Sonic Movie Director Promises To Change Controversial Design

Well, what do you know.

I personally didn't think it was all that bad. People on the internet like to overreact and then comment on ridiculously harsh things. A person (and in this case, the director) shouldn't compromise his vision to a bunch of people who, more than likely, won't be satisfied regardless.

If they can do it, that's awesome. People have a lot of nostalgia tied into the Blue Blur, and those are the people who will take their families. I personally thought Sonic looked okay. It was the dialogue that was painful.

Thank goodness! The people have spoken.

Why is Robotnik slim and not an eggman?

All this time, I’ve just wondered if John Carpenter has seen the trailer and what he’d think. It was a fun surprise to learn that he is a fan of the Sonic games.

Sonic looked absolutely disgusting. I’m glad they’re changing him.

That’s amazing news, i think his current design is incredibly disturbing

I didn't think it was that bad. I was never expecting it to be Oscar caliber, or even on par with Detective Pikachu. It looked fun in its own right.

For some reason, my heart just sank. I actually kinda feel bad, so much pressure on the creator(s). 😥

Wait, what? WHAAATT???

They probably have quite a few all-nighters ahead of them, then.
Entirely reworking the current design into ALL the thousands upon thousands of frames that he's now more than likely already in.

Here's hoping it truly is for the best, though, because screwing it up even further is going to send this movie straight out of the theaters and straight onto video on demand...

@SKTTR Skip to the last 4 seconds of the video, and you'll see a much better likeness...

We might get to see the phrase “A delayed game is a better game” be applied to this movie... But if its just Sonic’s design, then Im unsure if they would before November.

Woo buddy ....so unieye, elongated nose, elongated fingers, possible port belly and stick legs. I don’t think people realize how poorly sonic’s design (modern, boom or classic) translates in general to anything resembling realism. Since this is a movie set in the real world you kinda want that. Unless folks are looking for Cool World 2.0 (which was only interesting for the time it came out. It was jarring otherwise)

This is going to be an interesting ride.

Good on them for trying to make it better. How did the movie get this far without someone saying "WTF is up with Sonic?" 🤔
But I guess hollywood is used to ignoring fans and making up their own garbage.

I didnt think his design was as bad as people are making out, but if they can make him look better then great.

I'm surprised this change is happening. The power of the internet I suppose. I agree the look is definitely off, I'm not against the change at all. (crosses fingers and hopes for the best)

Jeff Fowler has no idea how dangerous the Sonic fan community can become.

They will go far if they can just make Sonic not look like an actor wearing a Sonic the Hedgehog furry costume.

Thats a turn up for the books. Course they have only 6 months to redesign then apply it to every scene in the film but they remain committed, they could turn things around.

Granted, this film launches 2 weeks before Frozen 2. Its got pretty bad odds but it could at least serve as filler before or during Frozen 2's run (To escape it. XD)

As someone who's generally positive about Sonic and loves this series, I'm looking forward to the movie. Really looks like a fun time. I think it's great news that they're going to try to work on Sonic's character more. It's not everyday somebody working on a movie does this.

@Angelic_Lapras_King As someone who likes magical girl shows like Sailor Moon and PreCure I really enjoyed Frozen and am looking forward for seeing the its sequal.

I know people are probably happy about this, but im sure these People put alot of effort into the movie thus far and to have to go and change it because people are complaining is actually kinda disturbing. I didn't mind the trailer or his design. It's based off a video game after all, and it shouldn't be taken too seriously

While I'm glad to hear that he's listening to the criticisms, I'm also somewhat skeptical. Whenever a trailer is shown with a bunch of clips, that's generally a sign that a large amount of work has already been done. Trying to redesign sonic while the movie is still being made means that the entire movie crew probably has to reshoot most of the scenes they already done. Although I'm not a movie creator so I could be wrong

what took him so long? lol

@Level_Up It’s moronic

6 months from to fix all the mess.
Well, good luck.

@Ryu_Niiyama
You would be right... except Detective Pikachu proved that you can have cartoonish characters in a live action world

@Nerdfather1
I'm not a Sonic fan (haven't really played any of his games.), I wasn't really interested in the movie but man did Sonic look terrible. (Similar to how Yoshi was butched as a dinosaur)
I mean compared to detective Pikachu, at least Pikachu was recognizable and cute. Some of the Pokemon are.... Okay, but they at least have the premise of cartoon in them. ....

criticism should be taken, they are taking a franchise, that is well beloved, and using it to sell us a movie. I ain't buying what I don't like. Yes it's their style, but similar to art, no one will buy if it isn't good.

But I am no artist so..... Take my critisms with a grain of salt.

RIP the animators, hopefully the movie gets delayed a bit for them to be able to have enough time to fix the design, as now they are in theory going back to stage 1 on their MAIN CHARACTER of the movie.

@NintendoByNature He looks nothing like he does in the videogames. They’re idiots for going into production with that unholy, absolutely blasphemous design. Not blaming the artists, it’s on the production and higher ups who allowed it.

Sonic’s design is timeless, classic and set. There is definitely an expected look for him. Yes he grew taller for the Adventure games but the base design of the face and costume stayed in tact.

THAT IS NOT SONIC

It’s why he also doesn’t look right with a scarf around his neck.

@LaytonPuzzle27 I get that, and the sequel will do huge numbers, but just saying its not every one's cup of tea and might want a movie they can escape to with their non-Frozen obsessed kid.

Those near empty Sonic screenings during Frozen 2's run will come in handy. XD

@Aeleron0X They would have to fix the Sonic model and textures and rerender all the frames, and finally, reinsert it through post-production

@NintendoByNature
How is that "disturbing"? That's how the world works. You submit your work for feedback and make improvement based people's criticisms. That's literally what you do in school and in your career.

I know in this case a lot of the feedback was memes, but there were also genuine suggestions that the public offered and I'm very glad the movie studio is taking their suggestions to heart instead of being "disturbed".

Great news. The movie looks promising and now more people will give it a chance.

@Antraxx777 I think it's a bit of an over reaction. No disrespect or anything. To me, it looks like sonic, just a little different than the toonish figure were used to. Not enough for me to complain on internet about it though.

If they can pull it off in 8 months, I'll be super-impressed, and will go see it no matter what. ...If they just change the eyes, it shouldn't take TOO long...although the current version may forever become lost media, unless it's a DVD extra...

@Aethon disturbing wasn't the best word to use, so my apologies. I should have said sad

@NintendoByNature you're joking right? All they needed to do is base on the actual design, it can work just fine even with some realistic details like the fur. Making a spawn of hell and call it a day is effort? Sure, it has to be of course, but they are dealing with the most demanding fandom in the world, they get no sympathy for just doing whatever the heck that is.

@Anti-Guy unfortunately I'm not joking. If the movie looks that bad, don't show your support to the people making it. Growing up, I was a huge ninja turtles fan. And my favorite being donatello. In the most recent movie adaptation of TMNT They didn't make donatello look like anything I'd imagine him to be. I thought he looked like the worst out of all 4 of them. Didn't complain about it, went out and saw the movie and life went on for me.

NOW we're talking legitimately bad news for a change. It would be one thing if they had been on the fence themselves or reconsidered down the road, but making changes mere months before the premiere for nothing but a mere fandom drama? Risking weeks of added crunch for the animators in the process? The problems of being in the rating/box driven segment of commercial fiction are proverbial, but you'd think a game adaptation would be slightly safer in this regard - Paramount is definitely no Square Pictures either. Fingers crossed for the rest of the movie, and for the team's grip on their own goals and common sense, but this doesn't bode too well.

@LaytonPuzzle27 but a lot of people have got the memo - including many behind the franchise itself, with one of the animated shows doing a transparent Misery reference. And the more of this fan community the Sonic movie manages to incinerate out of their human hosts for good, the better. So don't bother with passive threats, they're no surprise since many decades before the first Sonic game ever existed. All your comments do is give people like me more incentive to actually pay a visit to at least one screening.

@Anti-Guy Fiction deals with audiences it generates. No fandom was ever worth dealing with, and while we bronies alone could single-handedly dethrone Sonic fandom's "most demanding" (alongside the "how dangerous" that @LaytonpPuzzle27 tries to pass off as breaking news), there's no such thing as an undemanding fandom anyway.

It’s great that someone can have an artistic vision and people can force them to abandon it. So... great... 🙄

I’ll just stick with Sonic in Wreck It Ralph.

Although its great they are fixing it, i don't see this fix making the movie any better. The plot won't change and it's a terrible plot. His electric hair is also important to the plot so expect that to stay too

Huh. Didn’t see that coming. Well I wish them the best of luck, seems like a long shot changing it so close to release but... maybe they have the time? I certainly doubt they’ll reshoot scenes, and weird things like the electric powers and portal rings will remain, but hey, some simple changes to Sonic’s basic design MAY improve it? I applaud them for at least trying to please the fan base though, most studios don’t really care (for better or for worse). There’s certainly no pleasing anyone but personally I might actually see this if Sonic is less uncomfortable looking, personally I don’t care if the plot is cheesy...

If only the Monster Hunter movie would take some cues here, though that one needs some pretty heavy changes. Jim Carrey already was keeping the trailer from being too bad here.

LOL Sega is so clueless about everything.

Just make it exactly like he looks in the video games. Duh.

I'm complicated. At the same time, I always root for an artist to convey their vision, yet I always have the right to an opinion, and in my opinion, this artist's vision of Sonic is laughably ugly. This Sonic looks awful to me, yet I'm invested in the news and already agreed with my best friend that we'd watch it, though likely on demand/Blu-Ray. Hmm. I really don't know what to say.

Despite the very divisive reactions to this film, and even though I personally think Sonic is poorly animated (though I've never liked his revealed design from the getgo), I've had some laughs!

So they're changing it but not pushing back the release date at all...?

I'm sure it will be fine. Sonic the Hedgehog projects made on a tight schedule always turn out great, right?

Good on him. Just improving the design of the hedgehog to something more closely resembling the original character he's based on will go a long way toward making this film easier to swallow. Although, considering how soon the film is releasing, that seems like one hell of a pledge to make.

Genuinely surprised they're making these changes. I would say I'm impressed, though I'd wager this is more self-preservational than anything. Which is the argument I'd respond with to those talking about the creators' "vision" being compromised by fan demand.

The one thing I know about Hollywood: they bend to the masses. 9 times out of 10, the creator has no vision aside from "sell as many tickets as possible." Which is why most movies are cookie-cutter clones of the same formula--they stick with what works, and what sells. The few movies that actually are art hardly ever make it big, and the ones that do are often based on already existing (and popular) stories, usually books. There's very little room for unique material or vision. So for the vast majority of movies, it's about the cash.

This Sonic movie is no different. They looked at the negative response numbers (the trailer currently has about half a million dislikes,) and realized they might not recoup their budget if none of those people buy tickets. And they're too deep in to scrap it all at this point. So...like always, they will bend.

Also...if they WERE concerned about vision and making a good Sonic movie, then naturally they would make changes if their audience, the fanbase, takes issue, as they're obviously the people they'd most want to like it.

As whiny as the Sonic fanbase can be, I wouldn't throw this all on them. As an artist myself, I know the deal: if you want more people to like it, you bend. If you want to stay true to your vision, prepare to bear all the abuse that might come.

Some of you are so annoying I swear to god. People criticize something and y'all scream from the rooftops that it's useless that companies don't care. Then a company actually takes it serious and listens you call the critiques oversensitive and entitled. If you are selling a product to someone you better make damn sure it's something people actually want. Good on the director for changing course. The original design was not sonic.

@ThanosReXXX The advantage 3D has over 2D is if they can manage to keep the original skeleton for the 3D model, they can reuse the animations they have already. Can't really say the same for the facial animations though. That will be a lot of work.

It's good they are actually listening to the fans, I don't think they'll redesign Sonic from scratch maybe just the face and be done with it. Of course that still doesn't guarantee the movie will be great and even then it has to compete with Frozen 2 but at least it can have a better presentation than it currently has

@limitbreakfull The question is what vision exactly? The movie's plot is not that ambitious to begin with and to make matters worse Sonic's actual creators hated the design with a passion so there was no reason to carry on with it. I'm more concerned nobody in the production team thought it was bad and barely resembled the character to begin with it

Huh... you’d have thought they have noticed this when the design was leaked ages ago.

I doubt it'll be a drastic change. I bet he'll still be hairy.

@TreesenHauser then you get people comparing the little guy you're using as your Avatar in Detective Pikachu to his animated and pixelated self versus movie Sonic and original sprite Sonic and the people who created Pikachu definitely did a better job.

I'm with the few who didn't mind the design all that much, though of course if they make it close to one of his more recent designs then great.

Regardless people will no doubt find something to trash the film IMDB style. Personally i take at least 50% of what I've read from that site, as well as myanimelist, with a spoonful of salt.

I'm glad and appreciative of the fact that the people involved in the movie's production wants to right its wrongs...

... But anyone with a pair of eyes and a functioning occipital lobe could have told you that Sonic's design looked atrocious at the very beginning of the film's production.

This won't just affect the animators, but marketing and the marketing campaign, too... and the distribution of the film.

And with that the hardship on the Animators will increase, because to have a final design, scenes and models for marketing, this means get this done in less than 3 months or so...

Having seen some amended versions online I believe it is possible to go for something slightly closer to Sonic’s video game design and a little more cartoonish. Though I wonder if the CG animators have their work cut out.

Of course this could all be part of the plan! This design only exists in the trailer scenes and ante designed to get people talking in outrage, Mekong, etc whilst the actual design was being worked into the film and the next trailer all along!

Woah dude what was in that chilli dog...

@BensonUii Finally, someone who feels the same way I do about Facebook.

But I read Sonic has already started filming Mission Impossible 7, and for the reshoots they’ll have to CGI out his Unibrow and Muttonchops....

@Nerdfather1 no. It is that bad. And I don't know how anyone can watch that cliched, trope ridden, badly written joke of a trailer with mangled Sonic and call that phoned in crap 'artistic vision'...

Why are they changing now? Because people on the internet are mad? I know they want to get on the fan’s side and I actually think the reworked version looked better, but what is their vision for this project?

Designs for characters are formed in part by the world they inhabit. Same with the clothes characters wear, their speech patterns, hairstyle, etc... I think the whole problem is this effort to make Sonic and Robotnik just another two characters in an otherwise normal present day US. This spells disaster from the getgo. Most Superheroes are just humans or at least have human-like traits. Sonic and Robotnik are going to be so cartoonishly over the top that they aren’t going to make sense. Everyone else in the film is going to just be “average Joe/Jane” or cliche military guy, while Sonic and Robotnik are going to feel out of place. The audience will not be able to suspend disbelief and the resulting film will feel total mess. A mix of cliche NPC conversations or stupid scene chewing antics.

Or it could be a great. Trailers could be misleading...

I predict people still gonna whine.

The Sonic Movie Situation:

Director Jeff Fowler: Here's the movie trailer and my version of Sonic the Hedgehog. Please do enjoy!

The Fans: We don't like your version of Sonic, we like Sega's version better, change it, change it now.

Director Jeff Fowler: Okay I guess I'm turning it back to Sega now. Thank you for at least telling me that my version sucks.

The Fans: Yeah we want Sonic to be the same, never different.

Director Jeff Fowler: Well at least Dr. Robotnik didn't get the same criticism. That I'll keep it unique to the movie.

Don’t listen to the haters, listening to them has only ruined the franchise, previously. Listening to their suggestions will allow you to improve and therefore making a game like Sonic Mania, a game that nobody likes. We need more games like Sonic 06, a game that absolutely rejected the hater’s thoughts and opinions. /s

On a side this could be a good thing, there's a lot properly questionable in the movie, but as a Sonic fan that manage to enjoy most bad lines and plots in the games, I can accept a lot of "weirdness" in a work with Sonic. But I need to see Sonic, something I can't recognize their model as.

Still... I'll be the first complaining about any redesign, even a perfect one, if any news about crunching the animators will come up. They took a design decision, one that clearly had an high chance to be disliked by fans, putting anyone under pressure cause of the expected internet backslash sounds ridiculus.

Viral marketing at work.

Create trailer that will spread across the Internet in seconds. Done.

Planned and delivered.

I'd prefer they'd fix the humour. If the look stays the same, at least die hard fans will have an easier time distancing themselves emotionally from this obvious 0-10% tomatometer candidate.
But I'd be happy to be proven wrong and maybe they kept the best jokes for the full movie.

Wait....Hollywood is listening to criticism?
Well....I'll hold my breath until I see the change.

@Galarian_Lassie Haha! Exactly!

@Nerdfather1 that’s true. A lot of people on the internet love to hate things and go over the top with extreme criticism or just plain abuse and will maintain that regardless. In this case though there is some fair criticism in the appearance of Sonic. It’s good of the people involved with the film to note that and make a cosmetic change to make Sonic look more like he does in the games.

@NotTelevision Well, if you spent a good 10 seconds anywhere with artists who happen to like Sonic at least a TINY bit: All that really needs a change before he looks a million times better is the eyes. He needs that mono-eye badly. He still has a realistic look to him, but he also looks like Sonic. The current abomination looks nothing like Sonic at all.

I'm hoping they don't do too much because I know the stress of crunch and that making big changes from now till November would be the same as trying to build a skyscraper in a week. (a bit exaggerated but you get the picture)

The eyes, though... That change NEEDS to be made. Or at least something that resembles his regular eyes more. If not mono-eye, then big 00 eyes or something.

Also, it's not really a case of "the internet is mad". More like the bigwigs screwed up on an iconic design, making an abomination instead, and everybody who even remotely knows of Sonic popped in to tell them: This ain't it chief.

Good! They got the message how it should be looked like instead like a boy in a sonic hallowoon costume. The bigger eyes gives makes it complete.

"All that really needs a change before he looks a million times better is the eyes"

And the teeth. That's not even realism, that's just plain nope, and whoever thought it would a good idea to put human teeth on anything not clearly humanoid needs to rethink their life choices.

put your tin foil hats on. maybe they had the better looking sonic ready from day one, they came out with this weird looking version to get attention from the casual crowd and the fan base. everyone screams how crappy sonic looks and they revert back to the original design they had all along to appear as the good guys who listen to fans. you're welcome.

This is both sad and hilarious. Hundreds of people have wasted time on making the already completed scenes, and now the design, model, rendering and compositing has to be redone. Possibly some shooting has to be redone.

All because some spineless execs don't know what they want to achieve. And in the end, it'll still be crap, but the bosses can go "well, we changed it after the public outcry, so we did all we could!"

Also, this solidifies my fear that there isn't any reveal of Our World / His World, where Sonic would look the way we know him, but Jim Carrey's version of Eggman would feel out of place as the only human. We see him gradually growing into the game design already in the reveal trailer, which had my hopes up.

Now those are all dashed. Pun intended.

@SonOfVon This is a thought that occurred to me as well.

@Ryu_Niiyama why does it need to look realistic? Have you ever seen who Framed Roger rabbit? They managed it quite well 30years ago so shouldn't be an issue today

I mentioned even before this statement that the current design looks so bad that it appears to be a PR stunt to get hype. I wouldn't be surprised if they made this design just for the trailer

Wow. Must be tough making any change to much loved IPs in this current day and age. I wonder if the visionary designs of LoZ: Wind Waker would have survived the backlash if it had been released these days?

I'm not a Sonic fan but knew instantly that thing is not Sonic. How did they even make this mistake in the first place?

Exactly why I've said that although this will be awful, it would still be better than NSO. These people are actually trying to improve this even though it's not gonna work. With NSO, Nintendo just threw a price tag on their peer-2-peer connections and called it a day. Please Understand.

@Blister Zelda is a totally different case. They've retained the essence of Link and Zelda even in vastly different artistic styles. Having said that, Wind Wake was STILL dislike by many back in the days.

This "Sonic" movie however, you don't even need someone who likes Sonic to know that blue thing is not Sonic. They lost the character of Sonic and what makes him recognizable completely with this rendition.

I see nothing wrong with the way Sonic looks. Frankly complaining about it makes you look like a 9 year old girl who just lost her balloon at a circus.. The movie for what it is looks like what you'd expect. Now hike up your skirts and either see it or don't.

@Nerdfather1 I hear what you’re saying, but I personally disagree in this case. Yes, the internet is often a sewer of unreasonable negativity, but elements of Sonic’s design is iconic for a lot of people who grew up as fans of the games and cartoons. For those fans, what was shown so far has been akin to giving Mickey Mouse a 3rd ear. As for the director, this movie is about an established character, and the film is aimed in large part towards an audience who are fans of, or at least people who are already familiar with that character. If those people are in large part expressing specific ways that they aren’t happy with the portrayal of that character, then it’s in the director’s and the studio’s best interest to listen. And I’m taking the fact that they are as great news. I’ve been a fan of Sonic since the Genesis days, and my kids have grown up playing his old and new games. I want them to get this movie right, so I can take my kids to this movie and hopefully some sequels down the road.

Anybody else wondering if this was done on purpose? People would probably react negatively regardless, so make the Sonic design bad so everyone focuses on that, then improve it and suddenly people will be a lot more positive about the whole film!

@Nerdfather1 It barely even looks like Sonic, it's not like with the Mario film where all they had was the 8-bit game and 16-bit games
Sonic has had realistic 3D games before
Sonic 06 sure wasn't perfect but at least Sonic and such looked like there meant too.

Not this nightmare fual

Problem is, Sonic's design is just one of many problems with this movie.

@RainbowGazelle There is an extra cynical side of me that is wondering if it really was on purpose. People have been upset by the design since it first leaked. There is no way the studio wasn't aware of the rejection at that point.

Lemme put on my tin foil hat real quick: what if the trailer is not actually the final/real design? What if they put it out PURELY to get people freaking out? Because whoo boy, the internet blew up about it. Free advertising everywhere.

The design is alright for this realistic setting. Too bad, now it will look majorly out of place, if they redesign Sonic in such a way, how (clueless) fans are demanding it. 🙄

It was on the cards, hollywood can't handle another ghostbusters or starwars ep8 style backlash

First of all, I can't believe there are people in this comments section actually defending the design and trying to downplay this as "internet people be cray". This goes so far beyond "da internetz be hatin". The design for Sonic is objectively trash and one of the most horrific things I've seen done to a video game character in this day and age. There is no way to defend the butchering of Sonic's character to the extent that it has been done. They butchered his design so badly that I question if they even knew what Sonic is. There is no way to defend it, just stop. If you want to defend THE MOVIE then by all means do so. But just stop embarrassing yourselves by trying to defend what must be the biggest butchering of a video game character I've seen since the 90s. I mean, I'm actually STUNNED that the atrocious design for Sonic went this far without being called into question. Did no one during the filming of this movie sit back and ask "Is this supposed to be Sonic?"? This should have never made it beyond anything but a really bad presentation sketch.

Now with that being said, I don't much believe that they can fix this without delaying the movie in some way, but if they can actually pull this off, then they will have fixed what must be the biggest problem with the movie so far. Granted there are other problems and I could easily sit here and do a long list of the issues, but I imagine everyone already knows what this movie is doing badly so I won't waste my time on that right now.

tldr version: I agree with the decision to fix it if they can actually fix it. His appearance is by far the biggest offender.

@Nerdfather1 especially when most of these buggers won't even buy a ticket for the movie

They just need to fix the eyes ,add gloves ,and maybe make sonic a bit more cartoony. It's not extremly that much of a change, but it would benifit the movie greatly.

@BensonUii
There is this little thing called test screenings Hollywood has been doing for decades for situations exactly like this.

Hey okay, score one for the people that complained. Good job guys, that has to be a first for a movie.
Even though Sonic didn't look like his video game self, I just took it at that ... that if Sonic were in the real world, this is how he would look, but I digress. Now the real question is will they be able to fix him in a way that will match the fan design that fans want, or will he be in cross between fan design and what they were shooting for originally? We'll just have to wait and see. I'm still more interested in the story than worrying about how Sonic looks, but that's just me. For what it's worth, this movie still has far more faithfulness to the source than the Super Mario Bros. movie LOL

The design is awful. But the writing is the worst, how do you fix that?

@Frank90 exactly. It's every bad 'fish out of water/visitor from another world' summer blockbuster cliche that has every been... badly acted with crap character design... rolled into one.

I thought the design was ok for a live action movie. I even thought he looked cute. I think it's funny that people complain that he doesn't look realistic enough or that his teeth aren't exactly like a hedgehog's teeth. It's an anthropomorphic hedgehog that talks and runs at super speed, it's not supposed to be realistic

Waiting for them to re-release the trailer, but instead of cg sonic they replace him with a guy in a costume like you saw for the crash bandicoot commercials where you see his face still!

That's fine. I'm still not going to see it.

They just need to change the title card: "Sanic the Hedgehog: The Movie".

Everything would then make sense and we'd be talking about it as a postmodern cinematic masterpiece - the film for the meme era!

Is it weird that the more I look at weird toothy Sonic the less it creeps me out? I still think they should have gone with a more cartoony Sonic like in Wreck It Ralph, but the weird Sonic doesn't seem so weird over time.

That said I'll never see this movie no matter what Sonic looks like. The movie itself seems awful.

This is incredible. I have no idea how they plan on retrofitting so much of a movie post-editing, but I can't believe they recognized the backlash was so bad they're actually going to edit the character design! This is even bigger than the XBone launch backpedal!

@Ryu_Niiyama Mickey does fine with an elongated nose. And I don't think finger-length is an issue here. Boom's design is fine enough for "real" if translated into a bit less cartoon without reworking him to work like a generic Cony Island animatronic design. There's just no question, film Sonic was bad because it wasn't actually a translation of the actual character design. It was a knock-off that evoked the character without actually being the character. If it were unlicensed, Sega would probably have lost a copyright infringement suit on it.

@NintendoByNature you sure are easy to please, wish everybody was. To each its own.

I am firmly of the opinion that the only reason the current abomination came to be had nothing to do with creative direction or artistic vision, and everything to do with Hollywood wanting to be as lazy and cheap as possible in production, animating him with motion capture that required no tweaking or editing whatsoever. It makes the "normal human proportions painted blue" allllll make sense.

I wonder what the revision will look like.

I was gonna watch it regardless but good to know there gonna improve the design.

@MegaVel91 My point exactly. Still a lot of work regardless.

@Yorumi Part of me wonders if some of the cynics were right.....maybe this whole thing really was a trolling marketing campaign. Viral marketing at its worst?

We all assumed that was a preposterous explanation since the cost of this would have been way to excessive and too late in production to pull off....and yet here they are saying they're going to replace this entire bad Sonic version.....if the work is possible to clean up the disaster, that means it was also possible the disaster was manufactured. Maybe we've just been master trolled and the "real" version was always the movie version and the "bad" version was just made to go viral and create this effect?

I mean how could they fail so hard as to create a Sonic with a weird human mouth and bizarrely unrelated eyes when fans could correct that to look trademark-approved in a matter of hours in photoshop? Unless it was on purpose.

@Galarian_Lassie What

What a fantastic proactive response, we’ll done sir!

They should release a limited number of copies of the original version, not because its good, but could be a niche collector thingy

QUICK! Someone download the current trailer, lol

For real though, seems like a lot of work for a movie that is likely not gonna be all that great regardless.... Whatever! I'm glad they're at least making it look as good as it can.

@MegaVel91 Exactly!

I think at this point they should just go all silly comedy and actually address the weird version in the movie. Like the first time he sees Sonic its the weird looking one and then Sonic goes back to normal look from games and Sonic says he was trying to blend in as a human or something. Then if they can't change every shot, they can joke he keeps getting that weird look again and add the other characters saying stop doing that it just scary and doesn't help blending in.

Imo, it seems like it's probably too late to change Sonic now, but if they can do it without over stressing themselves, the better.

@Nerdfather1 Usually I'd agree because in principle, yes, totally, there are almost always crazies who make the most noise, but in this instance the design of Sonic was so far removed from the original Sonic and so genuinely creepy and weird that making it look the way the iconic character has looked for around 30 years until this film was the way to go.

Good decision. I respect that

The legs shoes and eyes were all wrong.

I bet the movie will still be terrible, especially Robotnik. This is not how I imagined Robotnik at all. Its just Jim Carrey playing Jim Carrey, and that's not Robotnik. His look is way off (at the end he looks more like Robotnik though) and overall I don't like Jim Carrey. The movie will be a disaster.