Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is out in theaters now, and like the first two films, it has a post-credits stinger that gives us an idea of what’s to come in the next movie, which, it seems, is coming in 2027. However, Sonic 3’s isn’t quite as self-explanatory as those in the first two movies if you’re not already familiar with the blue blur and all his friends (and enemies). The first two movies’ post-credits scenes felt like natural extensions of the movies they came from, but Sonic the Hedgehog 3’s is a bit more disorienting and might have left new fans a bit confused. Fear not, because we’re here to fill in the gaps and speculate on what it all means. Spoilers ahead!
The first post-credits scene is the meatier of the two. It starts with Sonic running around, seemingly racing against Tails and Knuckles as seen earlier in the movie. However, in his haste, the hedgehog takes a wrong turn or two and ends up in a New York state park. A bit far from your home in Green HIlls, Montana, my guy. Once there, he’s greeted by none other than Metal Sonic, an evil synthetic recreation of our hero who Doctor Eggman creates in the games to try and match Sonic’s speed and power. At first, Sonic outmaneuvers Metal as his attacker attempts to obliterate him with an energy blast from a cannon in his arm, but is then suddenly surrounded by a squad of his robotic doppelgangers. Just as they all jump in to take him out, they’re struck by a flying hammer covered in pink chaos energy similar to Sonic’s blue and Shadow’s red. It returns to its wielder: a hooded figure who reveals herself to be a pink hedgehog before the movie cuts to black.
If you’re not one of the long-time fans who likely was popping off at this point in the theater, this hammer-using vigilante is Amy Rose. She originally debuted alongside Metal Sonic in Sonic the Hedgehog CD back in 1993. For most of her early appearances, Amy was defined as Sonic’s one-sided love interest—she was infatuated with the hero, but he was too busy being the fastest hedgehog alive to consider something as trivial as romance. However, as the years have gone on, Amy has become a much more well-rounded character and a team leader in her own right. Historically, she’s added some girlypop spunk to the Sonic cast, and after being a boys club for three movies, the live-action universe is in dire need of that.
But what are she and Metal Sonic doing in the live-action movies? Again, this scene feels pretty disconnected from the rest of the film, so there’s only so much we can pull from in this short exchange. Given that Sonic has traveled to a different part of the country than we’ve seen in the movies thus far, it’s entirely possible Amy has already been on Earth by herself for some time and decided to be a vigilante in New York. How she got here, where she comes from, and just how she’ll feel about more alien animals in her space remains to be seen, but seeing as Sonic the Hedgehog 3 doubles down on the idea of Sonic and his kind being aliens from different places, it stands to reason that Amy is not from Earth, either.
The bigger question mark in this scene is Metal Sonic. Eggman builds the robot hedgehog in the games, but as we saw not 10 minutes prior, Jim Carrey’s version of the mad scientist has seemingly kicked the bucket in a final moment of heroism. Granted, they also pretended to kill him off at the end of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, but there were more explicit teases to his survival than anything in Sonic 3. Agent Stone, Eggman’s loyal henchman, has seemingly turned a new leaf at the end of the movie as well, so he’s probably off the table. In theory, anyone could have seen all the events of the first three movies and decided to create a robot version of Sonic, but there’s still the question of why. That’s the major difference between this post-credits scene and previous ones; this one feels almost abstract, introducing new ideas and characters who have no clear, direct connection to what happened in the movie it bookends. I wouldn’t be surprised if this scene is featured in Sonic the Hedgehog 4, maybe 10 to 15 minutes into the film with more context to fill in these gaps. But for now, the only thing we really know as a result of this scene is who the new players will be in the next film.
The second post-credits scene is much shorter and more straightforward. We see that one of Shadow’s inhibitor rings has made a small crater on Earth after it fell to the planet during the final battle in space. The shot lingers briefly before we see Shadow walk into the frame and pick it up. It’s not much, but it confirms that Shadow survived the destruction of the Eclipse Cannon and will be around for the next movie. That’s not too surprising. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is heavily based on Sonic Adventure 2, in which Shadow is presumed dead after the final battle, only to return in Sonic Heroes after being rescued by Eggman. There are reports of plans for a Shadow-centric spin-off, too, so of course they didn’t kill him off for good.
Overall, I’m starting to wonder if Sonic 4 could be a loose adaptation of Sonic Heroes. Metal Sonic is the primary antagonist of that game, and if Shadow’s reported spin-off introduces the rest of his team, treasure-hunting spy Rouge the Bat and decommissioned Eggman robot E-123 Omega, they’re already halfway to having most of Heroes’ cast accounted for. Whatever the fourth movie ends up being, Sonic fans have a lot to chew on after the end of Sonic 3. And hey, not to brag, but I was right about the characters most likely to appear in the post-credits scene. Go me.
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