Last spring the world was "treated" to the first trailer for a new live-action Sonic the Hedgehog movie. The response to the CGI Sonic character was not subtle. People were basically horrified. The character, while still being a bipedal blue hedgehog, also looked a bit too human. Sonic's horrifying face covered social media for several days.
The reaction by the production was to agree to redesign the hedgehog into something a little less nightmare inducing. This resulted in a delay to the film's release, but originally the movie was planned to hit the week after Halloween, and so you can be sure there were movie-inspired Halloween costumes that were on the way.
The movie may be delayed, but Halloween is happening right on schedule, and, of course, nobody is going to choose to not sell those costumes. And so, costumes, based on the original design of the character, are now here, and they're every bit as horrifying as you'd assume.
What is the price of your sanity? Less than $20 apparently, as you can get this abomination against life for $19.97 at Wal-Mart. Even the kid in the picture on the package looks like he wants you to just kill him. It's the humane thing to do.
Of course, the costume also shows the general problem that the Sonic the Hedgehog movie had with its title character. Making Sonic appear to be more humanoid and "real" so that he would fit in alongside actual humans, only makes him look wrong. Sonic has only ever appeared animated before, either in video games or cartoons, and that allows for a stylizing of the design that keeps Sonic well away from the uncanny valley.
Merchandising deals have to be handled months in advance of a film so that they're ready to go when the film is released. One has to assume there was a fair amount of Sonic movie merch that was on the way for the original November 8 release. Much of it is likely being retooled to match the new design of the character that is currently being undertaken.
However, with the Sonic the Hedgehog movie now set for a Valentine's Day 2020 release, there's a good chance nobody will be thinking about Sonic costumes next Halloween any more than this Halloween, so you figure the costume company just decided to release this as is and try to get what they can from it.
We still have yet to get a look at the newly designed Sonic the Hedgehog character. Certainly, the movie is going to a lot of added expense to redesign the character for the entire movie, so there's a lot riding on it. If the new Sonic doesn't get embraced by the audience the way he needs to be, the movie is going to be in even more trouble than it was the first time around.
If you see this costume come to your house on Halloween, just assume the kid is trying to be terrifying. Give him candy and he'll go away.
