symbol of what we lost for a while, and what we “could” have lost as well – imagine if the film’s new release date had been in late March, or in April instead. Many movies either barely made their money back, or didn’t at all, due to being relegated to streaming services.

There are no slurs in the Sonic movie. None at all.
This is complete bullshit. And since it took me forever
to find this, I can only assume (I at least HOPE) that this
Tweet's author is embarrassed in hindsight to have
participated to this stupid goddamn feud, and has since
deleted it. But guess what? The Internet is forever.
I’m almost done here. I want to close with yet another story about this film’s release; namely, the DUMBEST pop culture feud I’ve ever seen. Sonic’s movie came out a week after Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), leading to fans of the DC villain-turned-antiheroine being big mad on Twitter (as it was known at the time; who cares if it’s called X now, it’s dying anyway) and defending Harley against the Blue Blur. Several Tweets came out, damn near copy-pasted, of “families” that went to see Sonic, heard a slur, left the theater angrily and demanded a refund, and went to see Harley Quinn instead. Did I mention that Birds of Prey is rated R, as in, “why the fuck would you bring kids to this”? I know some people live to create drama and be belligerent on social media, but for God’s sake, you’re not going to get mailed a gold star sticker from Warner Bros. for defending a movie against another that’s more popular. No kidding, this is one of the stupidest culture feuds I’ve had the displeasure of seeing.

I can finally move on to the film.

From His World to Ours

Considering these films are about a character so fast as to be
a blur, I'm glad there's gonna be at least ONE easy
screenshot to make for this review!
We open on a very 90’s-homage intro. San Francisco. A blue blur speeds through the streets, followed by a red one revealed to be a flying vessel. Coming closer, we see our main character, Sonic the Hedgehog, running between the cars in the busy streets, avoiding the shots from its pursuer, revealed to be piloted by a mad scientist in red with a mustache and goggles. Music stop, freeze-frame, Sonic does his own version of “you’re probably wondering how I got here”. And so, the film rewinds.

He brought a flower, AND friends! ...wait, no, uh oh.
Cut back to Sonic’s youth, in his home world. Checkered lands, loop-de-loops, if you’ve played a Sonic game, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Babby Sonic is Precious. Must protect. Sonic narrates about how life was perfect in that world, and how he kept using his abilities despite being told not to. He gets home to his guardian… a giant owl named Longclaw? Okay, that’s new. Too bad the movies are still reluctant, after three entries, to explain why Sonic had a great owl as parental figure. Even the comic miniseries from IDW Publishing, released between this film and its sequel, doesn’t explain much. The best we can surmise is that she was keeping Sonic safe from anyone who’d want to use his power with bad intentions.

She has to stay behind, no following to the human world.
Look at her size, every hunter will want her head mounted
on a wall over a foyer.
Their moment is cut by the arrival of enemy echidna warriors. Sonic accidentally brought them to him. Longclaw grabs Sonic ands flies off, but she is struck by an arrow and crash-lands. Longclaw tells the babby hedgehog that his power is too great, and he needs to stay hidden. The owl tosses a ring that turns into a portal, gives her protégé the bag full of portal rings, and sends him through before fighting the warriors coming for them. He runs back to save her, but the portal closes. He’s now stuck in this other world.

Either that thing's broken, or somebody's pulling a fast one
on him.
Cut to ten years later. Meet our human lead, Tom Wachowski (James Marsden), sheriff of the small community of Green Hills, Montana. Population: 1981. Slow day manning the radar gun at the speed trap. There’s not a car in sight. All he’s got is the occasional call from his colleague Wade Whipple (Adam Pally), whom we don’t need to care about just yet. Tom’s radar registers a 296-mph speed, and he's dumbfounded. He's unaware of Sonic, who checks the number and then runs by again to get a higher score. 300! When the officer leaves his car to investigate, he finds a blue quill on the ground…

Rockin'.
After Tom drives off, Sonic narrowly rescues a turtle, then takes it on a joyride (and traumatizes it). He then runs back to his burrow, packed with stuff he “borrowed” over the years. He’s not struggling at all! This comes with the caveat that he can never be seen, or else Earth may become too dangerous for him to stay. In which case, he’ll use a portal ring to go to the only world that’s still safe – a world with nothing but mushrooms. In the meantime, he’s happy living by the town and being their local supernatural mystery.

A new take on Sonic

Jeff Fowler mentioned in interviews that the goal was to adapt these characters into a new setting, rather than to follow these stories beat-for-beat. Sonic 3, released at the end of 2024, may be the movie that’s closest to its source material, and even that one makes large changes. We’re not here for an accurate recreation, but we do want a speedy blue hedgehog beating up a mad scientist and his robots. Everything else is up for grabs.

There's a lingering sadness born of this Sonic's backstory
that makes him so tragic, regardless of all the jokes he
keeps cracking.
I never have an issue with someone creating a new take on a character, especially if that character is very well-known and has several facets open to interpretation – that’s true of many retro video game heroes who started out as mimes with little personality. This comes with the territory of adaptation – translating from one medium to another often means changing traits. As long as the new version doesn’t break the character’s core tenets, I am willing to give it a chance.

Okay, but that 'fro though.

The Sonic we meet here is significantly different from the one we know from the games. For starters, he’s SO FLUFFY! He’s more fur than quills. You want to hug him. (In comparison, if I met Ugly Sonic, I’d pull out the flamethrower. Burn first, ask questions later.)

In some weird way, he IS watching over the town.
This Sonic’s new personality is influenced by his backstory. His mourning of Longclaw, which serves as a red thread across the franchise. His loneliness, caused by the fact that he spent ten years hiding on Earth, where he can’t really interact with people, but finds workarounds – this also showcases his resilience. His mischievous spirit; I guess you need to grow one if you have a power like super speed, which makes pulling pranks so easy. I don’t recall Games!Sonic being the nicknamer type, but this one is. He’s also got a bit of delinquent edge as well.

Well, at least we know he won't be taking a popcorn tax.
Perhaps the weirder deviation is just how much of a goddarned GEEK Movie!Sonic is. Having spent this long on Earth, he’s become acquainted with its culture. He reads The Flash. He loves Keanu Reeves movies – man, they really missed an opportunity to reference that in Sonic 3. He spends an inordinate amount of lines in every film referencing stuff he has watched or knows about, like The Fast and the Furious (…figures), Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Conan or Harry Potter. In the first few minutes, he name-drops Obi-Wan Kenobi and half-recites Spider-Man’s “with great power” mantra.

Oh, and he listens to Queen! That’s Don’t Stop Me Now, how does that song go again? “I’m a rocket ship, on my way to Mars, on a collision course / I am a satellite, I’m out of control / I’m a s… sex machine, waiting to reload, like an atom bomb-”… Sonic, this song’s too advanced for you! You’re not ready to hear about that yet!

He better have paid for that stuff! Also, "yeah, this one was
good, but I heard the one in Minnesota was better."
Moving on… One thing that’s never quite alluded to is whether this Sonic has attention deficit/hyperactive disorder. I could say “just look at him!” and stop there, but that wouldn’t be fun, would it? This is a change from the regular Sonic of the games, who never (or hardly ever) displays similar signs. Movie!Sonic never shuts up, can’t stay in place for too long, and moves from one activity to another in seconds. Attention span? Might as well not have one. But hey, maybe it’s a logical evolution of his power; when you can out-speed everything, the rest of the world feels slow. He just can’t help it. He does seem to be more focused in the next movies. Representation like this matters a lot to people who struggle with these disorders. So maybe it hasn’t been openly confirmed by Paramount; but if you have ADHD and see some of yourself in Sonic, and his own journey helps you grow and accept yourself, I call that a win.

Alright, that’s enough for today – let’s continue in Part 2.

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