Over the weekend, I finally made it to the theater to catch Sonic the Hedgehog 3, the third movie in the wildly popular Sonic the Hedgehog movie series. I had a blast watching it, and while I do have some concerns about parts of the movie, the ending delivered some fantastic storytelling, showing how well SEGA and Paramount adapted Shadow’s story from Sonic Adventure 2.
That said, I’m about to spoil a few things, and that’s why this spoiler tag is here. Reading beyond this point will spoil the movie for you, so please stop now if you haven’t seen it or don’t want spoilers. You’ve been warned. Seriously… I’m being seriously serious here.
OK, on to the spoilers!
The movie wasn’t a 1:1 recreation of Shadow’s story, but it managed to make his backstory relatable. For those unfamiliar, in the game, Shadow had a friend named Maria Robotnik, who lived aboard the Space Colony Ark with her grandfather, Gerald Robotnik, due to her illness.
Maria was tragically killed by a G.U.N. soldier when Project Shadow was shut down, and she helped Shadow escape before her death. In the movie, Maria’s story is adjusted—she becomes a tag-along with Gerald on Earth rather than in space, but her friendship with Shadow remains central to his character. Her death mirrors the game’s canon: Project Shadow is shut down, and while Maria, Gerald, and Shadow attempt to escape, she is caught in an explosion that kills her.
Regardless, Maria’s death sets the events that occur in the movie into action.
At the climax of Sonic the Hedgehog 3, after an epic battle against Gerald Robotnik, Shadow, and Ivo Robotnik work together to stop a G.U.N. superweapon called the Eclipse Cannon, which Gerald had stolen and aimed at Earth out of revenge for Maria’s death. Sonic persuades Shadow that he’s on the wrong path, leading to Shadow and Ivo moving the weapon away from Earth. Sonic is blasted back to the planet during the fight, with his friends in tow as they attempt to save him before he ends up leaving a splat on the ground, leaving Shadow and Ivo to deal with the superweapon alone.
Shadow and Ivo succeed in stopping the weapon, but they are caught in the resulting explosion and appear to die. However, this is a movie, and characters don’t always die when it looks like they did.
If you stayed past the mid-credits scene, you saw a tease of future chaos with a swarm of Metal Sonics attacking Sonic, only for Amy Rose (YES!!!) to arrive and save him. But the final post-credits scene steals the show. Shadow is revealed to have survived not only the explosion but also reentry from space, falling to Earth without burning up. In the final moments, he is shown reaching for his Inhibitor Ring, which regulates his Chaos energy and which he removed during his effort to move the Eclipse Cannon. First of all, how did those things also survive reentry and happen to land where they did? Ah, movie plots.
As for what this means for the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog 4 movie, it’s clear we’ll see more of Shadow and hear more of Keanu Reeves as Shadow the Hedgehog. Whether his return will play out in the fourth movie or a later installment remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: Shadow is back and I can’t wait to see how the rest of his story plays out.
Go see Sonic the Hedgehog 3, and if you already saw it, go see it again.
