La Ron S. Readus
patreon
Is Sonic the Hedgehog Getting A Trilogy? (VIDEO SCRIPT)
🕑 Added 2020-02-17 21:00:01 +0000 UTC
Wanna see me map out the next two installments of this Sonic movie trilogy Paramount is CLEARLY gonna do? ...Wanna see me do it again?
_______
Heads up, Readers. This video contains spoilers for the 2020 Paramount movie Sonic The Hedgehog, WHICH WAS GREAT.
So if you haven’t seen it yet, make sure you do before you watch this.
But if you’re still watching, that means one of three things:
One, you’ve seen the movie already
Two, you HAVEN’T seen the movie yet but you don’t care about spoilers
Or 3! (Thinks) I dunno, you hate mushrooms or something...
So yeah, at this point I don’t think there’s no sense of hiding that I enjoyed Sonic the Hedgehog.
/Ben Schwartz was extremely faithful to the character and did a great job interpreting him if he were a product of the 2010s as opposed to keeping him stuck in the 90’s/
/Jim Carrey was JUST as fun to watch as a pre “turn everything into robots” Doctor Robotnik/
And despite a couple of scenes foreshadowing future events, it did a good job focusing on making this movie the best that it can be instead of shoving it into your face that this is the first installment of a planned franchise because they’re super confident the box office results are gonna reflect the reason for greenlighting more movies.
But that didn’t mean they didn’t plant the seeds for it, because they TOTALLY did, and I’m not even talking about the after credit scene introducing Tails.
They did that shit within what, the first...3 minutes? 5 minutes? They did it in the very prologue of the movie
And after watching it play out and set up how Sonic arrived on Earth, my writer-slash-storyteller brain pretty much realized where they wanted to take the story going forward immediately.
So (clasps hands). Let's talk about the Echidnas
So in the case you only know the bare bones of Sonic lore and were wondering why there was a tribe of Knuckles after baby Sonic in the beginning of the movie, let me explain:
Echidnas as established in Sonic lore is a warrior race that separates themselves in tribes.
Two of the most well known Echidna clans are the Nocturnus tribe and the Knuckles tribe; the latter one my favorite Sonic character Knuckles is a descendant of.
These two tribes were at war with each other over the game series’ main set of McGuffins, the Chaos Emeralds. Think the Infinity Stones if they weren’t so overpowered and were better handled.
While the Nocturnus tribe wanted to use the powers of the Emeralds for their own personal gain, the Knuckles tribe gave reverence to the power they held and wanted to protect them, and they pretty much gave their lives doing so.
After all, Knuckles is not only the last descendant OF the Knuckles tribe, but also the last anthropomorphic Echidna on Earth, and he’s basically tasked with not only protecting the seven Chaos Emeralds, but also the Master Emerald which acts as the prison for a god called Chaos -- the original protector of said Emeralds and the one responsible for the extinction of the Knuckles tribe to begin with.
Oh, yeah, no; we’re going full-on Gozer with this
Fast forward to the universe now established by Paramount Pictures with the live-action Sonic the Hedgehog movie, and we meet our titular character.
But when we do, we are almost immediately made aware that his speed is NOT commonplace with his race at all; that he’s special.
This is emphasized later on in the movie whenever modern day Sonic is in such a state of distress that he enters a form that’s pretty much a mix of the Odinforce and the Kaio-Ken technique.
Now remember, he doesn’t really reach that form until Sonic’s already on Earth over the course of the MEAT of the movie. He was only able to run absurdly fast by the time we’re introduced to Sonic in the prologue, which in itself was enough for the exposition to let us know that he was special.
SO special that according TO the exposition we received in the movie, we’re both told and shown that there were beings who wanted to harness what he could do for their own purposes.
And the first beings we’re introduced to that gave off that they had that intention with how they attacked Sonic and his caregiver Longclaw, are a tribe of Echidnas.
Like I said before, Readers; the two most well known tribe of Echidnas are the Knuckles tribe and the Nocturnus tribe, and there’s a clear difference between the two; pretty much night and day. Pun intended, unfortunately
And from what the movie showed us, the tribe that attacked Sonic and Longclaw were NOT the Nocturnus tribe. If anything, they resembled the Knuckles tribe.
So if we combine the fact that an Echidna tribe that closely resembled the one associated with worshipping the Chaos Emeralds and protecting the Master Emerald, was hunting down a young Sonic who at the time was only capable of running fast and didn’t get his first Dragon Ball Z-esque power-up form until around 10 years later
That tells me as an on and off fan of Sonic The Hedgehog that not only are the writers trying to foreshadow the Chaos Emeralds and possibly even the Master Emerald with Chaos inside of it if this movie does well enough
But they’re also trying to establish that Sonic is possibly one of the only beings in this universe that’s powerful enough to organically use the powers that they wield.
And the way that he does it is that when he HAS all seven Chaos Emeralds in his possession, he enters a super state called Super Sonic, which is clearly foreshadowed in the movie with what we see Sonic being able to do on his own.
Now I say ORGANICALLY, because we have to keep Doctor Robotnik into consideration here. He’s been able to use the power of the Chaos Emeralds in his machines before, and I’m pretty sure we’ll be seeing him do it if they introduce them in future installments.
But yes, Readers; now you know why I used a crudely done image of a movie-verse Super Sonic as the main image for the thumbnail.
I’m trying to teach myself advanced techniques on GIMP, guys; leave me alone!
And also, no; this isn’t a stretch at ALL. Not by a longshot!
Because that possibility is reinforced even MORE when Tails shows up on Earth in the end credits scene, radiating that hot-ass “I must find the Chosen One” energy; the Chaos Emeralds -- if not Chaos itself -- is going to be involved with these future installments!
Now a few of the things I appreciate about how they handled all of this exposition in the movie is that -- like I said before -- they didn’t use it as the main crutch to get butts in the seats.
They focused on telling a good origin story for Sonic that didn’t heavily rely on these possible foreshadowed events that it could lead up to as a franchise.
Universal Studios made that mistake with their remake of The Mummy, HEAVILY pouring every bit of exposition that they crafted for their Dark Universe campaign into the story instead of just focusing on y’know... the STORY.
Speaking of which, we have to take into consideration that even before the redesign of Sonic happened, what we got in the movie was ALWAYS going to be what we got in the movie even if the redesign didn’t happen.
All of this foreshadowing would’ve still happened even if we didn’t convince Paramount to go back to the drawing board.
We just wouldn’t have seen it, because we would’ve been turned off by Sonic’s overall look.
So does that mean they’re going to introduce Knuckles, the Chaos Emeralds, Chaos itself and Sonic’s super form in the sequel? No. Absolutely not.
More than likely this is going to be a trilogy
With Tails being on this quest to find Sonic in part 2, we’ll more than likely get a plot that INTRODUCES us to either the CONCEPT of this universes version of the Chaos Emeralds, or the beginning of the quest that requires the two of them along with Tom and Maddie to find them. All while having to deal with the return of Robotnik and making sure he doesn’t learn about them.
And if you want another antagonist for that, have Robotnik create Metal Sonic and use the quill he still has to power it. That immediately came to my head once he reached peak Robotnik by the end of the movie and saw that he still had the quill.
As far as Knuckles is concerned, I would hold off introducing him and the overall Chaos plot until the third movie. That way there can be proper animosity between Sonic and Knuckles.
Sonic can have flashbacks to the tribe of Echidnas that attacked Longclaw and himself as a kid so he sees Knuckles as an enemy that wants his power
Knuckles can be properly manipulated by Robotnik to think Sonic and Tails are trying to use the Emeralds to free Chaos
And then when the tension between the trio and the accompanying humans have resolved themselves, they all have to band together to keep an unleashed Chaos from destroying the world.
But in order for that to be as epic as possible, they’d have to take a page out of Sonic Adventure and make sure the first time we see Sonic’s Super form is against the gang’s big fight against Chaos. Which according to how I outlined this whole saga, won’t be until the final act of the third movie.
Was I able to come up with ALL of that after 1 viewing of the Sonic the Hedgehog movie? Yes. Because that’s just how my mind works.
The moment I saw that the Echidnas were possibly based off of Knuckles’ tribe, I knew they were gonna try and go the Chaos angle if this movie did well.
The moment I saw Sonic in a new form, I knew they were alluding to him eventually going Super.
And all of that was solidified with me the moment Tails was introduced with the purpose of finding Sonic.
I wanna say I wasn’t the only fan that jumped to these same conclusions while watching the movie, but... (thinks) ...No, wait, yes; I’m absolutely SURE I’m not the only fan that jumped to these same conclusions
Now I know what you’re thinking:
But La’Ron, how you mapped out parts 2 and 3 sound pretty dope, but what about Shadow the Hedgehog and HIS possible role?
What about him?
Anyway Readers, your homework assignment for the day; write in the comment section below whether or not YOU think Paramount is heading in this direction with the film franchise after watching Sonic the Hedgehog.
Or, if you feel like sharing with the rest of the class, how YOU would map out the overall story of the second and third installment of a potential Sonic trilogy considering how this movie played out
As a matter of fact, I’m actually VERY interested in hearing other people’s take on that question. Especially...ANOTHER black nerd who...happens to be a bigger Sonic fan than I am and may actually know more Sonic lore than I do. As a matter of fact, I’m 500% sure that this other...black nerd who just so happens to do comedy knows more Sonic lore than me. I would TOTALLY love to see how he would handle this
(Pauses) Okay, fine; I’m talking about Jaleel White.
