Sonic The Hedgehog: 5 Ways Sonic’s Redesign Helped The Movie (& 5 Ways It Didn’t)

Sonic The Hedgehog has been a prominent story in the news for several months now. Unfortunately for the recently released film, that wasn’t exactly for all the right reasons. When the first Sonic The Hedgehog trailer hit the internet, fans all over the world were disturbed by the titular character’s creepy design.

Motivated to make some serious changes, the visual artists on the movie started working hard on a ground-up redesign of the character. The finished product has left many hardcore fans of the Sonic franchise very happy. However, the question remains as to whether this was actually better for the movie or not. Here are five ways Sonic’s redesign helped the movie and five ways it didn’t.

10 Helped: It Made The Fans Happy

Maybe it’s not always the best thing to cater to the fans. A healthy dose of fanservice every now and then isn’t too awful though. After all, a movie like Sonic The Hedgehog is made for those seriously hardcore video game fanatics.

Keeping the fan base happy means keeping the core of your audience engaged. With that comes a certain level of accountability to the people that know Sonic the best.  The filmmakers are thereby incentivized to make decisions that will continue to make the group of people who know the character best happy.

9 Didn’t: Compromising For The Fans

Giving in to fans’ demands may lead to some short term success, but it’s certainly not a formula for long term success. While the argument to change Sonic’s design may have been justified, it’s never good for a creative team to compromise their creativity.

If the film was willing to compromise such a critical part of the movie to appease the fan base, who knows what else they were willing to compromise on apart of the film studio, and other stakeholders who have no business making creative decisions. It simply sets a bad precedent.

8 Helped: Lots of Press

Much of the film’s success was dependent upon its marketability. The more people that were willing to go see the movie, the more money it would make and, in turn, the more money the producers could invest in the movie itself.

All of the buzz around the original design of Sonic, and the eventual redesign, created a lot of free press for the movie. All that free press gave the film a better chance at reaching a bigger audience and added to the overall success of the feature.

7 Didn’t: Emboldened Angry Fans

Giving the fans what they want doesn’t always help out the movie. In some ways, by caving in, the creative minds behind this film became victims to whatever whims the fans happen to have at any given time.

In future movies, this may lead to the film’s losing any sort of creative vision. In this particular installment, by appealing to the fans’ needs the filmmakers may have made this film less accessible to more mainstream audiences that have never heard of Sonic the Hedgehog before.

6 Helped: Accurate Adaption

All the fans wanted was an accurate depiction of their favorite character. That’s exactly what the movie gave them. The final character model of Sonic couldn’t be more accurate to the source material.

This isn’t just a big win for fans, but for general audiences as well that may have never heard of the character before. The classic image of Sonic is nothing short of iconic at this point. His appearance is tried and true. Most audiences are sure to love his look, especially when compared to the original version.

5 Didn’t: Nothing Unique

While the original Sonic animation may have been a little questionable, at least it was wholly unique. The same cannot be said for the final design of the character.

In the end, Sonic looks exactly as he does in every other medium. Video games, cartoon shows, and even some comics all show Sonic the Hedgehog as exactly the same character model as the one in the final film.

4 Helped: More Merch Friendly

The cuter, more cartoony version of Sonic that the filmmakers went with after all the backlash is much more adorable. Taking that one step further, he’s much more marketable as well.

Toys, t-shirts, posters, and various other articles of merchandise are much more pleasurable and appealing with a softer, more friendly-looking Sonic. That helps the film in its efforts to make a profit, which helps the film overall.

3 Didn’t: Everything Else is The Same

No matter how much you change about Sonic’s appearance, everything else about this movie still remains the same. If you don’t like the campiness and seemingly one-dimensional characters, Sonic’s character design isn’t going to change anything for you.

A very good argument could be made suggesting that the redesign of Sonic doesn’t help the movie at all, because of the fact that it doesn’t change anything. Every line of dialogue and scene played out exactly the same as it would have before.

2 Helped: Looks Less Creepy

While the original design for Sonic may have looked more “realistic,” that’s not necessarily a good thing. The original Sonic entered the uncanny valley and was way too creepy for anyone watching to be able to focus on anything else other than that very evident fact.

Having a cuter, more approachable Sonic just makes the whole experience of watching the movie much more enjoyable. It may have compromised the overall vision of the film, but the benefits far outweigh the costs of such a decision in this case.

1 Didn’t: Looks Less Real

Part of the reason the original design for Sonic looked so creepy was that he was meant to look somewhat realistic. This new design looks like much more of a cartoon than any sort of realistic, otherworldly creature one might actually imagine stumbling upon.

Clearly, Sonic is meant to look like some sort of strange, alien creature that one could imagine actually entering this world. Instead, it looks like a cartoon character jumped out of a television screen.

About The Author

Michael Austin
(64 Articles Published)

Michael is a professional journalist, author and writer. He graduated from Iowa State University in 2019 and has written at Screen Rant for over a year.

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