It’s almost impossible to engineer a meme into success; the whims of the online masses are difficult to predict.
But the best meme templates tend to blend colossal failure with earnest intentions; like Tommy Wiseau’s The Room, distilled into a single image. Think of the ridiculously exaggerated facial expression of the distracted boyfriend meme, or Hide The Pain Harold’s failed smile; these are stock photo models, just trying their best to pose, blissfully unaware of how they would be received.
And the original, nightmare-inducing Sonic design perfectly hit that note of unintentional hilarity; indeed, that first trailer for Sonic The Hedgehog, featuring a malformed creature speeding along to “Gangsta’s Paradise,” was a masterpiece in misjudgement.
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Despite decades of Sonic fandom, someone in a position of authority genuinely believed that Sonic needed a drastic redesign, that he needed to look more “realistic,” lest kids these days, with their iPads and Fornite dances, would be alienated by his cartoonish proportions.
But to Paramount’s credit, after seeing their redesign relentlessly mocked, decided to listen to the fans and revert Sonic back to his adorable, original self. Responding to the demographic who actually wants to watch the movie is a good strategy, and that heightened visibility, along with a willingness to accept criticism, seems to have worked in their favor.
Thus, Sonic The Hedgehog enjoyed a three-day opening weekend of $68 million, the best showing ever for a movie based on a video game, even outshining Detective Pikachu, whose Pokemon designs were faithful to the source material.
Now, Sonic The Hedgehog isn’t a great movie – it’s mediocre, at best – but the fact that the film was subject to months of meme mockery, before countering that negativity with a well-received redesign, meant that the film essentially received a free marketing campaign, an organic, self-sustaining operation that spread the word throughout the web, beyond the reach of traditional media.
Sonic The Hedgehog was a colossal misjudgment that morphed into a victory, and it’s entirely down to Paramount’s decision to invest time and money into fixing their mistake. In fact, after the redesigned, cutesy Sonic was unveiled to the public, the memes continued, albeit with a different punchline.
Memes began to take on a more positive tone, celebrating Sonic’s transformation, highlighting the fact that the studio had fixed their dreadful error, while maintaining the film’s cultural relevance and visibility.
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Amusingly, a franchise like Sonic, whose loyal fanbase have stuck around, despite the fact that the games and associated media have produced more failures than hits, aren’t difficult to please; a tiny bit of research would have shown that Sonic fans very much like him the way he is.
Perhaps that initial misunderstanding of the source material drastically lowered the expectations of the audience, prompting them to respond to the film far more positively than they would otherwise; as a result, Sonic The Hedgehog is in the fortunate position of just needing to be “ok,” due to the fans expecting an unwatchable disaster.
After all, watching Sonic hang out with James Marsden, earnestly discussing Olive Garden, isn’t nearly as enticing as the thought of a smoothly-rendered Sonic and co racing through the serene, surreal landscape of the video games.
But it’s certainly better than the flaming wreckage promised by that woefully misguided Gangsta’s Paradise trailer; I’m just disappointed that we never got to see the film’s original, and assumedly hideous, rendering of Tails.
Although, the memes provided a taste of what could have been …
