Sonic the Hedgehog 2 almost included a macabre Big the Cat cameo

I’ll admit, “macabre” isn’t the first word that comes to mind when I think of Sonic ally Big the Cat, but I don’t know how else to describe the purple feline’s unused cameo in the second Sonic the Hedgehog movie as relayed to IGN by trilogy writers Pat Casey and Josh Miller.

During the Siberia sequence in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, one draft included a riff on Raiders of the Lost Ark, specifically the moment from the opening where Indiana Jones springs a trap and reveals the corpse of a rival adventurer. Only, instead of a human body, Sonic would have been confronted by the skeleton of a cat. A big cat.

Here’s the entire conversation:

Casey: “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. 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: “Not necessarily the Big the Cat.”

Casey: “But we ended up cutting it. It didn’t make any sense.”

All three Sonic movies have done a good job of organically introducing new characters from the video games, from sidekick Tails to friendly rival Knuckles and anti-hero Shadow. While the latest installment’s post-credits scene already revealed where the movies plan to go next, that doesn’t prevent Big the Cat from popping his head in for an extended fishing sequence.

And hey, a Big the Cat cameo should be even easier now that the writers don’t have to explain Sonic coming face-to-face with what may or may not have been his gross, rotting carcass in a previous movie. Win-win!