Top 10 Biggest Easter Eggs in the Sonic Movie

The Sonic Franchise is notorious for having a dedicated fanbase that produces a LOT of fanart, some of which have actually been featured in Sonic Titles. These pieces can range from amazing masterpieces, to WTF city, to GET ME ON A SPACE SHUTTLE TO MARS Territory. But one of the most infamous pieces which became a meme, was spawned from this video by 0nyxheart, which was designed to intentionally mock the bad fanart. Nevertheless, this very drawing does show up within the film as drawn by the Green Hill’s local conspiracy theorist “Crazy Carl”, who thinks Sonic is some sort of devil. Well let’s just say he wasn’t too far off the mark … originally anyways.

In the climactic battle against Dr. Eggman, Sonic attempts to use his rings to teleport around the Earth to try and lose him. When he realizes that it’s not working, Sonic goes on the offensive and creates a tornado to whip up a sandstorm. No this isn’t a six degree reference to the biplane that Tails flies. It’s actually a reference to two things. Team Sonic’s Blue Tornado attack from “Sonic Heroes” given that he does similar moves, and his Whirlwind attack from “Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood”

Even if you’ve only played a few seconds of any classic Sonic game, you’ll still know that Sonic’s health is related to how many rings he has on him. When Sonic gets hit, he loses any rings he carries, and has to scramble to pick them up afterwards least he gets his with no rings at all. In the movie, Sonic gets seriously injured a few times, while not carrying any rings, and looks like he might die. During one action scene in San Francisco however, he gets hurt but because he is carrying rings, he drops them, but is overall ok. He proceeds to pick up all his dropped rings before moving on.

In the film, Sonic hides out in a cave where he’s collected and, presumably stolen odd nicknacks, toys and collectibles. Once discovered, Sonic frantically begins packing up his things, which he called ‘essentials’, that include an oversized red cowboy hat. This hat is a reference to Sonic’s red rival, Knuckles who wears a cowboy hat in 1996’s Sonic OVA, also unoriginally titled Sonic the Hedgehog. The cowboy hat shows up a few more times throughout the movie, and makes its way to Sonic’s new home at the end.

Ah the 90’s, when Cartoon shows were at their peak in terms of classic cheese and family-friendly values. Sonic’s 1993 cartoon “Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog”, like many other cartoon shows at the time, concluded with a stand-alone segment meant to teach kids a valuable life lesson. Sonic and Tails would teach kids the value of sharing, not to bully other kids, etc… A segment about inappropriate touching went particularly viral among kids because of the way Sonic delivers the line “that's no good!”. This classic piece of Sonic history is referenced in the 2020 film when Sonic tries and fails to reach the top of the Transamerica Pyramid and delivers the line “no good” in the exact same tone as the cartoon.

Obviously Sonic’s home is a treasure trove of hidden secrets, the highway sign he uses as a ping pong table is a reference to Hilltop Zone from “Sonic 2” and a headband that has the Sonic Emblem. But what you may not know is how this cave ties back to the Sonic The Hedgehog Archie comics. In that series, Sonic and his friends were part of the Freedom Fighters group, and established what they called “Freedom HQ” inside an old limestone cave. Despite being a cave, the hideout was pretty cozy, with the gang able to set up a video game console in there. Yeah it’s another stretch, but come on. The film took out Sonic’s victory dance and replaced it with a Fortnite dance, we’ll take any opportunity we can get.

We heard this line in the original trailer, where Sonic is gearing up to run as fast as he can down a freeway. But since that scene doesn’t appear in the final film, that line was moved elsewhere in the film. So it now appears when Maddie uses some smelling salts to wake him up, upon which he exclaims “Gotta Go Fast”, an obvious nod to the “Sonic X” Anime’s opening theme song. And … yeah that’s pretty much it … not much making a song and dance over. Like most of this list huh? But the next 3 entries do have more meat, so ... hurray Sonic is saved!

Using the power of the rings, Sonic jumps around between different locations on Earth and other planets across the galaxy. The movie of course opens in the most iconic location, Green Hill Zone. The town where much of the movie takes place is called Green Hills, which isn’t a reference to Green Hill Zone, but it’s actually the name of a level in the Game Gear version of Sonic The Hedgehog 2. Sonic also goes to San Francisco, and when he leaves, the last shot we see of that city is a perfect replica of City Escape, from Sonic Adventure 2. Throughout the movie the characters talk about a Mushroom planet, which is a reference to the level Mushroom Hill Zone, and Sonic also briefly visits the Great Wall of China and the Pyramids of Egypt, both are levels in Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Adventure 2 respectively.

The movie opens with Baby Sonic recklessly speeding through his home planet which suspiciously looks exactly like Green Hills Zone, loop-de-loops and all. His flashy actions expose his power and end up drawing unwanted attention. This attention comes in the form of tribal hunters and though the group is wearing masks, the silhouette of their eyes, the red hued fur, and their famously dreaded hair clearly identifies them as echidnas. Echidnas are a race of anthropomorphic warriors and their most well-known member is also one of the most popular members of the Sonic franchise, Knuckles. Does this mean we will see Knuckles follow Sonic to Earth and continue his tribe’s hunt?

It would have been really disappointing to not see tails in the first live action Sonic movie. Luckily the post credit scene had us covered! We get a great glimpse of the two-tailed fox, and even some dialogue that we are pretty sure is voiced by Tail’s current voice actor Colleen O'Shaughnessey! In the movie Tails is tracking Sonic across dimensions with some of his signature tech., and even spins up his tails’ and flies off on an adventure. This pretty much guarantees that if this movie gets a sequel Tail’s will be right alongside Sonic where he belongs!