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The following contains minor spoilers for the Sonic the Hedgehog movie.
For a film that had a serious hurdle to overcome during its promotion, the Sonic the Hedgehog movie turned out pretty well. It was able to become a certified box office hit before theaters had to close down, and while the film had more or less finished its theatrical run before everything went to hell, it will be jumping onto Digital platforms next week, months before it's set to release on Blu-ray.
Along with the digital release comes the usual collection of special features, including deleted scenes, one of which reveals an alternate opening for the movie that would have seen one of the film's original characters, Longclaw the owl, meet a different end than we saw in the film, though it ultimately had the same result.
In the theatrical cut of Sonic the Hedgehog, we see Longclaw the owl and Sonic on the run from unnamed villains, when Longclaw is mortally wounded. She uses her last moments to pass on a bag of magic rings, and give the blue hedgehog some words of wisdom before she passes on.
In the deleted scene, Longclaw actually escapes with Sonic to earth, and the duo live together in hiding. In the end, Longclaw still dies before the main action of the story gets going, but she does so of old age, in Sonic's hideout, with Sonic by her side and caring for her.
The majority of the clip is unfinished CGI, clearly this idea was scrapped and replaced with the version we got early on. But not too early. Some of the scene looks to be completely done, or very close to it, and it's complete with the version of Sonic that we got in the film, not the earlier version that was met with an outcry from fans. This means this concept wasn't entirely dropped until some time after the redesign took place.
In the end, the change doesn't impact the larger story. Perhaps there was a feeling that the opening needed more action, or, more than likely, the feeling was this version of the scene just went on too long. The version of Sonic the Hedgehog we saw gets through the backstory stuff much faster. In fact, the deleted scenes also include an alternate introduction for James Marsden's character as well, so there was a lot more content earlier in the movie at one point than what we got.
Generally speaking, the fast you can cut to the chase the better. You certainly don't want a movie about a character like Sonic the Hedgehog to start off feeling slow.
Sonic the Hedgehog will be available for Digital purchase March 31. It hits Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K on May 19.
