Summary
- Rouge the Bat was considered for all three Sonic films.
- For whatever reason, the writers have just never been able to make her work.
- Big the Cat almost made a cameo too… as a skeleton in the second movie.
Shadow just made his cinematic debut in Sonic the Hedgehog 3, as the film loosely adapts the story of Sonic Adventure 2. To make the story work in film, a fair amount of changes were made, including cutting the character of Rouge the Bat.
Now, it turns out that not only did Rouge almost make it into Sonic 3, but she could have been in the previous two films as well. Speaking to IGN, Sonic movie writers Pat Casey and Josh Miller revealed that they’ve successfully tried to get Rouge in the story for all three films.
Sonic The Hedgehog Films Almost Included Rouge And Big
Although fans might now have loved Big the Cat’s planned cameo…
The interview doesn’t elaborate on this, so it’s unclear why the pair have been unsuccessful thus far. However, it’s fair to say that she would have been an odd inclusion in the first film, which only featured Sonic until Tails made a brief cameo at the very end. The second one might have made a bit more sense since that’s when we got Knuckles.
The biggest missed opportunity would be the film that’s currently in cinemas. Both Shadow and Rouge were introduced in Sonic Adventure 2, so it would have made a lot of sense for her to appear in the most recent film. However, given the story that we did get, it’s hard to see where she could have been crammed in. Maybe next time?
Rouge isn’t the only character who’s been considered for the films, only not to make the cut. Casey and Miller almost put a Big the Cat in Sonic 2… kind of.
“In one draft of Sonic 2, we actually, when they’re going through the snowy mountains to the cave, we had a bit, because Sonic 2 was sort of an Indiana Jones,” says Casey. “Indiana Jones, it’s a trope that at some point a skeleton pops out at you and scares you. So we were going to do that, but with a skeleton of a, I would say, a Big the Cat, not necessarily-“
Miller then finishes off his train of thought: “Not necessarily the Big the Cat.”
So, another cat who had a similar build to Big the Cat would have been dead, but it wouldn’t have been the guy we all know from the games. It’s probably for the best this Easter Egg never made the cut, because we all would have definitely assumed Big was dead in this universe.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 continues the adventures of Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, and teases the introduction of Shadow the Hedgehog.