It turns out we weren’t alone in thinking that the Sonic the Hedgehog movie poster looked a little off. Some of the biggest names behind the Blue Blur himself are also conflicted by the character’s live action design.
ResetEra user cucholix, posted a thread collecting several reactions from both current and former members of Sonic Team. Surprisingly they seem just as confused by the design choice as we are.
The most notable reaction from the thread is a tweet from the original artist of Sonic The Hedgehog, Naoto Ohshima. If anyone is allowed to have an opinion on the design it would have to be the man who originally created him.
ソニックはハリネズミの様な妖精なので、実写になってもハリネズミに寄せる必要はないのです。
ミッキーは実写になってもネズミにならないでしょう。
彼らはみんなが信じてくれると生き続ける事ができる妖精なのだから。— Naoto Ohshima (@NaotoOhshima) December 11, 2018
When translated his tweet reads:
“Sonic is a fairy of hedgehog, so he doesn’t need to be designed closer to a real hedgehog even in a live action.
Mickey doesn’t become a mouse in live action, does he? Because they are fairies who can live on when people believe in them.”
Oshima-san’s reaction is just one of several other prominent former Sonic Team members.
Shiro Maekawa-san:
“Wooow, they made a totally unexpected arrangement there *rofl* “
Gurihiru-san:
“I’ve heard that Sonic movie was going to be a mixture of live action and animation, but I haven’t expected this…”
Yuji Naka:
“From the comments here, it looks like it’s very badly received. I wonder if the movie is actually good when you watch it. I see many movies based on Anime or games are unpopular. I wonder why that happens…”
Yuji Naka seems to be on to something. Why are so many video game to movie adaptations unpopular? Well, it might be because studios don’t seem to understand why people appreciated the source material in the first place. Hopefully, this is just a bad poster and our first glimpse at the actual movie can restore some faith in this project.
