Dr. Robotnik (2020 Film)

NOTE: This article is about the incarnation of Dr. Ivo Robotnik from the Sonic the Hedgehog''. The mainstream version can be found here: Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik''.

"Are you really in charge here?"

- Dr. Robotnik's most famous quote.

Dr. Ivo Robotnik, also referred to as "Eggman", is the main antagonist of the 2020 live-action film Sonic the Hedgehog, which is based on the video game series of the same name developed by Sega. He is a brilliant yet unstable and narcissistic roboticist who is hired by the government to capture Sonic, although later plans to take Sonic's powers for himself in order to conquer the world. He is the film's adaptation of Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik from the video games.

He was portrayed by, who also portrayed Count Olaf in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Grinch in Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the Cable Guy in the movie of the same name, The Mask in the film of the same name and The Riddler in Batman Forever.

Early Life
Dr. Robotnik grew up as an orphan, which caused the aspiring genius even to begrudge the concept of family. As a boy, during his school days, Robotnik got punched in the face by a local bully, humiliating him. Instead of reporting him to the school principal, Robotnik achieved revenge through technological means, causing his hated young tormentor to spend the next three years, as Robotnik puts it, eating through a straw.

Sonic the Hedgehog
Dr. Robotnik makes his first appearance at the baseball field in the town of Green Hills where Sonic unleashed the burst of energy that caused a massive blackout. He and his assistant, Agent Stone, harass and belittle the military personnel there before dispatching an army of drones to locate the source of the energy surge. One of the drones discovers Sonic's footprints, and Robotnik uses his computer to analyze it. He determines Sonic's exact height, weight, and spinal structure, and discovers that no other organism in the animal kingdom matches Sonic's body shape. Realizing that Sonic must be an alien, Robotnik decides to find and capture the hedgehog for himself. This leads Robotnik to the house of Sheriff Tom Wachowski, where he attempts to trick Tom into letting him into the house to claiming he's from the power company. When Tom doesn't fall for it, Robotnik forces his way into Tom's house and tries to force him to reveal where Sonic is hiding. Tom tries to play dumb, but Robotnik doesn't fall for it. He then notices one of Sonic's quills stuck in Tom's dinner table, and he becomes much more impatient, angrily demanding that Tom cooperate. Meanwhile, some mini-drones infiltrate the attic, where Sonic is hiding. When Sonic freaks out and rolls into the kitchen, exposing himself to Robotnik, Tom punches Robotnik in the face. One of Robotnik's drones sees this and goes into attack mode, but Sonic and Tom work together to destroy it. After they escape, Agent Stone enters the house to check on Robotnik, but Robotnik yells at the agent for not apprehending Sonic. Later, while they're on the road, Robotnik catches up to Tom and Sonic in his truck, and he dispatches a robotic car to destroy them. The duo fights back, which proves difficult since the car has several smaller units hidden inside that activate after the original vehicle is destroyed. They eventually manage to destroy the whole thing, much to Robotnik's dismay, but an explosive device from the car leaves Sonic critically injured. Meanwhile, Robotnik turns to the quill he found at Tom's house, using his technology to analyze and extract the quill's power. Through this process, Robotnik discovers that the quill has unlimited power and realizes he could use this power to take over the world. Thankfully, Sonic recovers after being examined by Tom's veterenarian wife, Maddie, but the friends are still not safe from Robotnik. When the group heads over to San Fransisco to retreive Sonic's rings from the top of a skyscraper, Robotnik confronts them in an upgraded aircraft, accompanied by an army of drones. Mocking the egg-shaped design of the drones, Sonic calls Robotnik "Eggman" and challenges him to fight. As Robotnik readies his weapons, Tom frantically reminds Sonic that he and Maddie are completely defenseless against the evil genius, so Sonic comes up with a plan and pushes the couple off the building. Robotnik is shocked by this, but quickly downplays it by claiming that he was expecting to not expect something. He and his robots go to attack Sonic, but Sonic slows down time so he can disarm the robots. He then goes to use one of his rings to warp Tom and Maddie to safety, but at this point Robotnik's aircraft has tapped into the power of the quill, allowing the aircraft to travel at the same speed as Sonic as Robotnik tries to hit him with lasers. Sonic is able to send Tom and Maddie back to Green Hills. but has trouble shaking off Robotnik. He travels all over the world using his rings, but Robotnik's superpowered aircraft is right behind him at every turn. Eventually, Sonic and Robotnik return to Green Hill, where Robotnik lands a hit and seemingly kills Sonic. As Robotnik celebrates his presumed victory, Tom, Maddie, and the other residents of Green Hill stand up to him. Then Sonic, who turned out to have survived the hit, wakes up, musters up all of his power, and bashes Robotnik's aircraft, while Tom uses one of Sonic's rings to open a portal to a world filled with nothing but mushrooms, aptly named Mushroom Planet. Robotnik's ship flies straight through the portal, leaving the doctor stuck on the Mushroom Planet. There, he loses what was left of his sanity and treks through the alien landscape, searching for a way home.

Personality
From the government's description of Robotnik, he is said to be insanely over the top and weird to socialize with, which is why they were so hesitant to get him on the job. This is not far from the truth, as Robotnik is an egotistical, self-absorbed, and narcissistic man, who views the idea of having friends to be irrelevant to him and does not like having his authority questioned or challenged in any shape or way. Similarly to how outrageous of a personality his Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog self may be, Dr. Robotnik can get into the zone of his own over-the-top behavior in having a lot of fun with himself, as he is seen dancing around his lab while creating his prototypes and inventions.

Appearance
Robotnik is a tall, lean, slick man with a full head of chocolate brown hair in an undercut style, along with a large elegant mustache and fair skin. Throughout most of the film, he wears a long black trenchcoat and an all black suit, black boots and specially modified gloves. Later on, he ditches the trenchcoat instead for a red waist length jacket with black and brown accents as well as spandex leggings, he also wears goggles with this outfit.

Later, while trapped on the Mushroom Planet, Robotnik is shown to have shaved off his hair while his clothes are rendered tattered and his mustache has grown wildly out of control.

Trivia

 * Back when the first Sonic the Hedgehog trailer was released, which received mostly mixed-to-negative reactions, Jim Carrey's portrayal as Robotnik was well received by most fans, with some even saying that Carrey's Robotnik is actually the only reason they would go to see the film. Indeed, once the film was released, Carrey's performance was positively received by film critics and audiences alike.
 * Ahead of the release of Sonic the Hedgehog, Jim Carrey noted the similarities between his portrayal of Robotnik and his portrayal of the Riddler in Batman Forever, feeling that their motivations to become evil came from the sense of neglect and even commenting that he believes that they would make a great team.
 * So far, this is the first-ever incarnation of Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik shown not to be bald at first, as while all other incarnations have facial hair, there had yet to be one with hair on his head prior to the release of the film.  Although, this changes by the end of the film as he shaves it off, making him more closely resemble his videogame counterpart.
 * When Sonic attacks Robotnik's ship at the end of the movie, he hits the ship eight times, which is the exact number of hits it took to defeat Robotnik in the early Sonic the Hedgehog games.