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Sonic Pokémon: The Movie, released in Japan as Sonic Pocket Monsters: The Movie (ソニックポケットモンスター・ザ・ムービー, Sonikku Poketto Monsutā Za Mūbī), is a 2044 American-Japanese adventure film directed by Sam Thomas, who directed other acclaimed and successful animated films like Sam & Sanji, Thomas, Franklin and the Magic Turtle Railway and Little Bear: The Movie. It is the first theatrical installment in the Sonic Pokémon trilogy. The film was produced by SamArts and distributed by GKIDS.

The film was also later titled as Sonic Pokémon: The Beginning Movie: The Adventure Begins for its 2063 1-month theatrical re-release after Sonic Pokémon: The Indigo Movie: I Choose You!, but later return to it’s original title after some criticism with the fans of the first movie.

Based on the best-selling 25 western manga series written by the same director, Sam Thomas and illustrated by Ryo Takamisaki, It was adapted from the first volume, The Adventure Begins. The title of the first volume would later be for the 2063 re-release of the film.

Sonic Pokémon: The Movie was released in theaters in the United States on April 4, 2044 and then was release in Japan on July 15, 2044, with mixed to positive reviews from critics and was a commercial success at the box office with $236 million domestically and $652.1 million worldwide. The film received four Oscar nominations, with Best Original Screenplay, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Animated Feature.

The film will later launched the Sonic Pokémon franchise with a series of movies, a anime release 6 months after the film which last for 3 decades, two sequels—Sonic Pokémon: The Indigo Movie: I Choose You (2060) and Sonic Pokémon: The Johto Movie: Gold & Silver (2066)—both of which also garnered massive commercial success and critical acclaim, and a upcoming american Netflix series entitled, Sonic Pokémon: The Samarts Series, slated for a 2070 release on Netflix.

Story
Sonic The Hedgehog enters another world from a portal his pal, Tails made to go other worlds and dimensions, and this world is one of them and it is known as the world of Pokémon. But as Sonic enters through, he ends up falling from the sky and lands on an island who he meets a 10 years old Pokémon trainer from Pallet Town named Ash Ketchum who be friends with along with his traveling friends, Brock and Misty. The 3 Pokémon Trainers would show Sonic they're Pokémon, their pokemon battling, and relationship with them, which caught Sonic under curiosity and interest.

They all soon get an invitation from a mysterious maiden to go to a mysterious island with other Pokémon Trainers for battle challenges and strengths. They got there despite a terrible storm but turns out to be trap planned by a powerful clone of Mew—Mewtwo, who reveals its plan for domination, creating powerful clones of all of the Trainers' Pokémon to even the "imbalance" between Pokémon and their Trainers and wipe out all the existing Pokémon on the planet.

Angered and outraged, Sonic and Ash first try to stop Mewtwo from his outrages plan, but after a mysterious girl spirit called Amber (who been watching over Sonic since he entered the world) explains Mewtwo’s past and refusing on Pokémon and people can be friends, Sonic and Ash have to find a way to help Mewtwo to a choice in life while their friendship gets tested!

Production
The idea of the adaptation of Sonic Pokémon started back in late-2020s when the graphic novel series was slowly growing popular by both of fans of the Sonic The Hedgehog series and Pokémon franchise with selling 150 - 240 million copies that it caught the interest of both Sega, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company to make ether a tv series or a movie. They first asked Sam Thomas back in 2040 after when Lionsgate sold SamArts to Disney in 2039, but he told them he might put it on hold for while because that the studio and he were busy working on the Little Bear trilogy.

After Disney move SamArts to Virginia Beach, VA, thus making having the studio to Western-anime films like Leo and Hiro and ALight and when it also got Disney interested on the idea, Sam finally contact the companies and said he’s now ready to get into making a Sonic Pokémon adaptation, including of also telling them “We should make it into [not a tv series] a animated film, and if the it will be a success, then we can make it into a trilogy, accomening by a western anime tv series”.

Release Date
The film was originally going to be release in November, but after when Sam Thomas notice that the dating number codes had 3 fours on the day and year, he push the release date back to about 7 months since April is the 4th month and thought it would be nice to release it on an even number date (4/4/44). The English version was released by GKIDS (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures in later releases) in the United States on April 4, 2044. 4 Months later, the Japanese-dub version of  was released by Toho Co., Ltd on July 16, 2044.

Critical response
The film got mixed to positive reviews. IGN wrote that “While the story is a tiny bit taken from Pokémon: The First Movie and some characters like Brock and Misty contribute nothing but to help and show the world, Sonic Pokémon: The Movie and the rest of the story is touching and engaging, the animation, although japanese animation simple and cheap looking, manage to be spectacular and gorgeous and characters like Sonic and Ash are well and decent characters with some development and Mewtwo and Amber are good characters with great backstories”. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives a rating of 97% based on 182 reviews and an decent rating of 7.9/10. Metacritic, another review aggregation website, assigned the film a score of 86 out of 100 based on 46 critics, indicating "mixed to positive reviews".

Box office
At the box office, Sonic Pokémon: The Movie was an was a commercial success at the box office, debuting at number four and earning $15 million on its Monday opening day and $65.7 million on its opening weekend. The film has made $236,576,340 in the United States and Canada as well as an estimated $415,536,120 internationally for a worldwide total of $652,112,460, against its $30 million budget.

Accolades
Sonic Pokémon: The Movie was nominated for 4 Academy Awards, including Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress and Best Original Score. It was also nominated for Best Animated Feature, but lost to both SamArt’s previous films, ALight and Little Bear 3: Journey to the New World.

The Western Anime
5 months after the film, Sega and The Pokémon Company announced an anime series made by Samarts’ third sister studio, Samarts Japan (renamed Studio Shima) that premiered in November 2044 that acted as a follow-up  starting with the first season, Sonic Pokémon: Sonic Indigo League. In Japan though, the show was split up into nine chronologically sequential series by the volume of the graphic novel series the anime takes inspiration from: the original series, the Advanced Generation series, the Diamond & Pearl series, the Astro Boy series, the Best Wishes! series, the XY series, the Sonic Quest series, the Sun & Moon series, and the latest, the Stars series, and for international broadcasts, these nine series are split into 37 separate seasons, same with the US. The anime run from 2044 to 2067, a total of 2 decades in a span of 23 years.

The Western Anime Movies
Since the debut of the anime adaptation of Sonic Pokémon: The Movie, Toho has produced the theatrical films based on the franchise since 2044 in both the United States and Japan: five based on the original series, with the first film based on the first volume of the comic series and the other four based on the original series Sonic Pokémon anime, four based on the Advanced Generation series, four based on the Diamond and Pearl series, four based on the Astro Boy series, three based on the Best Wishes series, three based on the XY series, five based on the Sonic Quest series, four based on the Sun & Moon series, four base Stars series, and two based on the The Final Chapter series.

The SamArts Trilogy
A sequel, titled Sonic Pokémon: The Indigo Movie: I Choose You, was released on November 5, 2060. It is produced by the same team that was behind the first film—along with writer and director Sam Thomas. Veronica Taylor, Kerry Williams, and Megan Hollingshead reprise their roles; Rachael Lillis and Eric Stuart returned but voiced Pokémon (Jigglypuff and Squirtle). New cast members include Zack Maher as Sonic the Hedgehog, Michele Knotz as Misty, and Bill Rogers as Brock.

Another sequel, titled Sonic Pokémon: The Johto Movie: Gold & Silver, was released on November 12, 2066.

Sonic Pokémon: The SamArts Series
An upcoming american Netflix series, Sonic Pokémon: The Samarts Series is set to stream on Netflix in November 2067. The first three seasons is set to have a total of ether 16 - 20 episodes in a running time of 26 - 28 minutes. It’s follow-up seasons will have ether 20 - 24 episodes in a running time of only 30 minutes.