Sonic Mania oughta take some lessons from Ed Wood (a review of ED WOOD with a clickbait title)

ED WOOD is the greatest kind of emotional storytelling: it is a film that finds joy in despair, creativity in loss, roaring success in crushing failure. It takes the depressing and pathetic life of a perennial loser and transforms it into something to admire, to be proud of, and it doesn't do it by lying, or reforming, or quibbling about facts. It is a much bolder story, one that asserts not that Ed Wood was a great artist or genius despite his achievements, but by way of his spirit and vision; if the product doesn't fit with our expectation of great art, that's only because we've defined it wrong. It dives so deep into the ocean of subjectivity as to forget the surface, yet uses this to expand the mind rather than to deceive it.

Take for instance Bela Lugosi's final filmed appearance in PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. On paper, this is a rather dark, disheartening history, surrounded by the stench of exploitation. Lugosi's film career had completely disintegrated by the time he met Wood; he lived in poverty, alone and crippled by drug addiction. Wood 'revived' his legacy for a few years by throwing him in embarrassing roles in Z-grade bombs, most famously using some extremely random footage and a lookalike within PLAN 9, as Lugosi passed away during filming. ED WOOD retells this tale in all its detail, but with the focus placed entirely on the loving friendship between the two men. Bela is confused by Ed's films and doesn't see half of them, but is so charmed by the man and happy to be acting again that he doesn't care. As he points out when swarmed by reporters in a rehab center, he doesn't care if he's being exploited. He's an old man - he just wants to stop and smell the roses one last time. Of course, this is literally the scene he directs for himself as his final performance, the one that would land in PLAN 9: a quiet moment with just Ed and the camera, as the director struggles to find any excuse to give his friend something to do. Nor to Ed is it exploitation - PLAN 9 is advertised as "Bela Lugosi's final film" not because it'll sell more tickets that way, but because it is fucking BELA LUGOSI's final film, and how awesome and important is that? Ed cares for the man so dearly that to him it would be the greater atrocity NOT to let Bela have a final starring role, and he's willing to get all his friends baptized if that's what it takes to get it made.

Likewise the PLAN 9 premiere, we don't see the crowd's reaction, only their applause at the names Ed Wood and Bela Lugosi, and the hushed silence at Bela's scene. Did they hate the film? Did they love it? By now it's clear that doesn't matter to Ed ("[the worst movie you ever saw?] Well, my next one'll be better!"), it doesn't matter to Bela, so it doesn't matter to the movie. We simply rush out from the theater, Ed on the high of his life, as he proposes to his girlfriend and drives off into the pouring rain and thunder, no sunset in sight. Cue the ending titles, with a card next to Ed's glowing expression reading that he would never go on to make a successful picture, dying at age 54 after a 20-year descent into alcoholism and nudie flicks; that two years after his death he was voted "Worst Director of All Time", bringing him a new level of worldwide renown. And this plays as an extremely happy and uplifting moment! That's how much work ED WOOD has done to reverse our idea of meaningful accomplishment.

Throughout the film are peppered matter-of-fact bystanders to remind us that this isn't all a fantasy, that no delusion is taking place. This sets up a beautiful irony where someone tries to correct Ed with a genuinely helpful suggestion, he is perplexed and frustrated, yet so determined to succeed that we side with him, because if you're going to be a moron, it's better not to compromise about it. (Aside: how many of Burton's films could accurately be described as "the unwitting adventures of complete morons"? PEE-WEE, that other EDWARD picture, even Jack Skellington mostly fits). The most amusing and transparent of these reality checks are the conservative Christian producers clomping around the PLAN 9 set; the stereotypical micromanaging money-men who just don't get art slowly choking the delicate genius. The fact that they're evangelicals just gives them that extra Hollywood-ignorant edge. Yet everything they point out is perfectly rational and probably would've made a "better" movie - isn't grave-robbing kinda sordid for a kids flick? shouldn't the exposition be given to someone who speaks intelligible English? don't you want to film a take where the actor doesn't kick over that gravestone prop? Of course, the secondary joke going on here is one for PLAN 9 cultists, as these are presumably all the elements that make that film so amusing (I'm actually grateful I haven't seen it - I think this stuff could've annoyed me as pandering if I had).

So the post title (I don't know if it counts as clickbait when your blog isn't advertised and has no visitors). This all goes back to a comment I made in my review of Sonic Mania, in particular comparing it to Sonic Generations, that Mania was boxed into a boring, conservative narrative that everyone already accepts, that the Genesis Sonic games are classics, and that therefore Mania would have no legacy, because it is entirely subservient to previous successes. I pointed out that Generations overcomes this obstacle by treating the trash material (Sonic '06, Heroes, etc.) with the same amount of care and affection as everything else. And that's exactly what ED WOOD is doing, creating something new by celebrating something that hasn't been celebrated, finding a fresh set of eyes (or glasses) for viewing the past, creating history where history got it wrong. Maybe a different way of putting it is that any adaptation has a choice between recreating the execution / the product / the fact, or re-implementing the concept / the inspiration / the soul. You can guess which work falls into which category.

More levels of Sonic Mania

I finished the game over the weekend at the same time as doing Sonic 3 & Knuckles Chaos Emeralds, so some stuff blurs together. Probably anything good I say has been misattributed from the latter. I believe I left off after Flying Battery.

Press Garden is certainly the strangest of the new zones, whirling together snowy European architecture and the internal machinery of a printing press. It's a bit of fantastic surrealism more akin to Castle of Illusion than Sonic's typical Indiana Jones / circuit board dichotomy, colorfully realized all the same. Doesn't hurt that it sets the scene for some traditional gears-and-conveyors concrete design without resorting to the factory cliche. Act 1 is corridor-based (putting it in the Marble Zone genre) with the first really fresh-feeling gimmick, the bouncy conveyors - which I could've used a whole lot more of - along with an own goal-style boss battle set in a dynamic arena full of destructible environments!!. I like the idea of the crabbot enemies playing catch with saw blades, a rare enemy-enemy interaction, but in practice they're meaninglessly simple to defeat. Act 2 has a great breakable block theme that slows things down and adds new consequences to careless jumps. There's a nice inverse relationship between ice springs and ice spikes, fleshing out the concept into one of the best levels in the game.

Onto Stardust Speedway, where prospects continue to look sunnier. Unless I'm misremembering my Sonic CD, Act 1 is far remixier than those preceding, incorporating gimmicks far and wide (e.g. pull-strings from Marble Garden Zone). The use of spring cannons couldn't be a clearer ripoff of Donkey Kong Country, but hey, it's new to Sonic. Regardless of context, reviving material from CD is far more palatable than giving a ninth life to every blade of grass from Sonic 2, which left me imagining how much cooler it'd be to have a Gems-style remix drawn entirely from lesser-played adaptations like Advance and Rush. CD has been largely reclaimed as series canon, not least thanks to Whitehead's own 2011 widescreen port, and it would be nice to see the treatment spread further. This is where, for all that Mania presents itself as a love letter, it's very strictly fenced into the Totally Uncontroversial Popular Narrative (that Sonic == Genesis) and shows no interest in exploring the darker corners of the franchise beyond a wiki search for "polerbear". Mania wants to forget Sonic Heroes as badly as does MadHistoricalYoutubeFriend. This isn't the Sonic sequel that could've happened in 1995 - it's the Sonic tribute game that could've happened in 1995. The only reasonable points of comparison are the other reboots, leaving Mania looking terribly unambitious. Consider that Sonic Generations' best stage comes from Sonic the Hedgehog '06 - that's an impressive achievement. That's something new. Taking the best source material and making a good game of it is fine. It's safe. Taking the worst material and making a good game of it is inspiring.

Alright I'm getting sidetracked again. Back to... Hydrocity Zone? Really? Hydrocity? What's the rationale behind the selections here? Even as the self-appointed patron saint of the water level, the only justification I could conjure here is that water levels are a part of Sonic games, and here is the least bad selection. That's not a great reason to include something in your game. That the top path plays itself can't be blamed on dumbing down, as it's equally boring (though infinitely gracious) in Sonic 3. The new submarine boss here is great, another variation on the why-are-you-hitting-yourself formula, and the other Eggman encounter is cute, but characteristically forgettable. Surplus charm astride a void of substance.

This is the point at which Mania's overarching structure becomes distressing: we were doing one zone per game, roughly chronologically, and now we're starting to meander in the opposite direction. Optimally, here is where the old zones would exeunt, leaving Mania free to define its own personality, bursting forth from the remains of its ancestors. Unfortunately, here is where it instead decides to retrench.

One last glimmer of hope before the implosion, Mirage Saloon brings out a bright new aesthetic that deserves better gameplay pairing. We've had deserts before, but not this kind of American West ecosystem, and it's immediately a natural fit with the cartoon flavor of the characters. It's a shame Act 1 is spent rehashing the biplane variety stage, one of the series' least flexible recurring gimmicks that was only just resurrected (and also terrible) in Sonic 4: Episode II. The big handguns in Act 2 aren't notably different from the spring cannons in StarSpeed and the water spritzers are yet another non-interactive cutscene gimmick.

Here follow three old zones in a row, seemingly chosen at random, and the experience completely decoheres. I'm just playing a romhack at this point. I can't be bothered to discuss them individually, though Oil Ocean does bring the neat juxtaposition of Sonic 3's fire barrier with Sonic 2's most flammable terrain. Again, it would be even neater if S4E2 hadn't just done the exact same thing. Lava Reef I couldn't tell apart from & Knuckles, but I may've been half asleep by that point. Metallic Madness scores points with a funny joke where Sonic is thrown into the background layer to 'simulate' tininess, but where are the raps? And, though this has no effect on the quality of the game, I noticed around this point that Tails' path-finding seems to have taken a major hit in the Retro Engine. He frequently gets stuck behind a corner and incessantly jumps. Brain damage from all the near-death drownings?

Finishing it off is Titanic Monarch, certainly the highlight of the game and really the only part that's even remotely challenging. I like the use of the catapult spheres from the S&K bonus stages - they're loosely free-form yet present enough technical space to rehearse precise approaches, and they pause the action without sacrificing momentum. The warp labyrinth takes the familiar structure of the looping maze and tweaks the presentation with discrete endpoints - as someone who has always hated the falling loops of e.g. Sandopolis Zone, I found this to be a major success of spatial grounding. Does Robotnik have KEK banners tho? Wtf?

I died a couple times on the final boss; once in Oil Ocean 2 thanks to poison gas; and a bunch of times due to cheap crush collisions in Chemical Plant 1. This is an easy game which can mostly be conquered on first attempt*. The special stages are surprisingly strategic, the kind of design that improves on what was accomplished in 1994 while restraining itself to the same vocabulary, though I don't know if I have the enthusiasm to repeatedly find them. I ended up with four Emeralds. I didn't mention the return of the E-102s, but in context it's hard to care. They're lost in the noise of all the other boss fights.

Sonic Mania doesn't really illustrate to me that you can still make a good classic Sonic - nor the converse. What it does illustrate is that you can repackage content from classic Sonic and successfully sell it, and maybe this should've been expected from a team whose resume consists entirely of fangames and ports. Predictable or not, this strikes me as a bad lesson, and if the inevitable Mania 2 includes any recycled content at all ("hey, how come they never remade Press Garden Zone? that's a classic!"), I'll be leaving it on the shelf. If it's entirely new material I'll probably bite - about half the original stuff here was solid. For longtime fans, Generations and Sonic 4 are more challenging, more original, and more respecting tributes. For new fans, just play Sonic 1-3&K, they're on virtually everything for a combined price near Mania's and hold up extremely well. Just remember that it's okay to die and start over; this is not an "old-school flaw", and the second time is often even more fun than the first. If you've played those to death, then you've already played Mania. Maybe try Socket.

*My subsequent Tails run ended with 39 lives to spare, and would've been closer to 55 had I not gotten lazy on the OOZE2 boss. This is a very easy game.

Then I started Mania, and yeah, this is only after Green Hill Zone, but it is hard to escape the profound feeling of *what is the point?*

And yeah, this is only after Chemical Plant Zone, but it is hard to escape the profound feeling of what is the point?. CPZ:A2 is God's gift to anyone wanting to demonstrate that popular Sonic is pure hold-rightism. It introduces new gimmicks left and right but never fucking stops for a second to let me interact with any of them. It's like a caricature of the boring cutscene pipes first introduced in... Chemical Plant Zone Act 2 Version 1.0! And come on, are all the Act 1s going to be 90% cloned from the originals? Why not jump straight into the new stuff? Two zones in, they already feel like filler.

Finally with Studiopopolis Zone we enter fresh territory. I don't want to judge the new material too seriously on first pass, though I think it's fair to say Studio P. is essentially a reflection on Carnival Night. Both have the floating bumper formations, and the sproingy things feel like a less interesting version of Carnival Night's balloons, all globbed together without any suspension. The falling stage lights aren't really threaded throughout the level either, though they at least provide some self-sustaining challenges. Hold-righting is still in excess but not nearly as bad as CPZ2, and certain layouts like the revolving bumper crescent seem to be used repeatedly without development. I had no sense of an overarching structure of the level, but that's exactly the kind of conclusion I don't expect to be able to draw after a single run.

I don't think I can construct a paragraph about Flying Battery. It was... there. Was the only new gimmick the trash chutes? That's not really an idea. It really cannot be overstated how boring these re:Act 1s are. The Sonic franchise reuses settings a lot - too much, in fact, and this trend was set as early as Emerald Hill Zone - but that can be interesting in its own way. New aesthetics and audiovisual styles can be reinvigorating, fresh mechanics can recontextualize old challenges, and elements can be rearranged in novel or ironic ways. Even at their most derivative, sequels like Sonic 4 and Generations get some juice from the former two principles. Mania, locked into its traditional pixel art and player mechanics, needs to rely entirely on the third, innovating in the stage design. Not only does it fail to do so, it happily chooses not to try. Old layouts and challenges are copy-pasted exactly from their source material.

Looks the same, plays the same, is the same. It's a surreal experience, like Gus van Sant's notorious shot-for-shot Psycho remake, to be playing something that's exactly the same but cost fresh money. It's insulting too, and I'd prefer to believe The CW made this call to meet restraints on the schedule or budget, because otherwise it's extremely cynical as a comment on just how brainless gamers are. While critics and audiences joined voices in a collective Fuck You to Psycho '98, Sonic Mania has been greedily consumed and enthusiastically praised, leaving one to wonder if such cynicism on the developer's part would indeed be ill-placed. I'm being pretty harsh, but keep in mind that these duplicated levels constitute an entire third of the game, and the Act 2's aren't terribly impressive themselves.