First 'Sonic The Hedgehog' Poster Gives Us A Fast First Look At The Video Game Adaptation

Sonic the Hedgehog is speeding up his race towards theaters. Paramount Pictures has given us the first look at the big screen version of the video game icon with the release of the first official poster. The enigmatic poster shows the SEGA mascot in the dark, lit only by the blue crackling energy that emanates when he, um, goes fast. See the Sonic the Hedgehog movie first look below.

Get your first look at Sonic The Hedgehog in his new live action movie.

A post shared by IGN (@igndotcom) on Dec 10, 2018 at 4:59am PST

Everything that you remember about Sonic the Hedgehog is there: The spiky blue hair, the pointy hedgehog nose, the bright red sneakers, and that blue electricity that surrounds the video game icon as he runs. Centering around an anthropomorphic blue hedgehog with supersonic speed, the first video game was released in 1991 and went on to become one of the most popular games in the world. The game follows Sonic as he saves the world from the evil mad scientist Doctor Eggman by running around and collecting a lot of gold rings. It's a silly, fun video game that seems like it will become a somewhat darker feature adaptation directed by Jeff Fowler and executive produced by Deadpool's Tim Miller.

After all, there's something a little off about that poster — why does Sonic look like he's rippling with muscles? What's with those creepy raccoon hands? Where are his iconic giant eyes? That's because the filmmakers are attempting to balance the video game's cartoonish bent with a little realism, Miller told IGN, which debuted the first look:

"The first thing you need to do is put limits on it. If you can do anything, nothing is special. For me, it's always about keeping it grounded and keeping it realistic. We had some time to figure out the speed: What it looks like, what it feels like for a character to do that and how it relates to our world. It took a little trial and error, but that's animation in figuring out what the effect looks like and what it does to the rest of the world around it. The speed changes over time because he evolves, because he can't do everything at the beginning of the movie. It's finding the visual language and figuring out how it's going to evolve over time."

So what does that mean about the eyes? That we're still uncertain of, except for Miller's description of them being more "realistic" to balance the movie's plot of the video game character making his way into the real world. They remain hidden in this poster, which Miller said didn't entirely please SEGA:

"I don't think SEGA was entirely happy with the eye decision, but these sorts of things you go, 'It's going to look weird if we don't do this.' But everything is a discussion, and that's kind of the goal, which is to only change what's necessary and stay true to the rest of it. He's not going to feel like a Pixar character would because I don't think that's the right aesthetic to make it feel like part of our world."

Sonic the Hedgehog runs into U.S. theaters on November 8, 2019.