Democracy! Death! Sonic the Hedgehog! “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” opens today and it’s poised to outpace “Mufasa,” Disney’s big-budget “Lion King” prequel at the box office. Gene Park interviewed the voice of Sonic, Ben Schwartz (pictured above, right, with his co-star Jim Carrey). Please read the interview. You may not expect the “Sonic” press tour to lead to meditations on being and nothingness, but the conversation gets deep and poignant. Schwartz’s famous Larry King appearance leads to Park talking about his own cancer diagnosis and recent lifesaving surgery: PARK: I’ve faced a lifetime of questioning the value of a lifetime, and then faced with the reality of losing it, I was like, I don’t want to lose it because I’m afraid about what happens after death. SCHWARTZ: Is there a piece of you that, every now and then you go back the way before, not thinking about how precious things are? Is it hard to keep that in your brain? It’s something I don’t have experience with. For you, is it like, hey, I’m starting to get lazy enjoying my life? What does it feel like for you? PARK: It does feel like I can feel too comfortable. I’ve been traumatized from the experience, so I still feel like death is around the corner at any time. | | | | Why not use “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” as occasion to remind us to savor life’s gold rings while we’re still capable of running around its many loops? Sonic! Death and existentialism! Also, resilience and democracy! Remember when the first “Sonic” movie was doomed? Back in 2019, Sonia Rao reported on the massive flop that was the first trailer for the first “Sonic the Hedgehog” movie based on the Sega video game. Specifically, people really didn’t like Sonic’s teeth. Well, guess what? The director James Fowler listened to the people. Sonic was rejiggered at great expense and hassle. And it paid off. There is a lesson to be learned here. When we listen to the people we get lucrative sequels. We get sexy werewolves telling us to vote. We get “Boaty McBoatface.” When we listen to Elon Musk we get … everything that happened in Congress this week. | 
