Hi, everyone. I'm Em, and welcome to Verbal Diorama, episode 294, Sonic the Hedgehog. This is a podcast that's all about the history and legacy of movies you know and movies you don't that talks almost constantly. Welcome to Verbal Diorama. Whether you are a brand new listener to this podcast or whether you are a regular returning listener, thank you for being here. Thank you for choosing to listen to this podcast. I am so happy to have you here for the history and legacy of Sonic the Hedgehog. And if you are a regular returning listener, thank you for continuing to listen to and support this podcast. This podcast has been running for six years now and very almost 300 episodes. We are so close to the 300th episode of this podcast. Huge thank you for your continued support. It genuinely means so much to me. So many people have been here since the beginning. I think there are still some people who started way, way back in the beginning in 2019, and they're still listening. And we've just been picking up new listeners along the way. If you are a new listener, you are very welcome here at Verbal Diorama. And if you are a regular returning listener, just huge thanks to you. I love doing what I do for this podcast and I love doing what I do for this podcast because you keep coming back to listen. So thank you so much. Last month on Verbal Diorama was Women's History Month. I mean, it was Women's History Month just generally. But also on this podcast, there were episodes on the Woman King, Elizabeth, Erin Brockovich, and I, Tonya. And there really is no way to segue from I, Tonya, to Sonic the Hedgehog. Except to say that Tonya Harding did skate pretty fast. Though a movie like Sonic the Hedgehog is a gold mine for a podcast like mine. All the history of Sega's constant battles with Nintendo, the evolution of video game cinema, and of course, after they did a Mario movie in the early 90s, which I've done a very fun episode on, by the way, it's episode 261. It's one of my personal favorites. Sega was also in talks to do a Sonic movie, because whatever Nintendo did, Sega also had to do, but with an emphasis on fun and speed. The problem was, and still is, to a certain extent, Sonic team didn't always know what to do with Sonic, and a drastic redesign of the character led to the old adage of all publicity is good publicity. But it could have all been very different for the Blue Blur. Here's the trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog.

Fearing his powers put him at risk. Sonic's guardian, a wise owl named Longclaw, gives him a bag of gold rings and helps him escape to the planet Earth, advising him to stay hidden and use the rings to keep moving. Fifteen years later, Sonic is living in Green Hills, Montana, lonely and craving friendship. He accidentally releases a power surge that causes a massive blackout and hides in the garage of local police officer Tom Wachowski. After discovering Sonic and accidentally tranquilizing him, Sonic loses his rings through a ring portal to San Francisco. Meanwhile, the US government hires the nefarious but ingenious scientist Dr. Ivo Robotnik to find out what caused the blackout. Robotnik soon discovers Sonic and his incredible powers. Wanting to capture him in hopes of using his powers to improve his army of evil drones and robots, Sonic turns to Tom for help, hiding from Robotnik and the US military and they end up on an action packed road trip to find the rings that would allow Sonic to leave earth and ruin Dr. Robotnik's evil plan. Let's run through the past. We have Ben Schwartz as Sonic, James Marsden as Tom Wachowski, Tika Sumpter as Maddie Wachowski, Jim Carrey as Dr. Ivo Robotnik, Lee Majub as Agent Stone, Adam Pally as Wade Whipple, Natasha Rothwell as Rachel, Tom Butler as Commander Walters, Neil McDonagh as Major Bennington and Donna J. Folks as Longclaw. Sonic the Hedgehog was written by Pat Casey and Josh Miller and was directed by Jeff Fowler. So I think the majority of the world knows a little bit of this story. In April 2019, a trailer was released by Paramount Pictures. A trailer for the long anticipated adaptation of everyone's favorite blue Hedgehog, a movie that had experienced countless delays, been put in turnaround by the original studio picked by Paramount, let's be honest, only so they could use the rings instead of stars around the mount. Set to the 90s rap hit Gangster's paradise by Coolio. Fans played the trailer in earnest and Sonic, with his long muscular legs, small eyes and surprisingly human teeth, broke the Internet ugly. Sonic was born and his birth caused a YouTube meltdown with dislikes and criticism piling high. How on earth could this have happened? People mused. How could you have a design right there honed over three decades of gaming and end up with a human hedgehog hybrid? Sega was established in Tokyo in 1960 by expat American businessmen Martin Bromley and Richard Stewart as two companies to take over the business activities of their previous company, Service Games of Japan. Those two companies, Nihon Goraku Busan and Nihon Kikai Seizo purchased all of the assets of the previous company which had provided coin operated slot machines to US bases in Japan since 1952. Around the same time, David Rosen, an American officer in the United States Air Force stationed in Japan, launched Rosen Enterprises, a photo booth business in Tokyo in 1954. In 1957, Rosen Enterprises began importing coin operated games into Japan and in 1965, Nihon Goraku Busan acquired Rosen Enterprises to form Sega Enterprises Ltd. The name Sega was an abbreviation of service and games. Shortly after, Sega stopped leasing to military bases and moved its focus from slot machines to coin operated amusement machines. It was a more modern company in comparison to Nintendo, which had started in 1889 manufacturing playing cards. By 1990, Sega wanted a foothold in the video game console market with its 16 bit console, the Sega Genesis aka the Mega Drive. Nintendo didn't take Sega seriously as a competitor. Sega of America CEO Michael Katz attempted to challenge Nintendo with the Genesis does what Nintendon't marketing campaign. But these efforts didn't break Nintendo's dominance and Katz was replaced by Tom Kalinske, formerly of Mattel. Sega president Hayao Nakayama decided Sega needed a flagship series and mascot to compete with Nintendo's Mario franchise. Sonic was born in 1990 as a rival to Mario, starting life as Mr. Hedgehog. He was created by the in house team of programmer Yuji Naka, artist Naoto Ohshima and designer Hirokazu Yasuhara. He was mistakenly referred to as Mr. Needlemouse after a mistranslation of the name Mr. Hedgehog, Needlemouse being a literal translation of the Japanese word for hedgehog, Harinozumi, literally needle mouse. His blue color was inspired by Sega's cobalt blue logo. The red and white shoes were inspired by the COVID of Michael Jackson's 1987 album Bad and his personality was a tribute to then US President Bill Clinton. Ohshima went to Central park in 1990 to canvass opinion on Mr. Needlemouse along with several other potential mascots, and Mr. Needlemouse was the most popular of the passersby. Back in Tokyo, the decision was made to rename him Sonic because of his supersonic speed. Sega's first console, the SG1000 was released in July 1983 in Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Its third iteration in 1985 served as the basis for the eight bit Master System which launched in Japan in 1985, North America in 1986 and Europe in 1987 where it was wildly successful. The Master System 2 was released in 1990, which was cheaper. Sonic the Hedgehog was first released for the master system in 1991. The 16 bit Mega Drive was released in Japan in 1988 and North America in 1989 as the Sega Genesis. Sonic's first appearance came in Sega's AM3's racing game Rad Mobile in 1991, five months before the release of Sonic the Hedgehog as an ornament hanging from the driver's rearview mirror. The first Sonic the Hedgehog game was bundled with the Sega Genesis or Mega Drive. And while Kalinske was certain the game would be a hit, others at the American Sega offices weren't convinced. Nowadays it's PlayStation versus Xbox. But back in the early generations of consoles, Sega and Nintendo were the original console wars. The companies were sworn enemies and tried to constantly outdo each other. Sonic was fast, whereas Mario was slow. Sonic had an air of mischief to him, running and spinning around brightly colored worlds, whereas Mario had more characters, more to find and more of a narrative. But Sonic wasn't just another Mario clone. The Sega Genesis, which is called the Mega Drive here and also in Japan, took gaming to the next level. And Sonic was its poster child. He had drawer dropping loops, spin dash 3D style, colorful bonus rounds and a plethora of mechanical bosses created by his nemesis Dr. Robotnik. Sonic gave Sega a boost during the 16 bit era of video games and Sega's market share grew, selling 40 million consoles, peaking at 65% market share in January 1992, the first time Nintendo hadn't been the market leader since 1985. Sonic in video game history has been series of highs and lows though from the halcyon days of Sonic the Hedgehog, the Superior Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in 1992 and the 12 punch of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic and Knuckles in 1994, where you could snap the Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles cartridges together to create Sonic 3 and Knuckles. Sega started to struggle with the dominance of the console market including Sega CD add ons to the Mega Drive slash Genesis. In anticipation of the brand new Sega Saturn, a 3D Sonic game for the Saturn was announced. Sonic X Treme, then subsequently cancelled. Then the announcement of the Sega Saturn at the 1995 E3 gaming convention in LA was overshadowed by Sony's announcement of the PlayStation. Cheaper, graphically superior and shiny new, the PlayStation would dominate the late 90s gaming market, trouncing the Saturn, which some attributed to its lack of a major Sonic game. Sega then rested all its hopes on the Dreamcast, a phenomenal piece of kit. I Owned one. Its best selling game was indeed a Sonic game, Sonic adventure. The first 3D game in Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog series, Sonic Adventure sold 2.5 million copies, but still the PlayStation dominated. Continued financial losses meant Sega cutting its losses and discontinuing the dreamcast. Less than two years after its debut in 1999, Sega would remove themselves from the hardware market completely, but stayed in the third party software development market, including creating Sonic games for various platforms including the GameCube, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Xbox360, PlayStation 3, Wii, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS and the Wii U. But still, Sonic teams seemingly struggled to land on a consistent vision for Sonic, releasing game after game with wildly different concepts and to varying levels of success. For every critically plays Sonic Generations, Sonic Colors or Sonic Adventure 2. There was a Sonic Forces Sonic Boom, Rise of lyric or sonic 06, which was famously released unfinished and received strongly negative reviews on release for its loading times, various bugs, its controls and its camera system. Many of the cutscenes for Sonic games were created by Mars at Animation Planet and I'm going to be coming back to them. Also working on animated cutscenes and trailers for several Sonic games was a guy called Tyson Hess. I'm also going to be coming back to him. The latest Sonic game 2023's Sonic Superstars was available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, Xbox, Xbox Series S and Windows. And you might recall I mentioned there was huge animosity originally between Sega and Nintendo, but you'll also notice that once Sega became a third party software developer, they released games on the GameCube, the Game Boy advance, the Wii, the Nintendo DS, the Nintendo 3DS, and the Wii U. So the rift with Nintendo healed pretty quickly. Sega have been developing titles for Nintendo consoles since 2001, and in 2007, Sega and Nintendo collaborated using Sega's acquired Olympic Games license to create the Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games series, which has sold over 20 million copies in total. So despite the fiercest of rivalries in the 90s, you can just make up and become friends in the 2000s. Sonic was never just a video game character, though. In 1992, Mikaleen Risley was brought in as SEGA of America's Director of Entertainment and Consumer Products, and her first job was to steer a new deal for Sonic the Hedgehog to take on tv. They took inspiration from how he man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon series was instrumentals to the success of the toy line and the company's CEO, Tom Kalinske wanted to replicate that with Sonic and his games for the Sega Mega Drive. Two deals were signed and animation company DIC created the first of three animated series. Sonic the Hedgehog premiered in 1993 alongside another animated series simply called Sonic the Hedgehog. The former was a syndicated after school show, the latter was an edgier Saturday morning cartoon. It was pretty unprecedented at the time for two animated series to debut at the same time with the same character. The third animated series premiered in 1999 and that was called Sonic Underground. Also premiering in 1993. The British comic book Sonic the Comic, a series of four novels and Stay Sonic were published by Fleetway Publications, Edgemont Publishing. Archie Comics also published an American comic, Sonic the Hedgehog, the same year. I mean, if you're going to have a comic for Sonic, surely Sonic the Comic makes more sense than just calling it Sonic the Hedgehog. But then maybe because I'm British, I just think Sonic the Comic is a great name. With millions of games sold and fans all over the world, the natural next step for the character was the big screen and Mikaleen Risley was already planting the seeds. Hollywood was interested in video game adaptations. Super Mario Bros. Had come out in 1993 and by August 1994 Sega had signed a deal with MGM Studios and trilogy entertainment. In November 1994, Double Dragon came out. In December 1994 Street Fighter came out with Mortal Kombat already in production for an August 1995 release. Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat also had episodes of this podcast. By the way, episode 233 is Street Fighter and 159 is Mortal Kombat and its sequel. The first treatment for Sonic The Hedgehog, dated 11th of November 1994 was written by Pen Densham and Richard B. Lewis, simply called Sonic the Movie. The treatment, which is available to read online in its entirety, starts with the following quote. In telling this original interpretation of the Sonic story, we are attempting to introduce a new mythology to the movie going audience. We ask you to keep in mind that we are all selling a live action movie to a broad family audience, many of whom have never played the Sonic video game. For this reason we believe that the Sonic Movie should be a Genesis story and as we discuss in our various story sessions, will involve a teenage boy who transforms into the Sonic character. This transformation will utilize multiple film elements including live action, full motion, animatronics and puppetry and state of the art computer generated images. Somewhat darker and edgier in tone than the existing video game, there should be a strong sense of real jeopardy, as was done effectively in both Batman and Jurassic Park. Our adventure should be capable of providing wonderful entertainment with Sonic and his friends being an integral part of the movie going experience, unquote. This treatment involved a teenage boy being able to turn into Sonic after a freak accident and must rescue his scientist father who inadvertently creates mutant creatures, including one Sonic nicknames Robotnik. This adaptation was quickly vetoed by Sega. Michaeline Risley used to work at Marvel Comics and so when thinking of who could write a treatment for a Sonic film, she suggested MGM and Sega hire Richard Jeffries. Jeffries wrote the next treatment titled Sonic the Hedgehog Wonders of the world, also in 1994, which revolved around a divorced couple's Josh, who plugs his Sega Saturn running Sonic Xtreme into his father's computer, which he attempted to use to help finish his school paper, revolving around a test pilot named Sonic that was killed in a freak accident that allows Sonic to enter the real world via cgi. Sonic and Josh become friends, but Sonic also starts to cause mischief running around the city. Dr. Redman also escapes the console and plots to take over the real world by revamping an abandoned amusement park, turning all the kids visiting there into his badniks, and then using the technology developed by Josh's father combined with the ancient Chaos Emeralds plots to turn the world's natural wonders into digital copies, program virtual reality experiences of them, and charge high prices to those who want to see them. Sonic and Josh team up to fight Dr. Redman and eventually all three are sucked back into the Sega Saturn with Sonic's power now restored. Eggman is ultimately defeated in the ensuing battle, but escapes to fight another day and Sonic decides to stay in the game in order to protect his world from Eggman. Josh returns home promising to put away his Sega Saturn, but of course he starts to play again. This treatment sounds absolutely crazy, but this draft actually received a positive response from Sega and MGM executives, but it was scrapped either because of creative differences between the pair or financial differences between Sega and mgm. Jeffries was paid off and Sega gave him permission to shop the script around, which he took to DreamWorks due to a connection he had with Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio. The writing pair had just signed a production deal with the studio, but even though the story got a glowing endorsement, DreamWorks were not interested in Sonic the Hedgehog Wonders of the World, preferring low priced ip. The Sonic Movie project was officially cancelled until five years later when Ben Hurst, one of the writers for the Sonic the Hedgehog animated series series attempted to pitch an animated movie which revived the old Saturday morning cartoon universe. Allegedly, Ken Penders, the head writer of Sonic the Hedgehog at Archie Comics, got wind of this attempt and told Sega that Hearst was trying to co opt the franchise. In reality, Pender had his own idea, Sonic Armageddon, which even has its own homemade pitch available on YouTube. I will put the pitch in the show notes Pender pitched his concept in September 2003 and Sega was allegedly interested in the idea, but they decided to focus their attention on Sonic X, the anime series that ran from 2003 to 2005. It would take a further 10 years for any more to happen with a sonic movie. In 2013, Sony acquired the rights to produce and distribute a Sonic film. In the meantime, Sega had been merged with Sammy Corporation in 2004 and become Sega Sammy. What was originally a subsidiary company, Sega VA Animation Studio was now called Marza Animation Planet. In 2014, Sony announced a live action animated hybrid, Sonic the Hedgehog. The new Sony produced movie would have Fast and the Furious producer Neal H. Moritz under his original film banner. Makes sense, Gotta go Fast, all about family, etc. The new media would be written by Evan Susser and van Robichaux. In 2016, Sony announced the movie would be released in 2018, be directed by Jeff Fowler in his full length feature film debut after his Academy Award nominated short, Go for broke in 2004 and be executively produced by Tim Miller. Both Jeff Fowler and Tim Miller worked for Blur Studios. Blur had also previously worked on cut scenes for the Sonic games. They also announced the screenplay would now be written by Patrick Casey, Josh Miller and Oren Uziel from a story by Casey and Miller. Uziel would not receive a credit for his work however, but Sony didn't really know what to do with the Sonic movie they now had and ended up putting it in turnaround, which is usually just key for development hell, which is usually, excuse the pun, game over for most movies. However, Paramount Pictures snapped up the rights in 2017. All the key staff, the writers, producers and directors were retained and in February 2018, Paramount announced the movie was going to be released in November 2019. In May 2018, James Marsden was announced as the lead actor with Tika Sumpter and Jim Carrey announced in June. Ben Schwartz was announced as the voice of sonic in August 2018, not regular voice actor Roger Craig Smith. Schwartz was a longtime Sonic fan, regularly playing on his Sega Genesis in the early 90s. He initially became attached to the film when director Jeff Fowler and producer Tim Miller asked him to lend his voice to Sonic for a test reading as they pitched the movie to studios. They loved his test readings so much they offered him the role. Schwartz wasn't on set filming with everyone when filming did eventually starred in Vancouver in September September 2018 while Marsden rehearsed with Schwartz before filming. It was important to both of them to have a good sense of the pairing of Sonic and Tom that Schwartz would be recording the voice work in la While filming was happening in Vancouver, improv actor Scott Patey was hired to be the Sonic stand in and reed opposite Marsden. They also used plastic stand ins for ISO references and awaited stuffy for direct interaction with James Marsden. Speaking of Sonic and the film's visual effects, they were provided by Moving Picture Co. Mars at animation Planet Blur Studio, Trickster and Digital Domain and the idea always was to utilize Sonic as a CGI character. They wanted to make him photorealistic and a version of Sonic that could exist in the live action world. These are both important things to note and remember. Photorealistic could exist in our current live action world. This misguided realism was led by Paramount's visual effects teams and it's important to note that SEGA wasn't really that closely involved in the character's initial creation. Initially Sonic was given long human like legs, almost like an athlete's muscular legs, which makes sense if he can run really fast I guess small human like teeth, an unnatural humanoid build and smaller more realistic humanoid ish eyes. While all of this did indeed make a Sonic that was photorealistic and maybe could exist in this world, maybe potentially, I don't know, but let's go with this. It was ultimately completely different to the Sonic that fans knew. Now you might argue that sometimes a little bit of artistic license is okay, sometimes a little bit different is okay. A teaser motion poster was released on 10th December 2018 featuring a blurry blue line speeding past the camera, which is a familiar sight obviously for fans of the franchise. The iconic twinkle of gold rings and the outline of Sonic bathed in blue light posing in a runner's stance. This new version of Sonic was noticeably more tall and muscular than his video game counterpart. He had the red sneakers and a slicked back spiky hairdo, but gone were his signature white gloves and socks. And even though it's silhouette, fans didn't like it. More designs were leaked in March 2019 with Sonic Co creator Yuji Naka shocked by the design and feeling the ratio of Sonic's head and abdomen was imbalanced. But if the reaction was bad to the motion poster. It was catastrophic to the first trailer. On 30 April 2019, the trailer to Coolio's Gangster's paradise released two overwhelmingly negative reviews. The incident erupted with memes and criticism, with many describing the design as nightmare Fuel or uncomfortably human. Like they didn't like his fur, his gloveless hands, his suckless feet, the branded trainers, the tiny eyes, the human teeth. It didn't help that Detective Pikachu, which was due out in May 2019, looked thoroughly faithful to the animated Pokemon characters while also setting it in a human world. The Hollywood Reporter summarized it best when reviewing the trailer quote a brief digression about the design of Sonic as a character. As many have already pointed out, portraying Sonic as something so anthropomorphised that the hedgehog part of his name seems more like an attempt to justify a trademark than a recognizable description is a choice that is at best bold as it is inexplicable. Why couldn't Sonic look like the cartoonish blue hedgehog fans know him as? Why make him into a strange half man half who knows what with worryingly human teeth? It's almost the opposite of Toyetic. It's cute, disassociated body horror. Arguably the point of any trailer is to get people talking and build up some sort of hype, and social media buzzed with comments, pretty much all of it backlash. Could the movie survive the overwhelmingly negative response and still come out on its planned 8th of November 2019 release date? Well, it wouldn't have to, mere days later on 2 May 2019. Director Jeff Fowler thank you for the support and the criticism. The message is loud and clear. You aren't happy with the design and you want changes. It's going to happen. Everyone at Paramount and SEGA are fully committed to making this character the best he can be. Soniclooly Gotta fix fast. To Fowler's credit, he didn't go on the defensive. He listened to the fans, understood their concerns, and let's be honest, that approach would end up paying dividends in the end. Naturally, the next concern was going to be how the visual effects team were going to achieve this mammoth task in just a few months by 24 May 2019, Jeff Fowler taking a little more time to make Sonic just right novfx Artists were harmed in the making of this movie. With a new Release date of 14th February 2020, fans noticed that artwork on the tweet looked suspiciously like the work of longtime Sonic designer Tyson Hess. Could he be involved in the new design of Sonic? Why yes. Yes he could. Tyson Hess had previously worked on the opening animation For Sonic Mania 2017, the Sonic Mania Adventures animated shorts, and various Sonic comic books for Archie Comics. He was highly respected within the Sonic fan community for his faithful yet dynamic interpretation of the character. Hess played a crucial role in saving Sonic the Hedgehog with his redesign work. After the disastrous reception to the original ugly Sonic design in the first trailer, Paramount brought in Hess to lead the character redesign effort. Hess later confirmed on Twitter that he was brought in to lead the redesign. He worked with the film's visual effects teams to create a new look that was much more faithful to Sonic's video game appearance while still functioning well in a live action setting. Now we know there is an issue just generally in Hollywood at the moment and within the visual effects industry for studios to demand effects work with very little time for the teams to successfully complete it. It's happened on major movies from various major studios, including huge studios like Marvel, pushing visual effects teams to their absolute limit to get sometimes not the greatest results. It's not the fault of the visual effects teams, it's the fact that they are put under unrealistic timelines to get this work done. While multiple visual effects studios collaborated on the work and Paramount extended the movie's release date by three months to accommodate it, some reports indicated that many visual effects artists had to work significant overtime to meet the deadline. While the character model was completely redone, some of the underlying animation data could be repurposed, saving some time in the process, and the idea was to salvage as much as they possibly could. The typical lengthy approval chains were expedited, with director Jeff Fowler working closely with Tyson Hess and the visual effects teams to make quicker decisions, the team prioritized the character redesign itself with less emphasis on changing environmental interactions and some background elements. The redesign added an estimated $5 million to the budget. The misconception was they had to redo the entire movie, but luckily it was just fixing the amount of animation work they had already completed, which was the trailer's worth of visual effects plus a little more on the finished movie. All of the extra work seemed to be worth it when Sonic's new, more faithful design debuted in a brand new trailer on 12 November 2019, a few days after the movie's original intended release date, this time to JJ Fad, Supersonic and Ramones Blitzkrieg Bob the second trailer received thousands of likes and the highest like to dislike ratio many trailer on Google in the last three years it also made the character more expressive, more natural feeling, and added an extra layer to his personality that he simply didn't have as the more photorealistic character. It's not all positive news though. Shortly after completing work on the Sonic movie, NPCs Vancouver studio, which helped to work on the film, was shut down, leaving many artists who had worked intensely on the redesign without jobs. Many of the visual effects artists and visual effects studios who did work on Sonic were seemingly not allowed to talk to the press about the work they had to do to change the character's design, presumably under NDAs from Paramount. Now the ultimate question was this all just an elaborate publicity stunt? Paramount and Sega release a fake trailer with a bad looking Sonic, knowing all publicity is good publicity, only to then turn around and go we got you guys, we made a mistake and we'll fix it, only to actually have the correctly designed Sonic in their back pocket all along. Now the Internet seems to think it's a possibility. I would like to refute that with the following if that were the case, why were Ugly Sonic toys commissioned? No one would commission toys with a fake design, only to scrap them later. Toys cost money and some even ended up on sale. A seven piece toy set featuring a Spin Dash sonic and an 8 inch plushie. Both retain the small eyes and lanky legs of the original Sonic design. Jakks Pacific, known by video game fans for the world of Nintendo line, produced the toys based on the original, now outdated character models. These items were available at Target and Entertainment Earth. The packaging on the Spindash Sonic does feature the updated design, which proves that Paramount supplied the original models way before the feedback on the first trailer. And once the manufacturing of toys starts, it isn't going to stop for a redesign. So I think we can put the conspiracy theories to bed. Ugly Sonic was going to be Sonic until the fans reacted to Ugly Sonic. Then he became the Sonic that we all know and love. It's time to segue into the obligatory Keanu reference of this episode, and if you don't know what that is, it's worried. The movie then featured with Keanu Reeves for no reason other than he is the best of men. And I mean surprisingly easy for a change. Because Keanu will obviously turn up in Sonic the Hedgehog three as Shadow the Hedgehog, but technically he is part of this universe now in this movie. We just haven't met him yet. Easy way to link Keanu to this movie. So one of the only real criticisms that I see about this movie, apart from story wise, tends to kind of lean more towards the music, and the score by Tom Hulkenborg didn't really lean as much into Sonic's catalog of game music as reviewers of the music might like, but it's still a fun score that demonstrates why Hulkenborg is so in demand as a film composer. He does attempt to pay homage to Masato Nakamura's original score from Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 by using Yamaha Digital FM synthesizers similar to the Sega Genesis Mega drive console's Yamaha YM2612 sound chip to get that synthetic sound that's trying to imitate real instruments. The score ranges from orchestral to 8 bit synth blending with techno and electronic sounds. An original song by Ex Ambassadors appears on the soundtrack. The single was released in January 2020. The song Speed Me up by Wiz Khalifa, Lil Yachty, TY$Sign and Suako the Child received over 15 million streams. The song Friends by Hyper Potions, which previously appeared as the opening theme Sonic Mania also appears in the film. The world premiere of Sonic the Hedgehog took place at Paramount Pictures Studio lot in Los Angeles on 25 January 2020. In February 2020, the reviews embargo lifted and people actually really liked the movie. It debuted at 69% of rotten tomatoes, which technically is also an obligatory keanu reference because 69 dude. It was a stark contrast to the initial reception of that first trailer. Sonic the hedgehog released on 14 February 2020 in the US, instantly hitting the number one spot at the box office. Taking it from Birds of Prey, it aimed for a domestic debut of 40 to 45 million dollars over the long President's Day weekend, but it did way better than that. On its estimated 85 to $90 million budget, Sonic the Hedgehog grossed $149 million in the US and Canada and $170.7 million internationally for a total worldwide gross $319.7 million. Sonic earned $70 million over that long weekend and $80.3 million in its first week, almost making back its entire budget as well as breaking Detective Pikachu's record for the biggest opening weekend by video game based film. And because literally a month later the world shut down due to Covid, Sonic ended up being the sixth highest grossing movie of 2020. People really showed up for this little blue hedgehog and for the career behind the scenes who worked so hard to change the design. Up currently has a 64% rating on rotten Tomatoes with a consensus of fittingly fleet and frequently fun. Sonic the Hedgehog is a video game inspired adventure the whole family can enjoy and a fine excuse for Jim Carrey to tap into the manic energy that launched his career. Critics were mixed, criticizing the simple story and product placements, but wholeheartedly praising Sonic's redesign. Also getting a heap of praise Jim Carrey, who I've barely mentioned because this episode is already busy enough. But it's fitting for a very 90s video game to have a very 90s leading man as this mad maniacal villain with evil plotting montages and dance sequences. And Jim Carrey leans into Robotnik even more in the sequels and it is wonderful to see it was hard to see a future for the original ugly Sonic. Thanks to the redesign, we've had two sequels with a third on the way, plus a Knuckles TV series. The universe has grown to include Tails, played by original Tales voice actor Colleen O'Shaughnessy, Knuckles played by Idris Elba and of course Shadow, played by Keanu Reeves with Amy Rose and Metal Sonic, due to appear in sonic the Hedgehog 4 due out in 2027. But don't be too sad for ugly Sonic because he has a career of his own now, technically appearing as a supporting character in the 2022 film Chip and Rescue Rangers. According to that film's director, Akiva Schafer, they had also used Moving Picture Company as their animation studio. An NPC was able to provide the original Sonic model for the film, which was modified slightly for his guest appearance, which also came as a rather lovely surprise in a very fun movie. Check out Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers on Disney if you haven't seen it. The ugly Sonic character was voiced in that movie by comedian Tim Robinson, and so really, it's all's well that ends well for Sonic the Hedgehog. One of the very first episodes of this podcast was an episode on the movie Dread, a very different movie to Sonic the Hedgehog. Don't watch that one with your kids. But Dread and Sonic share some similarities, and that is their respective fandoms. The power of fandom can either be wielded for bad, see Star wars or Justice League for the levels of toxicity aimed at those movies. All for good. Dread's fan campaign to get a sequel may not have had its desired outcome, but the outpouring of love for the movie saw its DVD and Blu Ray sales skyrocket. Sonic's fandom goes back to 1991, and he's a character that means a lot to a generation of kids who had mega drives like me or Genesisses Genocide. Genesisses Genesises let's go with Genesis. While his video game output is of varied quality, people still love the character. They love his cocky personality. Mario could never tap his foot waiting for you to make a move. The outpouring of criticism to the original design was unprecedented. But what happened next was even more so. Paramount and Sega agreed. They messed up. They were going to make it right. And they did. And the fans were so grateful, they turned up to the cinema to see it. And they were, for the most part, happy with what they saw. While the first Sonic was never going to win a Best Screenplay Oscar, it did what it needed to do. It introduced Sonic to the human world, made him sweet, fun and sympathetic. Gave him human friends in Tom and his wife Maddie, who happens to be a vet. Handy that James Marsden is a way better actor than many give him credit for. And he's good in this movie. Tika Sumpter's Maddie is far more forgiving of her husband's antics than many would be. And my only real question is we never understand why her sister Rachel hates Tom so much. Tom's not a bad guy. He seems like a good cop. Maybe it's that he's a cop, I don't know. But Rachel seems to really dislike him and there's no obvious reason why. But we're not here for the human characters, the good ones, anyway. We're here for Robotnik. And in the pantheon of just perfect casting choices, we have Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik, a role he would just hone in future movies. And if you haven't seen Sonic 3, I have. He pulls double duty in that one. And he is just having the time of his life. Considering he'd all but retired only to come back as Robotnik, it's just an absolute masterstroke. He apparently took the role because his daughter was a fan of the games. My nephew is a huge fan of Sonic the Hedgehog and we have seen all three Sonic movies together. The first one on DVD because Covid, and the next two in the cinemas. And he also loves playing the old Sonic games as well. He has a little mini Mega Drive and he has, I believe, sonic the hedgehog 2 on that little mini Mega Drive. And he loves them. He loves the Sonic games. He loves retro gaming, just generally because he's really that cool. He's 9 years old and he's cooler than me. Sonic is that intergenerational hero for so many people. Whether you're 50 or 5, you can enjoy a Sonic the Hedgehog game just as you can enjoy a Sonic the Hedgehog movie Ben Schwartz just brings a joy and innocence to Sonic. He's just a kid, all wide eyed and full of wonder, but also so fearful of being found. I can't imagine that coming to life with the old design like it does with the new one. And while a sequel was never guaranteed, three months after his debut in May 2020, Paramount Pictures announced a sequel with Fowler returning to direct, Pat Casey and Josh Miller returning to write, along with the return of all the cast. It's rare that studios will listen to fan concerns. After all, redesigns cost time and money and moviemaking is a business first and foremost. But while they could have stuck with ugly Sonic and had a Sonic movie people would go to see just to hate watch, that likely would have just been a one and done and potentially tainted the series. Paramount took the approach of listening to fans concern and ensuring the character was the best he could be with fans wanting to watch it to see the redesign, making a fun movie, turning a profit and ensuring the future for the franchise. And for the most part, fans love these movies and they only seem to get rated higher with each installment. As I mentioned, the only real criticism I could see from fans was that they wanted more Sonic music. But while these movies are definitely aimed at a family market and a fan market, you can go into these movies blind to the Sonic lore and just have a good time. Sonic shows emotion and vulnerability. In many ways this is the poster child, the positive fandom that you can just express disappointment in something online, that you don't have to resort to the threats and vile comments of other fandoms and maybe your thoughts will be read and understood and actioned on the Blue Devil Is Real. And thanks to the fans that love this character and the dedicated team of visual effects artists, he actually looks like Sonic the Hedgehog. Thank you for listening. As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on Sonic the Hedgehog. And as always, thank you for your continued support of this podcast. If you want to get involved and help this podcast grow and reach more people, you could tell your friends and family about this podcast or this episode. You can find me I am across social media at verbaldiorama or you can leave a rating or review wherever you found this podcast. And if you like this episode on Sonic the Hedgehog, you might also like some of the video game movie episodes I've done like 156 Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat annihilation 233 Street Fighter and 261 Super Mario Brothers which is a personal favorite of mine. As always, give me feedback. Let me know what you think. The next Episode it is a movie that straight up made me want to become a nun as a kid because it made nuns really cool and fun. Now obviously I was a kid, I didn't realize about the whole being Catholic thing, giving up your worldly goods thing, taking vows of obedience and chastity. I am not very good at either of those things, nor am I Catholic, but Whoopi Goldberg made me want to become a nun. The movie is so joyful. The next episode, I'm so excited is on the History and Legacy of Sister act. So please join me next week for the History and Legacy of Sister act. Now this podcast is free and it always will be free. However, unfortunately it is not free to make a podcast. 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