'Sonic The Hedgehog' Redesign Is Done, Presumably Removing Sonic's Terrifying Human Teeth For Good

At the end of April, the first trailer for the Sonic the Hedgehog movie zoomed online, and terrified us all. Viewers were not happy with the design of Sonic, which was an absolute nightmare from top to bottom and included giant human teeth for some reason. In an unprecedented move, the makers of Sonic decided to go back to the digital drawing board and redesign the character to make him less horrifying. Now, it looks like the Sonic the Hedgehog redesign is done. And according to producer Tim Miller, fans will be pleased.

A Sonic the Hedgehog movie isn't the best idea to begin with, but if you must bring such a thing into the world, the least you can do is make Sonic aesthetically pleasing. Instead, the folks behind the Sonic movie decided to unleash a blue monstrosity on us all. The fan backlash was so extreme that in a matter of days, director Jeff Fowler took to Twitter to announce that Sonic would be undergoing a redesign.

This movie pushed Sonic from its November 2019 release date, into February 2020. And while we still have a few more months before the film runs into theaters, it sounds like the general redesign of the character is done. Speaking with Variety, Tim Miller, the producer of the film, talked a bit about the backlash, and the decision to fix things.

"Look, I was with fans and so was Jeff," Miller said. "When the s–t hit the fan, I went over there and said, 'The most important thing to do, man, is say, 'I f–ked up.' He'd already sent a tweet out an hour before I got there. He's a good man. It was exactly the right way to handle that. The fans have a voice in this too. There's a right way to listen."

Miller then revealed that he had seen the new redesign, and promised that it's much better (and presumably much less toothy). "I think the fans will be pleased," said Miller. One can assume that we'll eventually get a new trailer featuring the new Sonic. But this asks a question: what if fans hate the redesign too? Don't get me wrong: the original look was terrible. But giving in to immediate fan-backlash is a slippery slope. Here's a recent example: when the first pictures of Bill Skarsgård as the new Pennywise the Clown in It hit the web, the reaction was highly negative. People weren't sold on the new look of the character at all. And yet, when the movie opened, all of those complaints dropped away, and audiences seemed 100% on board with the character's appearance.

I'm not saying we all would've eventually accepted the (awful) Sonic design. But a door has been opened now, and there's no way to close it.

Sonic the Hedgehog opens February 14, 2020.