Warning: Major spoilers for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 below
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Sonic the Hedgehog 3 brings Jim Carrey’s zany Dr. Ivo Robotnik back to battle the titular blue speed demon, and it might not be the last the world has seen of him. In Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Sonic (Ben Schwartz), Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessey), and Knuckles (Idris Elba) find themselves facing a new enemy in Sonic’s fellow hedgehog with super-speed, Shadow (Keanu Reeves), who is on a revenge mission against the weapons research organization Guardian Units of Nations (G.U.N.), after being imprisoned in their headquarters for decades and seeing his human friend Maria (Alyla Browne) killed by them.
Shadow’s quest leads Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles to form a truce with their old enemy Dr. Robotnik to stop Shadow. With this, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 ends up being perhaps the most consequential story for Dr. Ivo Robotnik, and one that takes him on a very unexpected journey.
Dr. Robotnik’s Plan With His Grandfather Goes Awry In Sonic 3
When Dr. Ivo Robotnik has a surprise meeting with his long-lost grandfather Professor Gerald Robotnik (also played by Jim Carrey), he swiftly throws Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles under the bus and allies himself with his grandfather and Shadow. Under Gerald’s leadership, the trio’s goal is to steal Gerald’s mega-weapon, the Eclipse Canon, from G.U.N. headquarters in London.
At first, Robotnik is under the impression that his grandfather’s plan is simply to use the device to destroy G.U.N. headquarters itself, as an act of vengeance for Shadow’s imprisonment as a scientific guinea pig (Gerald having been research director in G.U.N.’s Project Shadow, seeing their mistreatment of him firsthand) and their killing of Maria, who was also Gerald’s granddaughter, when Shadow tried to escape with Gerald and Maria.
But after the group successfully takes the Eclipse Canon into Earth’s orbit, Robotnik learns that his grandfather intends to use the weapon to destroy Earth altogether. Consumed with bitterness of Maria’s demise and seeing mankind as a “failed experiment,” Gerald at first persuades the equally vengeful Shadow to take revenge on the entire human race. However, even for his own massive superiority complex, Dr. Robotnik is shocked at his grandfather’s apocalyptic vendetta, and turns over a new leaf.
[Related: How Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Sets Up the Sonic 4 Movie]
Sonic Brings Shadow To His Side, & Dr. Robotnik Makes A Heroic Sacrifice
Sonic arrives on the Eclipse Cannon to battle Shadow in order to stop Gerald’s plan, with the two speedster hedgehogs zooming across the entire planet and eventually fighting to the moon (both having charged up to their maximum power levels of Super Sonic and Super Shadow after tapping into the Master Emerald seen in Sonic the Hedgehog 2). On the moon, Sonic manages to talk Shadow out of his thirst for vengeance by telling him that the memory of Maria will always live on within him, and persuades Shadow to help stop Gerald’s plan to destroy Earth.
At the same time, Dr. Robotnik switches to Team Sonic and fights his own grandfather to stop the doomsday plot. With the help of Tails and Knuckles, Dr. Robotnik sends Gerald into the Eclipse Canon’s building energy vortex, which acts like a bug zapper and completely disintegrates Gerald. With the help of Sonic, Tails, Shadow, and Knuckles, Robotnik also manages to turn the Eclipse Canon away from Earth before its laser blast fires, though they accidentally slice the moon in half in doing so.
Unfortunately, the Eclipse Canon’s power has gone haywire, sending the ship spiraling into an impending explosion in Earth’s orbit. In the end, Dr. Robotnik and Shadow choose to sacrifice themselves by moving the Eclipse Canon away from Earth, while Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles head back to the planet. Just before the Eclipse Canon goes supernova, Robotnik sends one final broadcast to Earth, sharing a heartfelt (by Dr. Robotnik standards) goodbye to his right-hand man, Agent Stone (Lee Majdoub), telling him that he loves the way Stone makes lattes before the Eclipse Canon explodes.
[Related: What Surprise Characters Appear in Sonic the Hedgehog 3?]
Why Dr. Robotnik Could Still Be Alive
Dr. Robotnik’s heroic sacrifice seems pretty definitive with the cataclysmic explosion of the Eclipse Canon, which he himself said could have wiped out all life on Earth. However, Sonic the Hedgehog 3‘s end-credits scene reveals that Shadow survived the explosion. This could suggest that Robotnik’s death might not be so certain.
Admittedly, Shadow was in a more advantageous position than Robotnik, pushing the Eclipse Canon away from Earth from the outside, having the ability to fly away from it. Theoretically, this could be how Shadow survived, while Robotnik was inside the Eclipse Canon itself, and caught right at the center of the blast. However, a genius like Dr. Robotnik could certainly have devised an escape plan off-screen.
One possibility is that there might have been an escape pod built into the Eclipse Canon that Robotnik made use of. Additionally, Robotnik might have secretly had access to one of Sonic’s rings to open a portal and allow himself to escape off-camera. This would make sense for Dr. Robotnik as a character, given that, while he couldn’t get on-board with wiping out all life on Earth, he’s still a supreme narcissist out to rule the world.
Dr. Robotnik’s apparent sacrifice might have been a ruse all along for Robotnik to save Earth and cover his own tracks, allowing him to hatch his next plot to conquer Earth for the already greenlit Sonic the Hedgehog 4. With the fourth Sonic movie speeding into theaters in 2027 and the widespread popularity of Carrey’s hilarious portrayal of Dr. Robotnik, it certainly seems likely that the filmmakers would hope to bring Sonic’s arch-enemy back into play at least one more time if possible. Though Dr. Robotnik seemingly gives his life to save the world in Sonic the Hedgehog 3, it would still be wise not to count him out of Sonic the Hedgehog 4.
Sonic The Hedgehog 3 is now playing in theaters.
