It's me, Sean Patrick Payne!
PAYNEful.co.uk | The Site Where Humour Goes to Die - a Repository of Things by Sean Patrick Payne
Sean's Facebook Wall Sean's Twitter Feed Sean's YouTube Channel Sean's DeviantArt Page Sean's LinkedIn Profile Sean's PSNProfiles.com Page Sean's Steam Profile Sean's GitHub Profile
Return to Main

Seriously SEGA, Where’s the Sonic Movie Merch?

Sonic Movie Poster
This is a thing of beauty. Might have to try and get a copy to hang on the wall.

When I was between five and eight years old I had two great loves in my life: Sonic the Hedgehog games and Jim Carrey movies. The announcement that Jim Carrey would star as one of my all-time favourite villains Doctor Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik in a Sonic movie seemed implausible, so when it turned out that the rumours were true and the thing got green-lit and filmed it moved from implausible to utterly surreal.

I saw the initial teaser posters and hated the weird humanoid shape Sonic had but then I saw the trailer and I was totally behind it, Sonic’s weird human teeth and all. Gangsta’s Paradise totally made sense to me. This is a film that is out of its time. It is a 90’s film. This film is 25 years late, hence the on-the-nose soundtrack.

It only got better when the internet collective caused the creative team to realise that they were utterly wrong to change Sonic’s iconic look. Sonic’s shape was originally designed to be easily drawn by five year olds, for the love of Mobius1. Apparently going back and re-rendering everything basically crippled all the employees, got a lot of people fired and sunk an entire animation studio2 but, I’m sorry, maybe you shouldn’t have redesigned Sonic in the first place? Maybe someone should have pointed out that it looked terrible?

This week I went to see the film I’ve basically been waiting 25 years to see. My five year old self would have definitely thrown a tantrum if he knew he was going to have to wait that long to see it. It did not disappoint, and while I’d like to say that I had no expectations there were definitely expectations going in and they were met, if not exceeded. It’s a simple story but it is told well and sincerely. I’m not going to go into too many specifics, you should go see it or at least catch it on a streaming service! I’ll be very surprised if Nintendo doesn’t respond with a Mario film of their own, despite the original Mario Bros. film being excellent3.

I enjoyed the film, and then like any good adult geek with disposable income I rushed online to buy up a bunch of Sonic movie merch only to discover there isn’t any. At all. I want to own my own black-clad Dr. Robotnik figure with the likeness of Jim Carrey but it doesn’t exist. I thought the soundtrack was pretty banging but there isn’t one to purchase! (I’ll have to assemble it myself!) There’s nothing.

What the hell, SEGA?

I’ve got a few theories. Maybe they thought that it wouldn’t do well at the box office? After all, game-to-movie adaptations are notoriously terrible (get fecked, Max Payne and the two Hitman films!). Their fanbase is notoriously fickle, being made up of sad old 30 year olds (present!) and young adolescents exploring…well, just avoid Deviant Art.

The film was prefixed with a trailer for Team Sonic Racing, a game I bought literally a year ago. Maybe they were originally aiming for the film to match the release of the latest racing game, only for the film to be postponed? Even then, why not advertise Sonic Mania, given that game is the perfect game to tie in with its 90’s sprite art?

I’m baffled. I’m frustrated!

Apparently SEGA signed rights to produce merch the tail end of last year, but I haven’t seen anything yet. I’m wondering if the entire organisation as an entity has a concussion because, alongside their decision not to commission Sonic Mania 24, they don’t appear to be completely aware of what is going on and how many opportunities they are missing to make money.

SEGA, seriously, sort yourselves out. If you’re not careful we’re looking at another Saturn or Dreamcast situation here. You could make ALL THE MONEY.

Call me. Let’s talk. I won’t even charge. I want you to do well.

Yours faithfully,

A Loving Fan.

Sonic Movie Original Design
It doesn’t look that bad, does it? Just don’t ask him to show his teeth. Or his legs.

EDIT: I’m about to hit “publish” and I found this collection of oddities. Try harder, SEGA.

  1. I’m too lazy to provide sources, but anyone casually looking into the designed-by-committee background Sonic has will find some form of quote along these lines. ↩
  2. I’m sure there’s sources for this, to be honest I don’t really want to look them up because I’m quite empathetic, emphasis on “pathetic”. ↩
  3. Bob Hoskins, grungey 90’s cyberpunk and Dennis Hopper? What’s not to love?! ↩
  4. I still reckon Sonic Team are hurting that the “fan” team delivered the most critically praised Sonic game within 20 years while their “A” team put out Sonic Forces, which was a steaming pile of shit. ↩

Post by | February 23, 2020 at 12:00 pm | Characters, Films | No comment

Tags: , , , ,