And you thought “Sonic.exe” was the worst adaptation of the popular video game franchise…
But I think something may have eclipsed it. Last Tuesday the trailer for the new live-action “Sonic the Hedgehog” movie dropped, much to the dismay of the Blue Blur’s fans.
After getting a look at the silhouette of the character last year, Sonic was unleashed in his full nightmare-fueled glory in the trailer.
The best part is that our first glimpse of Sonic is him stretching; a perfect way to show off the strange, unnatural length and human characteristics of his limbs. His feet and hands are normal sized, and he doesn’t wear his trademark gloves from the game series.
A big problem with the design is the eyes, as Sonic has always had one big eye stretching across his forehead with two pupils. In the film, he has two regular eyes and awkward human-looking teeth.
In short, he looks nothing like the video game Sonic, as he’s too tall, has major changes made to his face and stature that is too human overall. Sonic looks like he crawled straight out of the uncanny valley.
He looks less like a cartoon hedgehog, and more like a failed escaped lab experiment from Area 51, the worst hybrid of human and Erinaceinae imaginable.
However, just days after the trailer’s release, Paramount and Jeff Fowler, the director of the film, have announced their intentions to redesign the character following major fan outcry.
Fowler stated in a tweet:
“Thank you for the support. And the criticism. The message is loud and clear… you aren’t happy with the design & you want changes. It’s going to happen. Everyone at Paramount & Sega are fully committed to making this character the BEST he can be… “
It’ll be interesting to see what this redesign amounts to. The film comes out in November, and CGI animation is an involved process.
The other component to the movie is Jim Carrey playing the villainous Dr. Eggman. Carrey looks like he’ll be one of the few highlights of the film, as he does his usual schtick of acting like a crazy person.
Somehow he looks like the video game version of the character at the end of the trailer, but for most of the trailer, he appears as normal Jim Carrey with a goofy mustache. Strange.
James Marsden, a pretty solid actor in his own right, plays Tom Wachowski, the newly appointed sheriff of the town of Green Hills (see what they did there), who helps Sonic on his journey.
Besides the design of the characters, the film also looks like it will rely on stupid dated jokes (such as Eggman’s lackey telling the general that he thinks he’s basic, and Sonic remarking on how many steps he made it to) and some cliches we’ve seen many times before.
However, I do have to give the trailer props for the “Every hero has a Genesis” tagline.
Take the original games; the plot was simple. Sonic would travel across the whole world in an effort to rescue animals turned into mechanical slaves by Dr. Eggman.
With the exception of Eggman, there were no humans involved; just Sonic and his friends, Tails, Knuckles and Amy, among others. While this is only the first trailer, there is no sign of the aforementioned characters in it.
Instead of the simple tale of a hero taking back nature from an industrialist maniac, Sonic has to team up with humans to save the Earth from Eggman?
As I said, this is the first trailer and we don’t have a lot of story details, so I can’t judge it too hard.
But do you remember the last time Sonic co-existed in a world with actual humans? It was the legendary game “Sonic ‘06,” the one that really started the long, painful decline of one of the oldest and most recognizable video game mascots ever.
In all honestly, this trailer hasn’t ruined my childhood or anything silly like that, it’s just disappointing to see the further decline of a beloved video game mascot.
I’ll probably still see this movie at some point, because it will at least be entertainingly bad and meme-able. Plus Jim Carrey will absolutely carry this movie (see what I did there)?
Yet it looks like Sonic will join his fellow video game peers who had a feature film (or more than one, God help us) that was a bust.
Will video game films ever break the stigma left behind by “Super Mario Brothers,” “Doom” or any adaptation of Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter?
Henry Wolski
Executive Editor