With a new Sonic the Hedgehog movie coming up soon, it's only natural (and even expected) that it will be filled with tons of references and callbacks. It's a video game movie, after all. It's basically a feature-length callback by its very nature. A Sonic movie that had nothing to do with the games it's based on would be like a Catwoman movie that changed the main character's name, background, and origin story entirely. Oh, sorry. Still too soon?
But the folks behind Sonic the Hedgehog 2 seem fully aware of what fans want, and what they want is Easter eggs galore (and probably a good movie or something). Director Jeff Fowler has apparently taken that vibe to heart with the sequel's production, making sure to create a film that scratches the nostalgia itch while also shooting for a worthy successor to the original 2020 smash hit. Plus, it looks like at least some of Sonic the Hedgehog 2's main cast has that same drive.
IGN's Narz recently spoke with Fowler and a handful of Sonic 2's stars about just such a subject, and it turns out there were some specific designs and set pieces the director wanted to pull into the movie. "Oh yeah, all kinds," Fowler said when asked about these callbacks, "and one of them was in the trailer of course. The biplane, the tornado, is such an iconic visual from Sonic 2. And so, as we were sort of setting out to plot Sonic 2, I think we all got really excited about pulling that great imagery that all the fans are going to get excited about when they see it on the big screen, and just creating a real cinematic version of the stuff that fans have loved from Sonic 1, from Sonic 2. It's a great problem to have, that there's so many great Easter eggs to incorporate, and this movie is chock-full of them."
The stars of Sonic 2 also got their time to shine, with Ben Schwartz (Sonic) telling the tale of how he got cast in the role and James Marsden (Tom) attempting to describe the relationship between his character and Sonic, saying, "Sonic family now." Colleen O'Shaughnessey also spoke about her time voicing Tails over the years and how it feels playing him for so long in the games and now a blockbuster movie. "He's this little piece of me that I can just pick him up and off we go," she said, fondly musing on her connection to the character.
But perhaps the biggest surprises came from pre-recorded segments featuring Idris Elba (Knuckles) and Jim Carrey (Dr. Robotnik) answering fan questions. "The personal touches that I try to bring is, I guess, a sense of humor," Elba said when asked how he made the role of Knuckles his own. "In the recording of my character, I would just bring some oddities to him in his personality... There's one scene, I can't tell you too much about it, but he talks about ice cream, and he talks about ice cream pretty seriously." Meanwhile, Carrey answered a question asking how Dr. Robotnik compares to his past characters. "I think Robotnik is the perfect fit for me," he said in an extremely Carrey manner, "because I am a master of playing people who are filled with self-loathing, and who compensate for it with a veneer of total confidence, and even an air of superiority."
Carrey then went on to perform an impromptu monologue, complete with dramatic music backing him, because it wouldn't be Carrey if he didn't go above and beyond for something that everybody else basically recorded on a whim with their laptop webcams. So if viewers got nothing else out of this interview, they can at least go home knowing Dr. Robotnik is still in perfectly capable hands, and his flair for the dramatic is as intact as ever.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 will release in theaters on April 8th, 2022.
Source: IGN/YouTube
