Knuckles (2024).

I guess I'm surprised as anybody at just how well things turned out.  Based on Hollywood's track record with handling video game franchises, there was little cause for hope they'd be able to do anything creative with Sonic the Hedgehog.  So it came as something of a slow burn shock to realize that, while I'm not dealing with anything like a Citizen Kane of Gamer Films, I was still dealing with a franchise that showed something in the way of general promise.  The way it's worked for the Sonic films appears to have been through a kind of baby steps approach.  The first film is the one that plays it safe the most.  It's very much concerned with world-building and character establishment.  In hindsight, it's pretty clear the whole purpose of the inaugural movie was to ease audiences into accepting the cinematic versions of these long-running characters.  What's also apparent a few years later is just how well of an achievement that first picture really is.  While it will never be as flashy or high stakes as its later two sequels, it did the job it was setup to accomplish.  It managed to carve out the right sort of secondary world in the minds of audiences that would then go on and allow us to accept that this is the sort of world in which the kind of shenanigans typically associated with Sonic and his allies and enemies could all take place.  It was a crucial, yet easy to overlook example of setting parameters at a steady pace, so that the latter films are allowed to take off from there.

The net result is perhaps best described as a textbook example of under-promise/over-deliver, in a manner of speaking.  Again, it helps to bear in mind that a franchise like this isn't going to knock a film like The Godfather off its perch.  Instead, it achieves the much more modest yet authentic goal of proving to both audiences and studios that video game films can be done right with a competent amount of effort and skill thrown in.  One of the highlights of this franchise that often gets highlighted the most is the way it seems to have helped revitalize the long-suffering characterization of  Knuckles the Echidna.  As portrayed in the shared writing credits of Pat Casey, Josh Miller, and John Whittington, and brought to vivid life in a tour-de-force voice performance from Idris Elba, perhaps the most gratifying thing about the films for longtime fans is the way they have managed to give Knuckles a much needed career resurrection after what has proved to be a pretty fallow period of growth and development after a brief moment of initial breakout success.  Debuting as part of the cast ensemble for the third Sega Sonic game, Knuckles literally burst onto the screen in such a way as to basically steal the spotlight from the franchise's main hero.  Before later writers began to struggle with how to portray him, there was this temporary span of time when Knuckles became the new cool kid on the block, this breakout character who was awesome, yet mysterious, and who everyone wanted to hang out with.

In fact, it was Knuckles' public debut that the franchise's developers also used to help usher in the larger mythos of the Sonic games.  It was through him that we learned of now iconic and standard settings such as Angel Island, and concepts like the Master Emerald, the backstory of the Echidna Tribe, and the greater lore behind the Sonic-verse.  For a time, all of this leant the character of Knuckles this air of mystique that made him the most fascinating introduction to the series.  Then along came the TV show scripts which slowly diluted whatever sense of intrigue and gravitas the character might have been able to build upon after his initial debut.  What happened next is a rather long, and somewhat sad story in how a franchise can sometimes defang one of its best characters.  It's a process that was playing out long before the likes of the current Trek and Star Wars reboots, and perhaps goes to prove that it was all nothing that new.  It's just that since Knuckles' de-throning went hand in glove with a number of other issues that began to plague the franchise (both in the main game series, and their other media adaptations) it was just easier to overlook than it is now.  There isn't space enough here to go into all the details of the way Knuckles was treated by game developers and previous showrunners.  For a fuller picture of that whole story, check the links in the saga told by PJ Show as seen here, and also here.

Suffice to say, he provides enough background info to explain why the combined efforts of Ebla and the writers of the second Sonic film came as an honest breath of fresh air for the Red Guy.  All of a sudden, it was possible to take Knuckles seriously as a character once again.  As portrayed by Elba, and the screenwriters, Knuckles has gone from being a joke, to someone who often makes jokes not out of audience expectations, but rather of the other players in the story around him.  The genuinely smart idea that Whittington, Miller, and Casey had was to allow Knuckles to be this displaced figure out of ancient Epic and Myth, and then toss such a larger than life personality in amongst the settings and personalities of a Sci-Fi sitcom.  Yes, he can generate laughter in such a setup, yet it's no longer because he's an idiot.  Instead, this version of Knuckles is a that of a warrior who is forever honor-bound to the code of ethics he was brought up on by the Tribe he was raised in, and the comedy comes not from his being an ignorant fool, but from others never quite knowing what to expect from such an Epic temperament.

There's a lot more that can be discussed about how Knuckles is portrayed in the films, and the sad part now is having to admit we're not here to talk about any of that.  Instead, the topic now has to move on to the less pleasant subject of what was done to a good character once he's misplaced from the center of a TV series named after him.  Like many, my own reaction to the trailer reveal of the Knuckles TV series was one of cautious intrigue.  It put me in mind of a show like The Adventures of Pete and Pete, if you decided to add this fun Fantasy-Sci-Fi element to the mix.  It suggested the show would be a combination slice-of-daily-life storytelling as Knuckles learns to adapt to living on Earth among humans, coupled with hints of a greater adventure lying in store for our hero.  Such a premise does contain at least something in the way of room for plenty other ideas worth exploring.  You could, for instance, use such a show as a launching pad to introduce other characters from the franchise.

For instance, you could have someone like Sticks the Badger show up at one point, and have her reveal that she's tracked an alien menace to planet Earth, and that it's scheduled to land somewhere in and around Green Hills, Montana.  This could be the setup for a fun riff on H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds plot where Knuckles and Sticks learn to bond with each other as outsider loners who find it difficult to accommodate to the customs of Earth because one of them is too strong-willed and independent minded, where as the other struggles with a lifelong history of paranoia and trust issues.  The plot of such an idea could come to a head with Sonic having to talk Sticks into setting aside her own deep-seated fears and distrust of others in order to help save the day.  It would be at this exact point where Knuckles could step in and explain to her that knows what it's like to carry fear and anger around for a long time, and that ultimately this is the greatest enemy that any fighter has to face if they really want to make a difference in the universe.  That at least sounds like an idea audiences could go with.  Instead, of course, we wound up with the Knuckles TV show.  So it's my own dumb choice to try and figure it out here.  Let's not try to waste too much time on a poor job, and get things over with.

Ferngully: The Last Rain Forest (1992).

I think I owe an apology to John Hughes.  Either that or someone out there sure does.  It's probably the fault of someone in the long since defunct arm of of 20th Century Fox's VHS promotions department.  Whoever is responsible for the faux pas, it's thanks to their unthinking efforts that a lot of 80s an 90s kids such as myself first grew up hearing of this film as a Coming Attractions adjunct to the otherwise unblemished awesomeness that is Home Alone.  That's how I remember first learning there was ever such as Ferngully drifting around out there.  Maybe I should back up and explain a bit.  See, back in my day, we didn't have none of this here Streaming Services and DVDS.  No sir, in my day we had nothing but good old analog equipment to go on, and somehow we managed to enjoy it.  If it explains anything, then I guess its that when it comes to entertainment, human beings are more adaptable than we think we are.  As long as its in the service of a good to fairly decent show, then we're willing to overlook any and all technical limitations past a certain point.  That's how it was for us in the X and Y generations, anyway.  

When I was still a kid it meant that sometimes anything you learned about the latest movie releases came from just two sources.  The primary one was the commercials on the family television set.  The second was the preview segments that most videotape cassettes came with from roughly the mid-80s to around 1997.  Those were the glory years of VHS, and while it was smooth sailing for the most, part, sometimes watching those old analog Coming Attraction segments could make for either some interesting to jarring tonal contrasts or combinations.  The way I first learned about the existence of Ferngully is a good case in point.

I never learned about this now somewhat notorious piece of kid's fare from a movie theater.  Instead, as I've hinted above, the way it all came about was through a simple sequence of events.  John Hughes and Christopher Columbus created Home Alone in 1990, and it became an instant pop culture touchstone.  My Mom and Dad came to me raving about it.  I was about Kevin's age back then, so at least I have a sort of excuse (however poor) for having missed out on its initial theatrical impact (okay, I'm a complete idiot, I get it!).  Then the film's first home media release comes in the form of a VHS package I'm sure most of us remember from our childhoods.  I pop the cassette into the VCR (ask your parents), the film starts, I come to understand just what everyone is talking about, and come away with a richer sense of understanding from the experience.  Just before the film began, however, I was treated to a series of promos courtesy of Fox Video.  One of them was a very ironic promo from American Airlines, which declared that they were "proud to be a partner in the video release of Home Alone."  The commercial goes on to say that "American salutes the many families that have made American Airlines something special in the air."  I guess the company must have been not too smart then as now, because if there's one thing Hughes' film doesn't do, its paint a flattering portrait of the airport industry.  You could make a whole nightmare comedy of errors scenario about the McCallisters just trying to get on the plane. 

The other commercial is a second sponsor, Pepsi Cola.  It's dated in many ways, and even teaches a bad lesson to kids if you stop and think about it.  It showcases a pair of friends going on about how you shouldn't let others judge you based on the way you dress or carry yourself, much less what kind of soft drink you enjoy.  Then a girl comes up and asks one of the kids, "You got a Pepsi for me?"  The entire point is not so much thwarted as bulldozed over and forgotten about as one of the kids who was going on about being yourself becomes a total sellout for The Pepsi Generation.  All his friend can do is observe and say, "Who knew?"  Yeah, well I for one know there is a whole world of wrong going on in a commercial which tries to peddle its product under the banner of "Just Be Yourself" in a way which turns a good idea into the worst sort of lie.  There's a hell of a cautionary tale in all of that somewhere.  However, it's the third commercial I'm here to talk about.  It also comes first in chronological order, and I think my 8 year old self knew that something was up with what I was seeing; I just didn't have the vocabulary or conceptual base of knowledge necessary to tell what seemed so strange to me back then

With the passage of time, what makes this slate of commercials so jarring to a modern audience is a combination of just how tone deaf they all are to the content and point of the movie they were meant to lead into, and that's where part of the cognitive dissonance stems from.  I mean two of them are trying to tout their products with a straight face right before a film which spends most of its runtime dismantling the cheap sloganeering of its time period.  So I guess there's an accidental sense of the joke being on the sponsors, and they don't even know it.  What made the Ferngully commercial stand out to me even back then seems to have been the nascent knowledge that I was looking at two stories that didn't have any reason to be lumped together.  One of them is just a simple animated film with strong Disney or Don Bluth overtones in its DNA.  The film its leading into, by contrast, proves to be sophisticated enough to qualify as perhaps the last great Brat Pack film in John Hughes' career.  While it's true the main protagonist is a pre-teen, it's also very clear that Kevin spends the majority of the film's runtime grappling with the same set of ideas that the Breakfast Club struggles with in their own story.  It's just that now its all being seen through the eyes of a little kid.  What's interesting about his iteration of this same setup is that he manages to not let it all drag him down to the same kind of low point like Bender and his newfound friends have to put up with,  Instead, he's more prepared by the end.  You get the sense that this kid will grow up more ready to face the challenges of adulthood.

It's pretty heavy stuff for a Holiday flick, yet it's the primary reason people still remember Home Alone fondly after all these years.  It's because it speaks to universal struggles that most of us have to deal with in coming of age, and realizing that maybe there's no such thing as a true grown up, and that we have to determine how be our truly authentic selves in a way that doesn't get bought and sold by the rat race of life.  Before all that, though, here's a brief clip of Robin Williams as a crazy fruit bat in an unknown Don Bluth knock-off!  So yeah, the cognitive dissonance was strong with this one.  Having the Ferngully commercial come on just before the movie started was enough to create this strange dichotomy in my mind.  On the one hand, it made the film I was watching out to be no different than your standard Mouse House oriented film.  On the other hand, it's clear Hughes was dealing with far more mature themes than any of the people in Fox's marketing division were aware of.  In practical terms, it means I was allowed to watch a disconnect between the studio advertisers and the artists take place in a manner that's kind of informative in a strange way.  It showcases how some people can misread a story as opposed to the more knowing intelligence of the audience.  On a further level, the whole experience was just curious enough to get me thinking about what kind of film Ferngully was in its own right.  I got a chance to answer that question for myself later on in elementary school.

It was during my pre-teen school days that I first got a chance to see the film on its own terms.  My schoolteachers would sometimes trot out a TV hooked up to a VCR to show their young charges (of which I used to be one) during any slow periods when there was a gap in their daily curriculum.  It's how I got a chance to see the movie presented in its own terms.  At the time, I remember not minding it all that much, yet it was difficult to tell just what (if any) sort of an impact it left on me.  I know it must have reminded me a bit of the kind of film's Bluth was famous for.  There were moments when it felt like it was at least trying to reach for that same vibe.  And to be fair, it kept me interested.  However I don't recall it making all that big of an impact on me.  Instead, from what I can remember, the final takeaway is probably best described as one of those middle of the road experiences.  It wasn't great, yet I suppose I was in a generous enough frame of mind to not call it bad.  And to be fair, some bits and pieces of it would emerge on occasion from my memory.  It never happened often; not to the extent of An American Tail, for instance.  That's a movie I still recall watching as child with jaw agape in an awestruck frame of mind that existed somewhere between terror and wonder.  It remains perhaps the key shaping event of my filmgoing life.  I don't recall Ferngully giving me anywhere near the same vibes.  And yet it managed to stick around in my mind, so I decided to go back and see why that is.