The Sonic The Hedgehog film has been out for a week or so to much acclaim from the audience. We thought the film was OK and had its moments. Still, you can’t help but admit that it did an adequate job in not being terrible, which is more than I can say for a majority of live-action film adaptations of video game stories & franchises.

So let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Since we’re going into major spoiler territory here, I’ll put these here…

Are there other anthropomorphic & talking animals in the Sonic The Hedgehog movie?

Yes, yes they are. Well, just one: Longclaw the Owl who takes care of Sonic when he was an infant. It’s implied that she died early in the film to save Sonic from his assailants early in the movie.

Let’s be more specific: are Knuckles and Tails in the movie?

First one: kinda. Second one: yes.

We don’t see Knuckles here, but his race of echidnas instead. They’re the “power-hungry bad guys” we see trying to kidnap Sonic earlier in the film before his owl sensei sends him to Earth using the magic rings.

In Sonic video game lore, the echidnas were a race split into two warring tribes: the old-school Knuckles clan and the Nocturnus clan. After some conflicts here and there and a thousand years later, Knuckles ended up being the last living descendant of his tribe.

But in the Sonic Archie comics lore (approved by Sega), the race are alive and well, and perhaps the most technologically-advanced of them among the anthropomorphic creatures in Sonic’s home planet. The echidnas in this canon reside either on Angel Island or on the hidden island of Albion.

To go into detail would be insane because there’s a LOT to unpack here. Basically, the echidna tribes have blood feuds that spanned for generations.

Since the movie stated that it’s been 10 years since Sonic has been on Earth, a lot probably happened with the tribe. They could either be extinct save for Knuckles, or they become more technologically adept and on-par with Robotnik’s tech.

As for Tails? Well, at the end of the film after Sonic and Donut Lord Tom Wachowsky banishes Dr. Robotnik to a mushroom planet, and see Sonic settling in Earth just fine, we cut to a scene where this furry teleports to Earth.

He says to himself that he hopes to rescue Sonic and hopes he’s not too late, then flies off. Cue credits & a ton of Sonic/furry fans cheering their hearts out!

So what does this mean for the movie franchise?

A ton of potential ideas! Since the movie opened pretty big, we will eventually get a sequel in a couple of years. I predict Paramount and Sega will be adapting the Sonic The Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles storyline, focusing on Sonic and Tails trying to work together to fight off Knuckles teaming up with Robotnik.

The latter evil doctor will probably find some way to turn the earlier echidna race to work for him under the guise of a benevolent protector or something along those lines. And then by the third act, Knuckles turns good and teams up with Team Sonic.

The MacGuffin that ties all their stories and character arc full circle? The Chaos Emeralds….

…which will probably lead to an eventual climactic scene where Sonic ends up pulling an Akira Toriyama fallback shonen trope…

And Tom Wachowsky? I doubt they’ll focus on him too much since he had his share of screentime in the current Sonic movie. He’ll probably just have 20 minutes of screentime before the film focuses mostly on the trio CGI speedster/flyer/glider mammal-marsupial combo.

Where the hell is my Green Hill Zone remix in the Sonic movie?

It’s near the end of the film when Sonic defeats Dr. Robotnik. It’s pretty mind-boggling why they didn’t remix piano and orchestral Sonic tunes during the key scenes in the film. I hope they fix this in the eventual sequel.

Anyway, here it is. It sounds awesome.