If you haven’t already seen the memes, watched the trailer, or heard the collective horrified gasps echoed throughout the internet, in reaction to the trailer for the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog movie, then, well, you still probably wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the reception to Sonic’s design was...less than stellar. In fact, the director of the movie, Jeff Fowler, made an official statement today regarding the look of the character.

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...

Changes will apparently be made, though, what exactly those changes will entail is unknown at this point. Seeing as the film will be hitting theaters this November, that doesn’t leave too much time to fix things, but at least the criticism has been addressed. Sonic the Hedgehog will be released in cinemas worldwide this November 8th. If you want something a bit more traditional in the meantime, you can check out the recently uploaded part 2 of the official Team Sonic Racing: Overdrive animation.

Source

 

[FAST6191]

A rerender this close to release? I know things have got cheaper and faster but that is still a lot of money if there is going to be a lot of Sonic in a Sonic film (if it was just 30 seconds or something then that is a different matter). Almost surprised they decided to magic up the money for this one.

Granted the original budget for Sonic (vehicles were OK) was probably about £5 so eh.

Also I still think Jim Carrey is phoning it in hard here. He has been doing it for so long now that him phoning it in is passable on some levels but what I saw there did not seem to be a butchered by the trailer maker thing and was still not good. Him not being fat is not a problem but the lines and delivery were a) not got and b) nothing like any Robotnic I ever saw, or much like an evil scientist of note.

 

[Deleted User]

But Eggman is "fat" and Jim Carrey is not ... they should have used someone like him as Eggman

i mean, there's CGI for that, or even costumes, like the one robin williams used in ms doubtfire for example

 

[RustInPeace]

I just noticed a continuity error in the trailer. Carrey's right hand man in between shots during the overly long conversation of Carrey and the general guy, his head kept changing direction. One shot he's facing the general, next shot his head is turned to where he could move his eyes and see Carrey, next shot it's back to him facing the general, then back to looking at Carrey, all while the conversation is uninterrupted. Unless they cut the conversation down to where there wasn't a continuity error, that reminds of a certain exchange in The Room.

Fixing Sonic's look won't make the film magically better, some of the beats in the trailer was ripping off Detective Pikachu, especially how James Marsden first meets Sonic. That's almost exactly like how Justice Smith meets Pikachu. And I see people praising Carrey and think his arc will be of a man slowly going insane and thus turning to the classic Eggman look. I just saw Jim Carrey being Jim Carrey, nothing more, nothing less. I love Jim Carrey by the way, but Jim Carrey being Jim Carrey won't save this movie.

I'm more mad at SEGA for letting their property go to people that don't quite understand Sonic and would need a massive amount of backlash, whether intentionally farmed for or not, to make some changes. What Paramount and company has done is not surprising, but looking at SEGA's track record of treating Sonic horribly for a majority of the last 15 years, this makes me more focused on them being idiots.

What's with the Quiksilver crap anyway? Sonic's not THAT fast to where he controls time like Dio Brando or Jotaro Kujo. I hope that indicated him using a Chaos Emerald, that would make some more sense, otherwise that's too OP.

 

[eyeliner]

They can do this easily. The character is all rigged at this point. Just redo the character apply the rigging done, render.
They have the firepower to do this.

I would actually love to see this being worked on. Must be one of those times that designers have a blast.

 

[Dominator211]

Well, they can't possibly make it any worse... Right?

 

[DJPlace]

sonic kinda looks like the NOID's Rejected cousin.

 

[spotanjo3]

I will not say "good" or "About time". Fix Is the right things to do but will it be good enough ? I will have to wait and see how Sonic turn out to be. Wait and see. I am not saying anything.. Yet.

 

[Bladexdsl]

seems to me they did this on purpose to bait every single person on the earth into making content about it, as this seems to be an effective trend as of late (gilette, cpt marvel, papa johns, etc).

how come in never worked for ghost busters than? they still made that ABOMINATION!

 

[Joom]

next up: just delete the whole movie, that'd be a better idea


although i kinda like the idea of jim carrey as eggman, jim carrey's a good actor

He's shit in this movie. It's like "Hey guys, here's Jim Carrey! Remember how quirky he is? We do! Oh, and we didn't put him in a fat suit for some reason."

 

[BlueFox gui]

i really don't think that at this point they can do something, it's too late for it unless they delay the movie

 

[jimmyj]

also the shoes look nothing like the real sonic shoes

 

[Steena]

how come in never worked for ghost busters than? they still made that ABOMINATION!

ghost busters was a nerd-only thing to begin with, living in its own vacuum. your partizan social army had not much interest in making the thing successful, though they did still defend it to the death until release, despite the trailer looking even worse than the complete movie. the controversy still helped it, that movie should have bombed way harder and have been more irrelevant by nature of how awful it was. the fact it failed overall doesn't necessarily give it a verdict. cpt marvel for example isn't a terrible movie, and it would never have failed no matter what given the name alone; it was just overhyped with the whole controversy deal on top.

sonic is a different deal. it was so huge back then some kids of today know what sonic is. (i'm guessing mostly because of intellectually special people generating original characters on deviantart and the bizarre culture it carries)

 

[Rahkeesh]

A rerender this close to release? I know things have got cheaper and faster but that is still a lot of money if there is going to be a lot of Sonic in a Sonic film (if it was just 30 seconds or something then that is a different matter). Almost surprised they decided to magic up the money for this one.

Granted the original budget for Sonic (vehicles were OK) was probably about £5 so eh.

Also I still think Jim Carrey is phoning it in hard here. He has been doing it for so long now that him phoning it in is passable on some levels but what I saw there did not seem to be a butchered by the trailer maker thing and was still not good. Him not being fat is not a problem but the lines and delivery were a) not got and b) nothing like any Robotnic I ever saw, or much like an evil scientist of note.

So they won't do this but a cartoony sonic that looks close to modern would be pretty fast/cheap, I mean he had his own CGI Saturday morning show. Its all that facial mocap blending and detailed hair folicles that eat up the budget, but you don't need those to make a recognizable Sonic.

But no they won't give up on being Detective Pikachu and just do some minor tweaks instead that will barely change anything.

 

[codezer0]

if a part time fan with a copy of photoshop was able to fix the visual look of Sonic in their spare time, there was literally zero excuse to allow a cgi studio with Hollywood backing to screw it up this poorly. I'm tired of Hollywood disrespecting other mediums and getting away with it for this long as it is. Still, I'm surprised they actually bothered to respond and offer to update it this late in production.

 

[Clydefrosch]

next up: just delete the whole movie, that'd be a better idea


although i kinda like the idea of jim carrey as eggman, jim carrey's a good actor

yeah, too bad they only let him be eggman as an easteregg in what might very well be the post credit scene..

 

[FAST6191]

if a part time fan with a copy of photoshop was able to fix the visual look of Sonic in their spare time, there was literally zero excuse to allow a cgi studio with Hollywood backing to screw it up this poorly. I'm tired of Hollywood disrespecting other mediums and getting away with it for this long as it is. Still, I'm surprised they actually bothered to respond and offer to update it this late in production.

Fixing a static shot* is a bit different to models, meshes, textures, lighting rigs and so forth, and if they used some kind of motion capture on a puppet for reference during filming then they might also lack that shortcut, or have to build a model on top of a model to change all the height and what have you.

I would very much agree there is zero excuse for this to have even got past a test audience/focus group, test render or generally anybody that was supposed to have skills and enough clout to say something when it fell short.

*assume say 30fps render for this, 45 minutes of footage in a Sonic film then 30*45*60= 81000 frames. For 20 minutes a frame then one person would take several years, and that says nothing of having to match frames from one shot to the next.

 

[Nudu]

Designer: Here we go again

 

[ANTONIOPS]

Fixing a static shot* is a bit different to models, meshes, textures, lighting rigs and so forth, and if they used some kind of motion capture on a puppet for reference during filming then they might also lack that shortcut, or have to build a model on top of a model to change all the height and what have you.

I would very much agree there is zero excuse for this to have even got past a test audience/focus group, test render or generally anybody that was supposed to have skills and enough clout to say something when it fell short.

*assume say 30fps render for this, 45 minutes of footage in a Sonic film then 30*45*60= 81000 frames. For 20 minutes a frame then one person would take several years, and that says nothing of having to match frames from one shot to the next.

3 years, No problem, I can wait while my eyes get regenerated using stem cells because of the trailer.

 

[Missing Number]

alot of people argue the eyes and the connectedness..... what if, and hear me out here, he just has a white patch of fur between his eyes?
and the teeth.... hedgehog have teeth like their quills...... a quick google search would have let them know that.... https://i.pinimg.com/474x/1f/df/c6/1fdfc6017afa28a2f8a2811595e84bed--pygmy-hedgehog-domesticated-hedgehog.jpg
also if you felt like being realistic, he could have pads and claws, maybe with a scene where he is filing them down like in the lionking where timon files simba's claw.... https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DstgGKeUwAES7dx.jpg (though there is problems with that, it would work as a reference and a show of attitude)

 

[RPG_FAN128]

Interesting. So like, I read this article hearing how the trailer was so God-awful bad and the outrage was so thick that the movie is undergoing changes. So I think "Oh! I need to check out this trailer as it will be a hilariously funny epic ordeal of awfulness."

*watches trailer*

OK. Whatever. You know what movie actually needed to be redone? First Man. That is 2.5 hours of my life I cannot get back not to mention the price of the movie fare. Now there is an example of a God-awful bad epic ordeal of awfulness.