 The redesign of the movie version of Sonic the Hedgehog is going to be one of those stories that will never ever go away. Much as how fans have spent decades trying to figure out exactly how much Michael Jackson is in Sonic 3, we're going to spend the next 30 years debating what Paramount was thinking with their initial design for movie Sonic, and what happened behind the scenes when Jeff Fowler pushed to delay the film's release and completely remake its titular character. Luckily, Jeff is very happy to talk about this himself. In press interviews, he's explained his relationship with the blue blur and what thinking created the original cinematic design for Sonic Theodore Hedgehog. That's obviously his middle name, Theodore. You know it makes sense. Jeff Fowler was around 13 years old when Sonic first burst onto the pop culture scene of the early 90s. At the time, Jeff was playing every single video game he could get his hands on. So of course, he was eager to try out Sega's newest platformer, and it was, in his words, a game-changer. What really made Sonic stand out was his attitude. Little touches like Sonic tapping his feet as he waits for the player really sold his personality to Jeff, and it stuck with him for years to come. Said Jeff, A friend you'd like to have. Jeff grew up to enter the animation and visual effects industry, and when given the chance to make a Sonic movie, he leapt at it. He and his team wanted to build a story around the important elements of the games, such as rings and chaos emeralds that paid fitting tribute to Sonic's past. He also wanted to inject Sonic with a lot of pathos, making him fun, fast and exciting, but also vulnerable and sympathetic. He wanted the audience to really care about this strange CGI character, and this ultimately led to the movie's big mistake. In an effort to make Sonic feel relatable, believable, grounded in reality, he and his team overshot the mark somewhat. Jeff now feels that the mistake of the original Sonic movie design came down to trying too hard to fit this vibrant, interesting, cartoonish character into a real-world setting. He said, You know what? It's kind of refreshing to hear someone take the blame for a mistake in Hollywood. So often when something goes wrong, creatives are eager to pass the buck, blame someone else. Not Jeff Fowler. He's owning his mistake. He's taking responsibility. It seems only fair, then, that he should get credit for fixing the design, for persuading studio executives at Paramount to delay the release of the film and spend significantly more money on reworking its core character. According to Jeff, when the time finally came to unveil their second attempt at Sonic to the world, he and everyone else involved was more than a little nervous. This could easily have blown up in their faces all over again. They were, however, confident that they'd given things their best try and they were pleased with their work. Said Jeff, I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous, but we definitely were feeling very excited and confident. The team really rallied and we all came together and we were all very excited about revealing version 2.0 of the Sonic character. Fortunately, the fans loved it. Even Jim Carrey, who initially was opposed to the idea of a Sonic redesign, has changed his tune. Although, in fairness, this might simply be because Paramount's legal team has had words with him. Jim said, No doubt we'll still be wondering about the specifics of the Sonic movie, of the main character's design and redesign, for a long time to come. For now, though, it's nice to know that the movie's director is so willing to accept his own mistakes. The moral of the story is that if you're open and willing to accept feedback, if you're able to look at yourself, then you'll be able to accept your own mistakes. The moral of the story is that if you're open and willing to accept feedback, if you're able to look at yourself and your work objectively, you'll be able to grow a lot in ways you couldn't imagine.