Hitherto expected to be overly "realistic" in a possibly-unwholesome way, reflecting both the official and unofficial internet life of Sega's "fallen" mascot, a leaked "style guide" from the forthcoming live-action Sonic the Hedgehog movie exposes the design as, well, not even that.
One popular comparison was to the mascot of a used car dealership, but I'm thinking dollar-store cereal brand. The imitative cheesiness hinted at in such comparisons is hard to tease out from the obvious cheapness, but it comes down to this: the artist(s) are unfamiliar with the squeeze and stretch of cartoon draughtsmanship and of the underlying anime conventions that inform Sonic's design.
Like westernized box art from old Japanese video games, there's a mismatch between the product and its marketing. With Style Guide Sonic, a conscious effort's being made to somehow reconcile the "authentic" design with the uncannily smooth, realistic animation puppetry that Hollywood thinks is popular, but the result is stiff and creepy.
Another shot (below) leaked thereafter, and it's not so bad.... perhaps an effort to show that things have moved on since the "style guide" and that the movie's not going to be quite so dire as it suggest. But it still isn't great and, yes, those are Nikes.
