Wednesday, April 12, 2023

Mario Movie Does Better & Update Stuff

 Well now that the Mario Movie came out...
And it was a smash success...
Here can go a spoiler free mini paragraph about it at least, because it IS a video games-movie, just like the Sonic one was, and naturally comparisons are going to be drawn no-matter-what, so might as well post up something. And then yell! (Skip section for site content is below)

It broke a ton of records on the opening weekend, yes it beat either Sonic Movie, and it had 'best game movie opening weekend' then it started nibbling at the record for money made by CG animated movies in general. So, it has to be doing SOMEthing right, doesn't it then?

What it had going for it:
There wasn't any competition from another 'kids' movie at the time. The Sonic 1 movie also had this, AND the distinction of being about the last thing out before the Coronavirus basically took over and ruined everything for a while. It then went on to do well at streaming at home during quarantine.
What about the trailers?
It didn't have the 'bad buzz' created by that horrible troll nonsense version that they had to redo the entire movie to remove--imagine if Mario was Gollum! That's what the Sonic fans dealt with and it soured people until they fixed it.
Misleading trailers?
Mario though DID suffer misleading trailers that made him out to be a dunce and bad at everything. The trailers then showed Peach in nothing but a positive/badass light, making him the fool and her the angel of everything. Fans got mad because...well Mario should be competent because he is in the games? It's always sad to see your hero as an ugly loser in big media. But apparently the movie is not that way at all, and the trailers were just kind of a mess that way.  But as you know: Trailers DO get forgotten, it's the movie that lasts. (So it's fine in the end)

Proven:
WELL I GUESS PEOPLE DO WANT TO SEE THE WORLD THE CHARACTER IS FROM

Golly. WHO WOULD THINK that a movie with an interesting setting and characters from a well loved video game WOULD DO WELL IF YOU INCLUDED IT! Certainly nobody involved in the Sonic movies! No! Throw out Sonic's world....put him on Earth! Change his whole appearance! Don't include anything from the games except 'references' and stupid jokes! People are WAY more interested in a human man and his girl friend and the USA military and all that than actual CHARACTERS from GAME that you are trying to make a movie about. Ugh. Dumbs.

Well it's no wonder the Mario Movie did better. Mario actually looked like 'the mario' from games, his world was there, the story was fitting for something that Mario would do and the characters that people care about were all present and pretty much acting in-character. 

ITS ALMOST LIKE RESPECTING CONTENT THAT PEOPLE LOVE WORKS. Hmmm.
And it's not like the plot was some amazing miracle thing of complexity and ultimate entertainment either, it was a fun movie for kids and adults and nostalgic people to go to to see a fantastical land, their favorite guys, and everything to be well animated and look nice. It was entertaining and did exactly what it said it would do on the cover, and look how well it did. It just had to be solid! And it was.

Back to Sonic:
The updates are going along at an ok rate again, this week had a good variety of stuff, especially including the Korea Fan Meet, which is nice to see that there's enough fans to do something like that there. (Possibly also a benefit of the country not being the size of Texas) 

Jakks Pacific Figures:
Their main reported problem (still) is distribution on the non-trio characters. Like the shelf has 10 Sonics and then like 1 Big the Cat in a beat up box. People can't find Chaos 0 at all, missing mini size figures everywhere as STK warms the shelves. Hopefully Jakks catches on that 4 Sonics to every 1 new character after you've re-released him a zillion times isn't working.

Prototypes:
Probably more prototypes will be incoming, as companies are announcing Sonic stuff left and right. As photos roll out, hopefully they'll roll right onto the site. Sadly though, lots of stuff seems to be stupid blindbox stuff. Scalpers love it and fans hate it......I wish they wouldn't feed the scalping-trolls with this kind of wasteful product. 

Coming Soon:
More hats, probably a swim wear page, and hopefully some stuff from outside the usa too.