The Game Awards’ official account has commemorated the first birthday of The Sonic 3 film with a social media post. “The Sonic 3 movie had its release exactly one year ago!” Quite the innocent statement, isn’t it? Just a bit of recognition for an influential movie in the gaming sector. But on the contrary, the internet was totally against that. Users quickly and heavily replied, it was clear from their comments that the gamers were still very upset about the same thing: the movie completely overlooking a nomination in last year’s award show. The whole thing comes across as a mixed-up drama where one side fights for memes and the other side expresses pure, unadulterated, gamer anger.
Let’s wrap up the events simply. The motion picture of Sonic 3 was released and most likely it was perceived as a successful endeavor. It was a feast for viewers’ eyes, it was a game-changing and a pleasant adaptation of the video game, it had good collections at the box office, and the audience was sweet on it. So when the time came for The Game Awards, many gamers were optimistic that it would be a strong candidate in the ‘Best Adaptation’ category. Rather, the category was left empty for others, as Sonic was overlooked. Now we have reached a point where the mark of one year and TGA’s tweet felt like a sting to a wound that never had a chance to heal.
The feedback was immediate and very severe. ‘Now yall got jokes,’ one user wrote. Another simply said, ‘I hate you.’ The sentiment was everywhere: ‘You Finally Remember Now! But it’s Too Bad You didn’t Invite Game award! Shame on You!’ The one from Fidel Moctezuma is a perfect summation of the mood. People regarded this as nothing more than a paltry attempt at acknowledgment, which is far too late and really, a bit shady.
User Azure called it ‘some sinister work,’ which is an extremely funny and dramatic way of putting it, but the person’s viewpoint can be somewhat understood. It’s like if you arrive at a party you weren’t invited to and you tell the guests ‘hey don’t forget I’ve done this great thing?’ The timing is just… oof. Jolly Memphis Tennessee did not mince words: ‘Wow, so NOW you decide to address it huh?’ The feeling of being ignored is very strong.
The crux of the matter in the replies is about eligibility. Some tried to rationalize it. King Galactix joined the debate with his commentary on the matter, saying, ‘the issue is clear that people wanted it to be nominated, but it wasn’t. I can’t blame them, since that movie came out after TGA 2024 and was opened for nominations and many seemed to like it.’ Hence, the film had stark eligibility. It launched. It became part of the nominations. Thus the snub gives the feeling of being more intentional for a lot of players.
And just like that, comparisons began to come in from all over. A user called Kirb threw shade at TLOU Season 2 and went on to say ‘tlou s2 is a better adaption of its source material than sonic movie 2 is for sa2’. That’s a proper hot take! Putting the Sonic movie against The Last of Us HBO series. It sparked a small debate in the comments about what constitutes a good adaptation, with a few users defending Sonic’s entertaining loose take and others being more critical. However, the main point was quite clear: why did one get nominated (and win?) while the other one didn’t get even a shout-out?
With this trend of adaptation, however, there was also a sneaky undercurrent of platform loyalty coming in as the fallout. In one discussion, a user was labeled a ‘true nintentard’ for being so dismissive about the snub, which is… yikes. It just shows how heated and tribal these discussions can get. They can easily transform from a movie award issue to a competition between brands, and this is how some people supporting the Sonic community might feel.
The discussion was joined by many users from different countries, which was a clear sign that the problem was not just in the US. Juani from Argentina flooded the social media with a tweet saying ‘no tienen el derecho de hablar de la peli despues de lo que hicieron,’ which in English means ‘you don’t have the right to talk about the movie after what you did.’ The uproar has gone global. The disillusionment is common.
Some replies are simply the best, the purest meme energy. ‘OH SO NOW YOU REMEMBER IT EXISTS’ in capital letters is the absolute representation of the situation. Another user posted a GIF of a surprised person turning to the camera with their eyebrows raised and the caption was ‘Hey tga’. That’s the entire fandom’s unamused expression. Another user Luminator242 stated ‘the gamers are already fighting‘.
