This 2024 about to conclude has been the ‘Year of Shadow’. Such were the designs of Sega, the Japanese company in charge of the franchise. Sonic the Hedgehog, that with this celebration throughout the world continued what in 2023 was the Fast. Friends. forever. While the previous year Sonic was celebrated as a unifying phenomenon, honoring the more than three decades that the hedgehog had been among us, Fearless: Year of Shadow wanted to focus on the eponymous character: Shadow the Hedgehog. A sort of evil Sonic with also a lot of history behind him.
The ‘Year of Shadow’ then decided to give it full prominence within fan conventions, exhibitions, new merchandising and audiovisual production, with two major works for the latter. Have Sonic x Shadow Generationsa video game published on October 24 that served as a reissue for a previous title that, in turn, also had a lot of celebration.
Sonic Generations had served in 2011 to honor the story of the hedgehog, this new version incorporating several levels starring Shadow as well as a DLC (downloadable content) inspired by a climatic scene from the other great work of the Year of Shadow: Sonic 3, the movie.
In both scenarios Shadow has had the voice of Keanu Reeves, an actor much loved by the community gamer after playing Johnny Silverhand in the popular video game Cyberpunk 2077. The atmosphere that greets the premiere of the film is therefore tremendously enthusiastic, capable of overcoming the less brilliant aspects of the franchise. Sonic in its current state. For example, the lukewarm results of its most ambitious launch —Sonic Frontiers trying in 2022 to make the hedgehog run within a gigantic open world—, or the constant shadow of Nintendo.
sonic 3 hits billboards when we still remember last year’s blockbuster Super Mario Bros. The Moviealmost impossible to replicate. And, if that were not enough, has not failed to point out that the play of Sonic x Shadow Generations It looks a lot like when it was reissued in 2021 Super Mario Bros. 3D World —one of the mustachioed plumber’s most acclaimed titles—along with an expansion titled Bowser’s Fury. Nintendo did it before. It’s something that Sonic has always had to deal with, and something very painful because what characterizes this hedgehog is speed.
Shadow’s shadow
The echoes of the console war of the 90s survive today in the troubled management of the franchise. Sonic compared to the infallible operation of Nintendo, although Shadow’s sudden prominence offers some very interesting nuances in order to study how this conflict continues. During the original console war, the differential value of Sonic’s image compared to Super Mario’s was that it was much more hooligan. With an adolescent impetus reflected in other corporate mascots of the time such as Fido Dido or Chester Cheetos, Sonic opposed Mario’s childish air. He winked his eye, he boasted of rebellion.
The curious thing about Shadow is that he is, in turn, an “adult” reverse of Sonic. He was created in a laboratory and became friends with a girl named Maria, everything going wrong when this girl died, and Shadow was thrown into the outside world full of resentment. We learned his story in the 2001 game Sonic Adventure 2and four years later we had the corresponding solo adventure. Shadow the Hedgehog wanted to add darkness to the franchise, doing it in such an obvious and cartoonish way that he made himself quite ridiculous: following the path that he had led shortly before. Jak & Daxter to Jak II: The Renegadethis Shadow rode a motorcycle, fired guns, and had a “morality” rating that could be tightened as much as the player wanted.
Shadow then has a tragic past and is more of an antihero – it seems that Keanu Reeves wanted to give him a voice due to the similarities between the character and John Wick – who occasionally helps Sonic and occasionally confronts him. In general terms, its existence can be considered as a failed attempt to give Sonic a solemnity that Nintendo never contemplated, neither in the 90s nor in that second adolescent retreat of the 2000s. During the ‘Year of Shadow’ he has been celebrated, In fact, from values little related to remorse or evil: Sega and the Sonic Team have preferred to talk about the “bravery”, the “self-confidence” and the ability to “break barriers” of Shadow. Empty words that alienate no one.
And this is just what leads us to Sonic 3, the movieFortunately, no one has suggested during the development of the film saga that Sonic, at some point, wants to embrace an adult or darker tone. Shadow is the new great character in the film directed by Jeff Fowler again after the two previous films and has a very similar story to the interview in Sonic Adventure 2 and Shadow the Hedgehogwhich in itself implies the appearance of another character: Dr. Gerald Robotnik, grandfather of Sonic’s archenemy who has been played with great aplomb by Jim Carrey since the first film. Gerald Robotnik is also played by Carrey, in a double role that leads, for example, to scenes where a duplicate Carrey dances among laser beams.
Solemnity is neither there nor expected, advocating avoiding any depth and remaining faithful to the inaugural budgets of Sonic’s run in theaters. These first steps were clumsy and are not exempt from a dark background: we are still unable to forget that Sonic’s first design was so rejected by the public following the trailers that Paramount had to postpone the premiere to March 2020 to allow time animators to get a new look, more similar to the style cartoon of video games. The “ugly Sonic” has nevertheless remained part of pop culture, due to the memorable nature of that hostile reaction and even its subsequent appearance in Chip and Chop: Guardian Rescuerswhile the movies Sonic They have been flowing regularly.
Even with a pandemic involved. Sonic the movie was one of the last Hollywood blockbusters before the coronavirus crisis, reaching sonic 2 in 2022 with the last throes of the health emergency. sonic 3 It is released now, maintaining scrupulous continuity in tone and intentions, with hardly any signs of exhaustion within a formula that is as simple as it is effective.
a happy place
“The best decade in the world,” says a character in sonic 3clearly referring to the 90s. The film is then aware of what the springs of the engine are that have allowed this curious regularity in terms of quality, speed of production and birth of sequels: sonic 4 has been announced shortly before the third hits US theaters, overcoming the opening of Mufasa: The Lion King. And this engine is based on the ability of Fowler and company to emulate the affective conditions of the 90s that saw Sonic born. Predictable plots, friendly frivolity, and above all the luminous acceptance that they are, nothing more and nothing less, children’s films.
That’s why it’s such a good idea to dispense with all the gravity that Shadow could have brought back in the day. In the action scene where it is presented (recreated in the DLC of Sonic x Shadow Generations) appears on his motorcycle and firing a gun like in that infamous game from the 2000s, but it’s practically a wink. As we learn more about him, there is no doubt that Shadow – as happened with the Knuckles voiced by Idris Elba and introduced in sonic 2— will end up allying himself with Sonic and becoming part of this happy family of computer-generated creatures, headed by a human James Marsden very satisfied with being totally secondary and irrelevant.
The joint presence of Marsden and his partner Tika Sumpter is due to the introduction of insistent speeches about the importance of home and family ties, launched with something similar to inertia but aligned with the firm affiliation of Sonic to a comfortable and functional cinema. A cinema, in short, with no other ambitions than to make the kids have a good time and the adults to do the same by projecting themselves into their gaze. From this perspective, a suggestive parallel is woven with another neighboring phenomenon such as that of the saga Paddington. Paddingtonwhich also premieres his third installment In a matter of weeks, it is based on a plot very similar to that of Sonic – a CGI talking animal with a found family – while pressing slightly different keys.
About the movies Paddington A passionate and certainly performative consensus has been woven about the merits of this adaptation of Michael Bond’s books. It is a harmless consensus and also marked by nostalgia, but in this case we usually talk about adults in their thirties who long for a childlike simplicity, facilitated by this teddy bear of infinite kindness and British manners. Faced with the cuddly Paddington, Sonic becomes an equally childish Bart Simpson, but somewhat less corseted, where nostalgia only flows from a nineties model that—in the defining move of the entire Paramount operation—finds its expression in Jim Carrey’s grimaces. insignia face. This is, in fact, the secret of the success of Sonic.
Carrey’s generous dedication to the interpretation of Robotnik—with an instinctive reminiscence of legendary films of the 90s such as The mask, Ace Ventura either compulsive liar— ensures that the humor of Sonic don’t falter A quick and vigorous parade of antics to delight audiences of any age that works here even better than in sonic 2 for the incorporation of Grandpa Robotnik and the strengthening of the love/hate plot with his assistant, Lee Madjoub’s Agent Stone. All of which invites you to get carried away by the Christmas spirit and be glad that Shadow’s somber gesture takes so little time to decompose. Also to hope that, as long as Carrey is still on the ship, all of Carrey’s movies continue to arrive Sonic that Paramount and Sega want.
#Sonic #lose #90s #charm #Jim #Carrey #great #time
