Thread by @GreatLange

Seeing people/reviews say that the Sonic movie "opted for being widely enjoyable instead of being faithful to the source material". I do not understand this idea that enjoyable and faithful are at odds. That's saying Sonic is not enjoyable and has to be NOT Sonic to be enjoyed.

This mentality has plagued not only the Sonic franchise but other franchises. Sonic was already made to be widely enjoyable. Why use a popular IP if you're just going to change it? Is it not popular for what it already was? Then how does making it something else make any sense?

I've also often seen it said that a straight adaptation of a game like Sonic to a movie would be boring. This is not a problem with the material, there's a ton to work with even in the classic games. This is a problem of lacking imagination and knowledge of the source material.

For anyone actually trying that argument, please tell me how a buddy cop flick in irl San Francisco is less boring than a fantasy world filled with mystical lands, ancient civilizations, futuristic cityscapes, and humans vs nature pivoting around the powers of life and gods.

That said I've been surprised by some things being kinda faithful. It's clear that some people involved did some homework and tried to do more that was probably met with corporate meddling. Jim Carrey understands Eggman's character very well based on the interviews.

I say all this without having seen the movie yet but I'm going to soon and I'll continue this thread to share my thoughts on it (while omitting spoilers). It'll be difficult because there's so much to address while trying not to unpack and explain all of Sonic's source material.

I've seen the Sonic movie.
Holy moly. I'm very surprised. There is a lot to talk about here.
However most of this has to do with the first few minutes, which was fantastic. If the entire movie was like that, I would've loved it. The rest is a mixed bag, but not bad.

What I said initially about reviews calling it unfaithful? Turned out to be a great irony. It's not that people are recognizing the movie as unfaithful. It's that it's so faithful people don't even recognize it. No one even understands what they're seeing. It's on another level.

To address this at all I have to address a bigger topic that I was saving for a more substantial outlet like a video, but now is a good opportunity to start out, especially now that I can do so from a more positive place.
We're going to talk about Sonic lore.

First I need to establish something important:
THE ORIGINAL SONIC GAMES HAD A STORY
It is often believed Sonic originally had no story and that the characters were mute. This is not true. Everything seen in game was an expression of a more comprehensive vision Sonic Team had.

Even Sonic 1 had a story. They had a plan that included cutscenes in the game which were scrapped only due to constraints. So for the original games, they told some of the story in the next best place they could: the instruction manuals.

However, only the contents of the Japanese manuals and other material directly from Sonic Team are canon. Localizations ignored all of this and made up their own things, so basically the contents of the manuals, comics, cartoons, ads, etc outside of Japan/ST, are not canon.

Not many fans even know about this source material, and the localizations and adaptations have endlessly confused the concept and canon. However, translations of the manuals and other material are easily accessible if you actually look for them. Yes, Sonic had a true canon.

Sonic Adventure did not randomly conjure a story, or suddenly decide the characters can talk, or have humans pop into Sonic's world. It is not a reboot. It is another episode in the story they had been telling all along, only now directly presented in the game.

There is a much thinner line between the classic games and Adventure than many seem to think. Sonic was not haha silly old timey cartoon then suddenly hardcore anime cheese. Classic Sonic was essentially a shonen anime, and Sonic Adventure was just a sharper version of that.

I'm not going to dive into all of the lore here; there is way too much to cover in a twitter thread. I am going to bring up a few specific things relevant to what was shown in the movie and give you all some theories to chew on. Hold on kids it's time for some Sonic lore.

Some have noticed South Island was depicted. It's frustrating and disheartening that fans rarely even know about South Island, it should be common knowledge. The movie had already impressed me with this, because it was a sign they researched Sonic much deeper than the surface.

They somehow even arrived at the same theory I did that South Island was once home to a bird civilization. The owl and echidna tribe being on South Island confused viewers but these things actually tie into the lore incredibly well. I hope this is more than amazing coincidence.

The three major locales in the classic trilogy are islands, and they overlap some traits:
All are connected to the chaos emeralds.
South and Angel islands move around the world.
West Side and Angel islands had ancient civilizations destroyed by abusing the chaos emeralds.

Sonic 3 establishes that Angel Island was once part of a continent, and broke off when its ancient civilization abused the chaos emeralds and caused a disaster, revealed in Sonic Adventure to have been the echidna tribe. They went to war with other races in their greed for power.

It's plausible that these islands were once part of the same landmass and shared that disaster as these civilizations fought for power and abused the chaos emeralds, causing them to shatter apart into drifting islands. See where I'm going with this?

It may be that some of the echidna tribe survived on South Island, and they along with Longclaw are among the last of their kinds. Presumably they've perished by the time Sonic 1 would begin years later (also "baby Sonic" is not classic Sonic, classic Sonic is a teen).

That said there are inconsistencies with the original canon (the thing that happens at the very end is a huge contradiction), so that idea pertains to the movie specific universe, but it's using the source material very well as constitution for a great albeit unique adaptation.

Few more quick canon notes: Sonic's world was a fantasy Earth that included humans, Sonic was just super athletic and did not have speed force powers, and Eggman's name was not Robotnik. Regardless, the movie's unique spins played very well with the source material.

Although it lost the shonen anime spirit through its western processing, it made up for it with a strong 80s western fantasy spirit evoking the likes of Dark Crystal (the first few minutes at least), which I consider compatible with Sonic and made for a wonderful interpretation.

I get the impression the intro was the movie the creatives wanted to make and they were forced to make it a generic buddy cop flick and those few minutes were all of the runtime they got. If there is a sequel, I really hope it's a lot more of that.
Also more Longclaw please.