The Five Nights At Freddy's Movie Finally Put A Bonnie Debate To Rest
In Emma Tammi's new horror film "Five Nights at Freddy's," based on the popular video game series, a night watchman (Josh Hutcherson) is stalked through a disused, 1980s pizza restaurant/arcade called Freddy Fazbear's by the restaurant's animatronic animal band. By the all-too-complex mythology of the film, taken from the games, the animatronics have been brought to life by the souls of missing children, kidnapped and murdered by an evil stalker in a yellow bunny costume. It's best not to delve too deeply into the "FNaF" canon, as it gets very complicated very quickly. Focus on the fact that people are being stalked and killed by robotic Chuck E. Cheese-style pizza mascots, and you'll be on surer footing.
The Freddy Fazbear's band consists of the bear Freddy (Kevin Foster), the chicken Chica (Jessica Weiss), the red fox Foxy (voiced by Kellen Goff), and the blue rabbit Bonnie (Jade Kindar-Martin). Kindar-Martin, in a making-of video, described Bonnie as being the most aggressive of the bunch, although each of them commits acts of violence in their own idiom.
The coloring of Bonnie, however, seems to have been something of a sticking point. The original "Five Nights at Freddy's" games, created by Scott Cawthon, also centered on Freddy, Chica, Foxy, and Bonnie, and the animatronics in the movie are made to look like the game's original designs. This meant that Robert Bennett the film's designer, had to consult with Cawthorn just to make sure all the details were correct. In a new interview with SFX Magazine, Bennet revealed a startling revelation about Bonnie that took him, and perhaps many fans of the games, by surprise. It seems that Bonnie is blue, and not purple as many have assumed.
Blue Bonnie
It was an easy mistake to make. Since so much of the original games take place at night (it's "Five Nights at Freddy's" not "Several Days"), Bonnie was always seen lurking in the shadows like Batman, rarely receiving any direct and prolonged light. As such, many people, including tie-in toy manufacturers, assumed that Bonnie was a shade of light, gentle violet or lavender. Bennett was as surprised as you were. He said:
"We had to figure out what the textures and colors were. Bonnie's interesting, because in all of the media that I was looking at when I was researching it, he's purple. When I did the original designs, I made Bonnie purple. Well, I didn't realize that Bonnie is blue. It had something to do with the lighting in the first game. When you look at the plushies, and all the toys, Bonnie's usually purple. But Scott [Cawthon] was the one that was like, 'No, he's blue.' So that was a lot of back and forth to get that nailed down correctly."
In the film, Bonnie is clearly colored a muted but friendly blue-grey. Bennet also reported that Cawthon gave his own personal thumbs-up to the monster designs. He added:
"Scott Cawthon, when he came down, he was there about a week before we started filming, and he was so grateful. 'This is exactly what I wanted them to look like. This is what I imagined they would look like.' It's Scott that you want to make happy, and I think the fact that he was so impressed with everything made the work worthwhile."
The "FNaF" movie was, for many, the first time one could see the monsters up close and personal. Given the film's success, the game's many fans were pleased with the results.
So who is the yellow rabbit?
So who is that yellow rabbit I mentioned earlier? Is that a variant of Bonnie? As it so happens, yes. The yellow bunny is a variant called Springtrap Bonnie. In the film and the games, the yellow rabbit and the blue rabbit are most assuredly different characters. Indeed, the true identity of the yellow rabbit is a matter of some mystery. The yellow rabbit, however, is not ever called Springtrap Bonnie in the movie. That name is derived from extended lore and other deep-cut information that only the most passionate "FNaF" fans may have access to.
And the fact that Cawthorn announced that Bonnie was indeed blue, and not purple, will likely not stoke the insistence by some fans that Bonnie is multi-colored, or at least has variants, throughout the "Five Nights at Freddy's" universe. A Twitter user and "FNaF" fan calling themselves Derpy_Horse4 pointed out in an extended thread that when using 3D texturing software, certain colors are made to look a certain way depending on an artificial light source. It also depends on the artificial texture of the object being lit, and how diffuse texture is different from specular texture. It's all very technical, but Derpy_Horse4 essentially backward-engineered the games to find Bonnie's source color, and found it to be purple, or "Mulled Wine." At the very least, Bonnie had a purple body and a blue head.
This small detail, however, is hardly a matter to be fought over. It's one of those fun, nitpicky details that is the bread and butter of fandom. Enjoy the debate, kids, and know that there is no one sure answer.