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SEGA speaks candidly about why the Sonic movie was successful in their annual report (taking fan feedback in account)

Dooble

Dooble

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Oct 28, 2017
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Finally, regarding user engagement, Sonic offers a good illustration. In 2020, the live-action movie Sonic the Hedgehog was a huge worldwide hit, reaching sixth place in global box office revenues for that year. The secret of the movie's huge success was precisely the strength of the global Sonic fan community. We made the movie's character designs public as a pre-release promotion. In response, many fans posted harshly critical comments about the designs on various social media. We listened carefully to these voices and took the criticism seriously, and made major design changes. The result was a marked improvement in fan satisfaction. The fan community became positive influencers for the movie, which spread to the wider public, drawing a big response and driving the huge success of the movie.
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https://www.segasammy.co.jp/english/ir/library/pdf/printing_annual/2021/ir_2021_web_5_e.pdf

I find this kinda refreshing and humble for a big corp. They aknowledge that fans were a huge part of the movies success, instead of sweeping all that under the rug and not speak of the first Sonic movie trailer with the old design ever.
 

Deleted member 5129

User requested account closure
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Oct 25, 2017
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They fail to mention that they put their animators through hell for it

I find it hard to care about their "humility" after pulling shit like that.
 
SNRUB

SNRUB

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Oct 27, 2017
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I have to feel for the VFX animators and artists who had to toil away day and night revising and reanimating shot after shot just to appease those who made the biggest outcries without extra pay (I think one of the studios even shuttered it's doors too?)
 
Atom Heart Mother

Atom Heart Mother

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Oct 25, 2017
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SNRUB said:
I have to feel for the VFX animators and artists who had to toil away day and night revising and reanimating shot after shot just to appease those who made the biggest outcries without extra pay (I think one of the studios even shuttered it's doors too?)
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From what I've heard on here, the shots you saw in the trailer were the only shots actually done. They didn't have to go through and re-do the entire movie, afaik.
 
boontobias

boontobias

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Apr 14, 2018
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SNRUB said:
I have to feel for the VFX animators and artists who had to toil away day and night revising and reanimating shot after shot just to appease those who made the biggest outcries without extra pay (I think one of the studios even shuttered it's doors too?)
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The only thing Sonic loves more than chili dogs is the tasty crunch of a bowl of nachos and a team of vfx artists
 
Tokyo_Funk

Tokyo_Funk

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Dec 10, 2018
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SNRUB said:
I have to feel for the VFX animators and artists who had to toil away day and night revising and reanimating shot after shot just to appease those who made the biggest outcries without extra pay (I think one of the studios even shuttered it's doors too?)
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In many cases, the original rig could be spared for the new model and re-skinned/weighted for most of the animations if they had to re-do any. The main thing that would have needed a full change is the face rig. From what I know and what people have already pointed out is that the shots done for the theatrical trailer were the only ones done. Re-lighting/rendering/compositing would have been just as much a pain.
 
The Silver

The Silver

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I still want to know how in the world they ended up with that original design in the first place
 
Aaron

Aaron

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Feel like anytime someone uses this movie to whip out the "creators shouldn't listen to fans" line, they're just trying to look smarter than everyone else. This was absolutely an instance where Paramount and Sega caving to fan pressure was the only way to save face. That original design was horrid and never should have been okayed.
 
Danby

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Aaron said:
Feel like anytime someone uses this movie to whip out the "creators shouldn't listen to fans" line, they're just trying to look smarter than everyone else. This was absolutely an instance where Paramount and Sega caving to fan pressure was the only way to save face. That original design was horrid and never should have been okayed.
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Sometimes rigidly sticking to a vision works, but this is meant to have mass appeal. It's good that they listened. And yeah, it's crazy that it got really far with a bunch of yes men saying it looked good.
 
Gouf

Gouf

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May 17, 2018
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HomerSimpson-Man said:
Yeah. I'm trying to picture a scenario in which the design was passed around everyone somehow agreed, "Yep, that looks right to me!"
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Paramount kind of has a history with doing bizarre things with the designs of beloved IPs for kids in movies. All you have to do is look at what they did to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers, Alvin and the Chipmunks, etc. to see where their train of thought was. It probably just looked like business as usual for them lol. Thank goodness they got some major pushback for Sonic though.
 
Jawmuncher

Jawmuncher

Crisis Dino
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Listening to fans isn't always a bad thing. As with most things, it just comes down to finding that middle-ground a lot of the time.
In this particular case, it just made sense especially for the longevity of the franchise film wise.
 
OmegaDL50

OmegaDL50

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We made the movie's character designs public as a pre-release promotion. In response, many fans posted harshly critical comments about the designs on various social media. We listened carefully to these voices and took the criticism seriously, and made major design changes.
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Now do this with the next Sonic Team game and you might actually release something halfway decent.
 
Tan

Tan

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Oct 27, 2017
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Wasn't there also word that it didn't involve crunching their artists? Or did I dream that up
 
Exposure

Exposure

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Oct 25, 2017
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I mean I guess if Sega's saying it it's a matter of pedantry at this point but I swore the timeline of events was something like:

The original design get shown before the trailer, the internet calls it out as being obviously bad, relevant execs made mouth noises about how it's fine actually

Then the trailer officially came out and the sonic design in particular was the butt of jokes by most people, and then they decided to admit the design was severely flawed and needed rework.

like fans were the first warning sign but they only turned back when the proclamations of "literally nobody else on earth will like this" were proven true.

which even then still leaves the mystery of how that design got approved because I am still very confused what human beings could look at the original design and go "yeah this is perfect for general audiences".
 
Ravenwraith

Ravenwraith

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Aaron said:
Feel like anytime someone uses this movie to whip out the "creators shouldn't listen to fans" line, they're just trying to look smarter than everyone else. This was absolutely an instance where Paramount and Sega caving to fan pressure was the only way to save face. That original design was horrid and never should have been okayed.
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except it wasn't "fans". it was everyone with eyes. they only caved when they realized the fans weren't the only ones complaining
 
Aaron

Aaron

I’m seeing double here!
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Oct 25, 2017
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Joshwraith said:
except it wasn't "fans". it was everyone with eyes. they only caved when they realized the fans weren't the only ones complaining
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Fair point! You'll often see though naysayers dismiss the backlash as fan-exclusive in the interest of making whatever point about creator's intent they're on about.

I showed the original design to my mom at one point (a 60-year-old woman who probably couldn't give two shits about what Sonic the Hedgehog looks like) and her only response was "...hm. He looks kind of stupid, doesn't he?" Which I feel is a pretty fair litmus test for "does this design have appeal to literally anybody"
 
ResetSoul

ResetSoul

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Jul 29, 2021
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Yeah, but I wish they'd comment on how they ever approved and almost finalized the movie with the original design in the first place.

The original model is a goddamn disaster whereas the final is basically just cut-and-pasting Sonic's current game model/design... Like you'd think would've been the common sense place to begin with.

CloseTalker said:
Yeah I was going to say, I swear I remember specifically hearing that this wasnt hell on the artist teams
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Besides how movies aren't anywhere near as far along as trailers make them look, this sort of thing makes me feel like the original design was some sort of calculated misdirect to try to force a meme and generate a bunch of outrage/attention/goodwill for "listening to the fans." The two models even have different heights and eye lines. Pretty much any shot in which the model interacts with live-action objects or characters would have to be reengineered.
 
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Atolm

Atolm

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Oct 25, 2017
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I liked the movie for what it was. I wouldn't have watched it with the designs they showed.
 
flaxknuckles

flaxknuckles

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Oct 25, 2017
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Now if we could get everyone who complained about Sonic's design to direct their energy towards a Jet Set Radio Future remaster and Sonic Adventure 3
 
Spring-Loaded

Spring-Loaded

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Oct 27, 2017
19,904
Movie Sonic was the first Sonic design i unequivocally like.
B.K. said:
I want to see the original designs for Knuckles and Tails.
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kubev

kubev

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Oct 25, 2017
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I still want to see that original version of the movie. God, I can't tell you how much I wanted it to be a complete train wreck. I just think it could've been amazing.
 
Rated-G

Rated-G

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Oct 29, 2017
1,324
Atom Heart Mother said:
From what I've heard on here, the shots you saw in the trailer were the only shots actually done. They didn't have to go through and re-do the entire movie, afaik.
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This is correct. A majority of the finished shots were in that initial trailer. Revising the design was far from the huge undertaking for the VFX team that people have painted it as, but people have continued to claim otherwise despite so many of the people who were working on the film at the time trying to voice that correction on social media.
 
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