One of the reasons that video game movie adaptations have failed so many times over the decades is the people behind the movies either not knowing the lore, characters, setting, and so on or just not caring about it. So instead, they’ll make over-the-top and unnecessary changes to things so they can make “their movie” and not adhere to what the games did beforehand. Look at the live-action Super Mario Bros Movie as an example of this. Or look at Prince of Persia, Assassin’s Creed, and so on. But with the Sonic The Hedgehog movie, that finally changed. Once, they made a critical change that the film’s producer is grateful for even today.
Because as fans of the blue blur know all too well when the first teaser trailer for Sonic The Hedgehog came out, it had something very wrong with it. That “something” was the design of Sonic himself. His legs were incredibly long, his fur felt off, Sonic’s face was all kinds of wrong, and he had human-like teeth! Fans instantly revolted and demanded that SEGA and the movie crew delay the movie so they could fix Sonic. The fanbase even did edits of the design to show how it SHOULD look.
Thankfully, they listened to the fans, and a new design was done that was in line with the games.
Fast forward to now, and Sonic the Hedgehog Producer Tim Miller did a video that talked about the original look of Sonic from the movie. He noted that the original design was not a “publicity stunt,” as some felt after the backlash. Instead, the plan was to make Sonic more “realistic” so that he could “interact with our world,” hence why he had teeth, long legs, and so on.
Once the backlash happened, Miller went to the film director, Jeff Fowler, and said they should bring up a redesign notion to Paramount, only to find out that Fowler had already done that. Miller said the instant backlash was the “luckiest horrible thing that could happen.”
The results of the redo speak for themselves. The following trailer showed off a more accurate design of Sonic, and the film gained a lot of buzz. It became the highest-grossing video game movie of all time, then had a sequel that did even better. A third film has already been green-lit, and a Knuckles the Echidna spinoff is also in the works.
That all happened because of a fan protest, which Miller was happy about because it meant their voices were heard and positive change could happen.
If gamers are lucky, future video game film adaptations will take the approach this team did and not just adhere to the lore but listen to the fans so that another “Ugly Sonic” controversy isn’t created.
Source: YouTube
