I’m a huge Sonic movie fan, but Sonic 3 should really be the last one

We’re living in a bit of a golden age of video game adaptations. Yes, flops like Borderlands will always crop up here and there but the baseline level of quality is leagues above where it was just a decade ago. Shows like Fallout and The Last of Us are winning tons of awards and setting viewership records on major streaming services. But that trend can be traced back to an unlikely source. The very first Sonic the Hedgehog movie could be considered the beginning of the adaptation renaissance we’re currently enjoying.

With the one exception of Sonic Mania, the blue hedgehog hasn’t exactly been the critical hit he was in the early 90s. If it weren’t for a very passionate fanbase, the series would probably have died out along with the Dreamcast. There are plenty of technical reasons why Sonic games have been on such a major decline, but even if the games were feature-complete and bug-free, there is one issue with the games that pushed so many players away that the films have (so far) steered clear of. However, tracking the trajectory the films are on, it could easily find itself shooting itself in the foot exactly as the games did if it doesn’t quit while it’s ahead.

Sonic’s friends are no good

After Shadow, there’s no likable characters left

The Sonic games began as simple as they came. You had your new, cool, rebellious protagonist fighting a comically evil scientist and his robots. It wasn’t breaking any molds for storytelling, but was perfectly adequate for this type of high-speed platformer. Sonic 2 gave Sonic his first companion, Tails, which opened up a ton of new mobility options that deepened the gameplay. Then we got Knuckles in the third game, and when Adventure hit, we suddenly had a cast of nearly a dozen animal sidekicks and villains.

After Shadow’s introduction as a more direct rival and wildcard to Sonic, every other addition has dragged down the experience. Amy Rose was an obnoxious cliche whose only personality trait was being in love with Sonic, Bigs the Cat served no narrative purpose and forced us to fish, which may be the perfect antithesis of why we play Sonic games. Then there’s the entire Chaotix team, Cream the Rabbit, Fang the Sniper, and so many more that I doubt anyone could even keep straight.

Each new character only watered down the experience from what we wanted from Sonic. Even a potentially cool character like Silver or Metal Sonic wound up being drowned out in all the noise of so many throw-away characters. In an attempt to build out a wider universe, Sonic Team only ended up diluting what fans wanted.

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Sonic 3 is the perfect place to end

Wrap it all up here or risk a sharp decline

So far, the Sonic films have followed a very similar pace to the games in terms of introducing new characters. Again, we started simply with just Sonic to establish the world. The second movie doubled down with Sonic and Knuckles, which worked thanks to Knuckles being more of an antagonist first. Finally, we will now jump to Shadow as Sonic’s true rival.

Besides there being no real winners left in the cast to bring in, even if there were, that would be too many characters to juggle. The films are already moving further and further away from the human cast from the first film, and adding in more Sonic characters would leave no room for anything else. That would be fine except that no one else from the Sonic universe is all that interesting. There’s a chance the filmmakers could totally reinvent them to be more interesting, but that’s a big gamble.

Ending the franchise here would be the perfect moment. We have all the right characters now, the chance for a climactic final confrontation with an equal rival (and perhaps team up to defeat Eggman), and a complete conclusion to the arc. While on a much smaller scale, we’re at the Avengers Endgame moment for Sonic — a new phase would feel tacked-on and lack that same punch.

The issue with Sonic’s games was that they never felt comfortable sticking with its core characters or mechanics. It was constantly trying to reinvent itself with new systems and characters to keep people engaged but ended up having the opposite effect. The films have the chance to correct that problem by ending on a high note and sparing us the horror of seeing Bigs the Cat chasing after Froggy on the big screen.

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