The leggy first poster for the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog movie was "creepy as hell," and the first trailer did not improve the situation. Different people had different issues—more than a few complained that Jim Carrey's Dr. Robotnik looked more like lazy Josef Stalin cosplay—but the number one problem, by a country mile, was Sonic himself.
Unlike his classic arcade physique, the beefy legs and trim torso of his live-action rendering looked like Usain Bolt in desperate need of a shave and wardrobe advice. (Shoes but no pants? Come on.) That was bad enough, but the face is where it really went wrong. A thousand memes were launched. None of them good.
(This one's pretty good, though.)
Image source: Know Your Meme
In light of all that, director Jeff Fowler said in early May that the character would be redesigned, a task that we noted would be "quite massive" this late in the process. And sure enough, today Fowler revealed that the rework would result in a delay, from November of this year to February 14, 2020.
Three months doesn't seem like a lot of time to overhaul a central component of a major studio flick, but then again I have no idea how much time such a process would actually require, or what's even being done: One PCGer, who will go unnamed, suggested that Paramount could be taking the time to make Sonic look even worse (Smaller eyes, bigger teeth?) as an "in your face" to people who don't appreciate the subtle, near-psychedelic qualities that Weird Sonic would bring to the oeuvre. I have my doubts, but however it works out, at least we'll always have the memes.
