Hahahahahaha you think it's Eddie Murphy?
Iol
It's also more like his temple, not his forehead
Jeff Fowler (Sonic the Hedgehog director): "You want changes [to the design]. It's going to happen."
- Thread starter NotLiquid
- Start date
Iol
It's also more like his temple, not his forehead
Which isn't surprising. There's a huge difference in approach with Pokemon. For the most part, the additions and changes are tasteful and don't take away from the original Pokemon designs. Which obviously wasn't a concern here.
Also, the presentation is just on a completely different level. The effects and lighting are so much more convincing in Pokemon which instantly helps sell the designs as 'realistic'.
That could be.... interesting.
Probably not good, but interesting.
There is no way you make a blue hedgehog that runs fast look "realistic." Anyone seeing this movie needs to accept that.
OP
OP
Possible, but we don't know how the merchandise is really gonna look. It's possible the merchandise might look more like video game Sonic but with some slight movie Sonic "flourishes" (like more detailed quills and blue arms).
Right. And let's be realistic, they aren't going to completely scrap the design and start over. They are going to tweak it, probably focusing on the facial rigging and animation.
Perfect.from the twitter thread. this looks good imo
We're done here.
Not really perfect unfortunately. Reason being is his eyes aren't separated. This is about seeing what Sonic would be like in the real world, not animated.
Their version of 'Sonic IRL' showed so far is just as baffling and unrealistic than this one so having his eyes not separated isn't that much of an issue imo, especially if it's to be more faithful to the original design.
I mean, if they wanted him to be realistic, they should have given him beady eyes...... which actually maybe would have looked better than what they ended up with.
Dude, the ship for a realistic Sonic sailed the second they decided to make a movie with a blue colored talking hedgehog in Nike sneakers. Fuck that, just make a faithful looking Sonic with fur and that's that.
Not to mention not have him colored blue, or talking, or wearing Nikes. But yeah somehow having him with two separate eyes is where we draw the line of unrealistic ness.
You mean that hedgehogs aren't huge human-like animals with lots of spiky electric hair??
How does one define "Sonic in the real world" exactly? Everything they've chosen to throw out is just as arbitrary as what they've kept. A monoeye is too much but his absurd spiky head shape that looks neither human nor hedgehog is A-OK? Wearing gloves is too cartoony but wearing shoes makes sense? Beige fur around his snout is fine but beige fur on his stomach and arms was a step too far?
He's always going to look like a cartoon character short of just turning him into a literal hedgehog, so there's no point in making selective changes for the sake of "realism" when it can never truly exist. Just take the Detective Pikachu route and keep the game design but give him realistic textures and fur so he fits in with his live-action surroundings. It really is that easy.
yep.
any change to his design for the sake of "realism" is going to be arbitrary and ridiculous because the concept of trying to make a snarky talking blue hedgehog that runs super fast "realistic" is a fundamentally terrible idea
just let sonic look like sonic. there is no point in doing otherwise.
I'm not meaning for Sonic to look 100% like an earth hedgehog but blue. He can still look like himself (needs to at least get rid of the blue human body and human teeth) but just be furry/prickly and without his eyes joined together.
Detective Pikachu creations are fine as they're as though they are fuzzy/slimy/scaly creatures in the real world. I'm yet to see the film but I'm pretty sure none have their eyes joint together?
Last edited:
Even if they didn't want to do the mono-eye they could achieve the look by making the fur between his eyes white.
I generally agree with you, the only thing is how do you texture each of his big huge spikes?
Ordinarily I'd agree but this design is so fantastically wrong on the company's part that if anything they should have listened to the fans sooner. That being said, the RIGHT move would be to delay the film, Fire the person who pushed for the design, and give a raise to everyone who fought against it.
He's a giant cartoon hedgehog. They didn't change the designs for Woody Woodpecker or Yogi Bear or Pikachu or Scooby Doo in their respective movies. There's no reason they have to here.
I'm pretty sure they didn't have their eyes joined together though?
from the twitter thread. this looks good imo
None of them were like that originally.
This is a dumb argument. Realism goes out the window once you're talking about a talking, anthropomorphic blue hedgehog.
Agreed.
Fuck "grounded and realistic". Detective Pikachu has the right idea.
I love how they added that last second shot of Eggman from what I'm assuming is like the last few minutes of the film or a post credits thing (its 2019, you know theres going to be one) as a way to reassure people about Robotnik looking different, thinking it was going to be the biggest issue and people were going to be fine with Sonic.
Man...they really miscalculated if so.
Man...they really miscalculated if so.
In my hopeful mind, this is more a story about how Robotnik got his crazy obsession with getting rid of Sonic. Also, about how he became the Eggman. When they go back to Sonic's world they look more accurate to their game designs.
The only character we see in Sonic's world is Robotnik looking like himself in Mushroom Zone. Hopefully when Sonic is in there it's not as jarring of a design.
Also, 100% sure we're getting a joke about Sonic's design in the movie lol
Hahahahahaha you think it's Eddie Murphy?
Well, you knew what gif he was talking about, so clearly his description worked.
I have to say, in this case the original pic is really good and better than the custom one :'0
It's physically painful how many tasteful directions they could have gone in with this adaptation, and they managed to choose the worst possible combination of design elements.
Sucks for the VFX people but the studio really should have thought about getting more opinions on the design before going with it. This would have been super easy to avoid, testing it on anyone remotely familiar with the character would have told you it was garbage. And Sega and many others probably did tell them just that.
Again though, doubt they're going to put that much work into changing it. They'll keep it and try tweaking it but I'm not expecting any major changes despite what they've said.
I'll be shocked if they really go that far back on it for this of all films. Not the kind of movie you really want to kill an entire VFX crew/drain their soul for.
Last edited:
Wow, this is nice. This is a great example of how important the eyes are to Sonic's design. Even if you don't go for the cartoony 'mono-eye', the shape and size needs to stay the same.
mostly a good read, though I don't like that it blames fans on the Internet for criticizing the design
The problem with that design is any other expression besides "angry/serious" needs one-eye Sonic to work.
That's just what I want to read! Great info, Thanks!!