Guy Ritchie’s Young Sherlock is doing this one major thing better than the Robert Downey Jr. movies failed to do

Young Sherlock, set to debut on Prime Video on 4th March, 2026, isn't just a prequel but a rethink of how Sherlock Holmes and his greatest enemy are connected, which was missing in RDJ's Sherlock.

Guy Ritchie is returning to the world of Sherlock Holmes, but this time he's changing the rules in a way his Robert Downey Jr. movies never did. And that single choice already puts it ahead of the big-screen films in one major way.

Guy Ritchie’s Young Sherlock series vs the movies

The biggest miss in the Robert Downey Jr. movies

The RDJ Sherlock Holmes films were stylish, loud, and packed with action. They turned Holmes into a fist-fighting genius who could outthink and outpunch anyone in the room. But when it came to Professor James Moriarty, the movies stayed frustratingly surface-level.

Moriarty shows up in A Game of Shadows fully formed and fully evil. Here, Holmes meets him for the first time, like a stranger walking into an office. But as we can see, the stories feel disconnected, as there’s no shared past, no personal history, and no emotional root to their rivalry.

His motive boils down to profit and ego, which works on paper but lacks depth on screen, and the result is a smart villain, but not a meaningful one.

Young Sherlock makes Moriarty personal

Young Sherlock makes one bold move that changes everything: it places Sherlock Holmes and James Moriarty at the same stage of life.

Both characters meet as students at Oxford, and they don’t start as enemies but as friends. This choice alone reframes their future conflict more humanely. Watching them grow together allows the rivalry to feel earned, not sudden. It turns Moriarty from a plot obstacle into a character with shared history and shared wounds.

No English-language Sherlock Holmes show or movie has explored Moriarty’s origins like this. Arthur Conan Doyle never explained how Moriarty became Holmes’s enemy.

In the books, Moriarty exists mostly as a device to challenge or remove Holmes, and even modern adaptations followed that rule. Moriarty arrives powerful, mysterious, and already dangerous.

Young Sherlock experiments and breaks that tradition completely. It shows the beginning, not just the end result. That makes Moriarty feel more grounded and more tragic.

Why does this fix the movies’ core issue?

The Downey Jr. films treated Moriarty as an idea rather than a person. But Young Sherlock treats him as a man shaped by choices and proximity to Holmes. Friendship turning into rivalry carries more weight than rivalry appearing out of nowhere. It explains why Moriarty understands Holmes so deeply and the obsession on both sides. And it also gives future conflict emotional stakes, not just intellectual ones.

But again, this doesn’t mean Young Sherlock is abandoning Ritchie’s style. Early footage suggests the same energy, swagger, and fast pace. Holmes remains sharp, bold, and physical. The steampunk tone and action-first storytelling are still there. The difference is underneath the noise; the writing digs deeper.

Why does this matter long-term?

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Giving Moriarty an origin opens doors the movies never could, as it allows future seasons to build tension slowly instead of relying on spectacle.

It makes their final conflict feel inevitable rather than convenient, and it brings the Sherlock story closer to character-driven drama without losing scale.

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