Brainstorm

I remember about a year ago, I was watching Youtube when I saw a video in my recommended feed that caught my eye. It was a trailer for the new Sonic the Hedgehog movie. My first thought was “wow, that looks terrible”, so I decided to give the trailer a watch. And oh boy, was I right. As soon as I laid my eyes upon the abomination that was Sonic the Hedgehog, I knew fans of the franchise were not going to be happy. I’ve never really been a fan myself, so I was able to have a good laugh at the poor cgi and frighteningly human looking hedgehog monstrosity. I quickly went down to the comment section to see how others felt about the trailer. The general consensus among fans and non-fans alike was that this movie looked horrible. There was just something terribly off-putting about Sonic’s human-like proportions, furry human-like hands and worst of all, his creepy human-like teeth. It didn’t take long before backlash over the film swept over social media and news outlets. People across the world were outraged that such a beloved franchise could be ruined by the out of touch, crusty, old executives at Sega, who were milking a decades old cash cow for whatever scraps may be left. People began demanding that the film cease production and that Sonic be buried in the deepest, darkest depths of Hell where he rightfully belonged. This must have been quite a disappointment to Sega, who had spent roughly $90 million making the film, but they took it in stride. They decided to push the release date back so that they could rework Sonic’s design and reanimate him, at the cost of $5 million and countless hours of work. When I found out they were reworking the film to please the fans, I was honestly impressed. That feeling quickly wore off and I was left wondering “why even bother?” Not taking into account the creepy design and poor cgi, the rest of what was shown in the trailer was not terribly impressive. Lazily written jokes, poor acting and the most generic, blockbuster cinematography were all on display. Even with Sonic’s redesign, I can’t help but feel that the film will still do poorly, making me feel bad for the animators who had to work overtime and redo what they had already done. Sure, Sega gained a lot of support for owning up to their mistakes and taking the time to rework the film, which I respect, but part of me thinks they almost would have been better off leaving the film as is. The internet loves to make fun of bad movies, and I’m sure many would have gone to see Sonic purely because of how laughably terrible it looked. Now that it has been reanimated, it has transcended from a potential “so bad it’s good” to just a “meh”. I don’t doubt that the film will probably at least break even at the box office, most movies do, but I’m sure it will still be considered a flop. At the end of the day, it will just have ended up being a huge waste of time and money that we will never get back. Just think, what else could this $90-95 million have been spent on? I’m sure almost any answer will be more valid than “Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie”