Well, you did it.
You fixed Sonic the Hedgehog.
As a direct result of your response; your outrage, your memes, your constructive and
deconstructive criticism, Paramount Pictures has fixed their redesign of Sega’s beloved
mascot in his upcoming live action cinematic debut.
But not everybody is wholly on board with the changes.
At least one very prominent person associated with the Sonic the Hedgehog movie has said
that he wishes nothing had ever been changed.
So how did we get here?
What went on behind closed doors, and what convinced Paramount that they needed to listen
to fans, delaying the Sonic movie to fix their mistakes?
In our previous video on this subject, we looked at the Sony email hacks, and how they
explain that at least one executive at the studio was excited about making a “Sonic
the Hedge Dog” movie, before getting cold feet and selling the project to Paramount.
Looking at Sonic’s redesign, there’s been no big email leak, so details are more obscured.
Nobody really wants to take credit for the original Sonic design.
The film is being directed by Jeff Fowler, a talented Oscar-nominated creator who is
making his feature length debut with the project.
Jeff has previously created a few very well received animated shorts, but he’s not exactly
a veteran of the industry.
Instead, the seasoned expert at the helm behind the Sonic movie is producer Tim Miller, and
his story over the past few years has been fascinating.
Tim is an exceptionally talented visual effects artist, having leant his talents to games
like Mass Effect 2 and The Old Republic, as well as movies like Scott Pilgrim vs the World.
He also directed the beautiful intro scene for Thor: The Dark World, easily the most
visually impressive part of the film.
His visual effects company, Blur Studio, created all of the CGI space scenes in James Cameron’s
Avatar, and made cutscenes for that beloved classic, Sonic ‘06.
Hey, at least the cutscenes were pretty, right?
Tim’s directorial debut was Deadpool.
He was largely responsible for the all-CGI demo reel for the film, and when the movie
was greenlit, he was a natural choice to direct the movie.
Then, came a very public falling out with star Ryan Reynolds.
Having made an unexpectedly successful first Deadpool movie, Tim departed work on the sequel
in search of greener pastures, as far away from Ryan as possible.
This eventually led him to partnering with James Cameron, and the creation of Terminator:
Dark Fate, which according to critics is the best Terminator film of the century thus far.
Not that this is a high bar to cross, but that’s beside the point.
Before teaming up with James Cameron, though, the very first project that Tim Miller signed
on to following his spat with Ryan Reynolds…was Sonic the Hedgehog.
Something about adapting Sonic to the big screen clearly spoke to Tim.
Indeed, Tim was instrumental in shaping the Sonic movie.
He had previously worked with Jeff Fowler at Blur Studio, and had directed the studio’s
animated short Gopher Broke, so it made sense for the pair to collaborate on another film
that would feature a cute cartoon character.
According to Tim, there were at least two sides to a debate within the studio surrounding
Sonic’s appearance.
We don’t want to speculate too heavily, but from his comments, it seems that, for
whatever reason, he and Jeff didn’t initially get their way with Sonic’s design.
When audiences reacted negatively to the first Sonic trailer, Jeff and Tim instantly felt
vindicated.
Said Tim, “Look, I was with fans and so was Jeff”.
Nevertheless, Tim felt that it was important that he and Jeff take responsibility for the
mistake, and try to change course on the project.
With negative comments pouring him, he went over to speak with Jeff to try and see what
damage control they could do.
He needn’t have worried.
Jeff was already on top of things, and had already set the ball rolling on a complete
Sonic redesign.
An hour before Tim’s arrival, Jeff had already sent out a tweet announcing Sonic’s redesign.
Speaking of Jeff and his quick work, Tim said, “He’s a good man.
It was exactly the right way to handle that.
The fans have a voice in this too.
There’s a right way to listen.”
So who do you go to when you need to fix a problem this big?
In truth, there was only one person they could turn to: the superstar of the Sonic fandom
himself, Tyson Hesse.
Tyson has worked on basically every element of Sonic media by this point.
After the popularity of a his parody fan comic, Sonic’s Big Fat Adventure, he was asked
to draw some covers for the popular Archie Sonic the Hedgehog comic series.
Later, Tyson spearheaded the animation team that created the intro cinematic for Sonic
Mania, and off the back of this, he was asked to develop the Sonic Mania Adventures animated
shorts.
Tyson was brought on as the new lead designer for Sonic’s fresh look.
This involved working closely with Jeff, as well as modelers, riggers, texture and fur
artists, and animators in studios in London, Los Angeles, and Vancouver.
Tyson described the experience as, quote, “a thrill I’ll never forget”.
This effort to fix a struggling project also involved delaying the Sonic movie.
Rather than releasing an unpopular film on the 8th of November 2019, the movie was postponed
until Valentine’s day 2020.
If it had released now, Sonic would have enjoyed relatively little competition at the box office
for its first couple of weeks.
Releasing next year means fighting against Peter Rabbit 2 and Birds of Prey.
Because Jeff successfully convinced Paramount executives to delay Sonic, the movie will
likely make less money.
It seems that, to Jeff and Tim at least, giving the fans a Sonic design that they’re happy
with is worth sacrificing a lot of their film’s momentum.
Not everybody thinks this is a good idea.
One person is very unhappy with Sonic’s redesign: none other than Doctor Eggman Robotnik
himself, Jim Carrey.
Without hyperbole, it’s easy to say that Jim hates the idea of caving to fan pressure.
He’s spoken publicly about this several times in the past few months, most recently
stating: “I believe in auteurs.
I believe in creatives.
We do what we can do and then technology is going to have its way and people’s opinions
are going to have their way.
And who knows what it’s going to turn into?
You just become their Frankenstein monster at some point, right?”
In Jim’s mind, moviemaking is an art form which shouldn’t be weighed down by the need
to take fan opinions into account.
Because of his redesign, Sonic has become a Frankenstein’s monster; an amalgamation
of hundreds of different opinions and ideas that have been slapped together.
Yup.
The NEW Sonic design is a monster.
Sure.