How do you make a blue, erect hedgehog with unified sclera, a character already frequently depicted as a pregnant man, even more uncomfortable to look at? It seems the new Sonic the Hedgehog movie holds the answer, and it’s awful
A brand guide from Hamagami / Carroll, Inc. has seemingly leaked our first images of the video game star in his new, made-for-the-big-screen form, and… it’s like a police sketch artist rendition of Sonic the Rapist—and just as unsettling as that should be.
The character was already a bizarrely stylized thing made by someone who apparently never saw a hedgehog, clearly believing them to be some fanciful, mythological, and fast-moving demon. Taking that idea and reeling it closer to reality—sort of?—has created an even more revolting animal. This back-and-forth-translated Sonic is a wretched creature now trapped between Earth and Hell.
Sonic’s iconic eyeball situation? His classically cartoonish white gloves? Well, while a bipedal, cerulean hedgehog needs no rationalization at all, apparently those other aspects of his look did: now both his hands and “eye bridge,” if you will, are just white fur. Likewise, his once inexplicably fleshy snout and chest are also fur. Just some fleshy fur.
But there is some relief, Sonic purists: the hedgehog’s desperately ’90s idea of corporately manufactured cool remains! As seen in his “brand personality” slides, Sonic is still “irreverent & sarcastic; heroic & adventurous; confident & competitive; chill & likable; mischievous but not malicious.” Sonic is, at last, like all of us—desperate to have an interesting persona but, in the end, just an angry, grotesque monster in hairy flesh and some idiotic sneakers, wishing we’d remembered to bring gloves.
They say a camel is a horse designed by committee. Sonic is a hedgehog designed by a maniac, now re-designed by committee.
[via Polygon]
