'Sonic The Hedgehog' Movie Director Promises To Fix Sonic's Weird Design, But How Can That Work?

Credit: Sega

So, let's back up a second. A few days ago, the first trailer for the upcoming live-action movie of Sonic the Hedgehog hit the internet. Unlike the Detective Pikachu trailer before it, it was...not well received. People panned Sonic's bizarre, anthropomorphic design and recoiled in horror at his human teeth: it was hard to say exactly what was so deeply unsettling about this rendition of Sonic the Hedgehog, but it was the sort of thing that managed to perplex both old fans and newcomers alike. That, as it turns out, may just be the beginning of the story.

Director Jeff Fowler took to Twitter to say that he had heard the outcry, which is in itself an unsual move. Even stranger, however, is his promise to actually fix it:

Thank you for the support. And the criticism. The message is loud and clear... you aren't happy with the design & you want changes. It's going to happen. Everyone at Paramount & Sega are fully committed to making this character the BEST he can be...

I have...questions. They all stem from the fact that this movie comes out in November, and November is not that far away from now. I will confess: I am not an animator that works on major theatrical releases. And yet I am a human being in the world, and from that perspective, it just seems like it might be somewhat difficult to totally change the design of your titular character just a little more than a month out from release. The way I see it, there are three ways this goes:

Option 1: Sonic the Hedgehog is released in more or less the same shape it's in right now, with minor changes to parts of Sonic that don't necessarily affect his character's overall silhouette or footprint. I'm thinking bigger eyes, less horrifying teeth and call it a day. I'd argue that this is the most likely option.

Option 2: We all know how brutal crunch can be in the game development world, but our industry is not necessarily unique there. In this scenario, the movie actually makes the sort of substantive changes this character needs, but endures brutal overtime to get there and even then doesn't necessarily get to where it needs to be. This is a bad option, sacrificing worker health to appease internet rage.

 Conspiracy optionConspiracy theories are always fun, but I actually think this is somewhat plausible. In this scenario, we don't need punishing overtime hours to fix Sonic because Sonic is already fixed. Maybe the PR team knew that we'd see a quick and aggressive backlash to the current Sonic design? Maybe the pushed out a weird-looking Sonic design knowing they had something better in their back pockets, ready to go? It wouldn't be the worst marketing strategy if it were true: Sonic got a huge boost in publicity thanks to the outcry over the current design, and we all know the old saying.

I actually do not think option 3 is impossible, or maybe some sort of modified version of it: the team has other versions of Sonic kicking around, and it won't be as impossible as it seems to swap them out. I still think option 1 is the most likely: they'll change the teeth.

Correction: an earlier version of this article misstated the release date

