One of the best scenes in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 was a pure Jim Carrey idea

The Sonic the Hedgehog movie series keeps getting bigger, bolder and better with each installment, and when post credits scene for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is any indication, Paramount has no intention of stopping. Honestly? It shouldn’t. As I noted in my review of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 this franchise might as well be Fast and Furious for kids and millennials who grew up playing the original Sonic video games. If the creative team behind these movies want to keep going for years to come, we need to step back and let it happen.

Now the Sonic Cinematic Universe has Incorporated Tails (My Favorite Boy)Knuckles and Shadow, these movies move further and further away from the living world of Green Hills, Montana, into the otherworldly lands depicted in the Sonic video games (Note: At the time of publication, there are approximately 150 Sonic the Hedgehog games.). Without a doubt, the most important person in the series is Jim Carrey’s hilarious portrayal of Dr. Yves Robotnik, also known as Dr. Eggman. A role he played in the first film and almost never returned to in Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Luckily, he not only returned to play the part, but also pulled double duty playing Yves and his grandfather Gerald.

In one of the film’s best scenes, Iva and Gerald prepare to break into a secret area blocked off by a laser security net. But realizing that the special suits that Ivo has invented are completely impervious to lasers, Ivo and Gerald make the best of their journey down the corridor with an elaborate dance sequence. It’s hard enough for a production to pull off a dance sequence effectively, but it’s quite another to have two dancing people played by the same actor and laser beams bouncing off them with every move. But according to director Jeff Fowler, the dance line, right down to the song choice, was Carrey’s idea.

Fowler talked about the scene from A polygonnoting that the dance was a way to come full circle from the first film, and something Carrey really wanted as part of his return to the franchise. As he explained:

“In our first conversations, that was one of Jim’s requests. In the first one (the Sonic the Hedgehog movie), there’s a moment where Robotnik is in his lab and thinks he’s alone. He puts on some music (Poppy’s ‘Where Evil Grows’) and he just starts dancing. He’s having a little dance party and then he’s interrupted by (his assistant) Stone. And so of course Jim wanted to dance again, we had to not just make him dance, we had to go big and really do it.

Go big they did. The dance sequence sounds like something Carey would have pulled off in his 1990s heyday; it’s an explosion of physical comedy, contortions and giving yourself a little more than anyone might expect. Also, Carey came up with the two Robotniks dancing to The Chemical Brothers’ “Galvanize,” which includes the phrase “Don’t Hold Back” on repeat, making it a perfect inclusion. To make everything work, the film crew “Sonic” attracted choreographers and a dance team. “Of course, Jim wanted to do everything he could, but there was no way to do everything, especially since he’s dancing with himself,” Fowler noted. “So there always has to be another person dancing with him who then becomes a replacement face.”

Fowler also said that getting the lasers right was a process of trial and error, but he was extremely proud of the work of the various teams that helped make it happen. “I think we’ve all seen sequences with laser grids and grids where people have to navigate them,” he said. “But the idea of ​​just dancing through it — it was so Jim Carrey, so perfect, and just really fun to perform.”