Sonic Movie Director Promises Redesign Following Negative Backlash

It was allllllll a bad dream *magic noises*

Sonic movie redesign

If you’ve seen the trailer for the live-action Sonic the Hedgehog movie, you’ll understand the widespread backlash it received. The negative reception was aimed primarily at Sonic himself, who looked like a lump of CGI shit pooped out of Satan’s butthole.

In the days since the trailer debuted, fans and general audiences have been tearing it apart, poking fun at everything from Sonic’s bizarre legs to his creepy-looking eyes. He also seems to have white fur covering his hands instead of wearing white gloves as he does in the games, and don’t even get us started on his human-like teeth. Heck, even Sonic’s co-creator, Naoto Ohshima, and John Mathieson, the DoP of the Pokémon: Detective Pikachu movie, both had harsh words to say about Sonic’s look in the film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvvZaBf9QQI

Some good has came out of the bad however. Director Jeff Fowler took to Twitter to acknowledge the criticism of how Sonic looked in the trailer. He promised that Sonic would be completely redesigned as a result of the backlash, saying that Paramount and Sega are both committed to making the character the ‘best he can be’. Read Fowler’s full tweet below.

https://twitter.com/fowltown/status/1124056098925944832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Now, we have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, sure, it’s great that he won’t have to sit through an entire film showing the horrible looking Sonic design from the trailer, but on the other hand, the way in which Paramount so easily caved in to demand from fans could set a dangerous precedent going forward regarding how studios respond to criticism. Either way, it seems like the final look of Sonic will be closer to how he appears in the games instead of having human-like proportions, so we’re not complaining. For now, we’re also willing to overlook the fact that the film turned Sonic into an alien.

Aside from the horrendous design of Sonic, the trailer actually did feature some genuinely entertaining moments, including snippets from Jim Carrey’s hilarious performance as Robotnik and some very cool action set-pieces. So we may actually be in for a very fun movie, regardless of how Sonic looks. Just don’t mention the awkward joke at the end of the trailer about child kidnapping.

Sonic will be voiced by Ben Schwartz, with James Marsden as Tom Wachowski, a police officer who will serve as the film’s human protagonist. The movie will be released on November 8, giving the VFX companies involved (Blur Studio, Digital Domain and the Moving Picture Company) plenty of time to redesign Sonic.

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