SOME THOUGHTS ON THE SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 2 TRAILER

I remember it like it was yesterday. In May of 2019, the trailer for the hotly anticipated live-action “Sonic the Hedgehog” movie debuted. Many die-hard “Sonic” fans, who are very used to this franchise being abused and disappointing us, were already skeptical of the movie's existence. Then that trailer dropped like an atomic bomb, generating a wave of anti-buzz that threatened to destroy the movie before it even came out. It was such a seismic reaction that the studio was forced to listen, redesigning Sonic and pushing the movie back several months. 

How you feel about the finished movie seems to depend entirely on where your priorities were. Most mainstream movie critics thought it was fine, a totally serviceable and very typical kids' movie The “Sonic” fandom, meanwhile, was very positive on the movie. In fact, I remember a lot of people saying they loved it. Even though it had little to do with the “Sonic” franchise as it had existed before that point.. Whether this is because the first trailer was so bad it set people's expectations in the abyssal plain – and people already expected the movie to be bad, because video game movies are usually bad – or because Sonic fans are especially uncritical about something as long as it looks right is really a matter of opinion.

Regardless, Jeff Fowler's “Sonic the Hedgehog” movie was a hit. It grossed 319 million against a 90 million dollar budget. That made it the highest grossing superhero movie of 2020, dethroning Marvel's ten year run in that genre. It also made it the highest grossing video game adaptation in U.S. box office history, defeating “Detective Pikachu,” the movie it was unflatteringly compared to at one point. It also had the advantage of being the last big studio release before the pandemic shut everything down, making “Sonic” seems like the last happy outcast from the version of history that existed before the world went completely fucking insane. 

When a film makes that kind of cash, especially when it's based on a long-running multi-media franchise with a number of exploitable tie-ins and spin-offs, obviously a sequel is on everyone's mind. This was obviously something the first movie hoped for or else it wouldn't have included that Marvel-esque mid-credit teaser featuring Tails. Even Jim Carrey, who once wasn't much for sequels, was ready to go. And so “Sonic 2” rolled into production last year, filmed this previous spring, and the trailer came out yesterday.

If you're reading this blog, you know all the juicy details already. Leaked set photos confirmed Knuckles and Tails would play a large role in the movie. After Jason Momoa and The Rock were rumored, Idris Elba got cast as Knuckles. He then denied that Knuckles was sexy, obviously unaware of the property he will now forever be linked with. Colleen O'Shaughnessey would reprise her role as Tails from the games and the previous movie's last scene. All of this is good news. 

So what of that trailer? 

First off, the only real complaint I have is that it feels a little heavy on the quips. I get that Ben Schwartz is a funny guy who knows his way around a one-liner. Similarly, we all expect Sonic to be a sarcastic little smart-ass who cracks jokes in the face of danger. Yet the trailer feels a little heavy on that. This may just be a side effect of how modern trailers are cut, to emphasize action and humor as much as possible. Also, I still don't know why Jason Marsden is in these movies. Tom was... Largely inoffensive in the first one but I feel like his role will grow increasingly inessential, if the film franchise continues to evolve down the path it seems to be on.

Otherwise, the trailer definitely doubles-down on the shit that is going to make fans loose their mind. Tails is front-and-center, including piloting the Tornado while Sonic poses on the wing in an iconic manner. Jim Carrey's Robotnik is now sporting a mustache more akin to the game version. A Chaos Emerald is presented in all its glimmering glory. And, of course, Idris Elba's Knuckles has a show-stopping appearance in the last few minutes. Despite whatever Idris' intentions were, the combination of everyone's gruff and punch-y echidna with his sonorous voice are going to have an immediate impact on certain subsections of the fandom. 

A slightly deeper look at the trailer reveals even more fun stuff. Sonic munches a chili dog. The Egg Drones from the first movie have been remodeled to resemble Buzz Bombers. Agent Stone, already a beloved minor character, is shown working in a coffee shop with the words “mean” and “bean” on the wall behind him. Sonic appears to perform a Homing Attack in one scene and rides a snowboard down a mountainside. We even see missiles fire out of some sort of large, somewhat round, dark structure, which I suspect might be the Death Egg.

All of this suggests a sequel that will lean much more into the “Sonic” universe as we know it. Of course, the question remains: Will the movie actually be good? That disastrous initial trailer was almost, in a way, a blessing for the first “Sonic” movie. Precisely because it set everyone's expectations so low, that the movie could easily exceed them. “Sonic 2” has a much more uphill battle ahead of it, because people actually liked the first one. Fans actually expect the sequel to be at least as good. That leaves a lot more room for disappointment. This is a factoid I understand and I am working as hard as possible to not to get too excited for the film. 

But here's the ugliest truth of all: I love the "Sonic" franchise too much, been too obsessed with this fucking thing my entire life, to be objective about what is fundamentally a mediocre kids movie series. As long as this nods towards the Thing I Love, I'm willing to forgive so much. This is definitely probably why I rated a movie that should've been, at most, a 6/10 as high as a 8/10. What does that say about the state of studio filmmaking, that filmmakers try to patch over merely passable quality by injecting it with easily-grasped childhood nostalgia? And what does it say about me that I'm 100% falling for it? 

These are questions we don't have answers to yet and won't know for sure until the movie is actually out in April. What I do know is that I'm ready to strap in, baby. SONIC 2 HYPE TRAIN STARTS NOW WOOOO!!!!