X

Cats trailer drives Twitter insane and the memes are horrifying

Cats trailer surpasses Sonic as the most nightmarish trailer of 2019.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
See full bio
Gael Cooper
2 min read

The music from Cats, the Broadway musical-turned-movie, is critically acclaimed. But you try and put humans in cat suits, and fur sure, people are going to hiss and yowl about it.

The first trailer for the film came out Thursday, featuring such stars as Taylor Swift , Idris Elba and Judi Dench transformed into cats, complete with "digital fur."

Watch this: Trailer for Cats movie featuring Taylor Swift arrives

To be fair, it's an almost-impossible task to blend humans and animals and make them not look like something out of the Island of Doctor Moreau. Social media users found the combination a bit unnerving -- especially since the actors almost look naked in their feline get-ups. "Somehow the people in Cats look more nude than if they were actually nude, and it's weird as hell," wrote Gavia Baker-Whitelaw.

Some couldn't resist comparing the reaction to Cats to the recent response when Sonic the Hedgehog revealed its own movie character. The reaction was so negative that Sony went back to the drawing board to fix the character's appearance. "(I don't know), I think Taylor Swift looks good in the Cats trailer," wrote Josh Kurp on Twitter, sharing a picture of the creepy, human-toothed Sonic.

Yes, there were Doctor Moreau comparisons. Joked author Cethan Leahy, "The new The Island of Doctor Moreau trailer looks very creepy but I'm not sure about all the singing."

And the size of the cat-actors when combined with the sets seems off to some. "I own a very small cat," wrote Emily Heller on Twitter. "She does not look this tiny on my bed."

Cats opens Dec. 20 in the US and UK, with no release date for Australia yet.

Selfies, cats and so many uploads: Our love affair with sharing photos

+10 More
See all photos


Originally published 3:29 p.m.