Sonic Is No Longer A CGI Abomination, But At What Cost?

Back in May, we had a hard time witnessing the hirsute horror that was the upcoming Sonic The Hedgehog movie. The backlash to Sonic's design was so bad that the studio pushed back the release in order to completely redo the CGI and make him look less like something you'd see in the midst of sleep paralysis and more like beloved mascot we're familiar with. Here's the result:

While we would've loved to ride out this eldritch path just to see a totally disgusting Tails, the new Sonic trailer does indeed look a whole lot better. And the positive changes aren't all superficial, either. Sonic initially looked like something even Lovecraft would have difficulty describing, and the first trailer felt extra generic, as if he was Ferris Bueller but cursed for refusing to buy a rose from an old woman. The new Sonic doesn't have that try-hard vibe, making him feel more relaxed and wacky. Part of that is his more cartoonish look, but it's also in how he emotes, which sticks more closely to the '90s Sonic, a smug cartoon kid bouncing all over the place like he cheeked his Ritalin.

With this change, the filmmakers are hoping we can all just pretend that ghoul Sonic never happened. (The studio has even pulled the first trailer.) But social media is already flooding with people patting themselves on the back for being responsible for this change. The internet won't forget, and that might be the one bad outcome of this new and improved Sonic. Fan entitlement hasn't exactly mellowed out in between now and when the first trailer arrived in May. After all, an online petition with over a million signatures tried to bully HBO into remaking the last season of Game Of Thrones. So maybe now wasn't not the most ideal time to prove to a lot of people that if you're loud and angry enough online, you can indeed force a studio to bend to your whims.

Or maybe I'm just being paranoid. After all, there's little overlap between not wanting to see a cartoon hedgehog who looks like he was conceived during a key party on the island of Dr. Moreau and attacking studios for adding more women to space operas. That's something anyone with a healthy sense of scale and propriety will realize, right?

... So yeah, there are going to be a lot of fan petitions coming up.

For more weird tangents and to sign his petition to remove the teeth from all the Game of Thrones dragons, do follow Cedric on Twitter.

For more, check out The Marvel-Scorsese Feud Is Dumb As Balls, Won't Die and THAT Controversial 'Star Wars' Scene Is Different On Disney+.

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