The VFX designer for the upcoming Sonic The Hedgehog movie says that the new design is actually what they started with originally.

When we got our first look at the new Sonic movie trailer earlier this year, everyone was pretty much appalled at what they did to our beautiful blue boy. Rather than follow the design language of Sonic that has remained true for the past two decades, the trailer made Sonic out to be this mutant alien creature and not the loveable blue speedster that we fell in love with back in the ‘90s.

Mercifully, the movie was delayed into 2020 where the producers announced that Sonic would be getting a complete redesign. They acknowledged the public outcry was so great that they were taking the unprecedented step of editing out the Sonic they’d botched to put in a new Sonic that looked even remotely presentable.

At the time, we wondered if it was all just an elaborate publicity stunt. What better way to generate… um. Well, we can’t call it “interest” since nobody wanted to actually see the movie, and calling it “hype” also seems disingenuous. We’ll call it “notoriety.” Anyway, what better way to generate notoriety than to make a movie trailer that absolutely butchers Sonic?

RELATED: Sonic Creator Happy With New Design But Still Wants To See A Movie With Original (Crappy) Sonic

The new and improved Sonic arrived today with a trailer that shows the Sonic we all know and love: sticks for arms and legs, gloved hands and sneakers, and a single eye that somehow manages to remain expressive despite sharing a single socket. And we also found out from the movie’s VFX designer that it looks very similar to what they originally came up with in pre-production.

The tweet, since deleted, came from Stu Whitten, a VFX artist who worked on the movie. In response to a fan comment, Stu said that the producers "pretty much just went back to our original design lol."

So, Paramount already had a perfectly serviceable Sonic design, but rather than make a trailer using that, they gave us an abomination to both God and nature. And for what? So they could remind us all a Sonic movie is coming out in a few months?

We’ll find out if their grand strategy worked when Sonic arrives in theatres on February 14th, 2020. Now if only they’d recast Dr. Robotnik...

(Source: Twitter)

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