Film Discussion of the Week: The Sonic The Hedgehog Movie

Looks like I have some homework to do!

A 3 can be Sonic 1.
A 4 for Sonic Adventure.
A 2 for Sonic Lost World?

1 = Sonic 06
5 = Way past cool.

I’m giving it a 5 even though I’ve never seen it because it’s Sonic and I would have liked it anyway.

I love Sonic Next Gen aka "Sonic 06" so I give this movie Sonic 06/5, Metal Sonic alone earns that much.

Review time. Minor spoilers follow:

Back in the 90's, Sega attempted to bring a Sonic anime to television. There were only two episodes made and, after watching this, you might not be surprised.

When the Sega Dreamcast finally came out, Sega decided to splice the two episodes together and call it The Movie, to help promote the console. The video I bought came with a DC competition and a nice looking Sonic movie poster, which I still have to this day (it still has that new poster smell about it). On the tape, was a Voltron toy commercial and a trailer for Pokemon: The First Movie. Ha! Talk about conflicts of interest!

This movie is set in one of the many Sonic continuities, this time on the planet Freedom/future Earth with floating continents. The movie starts off, looking promising, showing us Robotnik talking to the sleeping Metal Sonic. But this atmosphere is flushed away by the movie that follows.

Sonic and Tails get called to the 'White House', only to find that Robotnik is blackmailing them with the President and his daughter because he needs Sonic to do something for him. Apparently, in the 'dimension' (not the word I'd use. Translation error, I think) of the Land of Darkness (actually the planet below all the floating continents that form the Land of the Sky), he was kicked out of Robotropolis by some kind of 'Metal Robotnik'. Robotnik claims Metal Robotnik set the Robot Generator to meltdown by sunrise the next day (but is later retconned IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MOVIE, to "sundown". Another translation error, maybe?). What Robotnik doesn't tell Sonic is that Metal Sonic is inside the generator, waiting for him...

The music is good, the artwork is detailed, but the animation cuts a few corners. The voice acting is bad and Tails sounds like someone holding their nose. Robotnik has a very weak Slavic accent, like the actor didn't care. I liked the action scenes and wished I saw more.

The supporting cast are terrible. Old Man Owl was unnecessary. Sera, the President's catgirl daughter, is a spoiled little bitch. She gets taken away by Robotnik, forced to watch him wreak havoc on the Sky Land, then when Robotnik offers her a wedding dress, she forgets it all in an instant. When she asks why, Robotnik tells her that he plans to make her his wife. She imagines them together, with a lot of little Eggmans, and her BREASTFEEDING one of them! Then she goes psycho! Later, when trying to save Sonic from Metal, she declares "I won't let you destroy the Land of the Sky, otherwise, I'll have to marry Robotnik!" Uh, what about your father and everyone else?

BTW that bit with the breastfeeding is just one of the 'moments' we have with her.

And then there are the many questions like: why would Metal Sonic force Old Man Owl to wear Sonic's 90's skater clothes? And since when did Sonic wear 90's skater clothes? How did Knuckles and Tails get themselves, along with the ruined Tornado, back home from the Land of Darkness? If Robotnik need Sonic alive to complete Metal Sonic, why does he try to kill him? Why does Sonic give Metal Robotnik THE FINGER? WHY DOES METAL ROBOTNIK SHOOT GLUE OUT OF HIS BUMHOLE?

This movie disappointed me. It's like they didn't know what they wanted to do with this universe, whether they wanted it serious or looney. Either that, or they should've laid off the sake. I give this a PINGAS and a WTFJapan out of 5.

Haven't seen the film but I appreciate how the animators tried to bring the spirit of TOEI's Sonic CD animated intro to the film. In my opinion they succeeded in capturing the look of it, so kudos for that.

5 would be Sonic 3 & Knuckles in that case.