If you are reading this column, stop what you\u2019re doing right now and Google search photos of the live action \u201cSonic the Hedgehog\u201d movie. Come back when you\u2019re done.<\/p>\n
OK, welcome back. While looking at the CGI Sonic, you may have noticed two versions of the classic blue video game character set to make his big screen debut. When Paramount released the long-awaited first trailer for the movie, fans ranged from disappointed to terrified. That\u2019s because the Sonic in that first trailer didn\u2019t look quite right. Eerily human-like, the hedgehog had several characteristics that made viewers uncomfortable, top of the list being his tiny mouth and disturbingly human teeth. The beloved speedy character\u2019s design was quickly torn apart on social media.<\/p>\n
While many didn\u2019t hesitate to criticize (jokingly or seriously) the design, I would guess that most critics didn\u2019t expect there to be a change. The official trailer was out, so it seemed like the movie was pretty far along, if not completely finished, in its production. The creators of Sonic the Hedgehog\u2019s movie had missed the mark, and there was no undoing such an unnerving mistake.<\/p>\n
Or was there? Two days after the first Sonic trailer was less than well received, director Jeff Fowler tweeted, \u201cThe message is loud and clear \u2026 you aren\u2019t happy with the design and you want changes. It\u2019s going to happen.\u201d I have a lot of respect for Fowler and the team behind Sonic, because they didn\u2019t allow that to be an empty promise.<\/p>\n
We didn\u2019t hear about Sonic for a few months, except of course for the occasional meme. Changes had been promised, but were they actually on the way? The release date was pushed back from November 2019 to February 2020 \u2014 was that a good sign, or a delay of an inevitable pulled plug?<\/p>\n
Fans finally got their answer Tuesday when an updated trailer was released with a new and improved Sonic the Hedgehog who looked much less like a creepy, blue human and much more like, well, a hedgehog. Not only was the character more lovable, but the trailer itself also lent itself more to the classic video games through added sound effects and visuals.<\/p>\n
Many have been quick to compliment the character\u2019s new look, celebrating the bigger eyes, more cartoon-like mouth and less of a human figure. I\u2019m all for this outpouring of positivity, but I think many people are missing the mark. There\u2019s one group of people who truly deserve all the love new Sonic is getting \u2014 the movie\u2019s creators.<\/p>\n
When you release a piece of work to the public, it takes guts. Whether it\u2019s a painting, a book, a business plan or anything else you\u2019ve invested yourself to, you are sharing a part of yourself. You do it with the hope that people will love it as much as you do. Every Friday morning, I wake up with butterflies in my stomach at the thought of so many of you picking up this newspaper, knowing you may tear it apart. It\u2019s a scary feeling.<\/p>\n
The creators of the Sonic movie did something even bolder than releasing their work to the public \u2014 they humbly listened to the criticism, took back the product they had spent months creating, and changed it. It takes courage to show people what you\u2019ve made. It takes even more courage to redo it.<\/p>\n
This is exactly why I will definitely be making plans to see Sonic in theaters a few months from now. Not because I\u2019m particularly invested in the story, but because I am certainly invested in the tireless work of creators who want to work for others and not just for themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you are reading this column, stop what you\u2019re doing right now and Google search photos of the live action \u201cSonic the Hedgehog\u201d movie. Come back when you\u2019re done. OK,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15102,"featured_media":13763,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-opinions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14018,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14017\/revisions\/14018"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}