Speaking of that movie franchise, I would love to believe that the original ugly Sonic was an intentional thing they did just for that trailer to hype up the movie by spreading it because nothing spreads quicker online anymore than ridicule and hate online. But knowing that it’s Paramount, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if that was the actual design they were originally going with and thought it would fly.
Similarly I thought it was because they wanted to make it look like they were ready for release alongside detective Pikachu, but since they weren’t actually, needed to do something that could look like them being the good guy listening to fan backlash and putting off the movie for that and definitely not because it wasn’t finished.