Here's an interview with Toby Ascher where he talks about the production of the Knuckles series. Here are some highlights:
- From the beginning they made the decision to slowly roll out the game characters, so they could each be introduced in an organic way.
- One of their favorite things about the first movie was the "wild card/straight man" relationship between Sonic and Tom. With "Knuckles" the idea was to make a buddy comedy with two wild cards, where neither is necessarily the straight man.
- The series is inspired by 90's comedies like "Happy Gilmore" and "Kingpin". In the second episode Wade says "I'm Munsoned out here in the middle of nowhere" which is a reference to Woody Harrelson's character in "Kingpin", Roy Munson.
- They like showing how every entry in the franchise is affected by the events of the previous one. The destruction to San Francisco from the first movie led to GUN being created. And in the series we see how all the rings and quills that Sonic and Knuckles left around the world in the sequel are being collected and studied by GUN to make weapons.
“[The Sonic Movie] was always one of my dreams”, Takashi Iizuka and Sonic Movie staff reveal new details
The Sonic Movie release in Japan is very close, and in order to celebrate, 4Gamer has done an interview with Takashi Iizuka (Head of Sonic Team), Nakahara Toru ( Senior Executive Officer of SEGA SAMMY, and also SEGA’s Lawyer), Jeff Fowler (director of the Sonic Movie) and Toby Ascher (Sonic Movie Producer), and in it, they gave us some details about the movie and what the experience was like.
Remember that the translation isn’t 1:1, but it gets the point across.
Q: What advice did Sega give to the movie staff in the making of the Sonic movie?
Iizuka: Advices related to Sonic in various situations, such as how he looks and moves, and his character, as in "Sonic would never say that". Sega has some guidelines for giving advice to people who do not know Sonic, but it is not a comprehensive guide, so I commented a lot during production.
Toby: Mr. Iizuka's advices on Sonic's personality and design were very helpful. I wanted to make Sonic the correct Sonic that fans know.
Iizuka: Since this work is a hybrid movie that combines live-action and animation, there are many scenes where actual actors and Sonic are involved. The movie isn’t set in Sonic’s World, so I proceeded to think on how he would react to all of it. The biggest challenge for us this time was that we had to think about Sonic from a completely different perspective when compared to the games.
Q: What did you pay most attention to not betray your fans?
Toby: I was under pressure because I knew that the expectations of fans were very high because we are from a generation that played Sonic games when we were kids. But at the same time, I also wanted to make a movie that a newcomer to the series could also enjoy. I was very concerned about that balance. I wanted to make it possible for people who don't know Sonic to enjoy the world of Sonic, while putting in a lot of material that fans can still enjoy.
Nakahara: That was the mission behind this movie. To please our generation raised in Sonic and children who have little experience playing with Sonic. I hope this movie will create a new generation of fans.
Q: Are there any differences between the Sonic from the games and the one from the movie?
Jeff: This is the first time we're introducing Sonic's backstory!
Iizuka: Baby Sonic is a young Sonic that hasn't appeared in games. In the movie, it’s shown how his experiences as a baby changed him, and how his personality was formed. The games feature an already grown up Sonic, so it's good that the story up to that point wasn’t very clear [in the games, allowing the movie team to be creative with Sonic’s backstory].
Nakahara: Baby Sonic is being compared to Baby Yoda's in Star Wars. They’ve become big rivals.
Jeff: Let me tell you, Baby Sonic is an idea that we came up with before Baby Yoda was revealed (laughs). It takes time to make characters and CG...
Nakahara: Baby Sonic’s design was created under the supervision of Mr. Iizuka, but the actual CG animation was created by Marza Animation Planet Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of the SEGA SAMMY Group. Hollywood companies are included in the special visual effects of this movie, but Japanese companies such as Marza and Sega played a central role in the animation of Baby Sonic and Sonic.
Toby: That's one of the great things about this film. As a fan of Japanese animation, a collaboration between Japan and the United States made me very happy.
Q: When you hear that it's a joint production movie between Hollywood and Japan, there are some movies that didn’t succeed, but this time it seems different.
Nakahara: Most of the Japan-US collaboration in movies so far involved only the Japanese content holders signing IP licenses. So Japan doesn't get involved with the production, and they don't pay much for the production. As a lawyer, I've seen many contracts where you only get a license fee. That's not really the case. However, this time, we have invested in the production costs for Sonic, and we are on an equal footing with Original Film, the company that has produced the blockbuster movie series, Fast and the Furious, the director of "Deadpool," and Paramount Film Company. There was also a big discussion, "Can you do a movie with an equal partner with so many different creative visions?" That's a big risk. But in the end, including the terms of the deal, the decisive factor that brought all of us together was that Sonic needed to be a movie star. Sonic is a big star in America. Because of that background, we joined hands in conditions that everyone was satisfied with. As SEGA, they jumped over the license agreement and suddenly became an equal partner, and there was a mix of expectations and anxiety. As a lawyer, I've been involved in a variety of works, but I was able to establish a relationship of trust that surprised me, "How can we collaborate so well?". Of course, small issues have come up every day, but I feel that we have been able to overcome them comfortably throughout.
Q: Weren't you able to make a case against Hollywood because you Nakahara-san, are a certified American lawyer?
Nakahara: I may not be the one to say it, but this all truly is Sonic. Everybody loves Sonic. Whenever some big development occurs, a lot of it can be attributed to Sonic. Sonic is like Tom Cruise in the way that he has this presence of greatness that makes him feel like a star from throughout the years.
Q: Is there any reason for making it a hybrid movie?
Jeff: I thought it would be more fun and more enjoyable for the audience to get into Sonic's sense of speed when it gets put into the live-action world. From Sonic's point of view, the world is always slow, but from a human perspective, he is always moving at super-fast speed. The important thing was to express the power and speed of Sonic in a fun way. The baseball scene in the trailer is my favorite, and he uses his speed to enjoy baseball alone. From a child's perspective, if you were to move at that speed, you would want to play all the positions yourself, right?
Q: Sonic has established a star position in the West, but what do you think was the reason why Sonic is particularly popular with Westerners?
Iizuka: Sonic is a character born in Japan, but from the beginning we were aware of the West. With a Californian image of the blue sky, blue sea, and palm trees, we added a sense of speed with a deep blue appearance. Sonic’s character of strongly sticking to his morals and to his justice without ever being affected by anything else was also a characteristic of Western characters. And also, Sonic’s World doesn’t take much elements from Japan, or Japanese culture. In fact, Sonic’s World is more Western, and the coolness of the Western people we always see around have been incorporated into Sonic's world, so it has been accepted by Westerners and supported so far. Sonic has always been western in nature, so our goal in a way has always been making Western-style games, create characters with Western-ness, and that eventually landed us a Hollywood movie... so I feel like I've finally arrived there in the 27th year.
Q: Please tell me about the character that Jim Carrey plays.
Iizuka: Dr. Robotnik, the villain in the movie is called Dr. Eggman in the games, but in them, he has a round body and thin legs, and a figure that can’t be seen in a live-action human being. So if we wanted someone actually human, we had to create a new Doctor Robotnik look. Should Dr. Robotnik in the movie resemble Dr. Eggman from the games? Would they talk in a similar way? Jim Carrey splendidly created a new Doctor Robotnik! Dr. Robotnik always was a crazy scientist, but Jim Carrey's Dr. Robotnik is crazy, unlike anything we had imagined. That's very interesting. Did Jim Carrey bring half the fun for the movie? I think he played a really good Dr. Robotnik.
Nakahara: Jim feels like a gentleman and a calm philosopher during the breaks. But once the camera turns, he becomes a different person and a lot of energy comes out.
Q: What are the highlights of this work?
Jeff: Jim Carrey and James Marsden, of course, but the star of this film, Sonic, is definitely the highlight. Laughs, charming, confident and laid back. Fans will definitely enjoy it. There are many easter eggs. If you send me a list of how many you have found, I will tell you that there are still some that have not been found yet (laughs).
Toby: It's a movie designed to be enjoyed over and over again, so every time you watch it, you'll discover something new. Also, Dr. Robotnik's dance! It's great!!
Q: Please tell us about your future plans for Sonic.
Iizuka: This year, we finally made a movie about Sonic. That was one of my dreams, and since we are about to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Sonic next year, many people will have been brought in by the movie, and then they’ll have more opportunities to come into contact with the series through the [30th Anniversary] game. I hope we can get you a better game. Sonic is evolving with the evolution of game technology, so I hope we can continue to release surprising game titles.
SPECIAL thanks to @dizzydennis for helping in the translation in some parts.
