Nights into Dreams

 Nights into Dreams  is a 2017 action-adventure comedy fantasy live-action/aniamted film based off the 1996 Nights into Dreams video game published by Sega and developed by Sonic Team. Being the tenth film in the Sega Cinematic Universe and the first film of the Chapter 2 era of the SCU, the film was directed and written by Guillermo del Toro, who had directed Sonic the Hedgehog Chaos (2013) and produced by Gary Janetti, who was a former crew member on the adult animated sitcom Family Guy and executive produced by iconic film duo Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who had directed the previous film in the franchise Sega Superstars (2016), Yuji Naka, and Mike Bike. The film stars Christina Ricci as Nights, an exiled outcasted Nightmaren who teams up with two 15-year old high schoolers named Claris Sinclair and Elliot Edwards to stop the evil ruler Wizeman from destroying her land Nightopia. Hugo Weaving stars as Wizeman while Jacob Bertrand and Millie Bobby Brown voice Elliot and Claris, respectively. The film was distributed by Sega and Paramount Pictures and produced by Sega's film production company Sega Movies and Paramount's animation division Paramount Animation as well as Blur Studio.

A Nights movie was announced in October 2000 to be in development at Warner Bros. Pictures with Warner Bros. Feature Animation set to produce and Steven Spielberg to direct and produce. However, due to Sega losing a lot of money from discontinuing the Dreamcast and shifting to third-party developers, it was ultimately cancelled in 2001. In 2012, in light of the success of the Sega Cinematic Universe (despite the box-office failure of A Spy Movie), a movie based on Nights into Dreams was greenlit by Paramount and Sega's executives. The title character Nights appeared in Sega Superstars first because Naoto Ohshima and Naka wanted audiences to be able to recongnize her. Guillermo del Toro was set on board to direct the movie in 2014 with Christina Ricci signing up for the role of Nights. Eventually, Hugo Weaving and Millie Bobby Brown were set on board to direct. Dean Smith composed the music for the film, as he did with Sonic the Hedgehog the Movie (2008) and Sonic the Hedgehog Chaos, along with the game's original composer

After a lot of hype and anticipation, Nights into Dreams premiered at the Annency Film Festival on March 8, 2017 and then it later released worldwide on March 16 before releasing on March 20 in Japan. Nights into Dreams received critical acclaim with praise for its moral lesson, animation, characters, story, performances, and humor. It grossed $494 million at the box-office against a budget of between $95-100 million, making it a box-office success and continuing the string of successes after Superstars. It received several accolades, even winning one for Best Animated Feature at the Annie Awards in February 2018. Christina Ricci and Millie Bobby Brown both got nominated for their performances as Nights and Claris respectively along with Jacob Bertand as Elliot.

Nights into Dreams, like how its original source adaptation is considered one of the video best games of all time, the film is considered to be one of the greatest movies of all time. On December 4, 2019, the United States Library selected it for preservation in the National Frilm Registry.

Plot
Every night when people fall to sleep, their dreams are played out like movies of either their past memories or stuff that they constantly imagine everyday. There are two types of dreams that exist. There is Nightopia and Nightmare. In Nightopia, the personalities of the dreamers are represented by luminous colorful spheres known as "Ideya." Wizeman the Wicked, the ruler of Nightmare, steals the dream energy from dreaming visitors to gain more and more power and take control of Nightopia, and then go into the real world. To achieve this, he creates five beings called "Nightmaren": jester-like, flight-capable beings, which include Jackle, Clawz, Gulpo, Gillwing and Puffy as well as many minor maren. Wizeman also creates two "Level One" Nightmaren: Nights and Reala. While Reala is loyal to Wizeman even becoming his right hand men, Nights is not and rebels against his plans, but doing this puts them (Nights' pronouns in this universe are they/them) in permanent imprisonment inside an Ideya palace, a container for dreamer's Ideya.

In the real world, one day, two high school freshmen at Twin Seeds High School named Elliot Edwards and Claris Sinclair both go to the same classes, but barley talk to each other other then at lunch where Elliot accidentally bumps into Claris, spilling her food on the floor and helping her clean it up. It turns out, Claris has a secret crush on Elliot. Despite being fairly popular, both of them have their own failures that they are dealing with. Elliot is a jock at the school and plays basketball, but is not very good at it, especially when he makes his team lose one round. At recess, the high school seniors challenge Elliot to another game of basketball. Elliot keeps missing and missing the dunk except for one time when he makes it in, but the seniors are the ones who end up winning, humiliating Elliot. Meanwhile Claris wants to grow up and be a singer, getting inspiration from Taylor Swift. However, when she goes to audition as a singer on America's Got Talent, she ends up getting stage fright which makes her lose all hope of getting into the show.

At night, both Claris and Elliot have nightmares of the dream that replay the events that happened earlier. They get so caught up in their nightmare that they transport to the land of Nightopia. While they meet each other, they find out that they possess the very rare Red Ideya of Courage, the type that only Wizeman the Great cannot steal from anybody. They travel throughout Nightopia even getting chased until they make it to Nightmare, where they make it to the Ideya palace and meet Nights. Elliot and Claris are attacked by Nightmarens, who take all of their Ideyas but the red Ideya of courage, for being too powerful for them. Thanks to the red Ideyas power, the visitors are capable of freeing Nights from their prison for a limited time by dualizing (merging) with them. Once they are free, Nights helps Claris and Elliot recover their stolen Ideyas and fights against Wizeman's minions, but their freedom is only temporary.

Nights tells them about dreams and Wizeman and his plans; the three begin a journey to stop Wizeman and restore peace to Nightopia. While on their journey, Nights tests something with Claris. Nights enters Claris' dream where she is a singer and flies around in her mind, making her satisfied. They go on several adventures with each other including telling them the story of her existence and Reala, while going through seven different dreams of Elliot and Claris created by the depths of their minds. Nights and the two defeat Wizeman's strongest most powerful Nightmaren, who were sent to intercept them. Wizeman, angry, imprisons Nights on top of the Twin Seeds tower and will send Elliot and Claris flying off on a piece of ashpalt as well as stealing their Ideyas. But using their courage, Elliot and Claris start flying by themselves. They recover their stolen Ideyas and free Nights. However Reala has a battle with Nights. Nights wins by paralooping (one of Nights' main power) against Reala, sending him crashing into his flying torches. Nights, Elliot, and Claris reunite and merge together into two Nights. Together, the three combined inside of the two Nights use their allmighty strength to defeat Wizeman, who tries to use every last bit of his power. After defeating Wizeman, Nights disappears but Elliot and Claris are sent back to Twin Seeds in the human world. They are transported to Spring Valley, where Elliot spots a fainted Claris and carries her on his arms, leaving her under a tree. Elliot starts fading becuase he is waking up and as soon as Claris wakes up, Elliot turns his back at her and disappears. Claris notices Elliot disappearing. After that, Nightopians come up to her and she starts playing with the Nightopians until she wakes up.

At school, the high school bullies have come back and re-claimed the basketball court as theirs. Elliot's friends suggest that they leave after their team starts to lose but Elliot's courage inspires him to find the power within and get through the older kids' tricks. The main bully tries to prevent Elliot from making the last shot. Reminiscing about his dreams of flight, Elliot jumps over the bully and wins the game for his team. Meanwhile, Claris gathers up the courage to go back to the audition. As she peeks through the curtains, she sees the judges disappointed with their candidates. When it is Claris' turn, she finds the courage to sing, impressing the judges and making it into the show. Sometime after, Claris went to sing at the Twin Seeds centennial commemoration celebrations while Elliot walks down the street where Twin Seeds' 100th anniversary was being held. He watches the parade before going up to the Twin Seeds tower and sees the sun bounces off a sign for a musical being help, and it catches Elliot's eye as he swore he saw Nights. Elliot peeks at the musical down below and sees that the singer is Claris Sinclair. They both look at each other and recongnize one another, where they are inexplicably transported back to Spring Valley.

In a post credits scene, Elliot and Claris are shown going to bed in their respective homes. At their window, they see a familiar purple figure posing on the spire of the Twin Seeds tower (Nights).