- Actor-Inspired Element: In the first movie, Agent Stone was nothing more than a yes man to Dr. Eggman,note but the chemistry between Lee Majdoub and Jim Carrey and the latte scene ad-libbed by the two (and Jim's assistant, Nicole) led to many fans, and Majdoub himself, heavily shipping the two together (or at least from Stone's side). This shows up in the second film with Majdoub bringing in and all but stating his attraction to the bad doctor.
- Billing Displacement:
- Adam Pally (Officer Wade) and Shemar Moore (Randall) have higher billing than Colleen O'Shaughnessey (Tails) and Lee Majdoub (Agent Stone) despite the latter two having more plot-relevant roles.
- An initial version of the main poster for the film has James Marsden (Tom), Ben Schwartz (Sonic), Jim Carrey (Robotnik) and Idris Elba (Knuckles) billed on the top, completely omitting Colleen Villard (Tails). The poster was later re-released with Villard and Tika Sumpter billed as well.
- Celebrity Voice Actor:
- Idris Elba voices Knuckles, while Ben Schwartz returns as Sonic.
- In Japan, Korone Inugami is part of the official dub voice cast
.
- Completely Different Title: In Japan, the film is titled Sonic the Movie: Sonic vs. Knuckles.
- Content Leak:
- On-set photos back in April 2021 showed a Knuckles stand-in dummy alongside Sonic and Tails, unofficially confirming his appearance in the sequel. The photos also contained military vehicles bearing the Guardian Units of Nations logo, confirming their involvement as well.
- A synopsis given as part of a U.S. copyright registration in early 2021 outlined the film's plot months before the first trailer debuted.
- Deleted Role: Director Jeff Fowler made a cameo as a News Reporter in one of the deleted scenes of the movie.
- Deleted Scene: A scene was deleted where Stone tells Robotnik that the government had frozen all of his funding, prompting Robotnik to steal the crowdfunding account of a man in a full-body cast trying to pay his hospital bills, Robotnik poorly pasting a cut-out of his face onto the photo. The page had made exactly 0 out of the $1,000,000 needed, only for money to come flooding in after Robotnik commandeers it.
- Demand Overload: Much of the merchandise based off the film (such as the plushes and figurines by Jakks Pacific and the sneaker replicas by Fila), were quickly sold out in online stores within minutes of being released.
- DVD Commentary: Once again, director Jeff Fowler and actor Ben Schwartz provided commentary for the movie.
- Early Draft Tie-In: The snowboard that comes with Jakks Pacific's Sonic figure is an unused design that was taken from concept art for the film.
- Hey, It's That Sound!: When Sonic is seen drowning in the Labyrinth Zone, fans can briefly hear the drowning melody from the classic games.
- Kids' Meal Toy: McDonald's released a line of pull-back figures of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, the Giant Eggman Robot, and Super Sonic in their Happy Meals as a tie-in with the film.
- Late Export for You: The movie was released in Japan on August 19, 2022, four and a half months later than the rest of the world.
- Meaningful Release Date: The sequel was released in 2022, 30 years after Tails' debut in the identically-titled Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Appropriately, one movie poster◊ was produced as a send-up to the original box art◊ for the overseas versions of Sonic 2.
- Missing Trailer Scene: A downplayed example; the scene Robotnik says "Papa's got a brand new stache" has a different take in the final film from what's shown in the trailers.
- Orphaned Reference: As Robotnik was drinking his coffee in Stone’s shop he mentions that it could use some mushroom. This was meant to reference how in a deleted scene Robotnik got his inspiration from Magic Mushroom and not just being used to the yeast of mushrooms in the final film.
- The Other Darrin:
- Subaru Kimura replaces Nobutoshi Canna as Knuckles' voice in the Japanese dub.
- The Brazilian Portuguese dub has Ronaldo Júlio (one of Idris Elba's official Brazilian voices) as Knuckles instead of Leonardo Serrano.
- In the Canadian French dub of the first movie, Tails was voiced by Sébastien Reding, who also directed that dub. In this sequel, while Reding once again directed its Canadian French dub, Tails is instead voiced by Marie-Ève Sansfaçon. Also, Commander Walters is voiced here by Jacques Lavallée. In the first movie, he was instead voiced by Marc Bellier.
- Playing with Character Type: Shemar Moore's most recent big roles at the time of the film's release were law enforcement characters in shows such as Criminal Minds and S.W.A.T. (2017). It's the same thing here, except this time it's presented as a plot twist due to him only romancing Rachel to get close to Sonic. This makes his character a more antagonistic take on his signature roles.
- Promoted Fanboy:
- Idris Elba grew up with the Sega Genesis and has called himself a gamer, so he is pretty much familiar with the Sonic franchise and was very excited to play Knuckles.
- In the Brazilian dub, Vii Zedek played the role of Tails, having been a fan of the franchise and character and done a couple of fandubs long before becoming a professional voice actress and landing the role.
- For the Russian dub (which hasn't been released in Russia proper as noted below), Dmitry "Sienduk" Karpov is a lifelong fan of Sonic franchise and has a good amount of voice acting credit to boot, so he landed the role of Sonic for this film. *
- Prop Recycling: The model for Shadow used in the stinger is an edited version of Sonic's.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: Robotnik's ambiguous fate reflected the uncertainty of Jim Carrey's return for a third installment, due to his potential retirement after this film's release. He ultimately decided to reprise his role.
- Refitted for Sequel:
- A gag originally planned for the first movie had Robotnik own a coffee machine referred to as the "Mean Bean Machine", but it was dropped before filming. Here, Agent Stone is the barista for a coffee shop called The Mean Bean Coffee Co., an allusion to that name.
- The Chaos Emeralds were originally going to play a role in the first movie, which would even have featured Super Sonic, but they were cut to focus on Sonic's character arc. Here, we see that Robotnik has his sights on the Master Emerald and its incredible power. After it breaks apart into its constituent Chaos Emeralds, Sonic uses them to transform into Super Sonic.
- Tails and Knuckles were originally planned to have major roles for the first film, but this was largely thrown by the wayside to focus on Sonic and Robotnik (though Tails makes a brief appearance in The Stinger). Here, both Tails and Knuckles appear and are major players in the plot.
- Release Date Change: In March 2022, Paramount Pictures joined an economic boycott of Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine, leading to all Paramount films, including Sonic the Hedgehog 2, being delayed for release there indefinitely.
- Renewed Before Premiere: Both a third film and a spin-off series about Knuckles were confirmed a few months before the movie was released.
- Role Reprise: In the Italian dub, Maurizio Merluzzo once again reprise his role from the games as Knuckles.
- Shrug of God: Pat Casey has stated in this podcast (at the 18:09 mark) that he's unsure as to whether Tails comes from the same planet as Sonic and Knuckles do, along with whether he or Knuckles live with the Wachowskis at the end of the movie.
- So My Kids Can Watch: Besides being a promoted fanboy, Elba also wanted to show the movie to his then seven-year-old child, mostly because he wouldn't be able to see most of his movies because they're R-rated.
- Spoiled by the Merchandise:
- One of the pull-back figures featured in the McDonald's Happy Meal toy line is of Super Sonic.
- Jakks-Pacific released a playset of the Giant Eggman Robot battle. Said playset includes a figure of Super Sonic, which was even advertised in the commercial.
- What Could Have Been:
- Jason Momoa, Dwayne Johnson and John Cena were considered to voice Knuckles before the casting of Idris Elba.
- In an April 2020 interview promoting the first film on Fandom, Jim Carrey mentioned wanting to wear a fat suit in this film to better capture his likeness in the games. The idea never came to fruition, and Robotnik remains skinny in the film. However, the concept was not entirely scrapped, as Agent Stone is looking through a catalogue of outfits for Robotnik around 3/4 of the way through the film, one of which is the familiar rotund red, yellow, and black outfit fans know him for. This would be revisited for the sequel according to the CinemaCon footage, with Jim Carrey finally donning the fat suit to fully become Eggman proper appearance-wise from the games.
- Concept art for the film showcases a few differences from the final film, such as a more game-accurate outfit for Dr. Robotnik, the Tornado having Sonic's name on it (as opposed to 761 as in the final film) and a rocket underneath it (akin to the Tornado in the classic games), an unused snowboard design, and Sonic and Tails being joined by the military in the aerial plane fight against the Death Egg Robot.
- Idris Elba initially wanted to give Knuckles a squeaky American voice, mostly for humorous purposes, but he was immediately shut down.
- Working Title: This film had the production title of Emerald Hill, named for the Emerald Hill Zone from Sonic the Hedgehog 2, similar to how the first movie had the working title of Casino Night, named after a Zone in the same game.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Trivia/SonicTheHedgehog22022
FollowingTrivia / Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022)
Go To
