For the "There's a fish on my head" bit, Ben Schwartz took inspiration from co-star Jim Carrey's Dumb and Dumber.
Tom still can’t believe everything that’s happening. That the alien is real, and that some madman pulled straight out of science-fiction threatened them with attack drones. Sonic presents himself and explains about the portal rings (more advanced cultures use them to travel between worlds – hey, what do you mean we’re not advanced??), and that he needs them to leave Earth. Tom stops the car on the side of the road and tells Sonic to find San Francisco himself by going west. Sonic speeds away… and returns wet, with a fish on his head. He crashed right into the Pacific Ocean.
...Did he really run from Montana to the Pacific, a 14-hour drive... in 3 seconds??!?
Considering how far Montana is from the Pacific, it should have taken him more than a minute to come back.
Sonic: Instant joy. Tom: Instant regret. I don't blame him.
Tom, you should have told him to go southwest! With an angry Sonic pleading for help, Tom relents and agrees to drive the hedgehog to San Francisco. Woo, road trip! Classic ‘90s trope, alongside the “you might be wondering how I got here” from the intro! If Google Maps is to be believed, it’s a 15-hour drive... assuming Green Hills is close to the bottom edge of Montana.
Late in the evening, Tom stops at a gas station to call Wade from a phone booth and tells Sonic to wait in the car. Oh, you don’t tell that to a kid with ADHD. Especially not when the station is right next door to the Piston Pit, a biker bar that looks like the coolest damn thing the poor lil’ hedgehog has ever seen.
He makes even speaking on the phone look threatening.
Tom talks with Wade, but learns that Robotnik, Stone, and several secret agents are in the Green Hills Station, listening in. The doctor grabs the phone and threatens Tom. I love the detail that, of all things he could be mad about, Robotnik hates to be punched in the face. Which Tom did, earlier. Like, I get that it’s a basic tenet of this Robotnik’s worldview of using the machines born from his brains to beat down any brawns, but specifically, getting punched is a trigger he carries since childhood. And for all his intelligence, he does NOT have the emotional sanity to respond any other way than “must hit back tenfold”. Tom hangs up in the middle of the doctor’s tirade.
Sonic, don't bother. You're never gonna get a high number on a disguise roll.
He returns to the truck after buying snacks, only to find the truck empty. He sees the Piston Pit… “Oh crap” doesn’t begin to describe it. Yep, Sonic’s in there, disguised with nothing to really hide his non-human-er… ness. This is a bar, so Sonic, a kid, shouldn’t even be allowed in here, as a waitress points out to Tom when she comes by their table. He makes up a dumb lie and, well, I doubt she believes it, but she lets them stay. Fine, they can relax. Tom offhandedly mentions Sonic can take that off his bucket list, and explains what a bucket list is when his young friend asks about it.
"Take a wild animal" may be on his list, but he's gonna have to make do with what he's got nearby.
This convinces the hedgehog to make a list of his own, but midway into the exercise he realizes there’s so much he wants to do on Earth, that he can’t do if he must leave. Growing fond of the kid, Tom suggests they can spend an hour in this bar to do some of those things. Compete in a sport? There’s a dartboard right there; too bad Sonic can’t focus enough to be a good shot, compared to Tom's bull's-eye. Tame a wild animal? That mechanical bull isn’t going anywhere. Do a slam dunk? This bar’s got basketball hoops. Learn a dance? There’s the dance floor. Embarrass Tom publicly? ……wait, what? He gets that one done too.
How tough is this guy's head that he doesn't even feel it? Either that, or the hedgehog isn't actually there giving the hits, but that option is just ludicrous.
Sonic has crossed a decent amount off his list after an hour. However, some angry guys come up and try to intimidate them into leaving, because they think the two are hipsters. Sonic tries to intimidate back with all the bravado of his 3’3” stature (actually, he’ even shorter since he’s younger here). He grabs a bottle and, mimicking bar fight scenes he saw through the Wachowskis’ window, tries to break it on the bigger guy’s head. No sell. Well, good thing “starting a bar fight” was on his bucket list!
The world isn't actually still - but it pretty much is.
Tom is outmatched, but just as he was about to get attacked, Sonic enters a "hypertime" whrere the world around him slows down, as though time was suspended. In the ensuing second, he wreaks havoc, putting Tom out of harm’s way, moving several bar brawlers where they’re no longer a threat, stopping just long enough to consume a whole plate of chilidogs, and shoving a bear head onto the big guy. When time restarts, the hedgehog gets to see the results of everything he messed with – giving him and Tom plenty of time to run away and drive off.
The “strengthen the budding friendship with your new pal by fighting in a place full of people” scene was so nice, they had to do it twice – but that’s in the sequel, I’ll get there. Also, if Sonic can basically stop time to do whatever he wants, is there really something that could stop him? I mean, aside from something just as fast as him?
Robotnik’s Mean Machine
I know he's so fast he can look like he's in multiple places at once, but even THAT feels exaggerated.
Tom and Sonic drive to a motel, where they stop for the night. Tom lets Sonic go loose in the room, then when the hedgehog falls asleep, he tucks the kid in bed. It’s so weird to me to refer to Sonic as a kid, I’ve pretty much only ever known him in games as a teenager. But yeah, kid fits just right for this one. The cop then looks at the news, to see he has now been declared a domestic terrorist and is sought by authorities all over the country. Uh oh.
Nah, don’t worry, they still get their night of sleep.
Meanwhile, Doctor Robotnik has not only figured out their path, but even their stop at the bar. He and Agent Stone interrogate the bully about Wachowski's whereabouts, but they don’t get a direct answer. The man must think they’re hipsters, too. I wouldn't blame him For his troubles, the guy gets tossed through a window by a very impatient scientist. Despite that, it looks like the villains did get their answer; Robotnik even calculates the heroes' exact position. He sends an armored robot tank to hunt down Tom’s truck, while he monitors the events from the confines of his mobile lab.
Oh yeah, Robotnik is having fun.
Somebody's hunting a big game.
Meanwhile, our protagonists reach California. Sonic asks Tom about his own bucket list, and Tom admits that he wants to move to San Francisco to be in the heat of action, where his job as a cop can feel meaningful. That Green Hills is a small town, the kind where nothing happens, and he’s barely even needed. Sonic is outraged, accusing Tom of leaving his friends behind. That’s when a harpoon smashes through the back window and into the car’s radio. Sonic, still upset, is too busy admonishing Tom to acknowledge the danger, and his emotions once again get the better of him, causing his quills to spark.
Wham!
When Tom speeds up to dislodge the harpoon, his truck jerks forwards, and Sonic is thrown off. The hedgehog rolls into a ball and discharges all his extra energy just as he hits the tank, which is sent flying. Sonic is dazed for a moment, but comes out fine, even celebrating with Tom over this victory. And of course, because that was the de facto “youth dance” Hollywood knew to signify someone was “hip”, Sonic flosses. Also the origin of the “How are you not dead?” meme. I do think it is interesting that, for most of his life, Sonic hasn’t discovered the extent of his power, since he hadn’t needed it. Ties into the “origin story” feel of this film.
Are we at the point where flossing has become cringe, or...?
Keep fighting this matryoshka doll robot until it finally stops coming back!
However, from under the tank sprouts a smaller vehicle that chases the heroes. That one is equipped with homing mines that shoot electromagnetic pulses. Great for stopping a car dead on the road. They avoid those, too, and Sonic uses one of the mines to break the second machine… which comes back as an even smaller one on a single wheel. That’s what I meant about this Robotnik, something we don’t get to see often with classic Eggman: A plan, a backup plan, a backup plan for the backup plan, and then two more. (Oh, and he offhandedly mentions that he was paid by the government to make that thing, so his genius Is rewarced, which is a great detail about this version.)
That technbology is really... cutting-edge. Ba dum tshh.
Tom lets Sonic drive (bad idea) while he deals with the robot. And when that one is broken, it splits off again into a flying orb equipped with a laser powerful enough to cut through metal. It cuts the truck's roof off. Sonic grabs and dismantles the little thing, only to be left with a sticky bomb stuck to his hand. Tom pulls over and tries to help Sonic, only to be stuck with the bomb instead. Sonic takes it back and won’t even take his glove off to get rid of it. (This is a remnant of the script back when the gloveless Ugly Sonic was in the film; it’s funnier now, turned into a nod that Sonic has never been seen without gloves.)
"Sonic, just take the glove off!" "Over my dead body!"
When he finally ditches the little ball on a stone, it explodes right behind him. Tom, who had been tossed to the ground from the boom, hurries towards his friend and makes sure he’s still breathing. He sees only one solution: Get to San Francisco. Sure, that hedgehog’s an alien, but maybe his veterinarian wife can help anyway.
Mythology Gags Everywhere
Oh, there's some subtext between these two. The sequels upgrade it to full-on text.
Right after Robotnik’s tank and its five forms were defeated, Agent Stone comments on the duo’s resilience. His boss, angered, threatens Stone and once more talks about his machines’ superiority over humans. I have a fair bit to say about Agent Stone, especially in how the wider fanbase has “adopted” him into the canon as one of the unequivocally beloved human characters created for the films, but… that’ll wait until the Sonic 2 article. In that altercation, Robotnik notices that the quill, which Stone had on him, was glowing due to Sonic using his energy spindash earlier. Powered by his thirst for knowledge and science, the scientist puts all his focus on the quill.
Sliiiiiiiiiiide
And here is something I kind of failed to mention through three whole parts: The film’s attention to detail, or at least, its attention to referencing as many elements from the Sonic franchise as it possibly can. Not just in its characters and designs. Sometimes, it’s as simple as referencing gameplay mechanics from the games. Sonic is seen running on walls during the final battle; the way he slides under a bus is identical to his pose when sliding under a low wall in several games; and so on. Names of locations from the franchise are hidden around, like Hill Top (Zone, from Sonic 2 on the Genesis).
This extends to split-second poses. In the motel room, Sonic is seen balancing off the edge of a wall fixture, like he does in some 2D games when he’s just at the edge of a platform. When he’s surrounded by missiles homing on him in the climax, he’s looking at his watchless wrist like he does when some 2D games are paused. The film goes so far as to use poses associated to Sonic… in the Super Smash Bros. series, of all places!
There’s so much to find, if you’re willing to look.
Right there, on the left, "Crush 40". Also, I should be sad for him that he has a playlist called "Dinner for one", but... it's Robotnik, so... nah.
What reminded me to talk about that? When Robotnik gets some music playing while he studies the quill, he has at least two playlists labeled “Crush 40”, a band closely associated to the Sonic franchise. Mind you, he also has a playlist labeled “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”, and another called “Obscure 1970s Canadian Jams”. I bet Carrey suggested that one; in fact, he’s the one who suggested the use of The Poppies’ “Where Evil Grows” for this scene. He’s having a blast as Robotnik, and you can tell. Watch him be silly with his machines and improvise a dance while pretending his head was eaten by a holographic T-rex. Dude’s in shape. This entire scene is fun, and that’s practically a prerequisite in a Sonic movie.
Always so helpful, that... uh... first-name-less Stone.
Robotnik got so caught up in dancing that he yells when Agent Stone shows up with steamed Austrian goat milk lattes, with the mad doc angrily admitting he likes how his assistant makes them. That amounts to admitting that, despite his high intellect and “done it all” personality, there are still things he can’t do and is perfectly fine accepting output from humans… on his own terms, anyway. Looks like that exception goes for music, too. Robotnik’s machine finishes studying the “sample”, and finds it contains basically infinite energy. Yeah, he can use that…
See ya in Part 4, with even more topics I’ll go on tangents about – all related to this film. …What? I’m thorough!
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