While the In Sonic the Hedgehog 3's story, the blue hedgehog comes face to face with Keanu Reeves' powerful doppelgänger, Shadow the Hedgehog.

During a recent interview with Collider to discuss the newly released third movie, Pat Casey and Josh Miller were asked about the infamous Ugly Sonic design and how the release delay to change it impacted Sonic the Hedgehog. The former began by recalling that there were "no reshoots at all", noting that the live-action story remained the same, though the animated prologue did undergo some changes:

Pat Casey: There were no reshoots at all. All the live-action stuff remained exactly the same. So the story overall remained pretty much the same. We did come back in and retool some stuff, especially the very beginning of the movie.

Miller went on to express his gratitude that the movie received a several-month delay to address the design that allowed them the rare opportunity to develop the movie further, noting that many creative teams "never actually have as much time" as they wish, calling it an "interesting miracle" to get that extra time. Check out the rest of Miller's explanation below:

Josh Miller: Yeah, I was gonna say it wasn't even that changing the design necessitated retooling anything in the script. It was more that we got to, because on any movie, including the sequels, there's always a release date. And filmmakers, I'm sure, Jeff Fowler and Toby Ascher and everyone would say the same thing: You never actually have as much time as you wish you could have. But when they bumped back the release date a few months, just because they needed time to be able to re-render certain things, that just gave the whole production more time to keep retooling with the script. So, it's all things we probably would have done if the release date had already been in February of 2020 the whole time. So it was, it was kind of, actually, an interesting miracle, in a way, to get this extra time that you almost never get.

What Casey & Miller's Response Reveals About Sonic the Hedgehog's Drastic Production Rework

The Delay Helped Ensure A More Faithful Movie Adaptation

With Casey and Miller's new perspective on the Ugly Sonic redesign controversy, audiences have been given a greater insight into what the original Sonic movie could have been. While available footage from early promotion of the movie featuring scenes between Sonic and Tom is identical to what was seen in the final cut save for the titular character's look, the original teaser featured no glimpse of Sonic's life in his original world with Longclaw, or the original attack that sent him to Earth.

With no glimpse at the video-game-inspired world of the prologue in the original trailers, and both writers having described the movie as "not faithful" to any specific game, it is likely that Sonic the Hedgehog's now presumed lost original cut would have felt more removed from his video game origins. As such, the rework seen during the delay most likely saw the Echidnas and Longclaw added to the feature, or at the very least also retooled to look closer to the games.

Our Thoughts On The Sonic The Hedgehog Redesign Controversy's Legacy

Changing The Design Was Incredibly Beneficial To The Overall Franchise

It is no secret that the Ugly Sonic design is viewed as a colossal misstep not only by audiences, but also by creatives who helped shape the franchise into the success it was and the studio itself, with the trailer not only no longer available through official Paramount and Sega channels, but mocked within the franchise itself. Furthermore, the original movie and its sequel's successes have proven that the unprecedented last-minute redesign was the right move, as not only has the Sonic the Hedgehog movie trilogy been a box-office hit, but helped usher in a new golden age for the overall franchise.

With Sonic the Hedgehog 4 on the horizon, it is certain few people save for the morbidly curious will have any interest in wondering what could have been had an ultra-realistic blue anthropomorphized Sonic had led the franchise. But for those interested in the likely deeply buried original Sonic the Hedgehog cut, it is clear that the movie may have been closer to what viewers would eventually see.

Source: Collider