A short Sonic the Hedgehog film that explores loneliness, dread and the horrors of youth

Credits go to Chris Lee & Paul Storrie, I claim no copyright or ownership to any content in this film whatsoever.

[jupius]

The sad part about being faster than light is that your always in the darkness

[joelthhicks]

The whole time you want the boy to find and save the man, but then you realize the man is the boy grown up :-(

[Propane_Acccessories]

When you're faster than the speed of sound, can you hear your own screams?

[havocspiral]

It’s 2am and I’m watching depressed sonic.


Quick lil update:
I am crying.

[idlear]

So here's what I gathered: the kid in the sonic costume and the older man meant to resemble Dr. Robotnik are one and the same, with the former being a memory of the latter's youth. The two are never present in the same shot, but the kid looks in the man's direction numerous times. This choice seems nondescript until the kid approaches the spot where the man sets his bird free (most likely so it may live on after he commits suicide) only for it to be revealed to the viewer that the man has disappeared without any indication of time having past or him having left. The implication is that while the two may not be connected in terms of space they are in terms of time, in terms of their shared life. The combination of visual evocations of Sonic and Dr. Robotnik into ostensibly the same character conveys past ideals being contracted by present realities. 

The innocent ideals of the kid are represented by his obsession with Sonic the Hedgehog, as seen with his most likely homemade costume of the character and his habit of collecting gold coloured can caps in lieu of the golden rings Sonic collects. The kid tries and fails to be like Sonic: he runs, rolls, and lifts himself up all to limited success. The absence of any surrounding people enforces the imaginative departure the kid has taken from reality, although the illusion of his fun and games is wearing off. The dark circles around the kid's eyes, his muted expression and sluggish movements are all characteristic of sadness if not outright depression. The absence of other people is also the absence of the kid's friends and family, which leads the viewer to question whether he even has any. In his loneliness the kid has taken to the fictional character of Sonic as his coping mechanism. 

As if on cue, a facsimile of Sonic's nemesis, Dr. Robotnik, appears riding a scooter representative of a mech and with a caged bird representative of the woodland creatures Robotnik captures in the Sonic video games. In stark contrast to the actual Dr. Robotnik the man sets the caged bird free. The bird, the only other pseudo-character in the film, leaves without acknowledging its owner. When the kid approaches the spot where the man was only the tire tracks from his scooter remain. The viewer is left to infer that the man has left and some time has past, but this superficial reading is challenged by some details later into the film.

The kid follows the tracks to the man's home. In an interior shot looking outwards through a window the kid is shown appearing from the horizon. The boxed composition of the window frame, plastic-esc blinds, and off-screen electronic humming all evoke the image of a television screen looking into fiction as opposed to a window looking into reality; the appearance of a video game character in Sonic (at least in costume) supports this. With this prior context the next shot of the man looking out the window can be interpreted as him looking into the video games that obsessed him as a child. As the kid approaches the man stoops down to unplug various cables connected to video game consoles and media players, all of which are seemingly plugged into a wall that has no television. However, this wall does have the aforementioned window, further suggesting the window to be a figurative screen into the man's past and also a binding force that prevents him from looking into the future and instead into his past obsessions epitomized by Sonic the Hedgehog.

The kid, and by extension the man's younger self, surreally breaks some spatial laws by entering the man's house. The line between reality and fiction is blurring. In a brief shot the man is shown to be fidgeting with the cables over the rim of a bathtub; meanwhile, the kid has stepped into the man's room. To the left is a shelf crammed with DVDs, VHS tapes, video games, and other media, to the front are the video game consoles and media players connected to the windowed wall from before and to the right are various knick knacks (game and watch, snes controller, cards, figurines, VHS tapes, etc.) spread out on a table. Despite being a middle aged man his room lacks any family photos or other articles indicative of a social life. Just like his younger self he is isolated from the world, except unlike his younger self he has betrayed his youthful ideals embodied by the free and innocent nature of Sonic to live an interior and sedentary life far from "going fast" like Sonic does. 

The kid looks down to find a homemade Sonic plushie. That same plushie is then shown in the hands of the man. This spatial disorientation feeds into the idea that the presence of the kid is a figment of the man's imagination. The sonic plushie itself is analogous to the kid's sonic costume in its cheap imitation, but it is considerably more worn down then the costume. The man's abandonment of his youthful ideals represented by the worn out Sonic plushie and his contradictory refusal to grow up beyond them as evidenced by his room culminate in the next scene: his suicide. The kid picks up the plushie even though that same plushie was shown to be held by the man in the previous shot and is in the next one. A noose made from the various cables the man unplugged is shown to be hitched on the bathtub's curtain rod and is wrapped around his neck as he stands atop a stool. The cables are a direct connection to the video games the man found sanctuary in as a child but are precipitating his imminent suicide to convey how this source of solace has become a dreaded part of his life he has been unable to escape. The man is not explicitly shown to follow through with his hanging, but the final shot of the kid staring through the window and metaphoric television screen at an empty horizon cements the idea that meaning cannot be found in fiction alone. Sonic the Hedgehog has left the television screen and has become the one looking into it not because the character has physically disappeared, but because he never existed to begin with.

Video games are fun, but to rely on them and other fictitious media for meaning alone is a path that only leads to isolation.

[dickwwee]

The way and quality it was filmed in reminded me of early 2000s/ late 90s. It made me so nostalgic and sad, it really hit every spot.

[cerysplayer]

the names sonic
the depressions chronic

[dannphan]

As a child, he was Sonic.
Now he's Eggman.

[jackywackychan]

I can run fast, but it's never enough to outrun the pain

[SrgtBarney]

holy shit, i expected something funny and instead i was hit with a bat that had a label on it saying feels...

[hollowxf]

How did the camera man even keep up with this?

[cw]

Honestly, let these guys make the sonic movie

[AngstySam]

We try to sink our anxieties and stress through fleeting pleasures and flashing screens but can't suppress them as we grow and only experience the true horrors of this crushing reality when we come to the realization that not everyone can go fast.

[ml]

*_No matter how fast you run you cannot escape depression_*

[beefgravystudios]

Going to take a chance and say this was better then the upcoming live Sonic movie will be

[antsinmyeyes]

There was not a single word spoken in this video

[MovieMowDown]

The only thing faster than sonic is time.

[soso-chan]

I’ve seen memes of this sickly looking kid in the Sonic costume and I thought it was from some zany horror comedy full of dank, offensive humor. I honestly didn’t expect to be gut punched with all this sadness. I don’t even think I’ve watched a short film that made me cry this hard tbh That being said the cinematography and music is spectacular. Every shot has so much meaning a personality to it. The music sets this downer depressing tone that isn’t overbearing. The overall film feels very personal. When I saw the man set the bird free, my heart broke a little and I could feel tears welling up in my eyes. Despite this being my first time watching it. And by the end, I was definitely choking up. But I am an emotional person so yeah haha. I could go on and on about how good this film is but I won’t. I give this ten chili dogs outta ten.

[hippiejesus]

“The problem of being faster than light is that you can only live in darkness”

[owainphillips]

Some of the shot composition in this is amazing. This is gorgeous work.