NEW KINTOBOR VIDEO: DECLARES HIMSELF ROBOTNIK

January 11, 2013 2:24 PM

The intention of making this film was for it to be a spec film, with the primary purpose being to show how a Sonic the Hedgehog film, in a live action environment, can be executed.

*This fan film has no association with Sega nor claims any ownership to the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. This is a fan film made solely for entertainment purposes without intentions of profit off the film.*

posted by Potomac Avenue (48 comments total)

What is it about Sonic fans?
posted by 2bucksplus at 2:27 PM on January 11 [9 favorites]

Next on the agenda: to show why a live action Sonic the Hedgehog film could be made.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:28 PM on January 11 [7 favorites]

Except as soon as Sonic shows up it's mostly CG.
posted by 2bucksplus at 2:29 PM on January 11

Just started the video....

"FEATURING JALEEL WHITE"

wat
posted by brundlefly at 2:34 PM on January 11

wat

I can't tell if that "wat" is confusion as to why Urkel would be attached to this project, or if that "wat" is "OMG, they brought back the voice actor who played Sonic in all three incarnations of the Sonic cartoons! How'd they pull off that coup?"
posted by radwolf76 at 2:40 PM on January 11 [2 favorites]

Ha! The former. I had no idea White was already associated with the character. That makes a lot more sense.
posted by brundlefly at 2:47 PM on January 11 [2 favorites]

Yeah, it's not really common knowledge for those who aren't at least a little bit down the knothole.
posted by radwolf76 at 2:52 PM on January 11

I tried watching the film, but being totally ignorant of all things Sonic has left me a bit confused. Is South Island supposed to be a society with humans and hedgehogs, or were the humans added into this film for "realism"? The impression I always had was that Sonic and his pals were cartoon animal types.
posted by Kevin Street at 2:54 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]

Also, both The Nostalgia Critic and The Angry Video Game Nerd are in it.

So..... there's that.

I watched this this morning. That happened.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 2:54 PM on January 11

Jaleel White, STAR of that famous blockbuster Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus.
posted by JHarris at 3:02 PM on January 11 [2 favorites]

The impression I always had was that Sonic and his pals were cartoon animal types.

For the most part, yes, but humans have been part of the franchise too, if for nothing more than the inclusion of the main antagonist, Dr. Robotnik aka Eggman. Despite his cartoonish girth, he's intended to be as human as his visual inspiration, Teddy Roosevelt, was.

Some of the later games have featured other humans as well, and since the spin-off media such as the western cartoons, the animes, and the Archie Comic were licensed primarily for the purpose of marketing those games, humans show up in those stories too.
posted by radwolf76 at 3:11 PM on January 11

What's really weird is when Sonic is paired up with a human woman as a romantic interest. But then I've said too much.
posted by 2bucksplus at 3:12 PM on January 11 [7 favorites]

I'm just going to go home and hug my son hard.
posted by boo_radley at 3:18 PM on January 11 [6 favorites]

Huh, now I really want to see Geoffrey Tambor as Dr. Robotnik.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 3:22 PM on January 11 [4 favorites]

What's really strange about the repeated attempts to milk some kind of coherent story out of the Sonic franchise is that the original games actually do have a pretty clear and interesting theme of Rejuvenating Nature versus Depleting Technologies that's probably most obvious in Sonic CD. It's like, there's a lot of potential there but it's easier to just go for crazy.
posted by byanyothername at 3:24 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]

Deep hurting
posted by hellojed at 3:27 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]

I was a huge Sonic fan as a kid. And as a 13 year old, I tried to convince myself that I liked the '93 Sonic cartoon. But by the time I got to Sonic Adventure I just couldn't stomach the expanding cast.

As an adult, I've realized two things. First, some properties are better left unexplored/unexpanded. There's just not enough "there" there.

And second, there might be something genetic about furries because it seems people either skew heavily toward such source material or far afield. Not that the above video is itself furry fodder, but. . .I've seen some things, man
posted by ChipT at 3:28 PM on January 11

Like the MegaMan feature length live action fan film, this really seems like it's better off as a for-fun trailer for a movie that will never exist..
posted by mediocre at 3:29 PM on January 11

The Sonic the Hedgehog fandom is useful as an instructive lesson to other fandoms: if you're not careful you could end up here, alongside the furries, at the lowest energy state. One of the hosts of PONY* podcast Bronyville came originally from the Sonic fandom, and I think a lot of bronies see it as a warning about where things could lead if due vigilance is not applied.

* If I could figure out how to do it, these letters would be on fire.
posted by JHarris at 3:31 PM on January 11 [6 favorites]

That was surprisingly slow moving.
posted by ODiV at 3:32 PM on January 11 [7 favorites]

some properties are better left unexplored/unexpanded.

You know.. I don't disagree entirely.. but I probably said something very similar when someone told me that some band had expanded the MegaMan universe into a (in the works) trilogy of concept albums.. Creatives with enough creativity and vision can take a spartan story and develop it into a Greek tragedy of Wagnerian scope.. It's when they take the story and pretty much leave it unchanged (as they did here, it seems) that these things end up.. kind of embarassing..
posted by mediocre at 3:35 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]

mediocre: "a spartan story and develop it into a Greek tragedy of Wagnerian scope"

I've got my eye on you, buddy.
posted by boo_radley at 3:43 PM on January 11 [3 favorites]

Finally, Sonic Guy can rest!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:50 PM on January 11

Needs more Dutch angles. More handheld. More energy.
posted by Trochanter at 3:58 PM on January 11

If I had a golden ring for every time I heard that...
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:03 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]

Love those Sonic tater tots. Someone make a movie about them.
posted by Brocktoon at 4:16 PM on January 11 [2 favorites]

Sonic was completely awesome from about 1991 to 1995. If you were into awesome things during those years, then you were probably into Sonic, or should have been. Everything since, both official and from the fandom, is irredeemable crap. Yes, including Sonic Adventure.

I continue to maintain an interest of all things Sonic as a token of respect to my 1995 self who would probably time travel to the future fueled by betrayal and slay me if I did otherwise. I wold not, with my dying breath, inform myself of the horrible truth that the only post-1995 Sonic game that anyone regards as worthwhile features fishing as a unavoidable gameplay mechanic.

This video looks like something I would have dug in 1995 so next time I see my younger self I will forward it to him. That being said it has no place in 2013.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 4:19 PM on January 11 [2 favorites]

What is it about Sonic fans?

Sonic fans seem like people with an apparently limitless appetite for Poochification. Sonic started out as a Poochie created by Sega as a reaction to the market-dominance of Nintendo's Mario, presenting a pseudo-hip alternative to the familiar platforming genre. The games quickly became successively re-Poochied with newer, more extreeeeeeme! characters (first with Tails; then with Knuckles; later came the gun-toting[!] Shadow, etc.) in each new title. The franchise is a giant Poochie, standing on the backs of smaller Poochies, all the way down.
posted by Strange Interlude at 4:27 PM on January 11 [10 favorites]

From the Youtube comments (emphasis mine):

It's a shame that people who probably can't even do half as good of a job, is making rude hateful comments, they're as irrelevant at Bean the Dynamite ;).

Whoa, BURN!
posted by Strange Interlude at 4:32 PM on January 11 [4 favorites]

God, I know what Bean the Dynamite is. SOMEBODY SHOOT ME.

(Sega released an arcade game in the years pre-Sonic called Dynamite Dux, a cute beat-em-up starring Bin and Pin, blue and red anthropomorphic ducks. It had bonus rounds in which they fought each other that were presided over by Col. Sanders. Check it out at Hardcore Gaming 101. "Bean" is a different transliteration of Bin's name, that was used in Sega's 3D fighting arcade game Sonic the Fighters. He was included as an homage to the classic game, as arcade companies will do sometimes, but the translation was kind of bad, as you can probably figure out from the title.)
posted by JHarris at 6:13 PM on January 11 [3 favorites]

Sonic started out as a Poochie created by Sega as a reaction to the market-dominance of Nintendo's Mario, presenting a pseudo-hip alternative to the familiar platforming genre.

Whatever man. Original Sonic kicked Original Mario's ass.
posted by moorooka at 7:10 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]

Try searching for "[Your Name] The Hedgehog" on DeviantArt. It's hours of creepy fun.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 7:19 PM on January 11

Sonic fans seem like people with an apparently limitless appetite for Poochification.

Holy god... definition #4... when my sister and I were little we'd go to the video store and each get to pick a movie. I'd pick... whatever... but she would always, without fail, pick Poochie.
posted by odinsdream at 7:49 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]

Live action film? They haven't been able to make this property into a convincing video game in, like, fifteen years.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 8:45 PM on January 11 [3 favorites]

I was a teenager in the 1990s and I had a Sega Genesis when most of my friends had Super Nintendos and I would always stick up for the Sonic games--because they were fast! Let's see Mario try to do THAT--but now that that's all behind me I'm going to have to admit right here that the Sonic games really weren't that great.

And I am just baffled by the Sonic following that continues to this day.

If Sega hadn't decided to make Sonic its flagship character, then the Sonic games would have been about as popular as Ecco the Dolphin. That is, they would be platformers that were interesting and enjoyable, but really nothing too mind-blowing. And they would be quickly forgotten by most gamers.

I hate to admit this, because I'm now reliving all the arguments I had with my 12 year-old friends in 1993, but the Mario games of the early 90s (SMB3 and Super Mario World) were simply better than the Sonic games. It was really just Sega's forceful marketing that elevated Sonic to minor cultural touchstone status.
posted by mcmile at 9:54 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]

Oh goddamnit, this is one of the many things I missed last week at Magfest (where it had its world premiere) because I was sick in my room the whole time..

I was so excited about it, we were going to have a "live action gotta-go-fast stupid running animation" contest beforehand and everything. Bad indie video game movies are sort of my jam. Fuck you, autoimmune disease!
posted by jake at 10:21 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]

If Sega hadn't decided to make Sonic its flagship character, then the Sonic games would have been about as popular as Ecco the Dolphin.

DON'T YOU DARE BADMOUTH THE ENDURING LEGACY OF ECCO THE DOLPHIN MOTHERFUCKER
posted by naju at 10:29 PM on January 11 [3 favorites]

Ecco the Dolphin was great. I'm just saying that the only reason why Sonic had a TV cartoon show and a comic book and Ecco faded into obscurity was because of marketing.
posted by mcmile at 10:40 PM on January 11

Ecco didn't blow your mind? If not you are a cetacean sir.
posted by cmoj at 10:54 PM on January 11

Yeah, all my fondness for Ecco the Dolphin evaporated in that damn last level, "WELCOME TO THE MACHINE." The machine in question was a meat grinder. Dolphin meat.
posted by JHarris at 11:02 PM on January 11

They already made a live action Sonic movie. It was called Speed Racer and it was amazing.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 11:40 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]

Whatever man. Original Sonic kicked Original Mario's ass.

Shame Sonic was competing with Super Mario World (or SMB3 if you still had a NES). I may be a philistine, but I preferred the Sonic Master System ports. They were not as fast, but this gave the game some breathing space instead of being REFLEXES ALL THE TIME.

Sonic mostly jumped the shark after Sonic & Knuckles. It's not just the terrible 3D games, but even 2D games that went back to the formula and seemed fun initially (Sonic Rush and reportedly the Sonic Advance games) ended up a bit mindless and couldn't sustain my interest. Making Sonic too fast has the downside that you either can't control him properly or big parts of the game go on rails.
posted by ersatz at 5:07 AM on January 12 [1 favorite]

but I probably said something very similar when someone told me that some band had expanded the MegaMan universe into a (in the works) trilogy of concept albums.. Creatives with enough creativity and vision can take a spartan story and develop it into a Greek tragedy of Wagnerian scope..

This is about the Protomen, btw, who are truly worth checking out.

The extended Sonic mythology from the later games is useless and crappy, and much of the fandom's output is... well, you know. But the basic narrative dynamic in the first few games would probably be enough to base something quite fun on, if you went with the basic themes of heroism-through-velocity and pastoral nature vs cartoonish industrial villainy. I even read a pretty neat little treatment along those lines a while back, though for the life of me I can't find it now. Emphasis on Sonic as a bragger who runs rather than stands and fights, his origin as a creation of Dr Robotnik revealed, etc.
posted by Drexen at 6:46 AM on January 12

a letter near the end of the alphabet is leaking
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 7:54 AM on January 12

This wasn't SO bad. Sonic looked well rendered (though he needed to move much faster), and I like that not only did Jaleel White reprise his role as Sonic (I'd love to hear the story behind this phone call), but he played the 90s "Gotta speed, keed!" 'Tude completely straight. This also made the CGI hedgehog the most believable actor in the flick. I guess I understand the need to have more human characters to tie Robotnik's domination plans to a more global scale, but I felt it all the people who weren't Robotnik made the whole thing kinda drag.

I think a more interesting story could be a 'mini-Crisis' type thing between the two very different Sonic cartoons that ran simultaneously, both featuring Jaleel White as Sonic. Sorta like they did with Turtles Forever, which was bloody brilliant.

The Sonic games were fun enough, I remember thinking the feature of Sonic & Knuckles where you could plug in another Sonic game and play as Knuckles was amazing. I also remember them being punishingly hard; they were tricky, because the first few levels are all "awesome, run through and loop-the-loop and bash through everything super fast!" and then it becomes the platformer equivalent of playing Operation via shooting pool.

I don't hold so much nostalgia for the character mind you, I was a hardcore Nintendo fanboy for many years, but I got over it by buying a Sega Genesis to go along with my Super Nintendo. Still, I admit a part of me was giddy when Sonic was added to Super Smash Brothers; The idea of Mario and Sonic facing off in a real video game was, quite literally, a dream come true for me.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 11:56 AM on January 13

Sonic was fun because really, how many other choices did you have? But for whatever reason it just couldn't scale with technology, and Mario and Zelda are as popular as ever.
posted by Brocktoon at 1:00 PM on January 13

Sonic was fun because really, how many other choices did you have? But for whatever reason it just couldn't scale with technology, and Mario and Zelda are as popular as ever.

Yeah, a game that's just about running wouldn't be popular today.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 3:02 PM on January 13

But Sonic isn't about running. It's what got the most ad focus, and it helped to play up the differences between the Genesis' speedy processor and the SNES' relatively pokey one, but all the best Sonic the Hedgehog games are about exploration. Every level has surprising secret passages that are a joy to discover, sometimes when you go backwards, sometimes hidden in the walls, sometimes deep underground and sometimes high in the air. Starting with Sonic 2 the games even started rewarding players who managed to find every ring in a level with a 50,000 point bonus, a feat that's not always possible, but fun to try, in the early levels, at least.

If you're just running through the levels then not only are you missing a lot of the game, but you're also very unlikely to find all the Chaos Emeralds before the last level.
posted by JHarris at 6:04 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]