Conspiracy alert: Was Sonic the Hedgehog's disastrous initial design reveal actually intentional?
Aux Features Sonic The Hedgehog
Some of you might recall from your recurring nightmares that the initial rollout of Sonic The Hedgehog’s titular character was pretty disastrous, and what most assumed should have been a straightforward, three-dimensional CGI port of a pretty simple cartoon character design instead spawned the above atrocity.
Anyway, the backlash from those remaining few of us not driven temporarily insane by those teeth was swift and effective—fans publicly wailed their lamentations and rent their garments over the design, which surprisingly, was heeded by studio execs, who quickly vowed to atone for their sins with a truer-to-source look for the speedy blue rodent. They delivered, and the film (while not great) was a big financial success. There was peace once again in the uncanny valley. But if something felt, well, odd about the whole thing, you’re not alone.
As comedian and YouTuber Steve Clark posits in a new video, we might be staring at one of the most sinister conspiracies ever perpetrated against our nation. You see, everyone knows Sonic The Hedgehog’s initial character design for the movie adaptation was a hilariously misguided blunder, but what this conspiracy theory presupposes is… maybe it wasn’t?
“I’m not a conspiracy theorist—not by any means,” Clark reminds us before launching into his conspiracy theory, which first examines standard budgets, marketing timelines, and Sonic The Hedgehog sexiness only to conclude that… well, yeah, it still could easily have been an oversight by film execs with no real knowledge of the movie’s source material or fan base.
But! Maybe, just maybe, it’s far more convoluted and sinister than that, with Paramount craftily devising “a way for people to make funny tweets and memes about the movie, essentially working as free advertising,” all while bumping the movie from its “original” release date in November of 2019 to this past Valentine’s Day.
“As everyone knows, Sonic The Hedgehog is the most erotic of Sega characters!” Clark says, and you’ll get no argument from us.
In the end, the film was projected to make $40 to $45 million in its opening weekend, so really the only way to judge if this conspiracy has any merit is to obviously work our way backwards and connect the dots after the fact. And, guess what? Looks like Sonic The Hedgehog made $57 million this past weekend, easily taking the record for best opening weekend for a video game adaptation.
Open your wallets your eyes, sheeple!
64 Comments
No, it wasn’t a conspiracy theory. The execs actually thought the general public would embrace it similar to the Transformers and TMNT movie designs. While I can see the Transformers thing, I have no idea where they got the idea that people liked the TMNT designs.
Thing is, the public didn’t embrace those designs either, especially not the turtles. This movie just had the ability to recognize that not alienating people was maybe a good idea.
The public definitely embraced the Transformers designs over time. The first movie came out a while ago, little kids then are now adults, and for many they’re only Transformers they know.
That doesn’t mean they’ve been embraced, just that they are still around. I wish there was somewhere that had good stats to compare Transformers toy sales. I’d put money that the old designs outpace the new ones on sell-through.
I had a moment of “What TMNT designs? The Hensons did a fantastic job and I will fight you!”Then I realized you meant the Michael Bay movies. I had completely forgot they even existed until this exact moment.
Yea, I meant the Bay Turtles.Like, there are parts there I like, but the fact that they’re all gigantic combined with the horrible faces ruins any positives they might have had.Also, the Turtles look WEIRD wearing pants.
my favorite was the teenager voiced by johnny knoxville
Their grotesquely ripped bulkiness seems more like the original indie underground comix than the kid-friendly cartoon version (and subsequent comic-of-the-cartoon-of-the-comic) did
I’m definitely with you on that last bit.
You want them to be naked? Ewww
The funny thing is Paramount execs thought “only the internet neckbeards hate the new turtles, people LOVE the TMNT designs!” while somehow forgetting that the second movie tanked so hard, it killed that run basically by the Monday after opening. So clearly they weren’t that jazzed either!
I am not saying that I believe this conspiracy theory. I am saying that I find it hard to believe that anybody actually approved the original design of Sonic. He looks like if the Annoying Orange were painted blue!
Yes, it’s obviously a conspiracy, because we all know quite well how willing studio execs are to take risks and chances with uncertain odds of direct, immediate payoff.In unrelated news, Spiral, the ninth installment of the 15-year-old Saw series, comes out in a couple months.
I don’t know, I think the first Saw may have been a bit of a risk at the time. On the whole though, I get your point.
Was Sonic the Hedgehog’s disastrous initial design reveal actually intentional?No.
No, it wasn’t. And there’s an insane amount of evidence from accounts from the animators who had to work on the redesign to pictures behind the scenes with the original design.Didn’t you guys used to be journalists?
“Didn’t you guys used to be journalists?”No. They’ve always been worthless shitters who just drop a link to some dogshit YouTube video, then go tell all their friends how they’re professional journalists.
I mean, I get that it’s a Sonic movie and none of this actually matters, but posting clearly false conspiracy videos under the guise of news seems like a slippery slope, especially for a website that posts political stuff through the lens of entertainment…
I’d be more worried about the Slippery Slope if this weren’t fucking Clown School. The only reason I still come here is because I get bored during downtime at work and this is one of the few “entertainment” sites IT hasn’t blacklisted. I read it every day and I hate it more every day.
Why do you hate yourself so much?
Clearly false conspiracy videos are entertainment. You can’t protect the idiots from everything.
Maybe not these particular guys, but the AV Club used to be more news-adjacent at the very least a dozen or so years ago when they always had to justify themselves as “the Onion’s serious little brother…you know, the one that isn’t made up for laughs.”
Deep down they know, but it also puts food on the table.
I dont understand why so many people just cant believe that corporate higher ups just dont think about this stuff and have no idea often what people really want.
Everyone except everyone in this or similar threads recognizes that Andrew is playing along with the conceit of the joke. If “Open your wallets your eyes, sheeple!” doesn’t make it obvious … didn’t you guys used to be discerning readers? (It’s also filed under “GJI” so taking anything at face value here makes me think if you’re not totally new around here, you haven’t really been paying attention anyhow.)
Yeah, but then they wouldn’t have “excuses” for insulting the site and its writers.
Content aggregation site aggregates internet content. Film at 11.
Not to mention it posits an absurd degree of competency that the movie industry just does not have. These are the people who made Cats. The simple answer, per Occam, is that they shit the bed.
I want to make a crime thriller called ‘Occam’s Razor’ where a killer is going around slashing people’s throats, and the tortured genius detective comes up with all these elaborate theories about the message the killer is sending, until his junior partner points out that all the victims have some connection to a class action lawsuit in progress and the killer is clearly working for the defendant to take them out.
Occam’s Shatter ™
wow, the real life model is even more nightmarish than the animated version.
The original lean and muscley body shape makes me wonder if they were hedging their bets in case they needed to use an actor in a suit. It’s basically a human wearing a giant head.I wondered the same thing about the 1998 Godzilla, which even in CGI looked like a guy in a costume due to the long thick neck where a human head could fit.
Also, ask Corridor Crew, they’re smrt as hell.
Didn’t you guys used to be journalists?“Bloggers” not journalists.
Says the dipshit commenting on the article
Besides all the evidence to the contrary, common sense says that they wouldn’t have put so much product placement in their movie if they hadn’t vastly underprojected its box office performance. That doesn’t sound like a strategy to me.
Goddamnit. Can one goddamn thing hapen nowadays thats free of conspiracy theories?
Insert conspiracy theory about the proliferation of conspiracy theories here.
There already is one. People say the term conspiracy theory was developed by the CIA to make people who come up with the craziest shit look crazy.
That’s just what you want us to think!
The closest I can see to it being a “conspiracy” is that some animator irritated about the abomination he was working on leaked it to the public…and I haven’t seen any evidence for that.This is like people deciding the New Coke fiasco was a conspiracy because it worked out for Coca Cola. No, sometimes business just screw up and are lucky it doesn’t hurt them worse.
There’s too much merchandise made in the image of the original design and the other commenter rightly points out that the stand-in resembled that original, god-awful design.Though I would want that Halloween mask….
There’s even apparently a scene in the movie that was obviously written when the original design was being used, that makes less sense with the new design.
I’m trying to figure out what that scene would be, and I can’t place one. Maybe when he was disguised?
It is pretty obvious that the physical stand-ins were less bulky than the final movie design. Twice James Marsden is carrying Sonic, and he’s clutching him like he’s much thinner than his design looks to be.
Keep in mind I haven’t seen it, but I was watching a video review where someone pointed out there was a bit where Sonic gets a bomb or something stuck to his hand and they have to try to get it off, except after the redesign it would be stuck to his GLOVE, and he’d only have to take the glove off, as opposed to it being stuck directly to his hand in the old design.
Gotcha, yeah that makes sense, and you’re right, I hadn’t thought about that scene. Its all played for laughs (with Marsden trying to grab it with a handkerchief and throw it, but it still manages to be stuck to his hand) so I hadn’t considered the glove thing.
I doubt anyone put that much thought into Sonic the Hedgehog. I said somewhere else, that I suspected that 75% of the movie was actually just unused footage from the movie Hop with the Easter Bunny replaced by Sonic.
Sure, publish this conspiracy theory but you’ll ignore MY theory that Frozen was made to normalize the existence of talking snowmen.They already got Michael Keaton. It’s so sad.
JET FUEL CAN’T MELT SNOWMEN!
I’m going to use this as the name of my podcast.
I wonder what would happen if some of these people with the ability to gain the attention of a whole lot of other people all at once (especially that of young people) could just talk about something worthwhile for a change. Not about their hair, or the fact that they walked through a suicide forest for the lulz, just… something worthwhile. And helpful. And not just a recollection of all the wonderful things they saw the last time they stared up their own asshole for several hours at a time.This is what humans have done with the power of the gods.
Counterpoint: these people become popular because audiences like the things they talk about. Climate change and human rights and so on are big, heavy topics, and not what you want to get into when you sit down to kill a bit of time on the YouTube. But someone’s funny conspiracy theory, or a product review of a new mascara? That’s nice, that’s pleasant. And I make no judgement. Sometimes you need that. People are gonna like what they like.Zeus had the power of the gods and he used it to fuck anything that moved.
That’s why I said ‘some’ of these people. Not all. I don’t care if it’s a makeup tips show or an unboxing video or whatever other ephemera pops up on YouTube. No issue with that kind of stuff. But if all that some idiot can do with their precious time is make a two-and-a-half-hour video of nothing but bitching about The Last Jedi or whatever, then I’m sorry/not sorry, but that’s a waste of their time being alive and capable of so much more on this planet. Do better. Quit shitting on things just because you can. You’re not making as much fertilizer as you think.
The only people that believe this shit are the ones that have no idea what goes into creating CGI characters for films, or have zero understanding of VFX in general.
oh god this is one those things people are never going to shut up about isn’t it?
i have a ‘theory’ that this video, and the article about this video, and this comment on the article about this video are all free advertising for sonic: the hedgehog: the movie either way.
This bootleg, unlicensed art from an eBay seller based in China doesn’t prove anything but I found it amusing that someone currently selling these.
wait, what’s wrong with that first image?
The Corridor guys pointed out a damning piece of evidence against that theory: it makes zero sense for Sonic’s eyes to be that bright in the top pic.
“As everyone knows, Sonic The Hedgehog is the most erotic of Sega characters!” Clark says, and you’ll get no argument from us.
Pft, somebody hasn’t checked out NiGHTS.
I saw it at a pre-screening early last year and I have to disagree with this theory… They were pretty set on their design, even going so far as to show is what the “final product” would look like.They were also pretty good on following the audience feedback, too, since the final movie had the changes that we suggested to make it a bit smoother… Which lead me to believe that they’d be willing to completely change the character model like that.
The answer is unequivocally no
Yes, Paramount spent millions on the redesigning Sonic, just for they could build buzz after the crappy first design. They also gave this original design to toy/apparel manufacturers, so they would either have to cancel or release outdated merchandise.