MK Brittain | The Crow’s Nest
By MK Brittain
Yes, I’m a fan of Sonic the Hedgehog.
It’s weird to admit that to a college newspaper and my peers.
I’ve been hooked ever since I got my hands on a Dreamcast console and played hours upon hours of the 1998 masterpiece “Sonic Adventure.” The solid soundtrack blaring through the TV while my eyes were glued to the screen threw me into the world of Sonic the Hedgehog.
I get some frequently asked questions. For instance: “You know Mario is better than Sonic, right?” or the classic “You know Sonic games suck, right?”
I’m completely aware of the franchise’s infamous “Sonic ‘06” debacle — when fans criticized the game as incomplete and littered with glitches — along with some interesting plot points including guns, a hedgehog turning into a “Werehog,” and of course, the classic scene of Sonic kissing a human.
Yikes.
I’m aware of the strange and questionable choices that SEGA has so graciously given us, but I’m naturally an optimistic person.
Now, here’s a frequently asked question I’ve been getting for the past year: “So, that Sonic movie, huh?”
Where do I begin?
When the first designs started to float around and the first trailer eventually made its way through Twitter timelines, I was flabbergasted. They really had to make him look… ugly?
I know I sound dramatic, but from a stylistic standpoint, I was not happy at all. Keep in mind that, yes, it is a live-action movie, and it makes sense to have him more stylized to fit with his environment.
But human teeth? The eyes? The ungodly body proportions are what grossed me out the most. This really got approved to be the official model for a movie? It confused me greatly. It really communicated to me that Hollywood’s “cool and hip” wannabe designers really did the blue hedgehog dirty.
Cue Tyson Hesse, one of the artists for the “Sonic the Hedgehog” comics and the animation director for the well-received “Sonic Mania” game released in 2017. He jumped on board to redesign Sonic, which pushed back the release date to Feb. 14, 2020.
Since he and the other animators cracked down on the redesign, my respect and hope for the movie have slowly returned. I give major props to the animators for how they really captured Sonic’s essences, especially for the big screen.
Sonic looked more like, well, himself. He still had a real-world feel, but they captured how he was still a cartoon character: big green eyes that were pleasant to look at, teeth that actually looked like they belonged to him –– aka not human –– and a body that looked like his. That’s the upbeat, snappy dude we were missing from the start of this movie mishmash.
Sonic has been through rough patches, but there is no need to linger on the past. I look forward to seeing the movie, and I hope fans and peers alike can enjoy it.
Until then, I say, “Hey, Sonic! Enjoy your movie –– It’s gonna be great!”
