Sonic Movie Changed Everything in the Video Game Movie Department

I think the Sonic Movie franchise has changed everything in the video game movie department. No, I am serious. I know that there are some naysayers that would say that it did not. But it's okay, because I am going to explain on how did it change everything from a plot and development perspective, so let's jump right in.

Now, there are some people that Sonic Movie did not change everything in the video game movie database, but the Super Mario Bros. Movie did. Sure, the movie made over a billion dollars in box office in a way, but it is a CGI animated movie.

Since the inception, live action film adaptions based on video games from back in the day started kicking in. And it pretty much flopped with the live action Mario Bros. Then Mortal Kombat came along, but rated PG-13 to have watered down violence instead of R. But it has special moves seen in the games. Then a sequel came to become absolutely terrible due to its crappy design on characters. Then the department shifted to Street Fighter. The live action film was abysmal because of their poor character design and the characters don't have fireball moves. And then comes the absolute dumpster fire of a movie called Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. Don't watch it. The design on characters is terrible. And finally, Tekken got its movie, but the design looked so abmysal.

These mentioned movies weren't critically successful. They all fell short and they bombed because of their poor quality on the plot and characters. Companies couldn't be able to figure out how to make a decent video game movie without alienating fans.

But here's another issue. The mentioned video game movies from back in the day have created plotholes. For example, did you know that in a live action Street Fighter movie by Jean-Claude Van Damme, Ryu and Ken wear their gi, but they don't have Hadoukens? That is a prime example of a plothole. Another one involves the fight between Chun-Li and Vega turning out to be an abysmal fight because Vega doesn't have a claw and Chun-Li doesn't have her Kikoken. That created yet another plothole.

The plotholes in the sequel to the 1996 film for Mortal Kombat are even more obvious. The dragon is CGI animated and Raiden relented, but allowed Shao Kahn to snap Johnny Cage's neck. And there are a few characters that are very low and subpar in quality.

The department had backfired because none of the companies knew how to make a decent live action film adaptation based on a video game on that time. Now, how do we make a high quality video game movie that caters the best quality for fans without alienating them?

Sonic Movie director, Jeff Fowler had a perfect example on how they make a great live action video game movie. They laser-focused on what made video game movies so low in quality. And instead of rushing and bringing low quality video game movies to theaters, they take their time to make them high quality. When the first trailer for Sonic Movie 1 came out, the trailer received negativity over Sonic's ugly design and it convinced Paramount to redesign him to make him on-par with his game counterpart. So they did and the second trailer received positivity.

Right off the hop, I will be going over the events in each iteration that are faithful to the events in the games' events in order. This is the movie that started it all for a live action Sonic X. The events of the first movie entails Sonic, voiced by Ben Schwartz, visiting Earth to team up with an officer in Green Hills named Thomas Wachowski to stop Robotnik, voiced by Jim Carrey, from using Sonic's powers for world domination. In the first movie, Dr. Robotnik's design isn't faithful to his design used in the games. But there is one event in Sonic Movie 1 faithful to one of the games. It's Sonic defeating Robotnik. This movie became the final movie to play in cinemas before the pandemic hit to close cinemas everywhere.

Then a sequel came to be greenlit. You'll notice that the yellow "2" with two tails symbolized Tails' debut to the franchise. The second iteration has a couple of events faithful to the games, like Sonic teaming up with Tails, voiced by Colleen O'Shaughnessey, to defeat Robotnik, looking nearly in line to his game counterpart by shaving all of his hair and a wild mustache. It's an event faithful to the event in Sonic 2. And Knuckles, voiced by Idris Elba, is on there to team up with Robotnik to get the Master Emerald at the floating palace until the betrayal. That is an event in the movie faithful to the event in Sonic 3 and Knuckles. But the Master Emerald in the movie is smaller than in the games to have tiny Chaos Emeralds inside it. That brought Super Sonic in the movie. It's first seen in Sonic and Knuckles. This movie became the first to play in theaters since the pandemic.

The third iteration came out in 2024 and it became my first movie of the New Year to see in theaters. The movie featured Shadow the Hedgehog, voiced by Keanu Reaves, being trapped in a tube until he wakes up. Despite Ro The movie has a lot of faithful events to what we saw in Sonic Adventure 2. They include having two Robotniks, Ivo and Gerald, Maria keeping Shadow company in the past, Shadow transforming into Super Shadow, Sonic and Shadow teaming up to destroy the space cannon and the cannon peeing on the moon. Let's not forget about Shadow holding a gun while riding in a motorcycle. That is from his own game. Also, the red "3," though the movie featured Shadow, actually represented Knuckles joining the team to establish the iconic Team Sonic trio on the big screen.

And lo and behold, after the fourth iteration is greenlit to extend beyond the trilogy, the pink "4" appears to symbolize Amy Rose's debut to the big screen to give her more love in the fourth iteration. She is first seen in the post credits scene along with Metal Sonic, who is also confirmed to be in the fourth iteration as well. Amy's voice actress is unknown, but I think Carly Rae Jepsen would be a perfect voice actress for our hammer wielding feminine pink hedgehog, so call her maybe, Paramount. I went to X and came across an article that shows that because Metal Sonic is confirmed and there are pieces of content cut from the theatrical release of Sonic Movie 3, Sonic Movie 4 will feature a time travelling narrative taken directly from Sonic CD.

Instead of me just telling you, let's take a look at the inserts to show you what I want for Sonic Movie 4. I am using screenshots from my Wrapper: Offline career to show you what I want for the fourth iteration.

Instead of Sonic Movie 4 entailing Sonic and Amy going on a time travelling adventure, let's amp it up a bit. Sonic Movie 4 should entail the iconic Sonic quartet going on a time travelling adventure to save the future. They must travel back to the past to fix the future, by destroying the transporters with one butt to kick.

If the transporters remain intact, the bad future created by Dr. Robotnik and Metal Sonic ruling the world will remain.

But destroy the teleporters and the good future will be created to have flowers and animals living in peace with no trace of evil coming. In Sonic CD, you go straight into to the future in Act 3 to fight the boss. And you can be able to fight the boss in the level's good future by travelling back to the past to destroy the transporter in Acts 1 and 2. And to be honest, this is quite interesting.

And since Sonic Movie 4 is gonna feature Amy Rose, I believe that she should join Tom and Maddie Wachowski with her pals before her.

That said, Sonic Movie 4 is going to enter production on February and premiere in cinemas March 19, 2027.

We now have four iterations of the Sonic Movie franchise. The franchise came this far. The sequel numbers in different colors have an interesting touch. There's the yellow "2" with two tails for Tails' debut, the red "3" for Knuckles debut to the team and the pink "4" for Amy Rose's debut. But I like the yellow "2" better because it has two tails at the end, giving it a unique flair.

Also, there has been some speculations about introducing Silver the Hedgehog in the fourth iteration because of the fact that it's gonna be faithful to Sonic CD by having a time travelling narrative. It would be awesome if he gets introduced. But it's likely that Silver is gonna be introduced in the post credits scene of Sonic Movie 4 to set the stage for Sonic Movie 5.

If Sonic Movie 5 is greenlit, maybe the "5" can be white to symbolize Silver's debut. And maybe if Keanu Reaves returns as Shadow, it can have the event faithful to Sonic 06 where the three hedgehogs team up.

If Paramount plans to put the franchise together to establish an ultimate Sonic Movie experience, they can literally cut ending scenes like the baseball part in Sonic Movie 2. However, it will not be in theaters due to its length, but can be put on streaming services, digital and physical releases.

With that said and done, here's a point I want to make. There are so many companies trying to figure out how to make a high quality live action video game movie. However, none of them were critically successful because of their terrible quality on that time. But Paramount has figured out this problem.

They made a video game movie that is high quality, meaning that now other companies can be able to figure out how to make a decent video game movie by learning from what Paramount did to make Sonic a high quality movie. Quality choices and possibilities for future live action video game movies, meaning that if and when Universal plans to make a live action Spyro the Dragon film, they can know how to make it high quality. They can literally learn from Paramount and do that. In fact, there is one company that followed Paramount's footsteps and made a high quality live action video game movie. That is Warner Bros. Pictures.

Warner Bros. went on to develop an R-rated Mortal Kombat movie reboot. It deserved an R rating so that it can be faithful to the games' extreme violence. Not only that. They went from the extra mile to avoid plotholes video game movies from back in the day created. And it's a second critically acclaimed live action video game movie.

Following Paramount's footsteps, Warner Bros. laser-focused in on what is the Mortal Kombat franchise known for. And instead of giving it a PG-13 rating to have toned down violence, they give it an R rating to have an extreme level of violence faithful to the games and of course, strong language. The sequel to it is confirmed and will also receive an R rating to have not just extreme violence and strong language, but also gore that can be done in the style of Gladiator II. Great movie.

Reasons above, Sonic Movie literally changed everything in the video game movie department just by being a high quality video game movie, which was something companies been trying to achieve for years. But that endeavor was achieved by Paramount in a high quality setting.