For months now, you’ve been unable to maintain a full night’s worth of sleep. You’ve been waking up in a cold sweat, rattled in your dream state by images of beady eyes and the echo of a menacing, “Meowww.” You, and countless others, are experiencing the harrowing ramifications of having witnessed the first trailer for Paramount Pictures’ attempt at a Sonic the Hedgehog film adaptation. But quaver no longer, my friend, as your troubles may indeed be put to rest.
After the explosive response to the vexing look of that first trailer’s title character (a combo of oddly shaped eyeballs and too-human-like tendons really thrust the fan community into a tailspin… and the teeth… oy vey, the freakin’ teeth), Paramount opted to get its people back to work on the project in order to come up with a new design for Sonic. One that would delight, rather than disturb. Six months later, we have sight of the fruit of their labors. And while this upgrade of Sonic might not exactly be Louvre-caliber artistry, it’s definitely a good deal less shudder-inducing. Take a look at the new trailer below:
And frankly, the fact that the trailer opens on a tight close-up of Sonic’s mug, beneath a line of dialogue asserting him as a “handsome package” suggests that Paramount is pretty confident they’ve fixed the problem. To their credit, I am no hyperventilating at the sight of an animated hedgehog’s lower incisors.
As a result of this Robotnik’s mustache-sized undertaking, Sonic the Hedgehog‘s release date has been pushed back to February 14, 2020. (It was originally supposed to have come out on November 8, 2019, but clearly that didn’t happen!) Apropos that the haunting early design was a Halloween-adjacent release, while this cuter and more amicable look will hit theaters on Valentine’s Day, which will hopefully be far enough in the future that we’ll all have stopped having the nightmares.
And even if we haven’t entirely shaken off the trauma just yet (dear me, those teeth), we can at least heave a sigh of relief at the sight of the updated Sonic this morning. Perfect? Maybe not. But better! And really, what is the meaning of life if not the endless toil to improve on past sins and startlingly designed cartoon forest rodents? Anyone who can answer that is a wiser being than I.
Featured Image: Paramount Pictures
