Sonic the Hedgehog to receive redesign after trailer backlash

A trailer for this November's Sonic the Hedgehog movie was released on Tuesday, to a conflicted response from fans.

Sonic’s classic joined up eyes and slick spine design from his games has been traded for much smaller, separate eyes and fur. He’s also been gifted with some terrifying teeth that are nowhere to be seen on the original character's design.

While designing a cartoon character to fit with a live-action film sounds like a challenge, budding artists have published their renditions of how they believe Sonic should look in the movie.

Image Credit: Edward Pun via Twitter

Left is original screenshot. Right is my rework to make #Sonic more stylized. pic.twitter.com/IhXeAZYlQI

— Edward Pun (@EdwardPun1) April 30, 2019

The movie’s director, Jeff Fowler, has acknowledged the criticism and promises that Sonic’s character design will receive significant changes before the movie releases in November.

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... #sonicmovie #gottafixfast

— Jeff Fowler (@fowltown) May 2, 2019

With six months until the movie’s release, completely redesigning the main character’s visual design sounds like a monumental challenge, given the deadline.

The video game industry has recently come under scrutiny for its cultivation of “crunch culture”, as revealed in two separate exposes by Kotaku of Bioware’s Anthem and Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2.

Crunch culture is when teams are encouraged to work exceptionally long hours on a project, usually towards its completion. Developers at Rockstar were reportedly working 100-hour weeks last year, and developers at Bioware were quoted to have frequently shut themselves in private offices to cry under the extreme working conditions.

It’s thought that a redesign as monumental as Sonic’s director is proposing could threaten the movie’s team with their potential period of crunch.

Sonic the Hedgehog is set to release on November 7th 2019 and will star Ben Schwartz as the voice of Sonic, James Marsden as Sonic’s human sidekick, and Jim Carrey as Doctor Eggman.