YMMV / Sonic Villains

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • One YouTube comment has argued that the Cruel Twist Ending to the first Q&A special — where Sonic.exe possesses Cubot and Grounder and kills the cast of villains with help from Fleetway Super Sonic — was actually a Phantom Ruby illusion Infinite engineered as revenge for being left out of the Q&A. The fact that Infinite was noticeably the only villain in the Q&A whose head wasn't shown to be on a pike at the end implies that either this is indeed the case, Sonic.exe and Fleetway Super Sonic decided to spare him, or the two didn't even notice he was there to be killed.
  • How much of Sara's actions are really a result of her being Brainwashed and Crazy? As much as she's portrayed as Fighting from the Inside about being loyal to Eggman, she still has a full range of emotions otherwise, and there's a moment where she and Rosy actively disobey Eggman to play with one of his nuclear missiles. Did Eggman's mind control just turn her evil and infatuated with him and not much else, or is it more of a Jekyll & Hyde situation where some of her more evil-for-the-sake-of-it behaviors are subconsciously being influenced by desires that even her not-brainwashed self has?
  • Is Infinite's desire to avenge his Jackal Squad a direct case of Adaptational Sympathy, or has it come as a result of his crippling defeat at the hands of Sonic and the Avatar, humbling him to the point that he's started regretting ever joining Eggman and leaving his surrogate family in the dust?
• Awesome Art: The film's style is a more angular and Studio TRIGGER-esque take on the Sonic universe style, though one no less colorful or alive than the works of Yuji Uekawa and other Sonic Team artists. Special attention goes to the attempts to replicate each continuity's art style as faithfully as possible, such as with Sonic X here.
• Awesome Music: The main theme, "Villains," from the late TheByMyself is quite catchy. Not to mention the rap song used in the trailer.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • The Q&A art where Dark Oak imagines the humans from Cascade (one of them being Molly) being painfully assimilated by trees, while he and Cosmo joyously frolic in the background.
  • In general, Dark Oak's lack of self-awareness regarding how horrifying his plans are gives ample opportunity for these moments. Note the nursery rhyme-like "song of his people" (based off of a real-world children's nursery rhyme, no less):
    Roses are red, yellow and pink
    The human in the pond drowns and sinks
  • The Cruel Twist Ending to the first Q&A where Sonic.exe and Fleetway Super Sonic kill everyone and leave their disembodied heads on pikes is one hell of a Mood Whiplash… but then it goes back to being funny when Fleetway Super assures the audience that this'll obviously be fixed in time for the film itself. Assuming the Mood Whiplash doesn't already make said ending itself an example.
  • Likewise, X and Fleetway Super's advice to the viewers in the midst of the COVID-19 Pandemic is that they should go outside, never wash their hands, and "have fun dying" to the disease.
• Fridge Brilliance:
  • Why does Boom Shadow go along with the Villain Team-Up despite the last time he participated in a similar plan? Because in his dimension, Eggman and most of the other villains have proven to be so ineffectual and incompetent that Shadow didn’t even think they were worthy of the title. The current line-up, on the other hand, while not without their quirks, have each committed more impressive feats that add credibility to them being legitimate villains and even actual threats to Sonic. So while Shadow clearly doesn’t think highly of the group, he does likely respect them more than the other villains of his dimension. In other words, he's no longer a Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond villainy-wise.
    • Boom Shadow's slightly better sense of humor compared to what we've seen of him in Sonic Boom proper may be another result of this: while his perceived superiority among the villains of his dimension only amplified his hatred towards them, he views these Eggman Empire recruits as more equal to him, and he thus feels more inclined to work together with them, with some banter coming as a result. He'll never admit it, obviously, but in a hilariously ironic twist of fate, the Villain Team-Up managed to give Boom Shadow a greater inclination to socialize!
  • Dark Oak having a more comical personality in this series could be interpreted as a meta joke over how the franchise took a more Denser and Wackier approach to its story and characters when compared to the time Sonic X aired.
    • It can also be interpreted as being a change done to diversify the cast of the film through its Rapid-Fire Comedy tone, since the role of The Comically Serious has already been taken by Boom!Shadow, and Dark Oak's position as a more obscure character in the franchise gives the film more leeway for his new portrayal compared to many of the other villains.
  • Out of the many characters from the Archie series both pre- and post-reboot, it's not hard to understand in-universe why Eggman recruited Naugus for his magic and Scourge for being an evil version of his nemesis, but Rosy's a more surprising choice given that she doesn't have as long a villain portfolio as, say, Mammoth Mogul, a Dark Egg Legion Grandmaster (pre-reboot), or one of the Egg Bosses (post-reboot). That is until you remember the last time Eggman had an overzealous sadist in his employ, it resulted in every step of his master plan getting screwed up in one way or another. And considering that Scourge is more prone to cowardice and deceit than even Infinite was, it's possible that Eggman's decision to recruit Rosy had the conscious purpose of disciplining Scourge, with her role as the team's Pint-Sized Powerhouse just being a bonus.
  • "All that genius in one room just cancels itself out" aside, Eggman's not-so-clandestine plans to enslave all the other villains he's recruited implies that he's interested in taking over the rest of the multiverse. If that's the case, then there's another reason for him to deliberately avoid working with other versions of himself: if he did, he'd have to share the spoils of the conquest with his alternates. Eggman's probably figured out in advance that this would result in a Prisoner's Dilemma situation, since he knows that he doesn't like sharing and that his other selves don't like sharing either, that they would most likely discern the same about him, and that any of them even remotely hoarding their conquest would result in infighting at best and a potential bloodbath at worst.
    • Eggman's description of his new cronies as "incredibly gullible and increasingly exploitable" therefore gains more credence compared to most of his other selves, since most of the villains he's recruited have less ambitious desires by comparison. And even then, any member of his team who has explicitly expressed an interest in infinite domination either runs on Insane Troll Logic that Eggman can easily take advantage of (Dark Oak), is a sniveling coward when faced with hardship (Scourge), or is just too stupid and inept to actually make good on their claims (Dingo).
  • Eggman referring to the movie universe as "Dimension 2-0-1-9" makes sense as the numbers are 2019, the year the first movie was originally planned for release.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In the 2020 Q&A, Eggman insists that he gave up on fighting Sonic and the Resistance to respond to Infinite's "harrowing cries" from his defeat at the end of Sonic Forces, and nursing him back to health from then on. While this was already clearly meant to be made-up malarkey on Eggman's part for the sake of getting a laugh out of the audience, the "Infinite Pleads" storyboard released in 2022 shows that it's a good descriptor of the exact opposite of what really happened — while Infinite was indeed in pure agony thanks to the Phantom Ruby putting such heavy strain on his battered body, Eggman clearly didn't care one bit for Infinite's insistence towards being given a second chance, and unrelentingly tore the Phantom Ruby clean off of Infinite's body, the jackal screaming in pain throughout the whole thing.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The plot of this fanfilm involves Sonic and the multiverse. Four years after this project was announced, a show that involves Sonic and the multiverse is released.
• He Really Can Act:
  • Some of the actors sound like dead ringers for Mike Pollock, Garry Chalk, Ian James Corlett, Kirk Thornton, and Maurice LaMarche, among others, while still giving great deliveries in their own right. Orbot and Cubot in particular sound like their canon selves without the robot filter.
  • Boostifer as Adventures!Robotnik sounds like Long John Baldry came back from the dead without a change whatsoever.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The "Infinite Pleads" animatic, showing part of what happened to Infinite following his defeat in Forces. Simply put, he pleads (as the title says) for Eggman to recharge the Phantom Ruby to give him the strength to fight back against Sonic again, as the Ruby is currently siphoning energy out of his body. Eggman responds by slowly and painfully tearing the Phantom Ruby out of Infinite's chest, showing cold indifference to the jackal's agonized screams. Even Orbot and Cubot are visibly horrified by the sight.
  • Over the course of the first QnA, there are periodic visual and auditory distortions that seem to be just a product of buggy software as Eggman was implying at the start. But around the timestamp of 34:03, we see it's actually an intersecting signal, with a picture of a distorted human head screaming in agony as it drowns in an ocean of blood, said screaming being briefly audible.
  • In the same QnA video, we have this moment from Sara, reminding us that she's not just brainwashed, she's also fully aware of it and desperately trying to free herself.
    Sara: I'm just sooo happy to be given the task of killing [Sonic] for you! My high and mighty Lord Eggman, sir! (her screen suddenly flashes and her eyes and the sky in her background turn blue) AH! No… I'm… not… ! (switches back and giggles) Yes I am!
  • Several scenes from the first trailer, including a sinister Eye Awaken of Perfect Chaos, Rosy laughing insanely as she smashes shit up with her hammer, Scratch looming over an unseen figure while laughing triumphantly, Tikal desperately pleading with someone, Sonic's horror-stricken face as he sees Fleetway Super Sonic wreathed in flames and Eggman formally introducing Sonic.EXE.
  • this animatic detailing Scourge's backstory, being bloodier than anything the crew has put out.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: MiiToons has expressed a desire to do this with Elise from Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), through redesigning her with a more cartoony look, making her relationship with Sonic more of a friendship as opposed to an Interspecies Romance, and (through the help of her voice actress) giving her some additional energetic Genki Girl traits to emphasize her stronger will and desire to help out.
• Tear Jerker:
  • In the Q&A, Scratch, Coconuts and Orbot are eventually Forced to Watch as Grounder and Cubot fall prey to EXE's Demonic Possession, and by the final question, the former two are trying to snap Grounder out of X's control, knowing this is NOT how he acts at all. It doesn't help that only Rosy's in the loop about what's really going on, and by the time she decides to act on it herself, it's far too late to stop X.
  • From the first trailer, we have Sonic's horrified expression when he sees Fleetway Super Sonic. You can practically hear him screaming "No! That's not me! That can't be me!"
• Unexpected Character: The fact that Sonic.exe himself is gonna make an appearance!
  • Perhaps even more unexpected is Solid Snake, played by David Hayter himself!
  • Following on from this, it had been confirmed that Fatal Error and Rewrite are set to have cameo appearances as part of the film!