This month, I was planning (as we’re sure many other critics were) on reviewing the new Sonic the Hedgehog movie. However, due to the initial live action Sonic design being…. well…. terrifying, it’s been delayed so that they may try and fix it.
Say what you like, they admitted they screwed up. Took the Transformers movies six movies to get the characters even close to how they’re supposed to look.
So, it appears we’ll have to wait until next year for that. But seeing as how uploading something where I gush about my favourite video game hero at least once every year has become something of a tradition of mine, I had to find something to talk about. We’ve already covered what is currently (and judging by the trailers for the new one, will continue to be) the best Sonic movie: the Japanese OVA, as well as the weirdest piece of Sonic media ever made: Sonic Live in Sydney. So how’s about we take a look at the weirdest piece of Sonic media…. never made?
Sonic: Wonders of the World is a script for a Sonic the Hedgehog movie written all the way back in 1993, only a couple years after the character first debuted. It was shopped around for a while but was ultimately never picked up. Still, from several synopses, descriptions and a few scattered quotes, I’ve been able to piece together a fairly decent idea on what the movie could have been like. Why was this idea left to be forgotten? Let’s find out.
We begin with a boy named Josh Pinski (boy, do I see a lot of pinhead-based name calling in this kid’s high school days) who is reading his school paper on a test pilot named Sonic who died while trying to break the “speed barrier”.
I presume this was around the time the writer was asked to leave the studio.
I mean, geez. Pretty morbid start to the kid’s movie, don’t you think? His papers not even finished so he ends up half arsing his reading of it and getting told off by the teacher. Heading home, we learn Josh’s family situation ain’t all that great. His parents are divorced and he’s in joint custody, constantly being passed back and forth between his father Hal and mother Lisa. Hal just happens to be a genius inventor, having just created an “artificial intelligence computer which utilises a unique system of holographic memory” which he calls the XRI or eXtremely Radical Intelligence because this is the 90s and extreme and radical are the only bywords people knew how to use at the time.
Hal tells Josh not to touch the XRI so of course he touches it, trying to use it to write his school paper for him. The system (like the rest of us) is baffled by this test pilot story, but in its case it’s because it doesn’t understand who this “Sonic” is. Josh decides to help…. or rather make things MORE confusing by hooking up his SEGA Saturn to it and putting in his copy of Sonic X-Treme.
Because again, this is 1993 and Google hasn’t been invented yet.
For those not in the know, Sonic X-Treme was (aside from another example of the very limited vocabulary available back then) a game that was currently being developed at the same time but was never finished. It got stuck in development hell for years, ran through several ideas that never quite made it, and in the end was cancelled. Whether any of this factored into this movie also not getting made is anyone’s guess.
Then something weird happens. The artificial intelligence seems to interact with the game, and the Sonic on screen suddenly stops responding to controls and begins acting on his own.
The origins of Skynet were very different from what most would imagine.
Suddenly, for no apparent discernible reason, Sonic and his archenemy Dr Robotnik jump out of the game and into the real world. So, are they holograms of the programs given consciousness? Robotnik goes on about how he’s been waiting for a chance to escape the game world, so I guess not. But if they’re not holograms and are living versions of them from another dimension, how the hell did a computer let them pass over? You’re gonna have to bear with us for a lot of this. I have even less to work with then I did with Live in Sydney. No visuals, no audio, technically no story at all. Gonna be a lot of guess work here.
Robotnik takes off in his flying machine, no doubt blowing a good chunk of the building away as he does so, while Sonic runs after him. He soon finds however that his high-speed platforming skills aren’t translating too well into the real world (a possible metaphor. But we’ll get back to that later) as he damages rooftops and streetlights as well as… err…. tries impressing a girl, only for her to “scare in terror”. I’m assuming that was a typo from the source I got this info from. If it’s not, then I have even more questions.
Despite this VERY public chase/fight scene, Josh, in yet another display of his oh so brilliant intellect, lies to his parents about what happened, and in turn causes an argument before his mother takes him away to her place. Sonic, having lost Robotnik, somehow tracks Josh down and asks for his help.
Comparatively, Sonic going to a sheriff for assistance makes a lot more sense.
Finding that being in the real world is slowly making him weaker and weaker (again, possible metaphor) Sonic says the only way to revitalize him is with Chaos Emeralds: the all-powerful McGuffin items from the games…. Which conveniently exist in our world now too. They’re encased in regular rocks. You apparently “just have to know which ones to crack open”.
Yeah, let’s get to that point Bracketed Text mentioned earlier. It’s an issue with not just this and the Sonic movie we’re actually going to get, but also with these kinds of movies in general. Namely, why do we keep sending fictional characters to our world? We see this trope all the time in movie based on other properties. But when you take a character out of their fictional fantastical world, you also take away all the creative freedom that comes with it. You’re essentially placing limits on yourself for no good reason. Heck this scene is proof of it. They had to essentially cheat in order to move the story forward and could have avoided it all together had it just been set in the world of Sonic the Hedgehog. That’s not to say there’s no opportunities with this scenario. The Rocky and Bullwinkle Movie used it to surprisingly good effect, providing metacommentary and plenty of in jokes. If it’s a TV show or comic, it could make a fun one-off episode. Maybe a two-parter. But then why is it almost exclusively used for movies? You know what’s gonna happen. You introduce some normal human characters for them to interact with, spend too much time on them and as a result make a movie that barely contains the characters we paid to see.
What’s sad is that in a few years’ time, humans and real world-esque environments would be established in the world of Sonic the Hedgehog, rendering the “go to Earth” trope completely pointless as they were essentially already there. But this rant is getting long, and we’re got plenty of no-movie left to go. So, let’s move on.
With the emeralds in hand, Sonic is back on form. Josh asks if he could have a go with them, so Sonic gives him a taste, granting him superpowers, which he uses to… complete his school paper.
If the writer wasn’t asked to leave already, the part where Sonic hooks a kid up with a crystal-like object that makes them feel amazing certainly was.
Robotnik meanwhile has been busy. As always, the doctor has two main goals. 1. Take over the world. And 2. Build his own amusement park. First one’s the priority. The second one is more of passion project. It appears on this occasion though, he’s trying to pull off both at the same time, as he’s set up his evil lair at an abandoned amusement park. So, does he go about trapping animals inside of robot bodies like normal? No, he does something…. considerably more morbid. Recruiting some bullies from Josh’s school (because of cause they’re from Josh’s school) who he then implants with robotic body parts turning them into…. “Bullibots”…. Bit extreme.
(So, it’s fitting for the time period?)
Redacted…. don’t.
The Bullibots are sent off to look for the Chaos Emeralds by Robotnik while he sets about fixing up the park. As a result, they soon run into Sonic and Josh. This confrontation, hopefully resulting in a cool fight scene, gives them some sort of clue to Robotnik’s whereabouts. When returning home, Josh learns that Hal has gotten a job at the Shady Corporation…. That wasn’t a joke. The company name is literally Shady Corporation. Can it be more obvious? Yes! The Park it runs is called Botnikland…. Just a reminder, Dr Robotnik has a 300 level IQ.
He must have put some intelligence in if he’s managed all this without anyone noticing he’s a CGI character in a live action world. You’d think someone would notice.
Since this lines up with the clue they found (and you’d have to be galactically stupid not to realise that’s where Robotnik’s at), Josh goes with Hal to work, Sonic hiding in the boot of his car. They discover Robotnik hired Hal to use the XRI in order to create a new virtual reality ride. The park itself is a huge success, as the kids get free admission, and free candy, and free ice cream (I’d say it could only be more suspect if you literally wrote the shady on top of it, but this is the one occasion when that doesn’t work!).
Of course, this is part of the scheme too. Robotnik is using the ride to kidnap children, replacing them with “Kinder-Bot Robo Clones”, while he forces the real ones to mine underneath the park in search of more emeralds. Doctor, your specialty is robots. Heck, a good chunk of your designs incorporate drills. It’s like one of your go to themes. Why are you resorting to child slave labour? It’s not just the morality side. Kids are weak. They’re much less efficient.
Anyway, Sonic and Josh discover Robotnik’s true plan. Using the XRI, in a reversal of how he and Sonic came to this world, he’ll digitise all the Earth’s landmarks like Mount Everest and the Amazon Rainforest, which he’ll recreate in virtual reality so that he may charge people tonnes of money in order to see the wonders of the world (title drop!). I guess this is an economical world takeover scheme? We then get a chase scene with Sonic, Josh and the Bullibots. Dumb as it would have been, at least it seems we’d have gotten plenty of action if nothing else.
Sonic gets captured after using all his energy to help Josh escape, who now has to save him (because of course it’s up to Josh and no one else). He’s scared, but then remembers the pep talk Sonic gave him earlier about standing up for what you believe in and giving it everything you got. Hey, they got that aspect of Sonic down at least. He’s always about building up others, helping them find confidence even in the most hopeless of situations…. Hmm, you know, I think I just realized why this character appeals to me so much.
What happens next is very unclear. We suddenly jump to after whatever Josh’s rescue attempt was, which somehow results in him, Sonic, Robotnik, Hal and Lisa all getting pulled into the game world through the XRI.
The image of Josh Pinski being a complete and utter moron persists.
We get our final act fight scene, Robotnik is defeated and flees just before a random vortex opens up to take Josh and his parents’ home. This is where we apparently get the big emotional farewell between Sonic and Josh, though frankly if I were Sonic, having carried this kid for the whole adventure, I’d be happy to be rid of him at this point (for a guy who reviews a lot of kid-based media, Baron ain’t great with children). Upon returning to the real world, Hal, now willing to patch things up with Lisa because nothing brings family together like mortal danger, decides to never again use the XRI, believing this revolutionary piece of technology is too dangerous, meaning it’s obviously gonna get used again as we’re left with a hint at a sequel as the onscreen Sonic gives Josh a wink before going about his gameplay business, during which he’ll no doubt succumb to an existential crisis over how he’s a sentient, free thinking being, trapped in a linear series of levels, being forced to follow the commands of some unseen being…. Living in a video game kind of sucks when you think about it too hard.
I think we can all agree, it’s probably for the best this never saw the light of day. Despite its title, Sonic Wonders of the World has very little to do with Sonic the Hedgehog. While the series was still somewhat in its early days at the time, there was still plenty of established characters they could and should have used. Where’s Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Mighty, Ray, Fang, The Chaotix, Metal Sonic? If you’ve got source material, make use of it! It is possible to tell great stories with these characters. The brilliant Sonic comic currently produced by IDW is proof of that.
This would have just been another in the long list of disappointing movie adaptations. Then again, considering this would have been made some time before most of the disappointing movie adaptations we see nowadays, technically it would been ahead of its time.
Media Baron 