Paramount Pictures probably never imagined how many hurdles it would have to overcome when they first decided to make a live-action adaption of Sonic the Hedgehog. When the first trailer dropped for the upcoming movie, as much as the audience loved Jim Carrey’s portrayal of Dr. Robotnik, fans of the retro game franchise became almost infuriated with the design of their beloved character. Design-savvy viewers jumped at the opportunity to fix the character’s interpretation, some of them creating screen captures that replace the problematic design with one that follows more faithfully to the original cartoon and video game.
In fact, the uproar of the Internet created such a huge wave of criticism that the production company decided to redesign the blue hedgehog. Director Jeff Fowler announced on Twitter that "the message is loud and clear" and that a redesign is "going to happen," since "everyone at Paramount & Sega are fully committed to making this character the BEST he can be…" As most would imagine, having to replace Sonic with a new iteration in every scene is a huge undertaking, and to no surprise, Fowler announced a month later that the release of Sonic the Hedgehog would be delayed by three months, presumably to allow the visual effects team to fix things.
There hasn’t been anymore updates since then, leaving fans with a burning anticipation of how Sonic will ultimately look in the movie. Now, YouTuber Artur Baranov has perhaps offered fans a glimpse of what could be, by replacing the original movie-designed Sonic with a more cartoonish, faithful-to-game version of the speedster in the movie trailer. The video can be viewed above. Judging from the comments, it seems for now that fans are happy with this artistic direction, and hopefully Paramount Pictures can learn from this to create a Sonic model that followers of the franchise will be happy with.
Sonic the Hedgehog has been postponed to a new release date of February 14, 2020.
Elsewhere in entertainment, Pokémon Go is getting a follow-up game called Pokémon Sleep.