It’s safe to say that the Sonic the Hedgehog live-action movie has already become one of the most controversial and fan-infuriating videogame adaptations ever made – and that includes the 2005 Doom movie which cut out the demons. The release of the Sonic movie trailer earlier this year went down like Sonic underwater when he doesn’t grab an air bubble in time.
The main cause for concern in the trailer was the design of Sonic the Hedgehog himself – an attempt at unnecessary realism that strayed into all-out horrifying. This design gave Sonic human teeth, long muscular legs, far-apart eyes, and the internet fell apart voicing its disapproval – prompting a redesign of the character, and a pushback of the movie’s release date to February next year.
However, one of the movie’s major actors has voiced concerns with the way the whole situation was handled. Veteran actor Jim Carrey stars as the movie’s version of Dr Robotnik/Eggman, and he’s unsure about the “collective consciousness” that seems to be dictating the redesign – meaning, the audience.
During a Television Critics Association press tour for his new show Kidding, Carrey was asked about the movie’s delay in order to redesign the character of Sonic – following very vocal audience feedback. “I don’t know quite how I feel about the audience being in on the creation of it, while it’s happening,” he said, via The Wrap.
“Sometimes you find that the collective consciousness decides it wants something,” he continued, “and then when it gets it, it goes, ‘OK, I don’t want it.’ You become a Frankenstein’s monster at some point right?” However, as the redesign is strictly effects-related, it does mean that Carrey doesn’t have to do any reshoots. Despite his concerns, he does add that, “I’m not super concerned about it. It’s gonna happen how it happens. It’s either going to be a good thing or a bad thing.”
While the actor may have a point about making changes to a movie to appeal to a market which hasn’t really seen much of it yet, the Sonic movie design was so bad the character’s co-creator Yuji Naka even voiced his displeasure. We’ll presumably find out whether the new design is an improvement ahead of the movie’s February release, so if Twitter explodes anytime this year you’ll have a likely culprit.