The first trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 has dropped at last (actually, I found it dropped back in December and I completely missed it).
As you may recall, I was moderately pleased with the first Sonic film. It was very light, fluffy, harmless family entertainment that I thought did justice to the characters as far as it went. But I was actually pleased at the idea of a sequel.
Well, looking at the trailer, I’m guessing much the same will be said of this one.
They’re definitely leaning more into the Sonic lore this time, with the Chaos Emeralds making their debut, and Tails and Knuckles coming in. Looks like the plot will be based more on Sonic 3, with Knuckles being tricked into siding with Robotnik against Sonic. I’m all on board with that: there’s a lot of ‘Sonic’ material to work with, and the first film really didn’t touch on it, so full steam ahead!
Let’s see…still not sure about Jim Carrey, to be honest. He was a lot of fun in the first film, but the thing is, now he really has to be Robotnik because the excuse of building up to the characters is used up. I’m a little worried he’ll be too Jim Carrey (the ‘papa’s got a brand new stache’ line felt too ‘meta’ to me, like he’s just riffing on the character). But we’ll see; it is only a trailer, after all. He’s certainly looking the part this time around.
On the other hand, Colleen O’Shaughnessey is on board as Tails, which is excellent (though it kind of makes the lack of Roger Craig Smith all the more noticeable). And…Idris Elba as Knuckles!? Well, I’d probably prefer Travis Willingham on principle, but it’s kind of hard to complain about that choice.
Other than that, we get the usual contemporary film snark and attempts to be relevant (is Oprah still a thing? And do they really think there’s much cross-over in her audience the Sonic fanbase?), but it also looks like a suitably crazy, fast-paced adventure near-cartoon.
Overall, like I said above, I’m guessing this’ll be more or less on a level with the first film, only with more ‘Sonic’ lore. Meh, I’ll take it.
(I’d lay money on a mid-credits tease for Shadow, by the way).
Serpent's Den 
Personally, I doubt anyone can recreate the awesome that was the climax of Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Much of which played off the fact that it one-upped Sonic 2’s elements (chaos emeralds and Super Sonic, the Death Egg & the giant Eggman robot) but the one-upping actually works because it ties into the plot with Knuckles and the Master Emerald, and of course there’s that secret final boss chase scene with Eggman literally carrying the macguffin right when you thought you could put the controller down – reversing the common videogame “true form” trope to boot. Sure, you could make a scene that looks that great and has the epic music screaming that your rings are counting down and you’re running out of time; but without the one-up aspect it wouldn’t build up to as much of a climax (imagine the same scene with only the Sonic 2 power, it doesn’t tie in to Knuckles and the Master Emerald then).
…Yeah, I’m making a valiant attempt to rave about how incredible the completed original Sonic trilogy was without any actual spoilers if I can help it…
To be fair a movie doesn’t have to recreate the games, or their specific/exact plotlines etc., and maybe it’s better if they come up with something new inspired by the old stories instead. As with the lessons of Lucas (quite agree about sympathizing with him; he put himself in an impossible situation promising more and then having to match or top what he’d already delivered, but putting oneself in such a situation is the easiest mistake in the world), sometimes you don’t have to repeat what’s already been accomplished, and that’s okay.
I actually would like to see both of these sometime (or someday, depending on exact age-appropriateness). My daughter is a huge Sonic fan and we don’t get to watch a lot of movies as it is, unless you count Peppa Pig episodes (which admittedly is a riot).
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