As we glimpse into the next scenes, we catch the sight of both Sonic’s and Robotnik’s squads strutting their stuff. Yet, something seems a bit amiss here. On Sonic’s side, things are pretty much as you’d expect – Sonic, Knuckles, and an airborne Tails, zooming through the lush greens of Green Hill. Over in Robotnik’s camp, though, the lineup includes two Robotniks, Shadow, and Agent Stone, but there’s an odd gap between Stone and Robotnik that just doesn’t feel right from a cinematic perspective. Now, if Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is indeed taking its cues from Sonic Adventure 2, there’s a big name missing: Rouge the Bat.
Rouge is renowned for her treasure-seeking, double-agent antics in the Dreamcast days, acting as Knuckles’ counterpart. It’s disappointing that she hasn’t been spotted in the film that seemingly brings her and Shadow’s debut to life—unless, of course, we have a Spider-Man: No Way Home situation on our hands. You know, where she or some other familiar face from Sonic’s world has been digitally removed to keep the fans on their toes until the big reveal. There’s also murmuring among fans that Metal Sonic might just be that mysterious occupant of the gap, with theories flying around since the initial trailer dropped about this mechanized hedgehog possibly entering the fray in this installment or the next.
If the movie sees Robotnik swapping sides, it wouldn’t be too far-fetched to see him building a robo-hog like Metal Sonic. However, I’m slightly concerned that squeezing another Sonic storyline into an Adventure 2 adaptation might make the movie feel crammed, considering there’s already one bad hedgehog in the mix. Oh, but how great would it be if that gap were to signal the arrival of Rouge? Let’s keep our fingers crossed.
