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Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) - Easter Eggs
Rory Joscelyne • 17 August 2024
VGMP: DO NOT WATCH THIS TRASH
Blue Streak, speeds by...
Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) is Hollywood's first big blockbuster attempt to bring Sonic to the big screen. A much more popular effort than the 1996 anime movie, this one sees Sonic come into the "real world", but that doesn't mean that it isn't jam-packed full of Easter Eggs.
And some of them are references to other Sega franchises.
PARAMOUNT RINGS
Starting off the movie with a bit of fun, the usual stars that surround the Paramount logo are replaced with Sonic rings.
BETA SONIC
Before getting into the main movie, I thought I'd highlight some interesting tidbits from the deleted/alternate scenes. There was a rumour that the final Sonic design was always intended, and the grotesque and scary Sonic design in the initial teasers was faked to drum up attention. However in all the unfinished scenes, the Sonic model (while more basic) is a dead ringer for the original design. It's very unlikely they would have gone to this level of effort to fake outrage. The deleted/alternate scenes essentially prove the original design was intended for the final film before the backlash saw them change it.
BETA COMPARISONS
Just for a bit of interesting VFX stuff, here are shots from the deleted/alternate scenes and their final versions as a direct comparison. While mostly the same, there are some fascinating changes.
BETA ECHIDNAS
The shots of the echidnas goes by so fast in the movie that it's often hard to discern their designs. Thought it might be interesting to see how basic the beta versions of the echidnas were in one of the alternate scenes.
CRAZY TAXI
In a deleted scene, the crazy man sets up traps laced with batteries to try and attract and capture Sonic. His caravan has the numberplate 1-NOM155, a direct reference to Axel's cab in Crazy Taxi.
SANIC
In another deleted scene, the crazy guy goes into the local bar and tries to tell Donut Lord about the blue devil. He draws a picture of the beast and shows it to him. This drawing happens to be an infamous fanart known as Sanic in an absurd but fun reference to Sonic fandom.
SEGA LOGO
The Sega company logo is a large-scale collage of footage from Sega titles and behind the scenes videos. From top-to-bottom, left-to-right;
LINE 1:
Yakuza 0, Virtua Striker 3?, Golden Axe, Super Monkey Ball, unknown, Virtua Striker 3?, Gunstar Heroes, Columns, unknown,
Shining Resonance Refrain, Altered Beast, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Space Channel 5
LINE 2: Yakuza 0, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, unknown sonic, Die Hard Arcade/Dynamite Deka, unknown, Shenmue, Sakura Wars, Altered Beast, unknown,
Skies of Arcadia, Puyo Puyo, Puyo Puyo, unknown
LINE 3: unknown, unknown sonic, Virtua Cop 3, Streets of Rage 2, Puyo Puyo, unknown, Virtua Fighter, unknown, Nights, Sega Saturn BIOS,
Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Virtua Fighter 2, unknown
LINE 4: Space Channel 5, Shining Resonance Refrain, unknown stage, unknown, unknown, Space Harrier, unknown sonic, Golden Axe, Roommania #203,
Sega Bass Fishing, unknown, Streets of Rage 2, Jet Set Radio
LINE 5: Shining Resonance Refrain, Space Channel 5 Part 2, unknown, unknown, Samba de Amigo, Jet Set Radio, Space Channel 5, Virtua Racing, unknown,
Fantasy Zone, Sakura Wars, unknown phantasy star, unknown
LINE 6: Guardian Heroes, Gunstar Heroes, Space Harrier, Dreamcast BIOS, Outrun, unknown, Panzer Dragoon, Shining Force, unknown, unknown,
unknown, unknown, unknown
LINE 7: unknown, Puyo Pop, Puyo Pop, Virtua Fighter, Alex Kidd in Miracle World, Nights, Puyo Pop, Revenge of Shinobi, unknown, Phantasy Star II,
Jet Set Radio, unknown, unknown
GREEN HILLS
A very obvious reference. The town that Sonic arrives in on Earth is called Green Hills. See our Knuckles Easter Eggs to see Ice Cap given a location on Earth too!
SONIC 2 SWEATBAND
Sonic's sweatband during his nunchuk swinging has the Sonic the Hedgehog logo adorning it. A cute and easily missable reference.
HILL TOP ROAD
As shown before, this takes place largely in Green Hills. The Knuckles series has Ice Cap as a location, too. Here we see that Hill Top (a level from Sonic 2) is also referenced.
SONIC'S MAP
Sonic's map is also laced with Easter Eggs. The topmost world is an early design drawing of the Sega Saturn logo. The checkerboard world is a clear reference to Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles' special stages. The Master Emerald is in the bottom-right. There's a bumper at the bottom, and Mushroom Hill is clearly the inspiration behind the mushroom planet. I recognise the sun design, but I can't recall where from. The design of the island in the centre of the map is the South Island map from Sonic the Hedgehog 1 on the Master System.
ROBOTNIK'S PLAYLISTS
Dr Robotnik plays music as he does research, and selects from various playlists. These are often in-jokes themselves. They are as follows;
CRUSH 40: This is the rock band of Jun Senoue and Johnny Gioeli, they made the theme tunes for most Sonic games since Sonic Adventure.
OBSCURE 1970'S CANADIAN JAMS: Jim Carrey (Robotnik) is a Canadian actor.
HEAVY METAL BOMBING OVER BABYLON
DINNER FOR ONE
TUNES OF ANARCHY
ROBOTNIK RHYTHMS
EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD
TYRANNY
SOULFUL CHAMBER MUSIC OF OPPRESSION
BADNIKS
When the power goes out in Eggman's mobile lab, the breaker switch includes a switch for Badniks - the traditional enemies Robotnik made in the game series.
SONIC'S SHOES
A fairly obvious one, but the shoes given to Sonic by Donut Lord's niece are an adaptation of Sonic's iconic game sneakers.
SONIC'S BED
At the end, when Donut Lord moves Sonic into his attic, he has a sports car bed. This is very reminiscent of his sports car bed from the Archie comics. See our Knuckles Easter Eggs list to see how they adapted Tails and Knuckles' beds.
FERRARI F40
Sonic's bedside table has a Ferrari F40 decor. I'm fairly certain this image is actually a promotional render from Outrun 2, but I was unable to locate the exact image. However the F40 was the promotional car for all Outrun 2 artworks.
PIXEL ART CREDITS
The end credits start with this cool retro-style pixel art animatic. This references and includes several elements from the games.
TAILS' DEVICE
This may not be an exact reference, however Tails' tracker has a similar design/colour-scheme to the one Tails uses during Sonic Colors etc.
SONIC'S HIDEOUT TRUCK
This one is a mystery to try and solve. Knowing that the crazy guy's caravan has Axel's 1NOM155 numberplate from Crazy Taxi, I was fairly sure that the front-bumper of the truck inside Sonic's hideout (at the start of the film) includes a reference to Crazy Taxi too, however it doesn't match a numberplate for any driver from the first Crazy Taxi title.
Sadly there's no close-up on this, I've tried to clear the image up as much as possible. It looks a bit like MND4-SPD, which could be interpreted as Mind For Speed, but I have yet to find a Crazy Taxi or otherwise numberplate that matches. Please let us know if you know what this is referencing.
That's everything I could find in Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)!
We hope you've enjoyed this group of Easter Eggs, and please join our Discord to let us know if there's anything we missed!
First things first - DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE. Kung-Fu Master may have the licence for the game, and it may include a few scenes at Arcades, but the story is nothing to do with gaming - and the story it represents is a literal crime. A vile, vile crime. With that out of the way, there are some interesting arcade machines visible throughout this film - all of which are here. So you have been saved from having to watch this vile garbage - and saving you the criminal act of watching it.
We look into all the Easter Eggs in the Paramount+ series of Knuckles (2024)
Also known as Sonic the Movie, the Japanese OVA was actually a run at a possible series that never materialised, instead leaving us with two episodes hastily stitched into a "feature". And boy, did they push taste and decency for some of this. Other than Robotnik chasing underage skirt, it's largely inoffensive. But unfortunately that story angle wound up kick-starting a long running VGMP joke of Sonic adaptations having to reference breast milk (which the 2020 Sonic movie also references).
I love The Wizard. It's so bad. The first major disagreement between Rory and Jamie in VGMP, Rory fully recommended The Wizard as a movie, whereas Jamie fully rejected it. It's not hard to see why this movie caused such a rift of opinion - it genuinely tries to be a deeper and emotional story, but it's still a Nintendo marketing product (and an out of date one, at that). One thing The Wizard does have, is a lot of videogame references.
The House of the Dead movie brings together two major events in film. It's the first foray by Uwe Boll into video game adaptations - the start of a terrible career. And it was the last ever movie to use the turn-table technique for 360 degree shots, as it was too dangerous to keep using - much like allowing Uwe Boll to have a film career. This film doesn't have many proper references, instead lazily throwing in random micro-shorts from the first three House of the Dead games (in no particular order, for some reason).
The first appearance of Jon Gries in a video game culture movie, and he would return in Noobz (2012) to steal yet another movie. Joysticks is an awful comedy movie, attempting to cash in on cheap teen humour of the time with a big dose of objectifying women. But to it's credit, it does showcase a lot of great arcade cabinets from 1983, and all in fantastic condition too! These screengrabs are ripped from the limited-run Blu-Ray release of the movie, which represents the best this film has ever looked. However this was a relatively low budget feature of it's time, so don't expect prestine visuals.
Tron is an undisputed 1982 classic that had a major impact on 80's culture and gaming aesthetics as a whole. And yet, when we reviewed it, it turns out the movie itself is a big bag of style over substance. The main videogame the movie revolves around is Space Paranoids, and it is not a real game. Several videogames were later made of Tron, but none of those appear in this movie.
The Controller / Video Game Earth Force, is a terrible film from 2006 with graphics that make the PS1 look like Advent Children. Starring Bob Rue as William Fence, this film has become infamous within VGMP as it is the film that nearly caused Jamie to leave the show.
Gamebox 1.0 is an odd 2004 movie starring the guy who played Harvey in Sabrina the Teenage Witch. You could technically call it a dramatic horror, if any of it was dramatic or a horror. As you can see from the shot above, the details were so vital to this film that there's a guy at "work" just staring at a blank screen. Regardless of the low budget nature of the film, there are still a surprising number of references hidden in this movie.
Noobz is an attempt to create an edgy comedy akin to Adam Sandler in his prime. Sadly it lacks the comedic timing, the writing and the production values to pull off such a feat. In the screenshot above you can see the pathetic attempt to add sex appeal to a movie by hastily taking a pair of scissors to the poor actress' tanktop. It's not even a clean line! Released for a limited blu-ray run in Germany (of all places), Noobz still somehow manages to pack in references from (and sponsorship by) the following video game (and video game related) companies; CBS Interactive Microsoft Corporation Epic Games Inc Triforce Sales LLC Apple Inc GAEMS CompuExpert Game Informer Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc Play N Trade Majesco Entertainment Company Square Enix Penny Arcade Lucasfilm Ltd Digital Interactive Systems Corp. Konami Midway Mortal Kombat Warner Bros Entertainment Inc Final Fantasy Tomb Raider Let's go through all the references shown visually in Noobz!
