I love Shadow the Hedgehog

Disclaimer: I will discuss the Sonic video games and films, what is in them, and how they end. This is just a heads up. Please enjoy.

I just saw the film Sonic the Hedgehog 3 for the third time (I was babysitting my niece and nephew), and let me say, Shadow the Hedgehog is my second favorite character. My first favorite was Knuckles the echidna.

Shadow has a unique design, the style of his shoes, and his bad boy attitude. So, I wanted to learn more about his origin because from what I recall in the film, he came from a meteor that crashed in a country field (sound familiar? yep, Superman). I started to think about what Shadow’s parents were like. Was his planet just like the world Sonic came from? And why was he in that meteor?

So, I do what every person does when they need to find something: I go to Google and Wikifandom. And there were a few things that were changed from the original origin of Shadow from the Sonic the Hedgehog Video Game Franchise, to point out a few:

Shadow didn’t come from another world; he wasn’t born alive. Shadow was genetically engineered and bio-merged from alien DNA, and his DNA came from this dude Black Doom (In another world, this is Shadow’s Papi…OMG!)

In the end credits of Sonic 2, when Shadow was announced to be in the 3rd film,

We see Shadow has restraints on his ankles, arms, and around his waist, probably to keep his powers under control.

But in the 3rd film, it looks like they were removed.

Gerald Robotnik created a shadow in a Laboratory in Space called the Space Colony Ark to make a cure to save his granddaughter Maria, who had an incurable disease. Maria grew up on the Space Colony Ark, and Shadow befriends Maria, and I think that this friendship made Shadow learn about love and compassion because Maria gave that to him. But I was to point out I was surprised to learn Gerold Had created another creature with the alien DNA, it was a lizard-type monster that got out of control, basically a failed prototype. Shadow was the second project and was a success.

However, Maria is 100% healthy in the film, and the colony is underground on Earth. Maria's tragic death was one thing that the film and the game kept original. It was an accident caused by G.U.N., which enraged Shadow because he lost his whole world, aka Maria.

In the games, Shadow needs to have in his possession a Chaos Emerald to have the ability to teleport (Before teleporting, he would use a phrase, and he would shout Chaos Control).

While in the film Shadow teleports without the assistance of a Chaos Emerald,

Another thing that I wanted to bring up about his teleportation was why, in the movie, he didn’t teleport Gerold Robotnik and Maria out of the facilities, like how Shadow did with Dr. Eggman and Garold Robotnik.

I’m guessing that, in the film, while in suspended animation, he might have had time to master that ability to teleport because he was reliving that heartbreaking moment in his sleep. I want to point out that at the end of the film, Dr. Eggman and Shadow sacrifice themselves to save the Earth.

At the end of the second credits, we see a creator with what looks like a ring, then we see two white shoes that happen to belong to Shadow, so just like in the game, he falls to Earth, protecting it and keeping Maria’s wish to help people and make friends.

I know it is important to keep stories from video games in their original stages because the fans can lose interest if they go in a different direction, but changing it can help tell the story and introduce other characters. At the end credits of Sonic 3, the fans saw the introduction of Amy Rose, a pink female Hedgehog. And Metal Sonic, this gives us a hint that maybe Sonic the Hedgehog 4 will be in the future, and what hedgehog is from the future.

My boy Silver, I can’t wait.