What We Want To See In Sonic The Hedgehog 2
Is it presumptuous to make a list of this nature when we haven’t seen a trailer for the sequel? Well yes, but you gotta go fast when you’re talking about Sonic. Here are five things I want to see in Sonic the Hedgehog 2!
The production of Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) was nothing short of complicated. It was infamously teased out to the world and the internet did what the internet does. The film was brought back into production, the release date pushed back, and the VFX was redone to be more akin to the original character. Our thoughts go out to every VFX artist who had to work overtime for a blue hedgehog.
Before I had access to the internet, I was a proud Sonic the Hedgehog fan. I still am a fan of the speedy blue needle mouse but only admit to it around people I trust, lest I get compared to the other more infamous fans of the blue hedgehog who has gathered after the ’90s. So obviously in a clever disguise, I went out to see the Sonic the Hedgehog movie and that happened to be the last film I saw in theaters since COVID.
I didn’t go in with high expectations and I left the theater thinking, “Yeah, I’d show that movie to the kids I’m never going to have”. A sequel titled Sonic The Hedgehog 2 has been announced for April of 2022, so I thought I’d hop on the bandwagon and talk about five things I’d like to see in this next adventure of the fastest thing alive.
Knuckles
If you were a good little marvel fan, you stayed for the after-credit scene in the first Sonic movie which promised Tails. Sonic has a lot of other friends from the games because the rule is that thirty-four artists would get bored otherwise. Echidna warriors are shown near the beginning of the first movie, that’s Mobian echidnas, not your normal dreadlock deficient Earth echidnas mind you. With these characters being shown why not bring in Knuckles?
Knuckles was a villain when he first appeared in Sonic 3 back on the Sega Genesis and it would shake up the action to have more than just Eggman’s robots for Sonic to fight. It can have Eggman returning from the mushroom dimension before Christmas, as he promised in the first film, and along his travels, through the Multiverse, he comes across Knuckles. Knuckles in the games have been shown to be a pretty gullible guy and have fallen for Eggman’s tricks in the past. With Tails coming in to give Sonic his sidekick, it would only make sense for the villains to team up before Knuckles flips sides and it turns into Sonic Heroes.
The Chaos Emeralds
Something that was missed in the first film was a complete lack of any mention of The Chaos Emeralds. The Chaos Emeralds are one of the most known parts of Sonic games to the point it’s considered rare to have a game where they don’t appear in some form, dating all the way back to Sonic the Hedgehog 2, the same game that introduced Tails.
The seven rainbow crystals allow Sonic to summon Shenron, I mean go Super Saiyan, I mean become Super Sonic something that seemed like it was about to happen in the final battle of the first movie but Sonic just used The Power of Friendship instead I guess. Sonic was already fast in the first film, but Super Sonic is supposed to be even faster and he can fly, which would at the very least stop the final battle from being too similar to the first film.
Incorporate the Different Worlds of Sonic
This is probably the biggest ask on this list, but it’s the one I’m hoping for most. We already have Sonic running super fast up and down normal walls and along the Great Wall. What I’m saying is I would want the movie to go back to Mobius, the world Sonic and Tails are from. Let’s see Sonic running through loops, underground tunnels, inside a building sized slot machine in some gambling themed Hellscape. You know, the kind of places that trigger the nostalgia in the audience watching.
The only trouble with this is that the whole first film went through the arc of Sonic finding his new home on Earth. On top of that having to fully develop and to animate the environments seems unlikely as it would be cheaper to just animate Sonic over footage with the human actors. Sonic’s main ability is his speed, so him running around is always going to be a big part of anything that features him. All I’m asking for is that the places we see Sonic running around in are dynamic and varied. Let’s see races through the rain forest and zoom on the moon.
Metal Sonic
Rivals have been part of action stories for as long as there have been stories to begin with. One of the oldest stories of all time is The Epic of Gilgamesh, in which our powerful warrior, King Gilgamesh, finds his equal and rival with the wild beast man Enkidu. Goku has Vegeta, Superman has General Zod, The Flash has Professor Zoom or Reverse Flash, and before it was Sonic and Shadow it was Sonic and Metal Sonic. Metal Sonic has been called Doctor Eggman’s perfect creation or his magnum opus, designed to do everything Sonic can do but better and under the doctor’s control.
Metal Sonic, just like Mechagodzilla, has a lot of love from their respective fandoms despite just being an evil robot version of the main character. Just like Mechagodzilla, Metal Sonic had enough clout to even be the main villain overshadowing his own creator in Sonic Heroes. The setup for Metal Sonic being in Sonic The Hedgehog 2 is perfect.
Eggman is defeated by Sonic, Eggman thinks what better to beat Sonic than another Sonic; fight fire with fire. Eggman has the means of replicating Sonic with the quill he had. There could be a gag where the heroes mock Eggman for his unoriginal idea but he ignores them and keeps saying he’s a genius
Crush 40 For The Soundtrack
Finally, as a Sonic fan this one is for pure fan service, but let’s get Crush 40 for the soundtrack. For the uncultured swine in the audience, Crush 40 is a band that has been featured in several Sonic games like the two Sonic Adventure games, the hilariously edgy Shadow the Hedgehog, and Sonic Generations.
Crush 40 isn’t a super well-known band outside the Sonic fandom, but in that group, they have a meme status and a cult following that unironically blasts “Live and Learn”. The first movie had a safe and inoffensive soundtrack, but at the same time made references to the bizarreness of the Sonic fandom with things like Sanic making a cameo. I think the sequel should knuckle down and just lean in hard to the weirdness of the fanbase and have Crush 40 do the entire soundtrack. It may not be the greatest soundtrack of all time, but I promise you there would be a surprising number of people listening to it.
Is it presumptuous to make a list of this nature when we haven’t seen a trailer for the sequel? Well yes, but you gotta go fast when you’re talking about Sonic. The Sonic franchise is weird and off-putting to some, but it holds a special place in my heart because of sheer nostalgia. I saw the first movie and I’ll admit it was fun to see Tails in the after-credit scene. When you leave sequel bait hanging like that it’s only natural that nerds like me are going to speculate.
