Sonic the Hedgehog (Jeff Fowler, 2020)

[Persona]

Gotta say, after watching the trailer a couple times with my 6-yo son, I'm pretty much on board. He was enamored and giggling throughout. We both loved the "Uh... meow?" moment and cracked up when Sonic was stretching.

Also, I got a big goofy smile from the use of the ring sound effect.

I might be a sucker for this one.

[domino harvey]

There has never been -- nor will there ever be -- a good movie based on a video game.

Reading the Wiki entry for this category, you’re not really wrong, but I did surprisingly enjoy DOA: Dead or Alive for the oddness of its Maxim Magazine approximation of an action movie plus Eric Roberts giving one of his few halfway conscious recent performances. That said, I had zero idea it was based on a video game til I saw it listed here

[nitin]

Looks horrible and blandly generic but I am not at all surprised

[knives]

There has never been -- nor will there ever be -- a good movie based on a video game.

Reading the Wiki entry for this category, you’re not really wrong, but I did surprisingly enjoy DOA: Dead or Alive for the oddness of its Maxim Magazine approximation of an action movie plus Eric Roberts giving one of his few halfway conscious recent performances. That said, I had zero idea it was based on a video game til I saw it listed here

Some of the anime ones are good. Also, like I mentioned earlier, the television show for Sonic back in the day was above average for its generation.

[cdnchris]

I still don't think the first Mortal Kombat was terrible. Or does "not terrible" not mean the same thing as "good?"

[Zot!]

I still don't think the first Mortal Kombat was terrible. Or does "not terrible" not mean the same thing as "good?"

Yeah, good cheap thrills there. Best video game adaptation is Agnes Varda’s Kung Fu Master!

Also eXzistenZ, but that one is invented.

[solaris72]

According to twitter this is an actual exchange from the film (from a different trailer seen at a convention):

‘I was spitting out formulas when you were spitting up formulas,’ Carrey’s Robotnik tells James Marsh’s cop. ‘I was breastfed,’ answers Marsden in the trailer. 'Nice,' replies Robotnik. 'Rub that in my orphaned face.'

I'm going to watch the hell out of this movie.

[Gregory]

There has never been -- nor will there ever be -- a good movie based on a video game.

Counterpoint—Minesweeper: The Movie

[Titus]

Some of the anime ones are good. Also, like I mentioned earlier, the television show for Sonic back in the day was above average for its generation.

While a series rather than a movie, the Castlevania adaptation for Netflix is also quite good.

[thirtyframesasecond]

I hope it uses the real Sonic theme - it's iconic. It probably won't be that good, but Carrey going all out there is generally good fun so you never know.

[Monterey Jack]

Also eXzistenZ, but that one is invented.

The only good "video game" movies are the ones not based on existing video games, like Wreck-It Ralph and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Aside from maybe Rampage, I can't think of a film adaptation of an actual video game that could even be charitably considered "watchable".

[tenia]

Silent Hill is very watchable.
I suppose you could also include Warcraft, which I don't find to be particularly good, but is at least competently done.

[mteller]

Yes, Silent Hill is one of my favorites for how it captures the oppressive uneasiness of the games, terrific art direction. The sequel is pretty terrible, of course.

[colinr0380]

I would agree on the first Silent Hill film probably being the best film adaptation from a video game so far, though with the proviso that I have not seen Takashi Miike's videogame adaptations such as Yakuza: Like A Dragon and his take on Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney as yet! Also if we are going into anime territory Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie was quite an impressive example of mid 90s animation.

How about video games literally turned into movies? Alien: Isolation recently got re-edited into a film-like 'digital series' by IGN, turning the first person game into a third person one. And back when the first Red Dead Redemption game was getting released, the director John Hillcoat made a short film to promote it out of the game's early scenes

I think one of the problems with video game movies is that in many games a narrative aspect is often the vaguely defined skeleton on which the gameplay is attached, with navigating an environment and solving a puzzle the primary focus, and with any kind of narrative (in the form of a cut scene or a video clip) being the often underwhelming reward for the effort. There is also that sense that games are meant to be endlessly repeatable in a cycle of input and response to actions, whilst an actual fully fleshed out narrative in a game can sometimes end up reigning in the interactive nature of the product somewhat. You are not 'creating a narrative the way you want it' but still following the path already laid down for you to a pre-determined end scene, even if many games try their hardest to obscure that aspect. A strong narrative only serves to highlight that lack of player control (you are not actually embodying Lara Croft, but more guiding Lara Croft on her already laid out journey, in that sense). Add to that the idea that it often takes a lot of skill and effort to reach the ending scene of a game, so many players may never see the conclusion of the narrative even if it has been carefully planned out (at least in the era before Let's Plays on YouTube allow for people to see it that way!). I really like narrative games, but at the same time many games are so enormous that it is the journey and small actions performed that do not relate to any narrative arc that often feel like the most impactful aspects of it, rather than reaching a particular cut scene in a game.

Remove that aspect of interactivity which is a game's reason for being and you are often left with a narrative that does not particularly play well as a standalone film-like story in itself. I think that may be slowly changing especially as the gap between the structure of video games and films closes (mostly through both using extensive CGI and films starting to mimic quest structures of games, and tailoring narratives towards that), but trying to turn one thing into another both appears to frustrate gamers (asking why bother watching something when they could be playing it themselves) and filmgoer (why is the narrative so flimsy) alike.

Often filmmakers are left having to entirely create a new narrative out of familiar iconic elements from a game, and adding in elements from cinema rather than the game rather than being able to just remake a game in a different medium without any major changes. Take this Sonic film: it looks at least from that trailer that it is potentially going to be more interesting for audiences wanting to see Jim Carrey going back to mid 90s wackiness rather than anyone wanting to follow a particular arc of the character of Sonic into a new medium. And is Sonic much of a storied character anyway? I'm not particularly familiar with the source material as anything more than a platformer for collecting coins and Sonic himself as a mascot for a game console wanting to rival Mario.

If you want more context on Sonic The Hedgehog (and the paradox of a character created to 'go fast' being difficult to control!) the Superbunnyhop channel did a great video about the first levels of Sonic games a couple of years ago.

[captveg]

Detective Pikachu might buck the trend if early word on it is any indication. Of course, it's based on a more obscure spinoff of the main Pokemon series, which itself is centered on a tried-and-true cinema genre, with a heavy lean-in to Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but that just indicates to me that they may actually know what they're doing.

Also, last year's Tomb Raider was passably entertaining if a fairly generic action-adventure film.

[The Narrator Returns]

Fowler announced on Twitter that they'll be revamping the Sonic design, with six months to go before release.

[soundchaser]

Can't wait to see how much worse it comes out with the limited timeframe.

[Persona]

Can't wait to see how much worse it comes out with the limited timeframe.

Yeah.

Thanks a lot, whiners.

[tenia]

Yes, Silent Hill is one of my favorites for how it captures the oppressive uneasiness of the games, terrific art direction. The sequel is pretty terrible, of course.

The sequel is said to be so bad I've never watched it. However, while I like a lot the art direction, the characters and dialogues are particularly cheesy. It's a movie that seems to fall dramatically in quality as soon as a character opens its mouth.

[cdnchris]

According to twitter this is an actual exchange from the film (from a different trailer seen at a convention):

‘I was spitting out formulas when you were spitting up formulas,’ Carrey’s Robotnik tells James Marsh’s cop. ‘I was breastfed,’ answers Marsden in the trailer. 'Nice,' replies Robotnik. 'Rub that in my orphaned face.'

I'm going to watch the hell out of this movie.

If that's actually in the movie then I oddly have a mild bit of hope this might be, at the very least, okay. I guess now I'm figuring this will be a Lego Movie kind of situation where everyone agrees this is a terrible idea, but aim to make the most of it and go all out with it.

I'm curious how children will react to this, as I'm sure Paramount will want this to be a family hit. I showed the trailer to my two kids. My son (6), who is indifferent to Sonic (he's more of a Mario kinda guy), liked the trailer. He wants to see it. My daughter (10), ever since she saw the poster for it, has said she thinks it's a stupid idea for a movie. She likes the games but doesn't know how you can make a movie from it. I guess there is also some cartoon on (not sure if it's new or older) that she's seen but she doesn't like it. She watched the trailer and was cracking up really hard at Carrey's bits, and laughed at the last bit about the child in the bag. She admitted that if I take my son to see it she would want to come along.

She did agree with the rest of the internet that Sonic was ugly.

[David M.]

Can't wait to see how much worse it comes out with the limited timeframe.

It *cannot* look worse than what they showed.

In fact, I'm still betting that this is a giant ruse by Sega and Paramount and that this character design was never supposed to be legit. The social media team managing all things Sonic are known for viral / meme marketing. I bet that using an intentionally inept and weird-looking design was done to draw (negative) attention to this well-milked property for PR purposes, with the intention always being to get angry fans to the theater and surprise them.

I wouldn't be surprised if most of the movie is already done with the 'real' design that they've now "announced" as in the works,
and the hideous character design was only animated for a handful of trailer shots.

[Kirkinson]

I've also seen a few effects artists chiming in on twitter to say that due to the way computer animation works, the makeover may not be quite as labor-intensive as some have suggested — as long as the character is the same basic size and shape, they can use the same "skeleton" and plug a new design into the animation they've already completed without necessarily having to redo everything. Most of the extra work would be in texture and shading which might not have been close to completion anyway.

(But I should maybe add that I don't know enough about CGI to gauge how true that might be.)

[cdnchris]

It's basically just programming and it's a matter of just changing the data around how that horrendous thing looks. They just make a new design and plug that all in and it will be rendered in 3D. I doubt they would have to go frame-by-frame other than to touch up.

They have the movements and placement and all that already done (or mostly I assume), they really just have to wrap the new "look" around it, so I don't doubt they could quickly churn out something.

[Lost Highway]

We work with what’s called “reference models” in 3D animation which does indeed allow for changes in design of a character as long as the proportions of the rig (skeleton) stay the same. Programming is not involved at that stage. Depending on the changes, tweaks to the animation may have to be done here and there, but if they were to change the length of the legs for instance (which I think look weird) then a lot of reanimating would be involved.

I worked on the first Shrek where Mike Myers decided to change his performance to rerecord everything with a mock-Scottish accent half way though production. That resulted in roughy re-doing a third of the animation and a lot of overtime. So if deemed necessary an, animation production will do that.

[domino harvey]

I think Paramount may have rushed this new fixed trailer