When news of a new Sonic fan film hit from out of the blue, I must admit, I got way more excited than any normal human being should. Sure, we’ve had some recent projects come out of the pipeline like the yearly Christmas tradition of Sonic and the gang doing holiday-type-things, the Sonic Prologue animated short (that I’ll sadly admit to not having watched) and more than one Sonic.exe film (which I’ll gladly admit to not having watched), but they didn’t capture my imagination like that one magical moment a few years back. When Jim Sass, Richard Kuta, and Eddie Lebron all threw their hat in the ring at once, trying to create Sonic fan films with very different goals in mind.
Their legacies, only history will know for sure. But ever since that triple knuckled punch, I’ve remained pretty quiet on the subject, at least when it comes to writing about fanfilms on the front page of Retro. But when I was linked The Hedgehog, and saw that initial poster of an awkward teenager sitting upon a merry-go-round dressed as Sonic, I knew I had to watch it posthaste. And moreso, talk about it. Did that enthusiasm last after I watched the short? Well, not in the same way, I can safely say. But before you read what I thought, go ahead and watch it for yourself. A brief warning, even though there’s nothing violent or sexual in it, the film is definitely not targeted towards kids, so hide them away for seven minutes.
The Hedgehog from Chris Lee & Paul Storrie on Vimeo.
Yep. That was nominated for best UK Short Film at the 2015 London Short Film Festival.
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Sonic the Hedgehog Fan Film
Animation, Community, Fan Works, Game News, Miscellaneous, Sega Retro, Site News
Monday Links: Suddenly Fingers Edition
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, and by that I mean not go to Sonic-related websites in the past few days, you know that Eddie Lebron released his Sonic fan film last week. And if you’ve seen you’ll probably think that it’s impressive for a low-budget fan project or that it’s crap. Or you actually have a different opinion than the majority of the internet, but that’d just be silly. Anyway monday links.
Sonic Retro News
- Missed the community stream we did last Friday? It’s fully archived on Youtube along with a first look stream we did a while back. [Youtube]
- Dario released a new version of SonicGMI for Sonic Generations. [SonicGMI]
- Something that I missed last week, Mercury is working on a Sonic engine for in Game Maker called AeStHete (An excellent Sonic the Hedgehog engine that’s editable). [AeStHete Engine Thread]
Sonic/SEGA News
- The first details on the PC version of Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed got revealed and the game is up for pre-purchased on services like Steam. [ASRT PC]
- Planning on getting Aliens: Colonial Marines for PC? You’ll probably want to know the system requirements. Also like All-Stars Racing Transformed, it can now be pre-purchased from Steam. [AVPGalaxy]
- SEGA also released a TV Commercial for Aliens: CM. [Youtube]
- The Conduit is coming to Android and will be optimized for Nvidia’s Project Shield. [Polygon]
Other Stuff
- Want another Jurassic Park movie? No? Well you’re probably going to watch this new sequel that’s in production anyway. [Coming Soon]
- CD Projekt, makers of the The Witcher games showed the first teaser trailer for their upcoming game Cyberpunk 2077. [Youtube]
- Joe Biden talked to some video game industry people because apparently people still blame school shootings on games, because I’m certain that other things like the media have no affect on things like that. [Youtube]
Video of the Week
- The best dubstep singer yet
Sonic the Hedgehog fans are a patient bunch. Sometimes. Patient in the fact that they have been waiting for the redemption of the series not just in their own eyes, but in the eyes of the media at large. It’s hard to say you love something that hasn’t had a critically praised game since 1998. Hiding behind all of this has been a longing of a different sort – the yearning for a Sonic the Hedgehog movie. After all, Mario was able to receive the full big screen treatment (even if it was completely insane) at a time when Sonic the Hedgehog was just entering his biggest period of popularity. With two television series, comic books, and numerous other media, it was simply assumed that Sonic would be in a feature film. And while the west did get a “movie” (which was simply a two-episode direct to video animation from Japan stitched together), it wasn’t that high-budget extravaganza people were hoping for. And though rumors of a Sonic movie have been circulating since the Mega Drive days, as of the dawn of Sonic’s 20th anniversary celebrations, nothing has come to fruition. Thus, it was inevitable that a Sonic the Hedgehog fan film would be made.