Forget Shadow the Hedgehog, this is what fans really want from Sonic 3

The third Sonic the Hedgehog movie is on its way this year, much to the excitement of fans, but we can only hope that the final film in the Sonic trilogy will finally include the beloved music missing from the previous movies.

A good videogame adaptation is hard to nail down, as almost every attempt will be met with a microscopic level of analysis and criticism from fans. Considering the likes of the iconic Super Mario and Resident Evil franchises, the former managed to excel with a great animated film while the latter gained a cult following from its films.

Meanwhile, the likes of Halo and Uncharted fell on their faces hard, with boring attempts of recreating the source material and horrible interpretations, proving you can’t just slap a game franchise on a bland product and hope for the best. Thankfully, The Fastest Thing Alive need not worry after starring in not one but two successful movies. 

While Sonic the Hedgehog’s first two movies have had a generally positive reception among fans, new and old, the third aims to impress with the appearance of a fan-favorite character and the return of Jim Carrey. Still, the question remains whether they’ll include an element that has been missing from both films: official Sonic music from the games.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 deserves Sonic music

Let us paint you a picture: the third Sonic film kicks off where the second left off, with Shadow awakening in a mysterious lab; he goes ballistic and breaks out of the facility he’s held in during a highly destructive escape sequence. Now, what should play during this scene: an intense orchestral track from another film… or:

A track that is essentially written for the character onscreen. There’s no question that people want to see Shadow the Hedgehog and how Paramount will handle his infamously “dark” backstory. We trust Paramount to handle the story delicately, but will they handle the soundtrack appropriately after missing the mark twice?

So far, the soundtracks used in the films have been generic orchestral tracks with little reference to the game franchise they’re supposed to be adapting. Paramount even used music from Marvel’s Ant-Man and The Wasp soundtrack, of all things, in place of an original or adapted track. This leads us to think that the third Sonic film needs to double down on using popular Sonic music from in-game level tracks as well as heavy rock songs from Crush 40.

We can see they’ve tried to insert game music in the films before, with the trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 briefly including an orchestral version snippet of “Emerald Hill Zone” from Sonic 2 and a reference in the film using Sonic 1’s Green Hill Zone theme as a ringtone. 

Though Crush 40 lead singer, Johnny Gioeli, has seemingly confirmed that ‘Live and Learn,’ one of the most iconic songs from Sonic Adventure 2, will appear in Sonic the Hedgehog 3, fans are worried that this means an extended version of the orchestral snippet we heard in the logo reveal teaser trailer, instead of the actual song.

Admittedly, there’s an effort being made here, but more is needed to satisfy the keen-eared Sonic fan. If the third film manages to incorporate songs from the games into the soundtrack, not orchestral, in their raw form, you’d have fans jumping out of their chairs like they did when Captain America picked up Thor’s hammer in Avengers: Endgame.

Of course, the music cues of the film depend entirely on where the story goes, and with the inclusion of Shadow and ‘Live and Learn,’ as well as the logo of the film looking remarkably similar to that of the game.

Keeping all this in mind, it’s reasonable to guess that the story could be extremely similar to that of Sonic Adventure 2, which only creates more opportunities to incorporate iconic music from the game.

Another “picture this” for you: after Shadow has broken out, we cut to the peaceful life in Green Hills with Sonic and friends enjoying the calm. Sonic is detained by G.U.N and flies above San Francisco to a secret location; breaking out of the helicopter, he plummets down to the steep city, and the famous truck pursuit starts with ‘Escape from the City’. Goosebumps.

One could argue that it’s mostly just videogame level music that’s being left out, and that’s not the worst thing to leave out in a good film adaptation of a gaming series – that alone is a rarity in itself.

You could see their point. Including it extensively could lead to nostalgia-bait accusations, and attempting to appease the fans could damage how great the film could be with negative attention aiming at the “Look! It’s that thing! Remember this?” factor. Admittedly, the City Escape scene would be a 1-1 recreation from the game and be straight-up fan-service.

With that said, the concern may not even be a thought in Sonic fans’ minds, with fans and the sound team alike proving their dedication to the Blue Blurs’ music by selling out almost every show in an ongoing world tour labeled the “Sonic Symphony.” A band and orchestra showcasing iconic tracks and songs from the Sonic games library, including Crush 40’s hits.

What started as two shows has led to a massive tour of Sonic fans coming together for a spectacular show. The faster-than-sound symphony has gained extreme popularity, with fans going rabid in the audience seeing their favorite tracks from Sonic games performed live on stage.

Though Sonic is extremely popular, with the Knuckles series and Sonic Generations remaster on the way, a fourth Sonic movie seems unlikely. So this may be the last chance we’ll get to see some amazing SEGA action on the big screen alongside the appropriate music that has been missing from the films.