I was going to mention this aspect somewhere in my previous post, but I was semi-rushing my post and got distracted by other points, so I missed it out by mistake. I was basically going to say more-or-less what you just said; yeah, I'd also place a bet that a high-up employee insisted on the design no matter what. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be the first time that artists and animators (plus game programmers, too) have had their arms twisted to create a product that they're not fully proud of/on-board with, due to arrogant and snotty attitudes from bosses. This isn't even remotely uncommon knowledge, I know, but it still blows chunks that this shit happens.
I'm wondering if anybody got fired over all this. If the original version is ever leaked online, somebody please check who's missing in the new credits.
The fact that SEGA themselves took issue with the design but were powerless to change it says a lot. I too think that someone (or a group of people) were adamant that they knew best about how Sonic should look, and insisted the original design.
I've always wondered what happened when Sega sold the movie rights to Sony, and then when the project moved to Paramount. It's just baffling to me that they did not ask for creative control/made demands about certain things like other creators and companies. (Or maybe they did, but only certain stuff?) I know how the corporate world is from experience when you know the company is going to make a mistake and you speak out and say that's a bad idea, and no higher-up listens. But I wonder if there was someone like that in the company during 2013 that dealt with the movie deal? Or maybe there wasn't someone that could guide the company in a better direction when it came to it. It's always hard as an outsider to say what a company did right or wrong since we don't know what happened behind the scenes, and we don't know how they operate. So it'll be interesting to see the details of the movie production in the future.
Yeah, blue arms is getting to me too. Much like how Sonic Boom did. The green-eyed thing never got me mostly because Sonic was so drastically altered during Sonic Adventure and onward, that I actually thought it looked cool. Oh, the subjective nature of aesthetics and the double standards the bring, eh? :P I guess because the eye thing was more of a artistic choice, and the blue arm thing can be counted as not just an artistic choice, but many people who aren't into Sonic as the fans are tend to believe he has blue arms. Like an annoying accident due to misinformation or false memory. I do recall reading some gaming magazines back in the day mistakenly describing Sonic having blue arms. Other than that, I can take what I can get at this point. He looks much better. lol
It's also very telling that SEGA were not happy with both the design itself and the fan backlash, when during one of their SXSW panels, Aaron Webber prefaced their Q&A segment with a message specifically addressing that they were not going to answer any Sonic movie questions whatsoever. If that's not a red flag that something's not right (coupled with the official Sonic social media accounts being mostly hush about the movie, outside of some initial announcements), I don't know what is. Compare that to SEGA's "Proudly Presents" paired with Sonic Mania's initial reveal. The contrast in SEGA's knowledge of quality difference between the two is blatantly obvious, like night and day.
With adaptations of video games/anime/etc. in general there's an annoying trend in Hollywood that no, it can't be similar to the (already popular) thing they're basing it on, it has to be different! Gotta shoehorn it into some tried-and-true formula and change everything unique or interesting about the original product. The example that always comes to mind for me first is actually the first Harry Potter movie, which originally had Steven Spielberg make a pitch to JK Rowling for a film adaptation. Even a visionary like him came in saying they needed to change the setting to America, and that no one was going to have the patience to sit through seven movies, so he tried to sell her on doing a "Harry Potter: The Movie" that simply combined elements from the first three books and that would be it. Like, as if all that wouldn't have been a complete disaster, that would have been one movie instead of eight very successful ones. Similarly, no studio wanted to do Lord of the Rings unless Peter Jackson would agree to compress it all into one film - when he pitched it to studios, he tried to make it an easier sell by claiming he only wanted two movies, and thankfully New Line was willing to go for a trilogy. Those are at least examples where the creative minds were able to win out over corporate meddling, but we can all think of plenty of examples where it went the opposite way. The Super Mario Bros. movie, Street Fighter, Dragonball Evolution, The Last Airbender, the original Blade Runner, to name a handful.
I don't know if anyone cares particularly about this, but here's this. Luisito Comunica, the Mexican Youtuber who's gonna voice Sonic in the Latin American dub of the film, shared a clip of himself recordingtwo of Sonic's lines in an Instagram story. He deleted it afterwards but a Facebook Sonic fan page saved it and uploaded it. I'll translate both lines: -"The biggest ball in the world? We have to go see it!" -"Where am I? What year is it? Is the Rock the president?!" Sounds like a fun silly movie, I didn't expect anything else honestly. Personally I'm gonna watch it but I understand those who won't. Spoiler btw i like blue arms
Personally I have always been cautiously curious for this film. I will admit I enjoyed what was in the trailer other than that horrid design. Hopefully this film will have a lot of action that's sorely missing in the recent games. Its also a relief finally seeing humans again ever since Unleashed.
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1191908294492905473 Another potential leak, this one looking slightly different than the previous but very similar
Say what you want about the blue arms and how the movie is still not going to be good, but this actually feels like Sonic. I really hope this one is legit.
If the leaked image is true, I don't have any particularly egregious thoughts on the redesign. Looks fine for a live-action CGI rendition of Sonic.
Huh, if this is legit it's not bad. Still baffled it took so much effort to get to "not bad" when they could have just slightly tweaked Sonic's game design. Very curious to see this redesign in motion if it's the real deal.
It's just such a conflict, because yes the design is better, it should have looked more like this from the start, but now we are gonna miss all the terrifying Sonic memes. i kinda hope they include a big slice of how he looked originally in the bluray extras so everybody wins XD
If that leaked design is real then it's a massive step-up. Still unsure about the movie itself though.
We won't miss anything, all the jokes about the design are told, now if you google sonic you will see the ugly design at the top and dominating the results, it's immortalized now, the damage is done beyond repair, even if somehow by some miracle the movie turned out to be great , it won't erase the damage that was done
Changing things is a Hollywood producers way of putting their own mark on something... And no doubt increasing a cut of any merchandise, as it's now their adapted design rather the original, and there's all sorts of rights tied up with that type of thing. After all, in the end of the day it is showbusiness, they're all there to make the most money they can. With the case of Sonic, the original design was so horrendously off model that the backlash no doubt sank their profit projections so much that it was worth their while to try again.
The redesign is undoubtedly a huge step up, so much so that I'm seriously considering taking my 6 year old daughter to watch this at the movies, something that didn't even cross my mind back when we watched the trailer together and laughed at how ugly Sonic looked!
