#but yo this is one of the pieces that helped me understand how clip studio brushes work wowie

[muffin-snakes-art]

Fixed up this old painting of Kris from 2021. I still like it

[akamaru01]

Ya know what I didn’t want to really get into the shit show that is the discussion on the Sonic movie but here we are

I’m gonna try and make this like an analysis, what it looks like happened in chronological order, and what the hell is going on and maybe a bit on how people are reacting

For a bit more info on me I am currently a studying 3D artist because I will get a bit technical at times

I’ll also put it under a read more because not everyone wants to see it so HERE WE GO starting off with where I think shit went wrong in production (Spoiler: People high up on the food chain probably fucked up big time and interfered too much)

(Note: This will be mainly about the design, not about story)

So obviously as with everything it begins with the original designs made by a character designer. Now from what I have seen the studio actually doing all the CG work for the movie also worked on the cinematics for Sonic Unleashed that released back in 2008. Love or hate the game, you can’t deny that it looked and felt like Sonic. So clearly the studio itself knows what it’s doing.

However, the movie might be made with Sega helping (maybe) on the sideline but the production is controlled by Paramount. That means everything goes through Hollywood Big Wig Executives who probably don’t care about source material and also have no creative abilities and also don’t listen to anyone besides themselves and their investors. SO here is a very short, exaggerated idea of the conversations surrounding the design.

Exec: Hey we’re making a Sonic the Hedgehog movie so make us a Sonic that can fit in a live action movie.

Designer: Okay here you go he looks like regular Sonic but with some texture/material/fur touch ups to look more real

Exec: Too cartoony/Not real enough/Something something make it more like humanoid

Designer: But if we do that it wont look like Sonic, might be too creepy or weird, just looks weird/bad in general

Exec: I can have you fired

Designer: Here it is but people won’t like it

Exec: Yes they will, now get to work and make some posters people will love it (or not, it’s hard to say if they would really care as long as people see the movie and it makes money)

You get the idea. This probably continues all throughout production, maybe eventually they give up trying to change minds or they’re just too tired or it’s too late who knows.

So the posters come out and oh boy they were a thing that exists now

And so people do the thing and dunk on the look of it, get in their criticisms, which I think criticising or not liking something is well within peoples rights ya know?

At this point maybe the conversation comes back something like this

Artists: Yo we told you people wouldn’t like this let’s change it while we’re still relatively early in production (mabey) and can adjust it and not spend months with actual animating/lighting,post production

Execs: No no this is fine who cares it’s not even moving yet it’ll be fine

Artists: No it won’t

Execs: Jobs

Artists: Fuck, alright

So nothing changes, time passes, and here we are and by the way

Trailer editor: Hey for the background music I am thinking something upbeat and fun like the Sonic music from the games

Execs: No no make it edgy and cool like Gangsters Paradise

Editor: .... fucking why

So we got the Sonic trailer drop and guess what everyone dunked on like this isn’t even a shock at this point people analyze and criticise fucking everything (especially 3D) this time it just so happened to be on a massive fucking scale

So from a personal note my reaction was “This looks like shit I ain’t gonna bother with it”. From what I saw the general consensus’ were either basically what I said or “This looks like shit I’m gonna watch it anyway”. Absolutely no one I saw said “This needs to be fixed before the movie comes out” from what I saw people basically were just ready for it to flop and we’ll try again later. Even if some people were calling for a redesign I doubt even they expected what was coming next

So, this seems to be what ended up happening

Execs: -trailer release-

Internet: Yo this looks like shit wtf

Execs: Oh shit we fucked up

Internet: Yeah you did

Execs: Don’t worry we’ll fix this

Internet & Artists: What

Execs: We’ll overhaul and redesign him before the movie releases as scheduled

Everyone else: WHAT 

Because here is what that means. The artists and animators will have to redesign (or maybe go back to an old design), adjust the model or maybe worse completely redo it, change textures, possibly adjust or recreate the rig, REANIMATE ALMOST IF NOT EVERYTHING, adjust lighting, re combine the new CG footage with the live action, make sure it all looks good and no clipping

What’s most likely is that this is gonna be hell for the studio leading up to release if they don’t delay the movie, which they have not said anything about yet and that’s not a good sign. 

But now here is where the biggest variable comes in: How much will change?

Minor changes that don’t affect overall proportions and placement of details means they could keep the same rig and animations and just check for touch ups. HOWEVER these kind of minor changes probably won’t help much, if at all. Honestly besides textures and small changes to fur the only thing that can really be adjusted without much worry is the teeth because they can be the same size and they don’t have to deform or do a lot of crazy movement.

But in order to fix any of the actual problems with it, besides teeth, will require a crap ton more work. Any changes to the eye shapes, sizes or placement, and any changes to the mouth and surrounding areas will require a new or heavily adjusted face rig, which will completely throw off eye movements and lip syncs and those will need to be redone.

Any changes to proportions of any kind will require an adjustment of the rig, which could throw off the animations already set and need to rework them almost everywhere, and maybe redo them completely in a worst case scenario. If the hands change at all they have to adjust every single shot where he is holding or touching something, same with his feet, and really same with his head, quills, freaking everything.

All this in 6 months? Doable, but not without a fuck ton of unnecessary sacrifice.

But we don’t know what this redesign will look like, so it’s impossible to speculate on how much these artists and workers are going to be fucked over and pushed and destroyed for this.

Basically, odds are the artists are gonna be the ones paying for the mistake of those higher up on the food chain, and if the movie does well then, similar to what recently happened with game studio Bioware, they’re going to think “Oh it’s okay that it’s all shit for so long and then we push and destroy our artists at the last minute because it works” which it fucking doesn’t. If they had listened to their people at the beginning, this could have been avoided. No matter what some people still would have been like “ew 3D sonic live action” but no where near this degree.

So the final thing to touch on is some of the reactions after the announcement of redesign. Because I have seen... a lot. All across the spectrum.

I am going to try and talk about some of the more basic groups that these reactions fall under that I’ve seen.

Before we get into those though I want to say something that kind of applies to all of them: I think criticizing the design and look is okay. Talking about how you don’t like it and why and how it could be better is good, outside of ya know the extreme stuff like death threats or whatever, not that I’ve seen those really around this project but they probably exist.

So the first one is basically where I stand on the issue personally. The design sucked, they should have listened more and let it be more stylized and it still would have fit (because suspension of disbelief is a thing and what they have now certainly doesn’t fit in any more than regular Sonic would). I expected them to release it, it flops, no more Sonic movies for a while. If they were gonna fix it they should have done it a long time ago. I am not happy that they are going to punish their staff and artists for their own mistakes and now they’re trying to cover it up.

Now the next argument is one I have seen around here and there, and I understand it, but don’t completely agree. It’s the argument that we, as a collective group, complained about the design, and now we are at fault that the artists have to redo it. There is some truth that if the internet did not go “This sucks” then it would be over and it would have gone on to release as planned. Personally though, I feel like this takes away 2 things: 1) The right of consumers to dislike a thing and 2) The blame away from the executives who made the decisions not only about the initial design but also to change it so late in production. Should they not be held accountable as well? There is a piece that occasionally goes along with this along the lines of “You’re getting so wrapped in a kids movie” or something like that but like: This might (?) be a kids movie but really the target audience is largely the adults who grew up with Sonic. Also bad is bad and kids movies can be great they don’t have to be trash and also kids movies can be enjoyed by people of all ages.

There are smaller sections of discussion, usually quickly stamped out, about how “They fucked it up this is their fault” placing blame on the artists, but this usually comes from a place of ignorance and not knowing how the process works and who makes all the final decisions. The other side of that is “Whatever it’s gonna be shit no matter what I am/am not gonna watch it regardless” or “Idk looks fun I’ll watch it either way”.

To basically sum it up The people in charge probably fucked up, people rightly were like “Lol look at this shit” and now those same higher ups are gonna overwork the artists to fix their own mistake