Back in April, Paramount Pictures debuted the first trailer for their live-action
Sonic the Hedgehog movie. Many, including one of the creators of the character, lambasted the movie's character design for being uncanny and humanoid — a far cry from the lovable, iconic, and traditional look of the character.
Now, Paramount Pictures has released a new trailer which reveals a redesign based on the criticism. This time, Sonic's much cuter and less realistic. This redesign has largely been praised as a big step up. Yuji Naka, the aforementioned co-creator of Sonic the Hedgehog, recently took to Twitter to provide his thoughts on the new look (via
Gamefragger).
Naka agrees that it's an improvement but insists that the traditional eye should have been included.
“This is the new trailer with Sonic’s new design. The design is much more Sonic-like now that he’s wearing gloves. However, his eyes still aren’t joined together, as expected. I can’t help but feel weird about that one point. But I’m looking forward to the movie’s release."
In the video games, Sonic's two eyes have always been connected in a sort of cyclops-fashion. Paramount Pictures evidently decided against that. If you're a long-time fan of the character, his eyes being seperate will likely take some getting used to. Naka also explained that he'd be interested in watching the film with the original character design.
“Sonic’s new design for the movie is out. However, it seems they’re making it as if the old design didn’t exist, as the movie official account’s old tweets were deleted. I wanted to see a special DVD version of the movie which used the old design. Too bad."
Based on the global blockbuster videogame franchise from Sega, SONIC THE HEDGEHOG tells the story of the world’s speediest hedgehog as he embraces his new home on Earth. In this live-action adventure comedy, Sonic and his new best friend Tom (James Marsden) team up to defend the planet from the evil genius Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey) and his plans for world domination. The family-friendly film also stars Tika Sumpter and Ben Schwartz as the voice of Sonic.
Sonic the Hedgehog speeds into theatres on February 14th, 2020.