Today makes the 20th anniversary of Pokémon, yes this
franchise has been going on for 20 years at this point "YOUR OLD" and
so am I since I was born in 96. So to honor the occasion I figured that I
should review the very first Pokémon movie just simply called Pokémon the first
movie or if you go by the Japanese tittle it’s called Pocket Monsters the
Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back! (One questions that how Mewtwo is striking back if
he haven't first fight in the first place but whatever). Your probably asking
why I’m doing a review instead of giving my thoughts in the franchise, well I
did that post a long time ago in my earlier Blogger days and it was the post
right before I made the Pokémon the Origins review and that explains that. Now
for the movie itself it is not consider all that great by many fans and a main
reason why that is simply just because of the 4Kids Dub and really that is the
movies main fault as I’ll explain latter on as you people will see. Do note I
am looking at the 4Kids Ver. Of this movie but I did look up the significate
differences between both the Dub and Japanese Ver.
The movie begins with scientist in a jungle looking for the
legendary Pokémon Mew in order to clone Mew and create their own Ver. of Mew
that surpasses the original, and they find a sample of him. AND already this is
where the changes start taking effect, in the theatrical Ver. Of the movie they
did not add what is dub in Japan “The
Birth of Mewtwo” (and believe me or not it began as a Radio Drama) and this
scene WAS VERY CRITICAL understand this movie and 4Kids left it out but kept
Mewtwo killing a bunch of people, THIS IS WHY 4KIDS SUCK PEOPLE. But since I’m
taking a look at this whole movie let’s talk about it now shale we.
Mewtwo’s meats up with a little girl named Amber and also
Clone Ver. Of the starter Pokémon and she tells him that both her her and
Mewtwo are clones and we find out that Giovanni is the one that helped funded
this so that he could have the perfect Pokémon and for the head scientist Dr. Fuji
he can bring his daughter back to life. You see his daughter Amber died he
spent years and years working on a way to bring his daughter back to life and
because of that his wife just left him. It doesn’t stop being sad their thought
all the clone starters and Amber start turning into nothing and then is
suppressed and well forced to forget the only person he ever knew and Dr. Fuji
loses his Daughter forever. This scene is a very sad and very sympathetic moment
and it surprise me this was all done in only 8 minute and in that 8 minutes it
is a very touching scene, which is more then what I can say about Clannad which
took about 50 episodes to do the same effect and it really should have had been
12 episodes best. YES I have actually seen that and I want review it 1 day because
there are things I need to say about that show.
When Mewtwo body is fully developed he awaken and can talk
to humans because of his Physic powers so Physic and use telepathy (which was
cool before every Pokémon started using it). before I continue i must comment on Mewtwo's design I love it I love it so much, it just looks good is all I can say. it is some what humanoid in design and you can tell this does look like a more powerful Ver. of Mew and also yah looks it had some inspiration from Frieza from DBZ and Pokemon would do it again with Zygard and Cell. When Mewtwo does wake up all the scientist
are happy about this and now going to start more experiments on Mew since well
all they want to use Mewtwo is for its powers and not him as a living being. Mewtwo
is rightful pissed off about this he just straight up kills everyone in the lab
causing many, many, many kids to have trauma after this. Giovanni comes in and
see all the destruction Mewtwo has done and is impress with him and Giovanni makes
him an offer he can’t refuse, but Mewtwo does refuse the offer but his offer to
help him control his powers and Mewtwo accepts the offer.
Then Mewtwo get a Battlizer, yah Mewtwo has a Battlizer to
help control his powers and looks really badass and much awesome then Mecha
Mewtwo (don't know what Mecha Mewtwo is? this is Mecha Mewtwo, this is real). Giovanni
now has the most OP Pokémon there is and defeats anyone who gets in his way and
even gets a whole horde of Tauros. Sometime latter Giovanni just flat out says
he just sees him as a tool for destruction (which o think is more 4Kids Dialog
fault then anything) and Mewtwo destroy Giovanni base which was a really cool
tie in into the anime and now declares he shale be the ruler of the world. I love the first 20 minutes of this movie with
Mewtwo, I love the art with being heavy on Shadows, I love the voice acting
with Mewtwo’s voice sounding fragile but menacing at the same time, the music
sounds creepy and helps the atmosphere and knows when to get serious, and also
with the “Birth of Mewtwo” I have gowned to like this more as an adult then I
would have had ever as a kid (and without Birth of Mewtwo short his plain to
rule the world make him seems to be a bit on the generic side) but at lase we
still got more to cover which is ok I’ll put it.
After something so Mature and
with so much Depth we now get the typical Pokémon movie formula which goes like
this Ash and friends are enjoying themselves, some jack comes and try’s to
challenge Ash and fails from Pikachu and is not remember except for this guy
just because of this line, Team Rocket is there for KOMEDDY but does not
contribute anything for the movie (well except for this and 2000 that is) and
the plot continues there. Ash gets an innovation that talks about attending a
secluded Island to fight the world’s greatest Pokémon caption who is obviously
is Mewtwo. Mewtwo creates a storm where only the best of the best Pokémon
trainers must make it to his Island and from there we are given 1 major plot
point. That this woman who we’ve never seen before says that Pokémon teats have
life in them which is FORESHADOWING FOR THE FUTURE! And then everyone says screw
it and then go to the island to meet up with this best Pokémon caption, Team
Rocket poses as Vikings to give ash and the others on bored and this is also
where we get a very memorable line of Vikings are from Minnesota. But the waves
are too strong and then everyone is off the ship and they use their Pokémon to
get out of the storm like real Pokémon trainers would before ash because so
stupid, and sucks.
At new ground Island all the
trainers are there and Mewtwo introduce himself as the best Pokémon Trainer
there is and everyone is surprise by this (and might I also add that it is
badass how cool of appearance Mewtwo makes). It is here with Team Rocket that
the movie shows expiation to us the audience what is haping like showing us
all how Mewtwo made Cloned Ver. of Pokémon for he thinks the originals are
inferior and Clones are superior and he make the clones through a.. Wait is
that. No it couldn’t. OH MY GOD!
LORD HELIX, SO THE FIRST Pokémon
Movie predicted that LORD HELIX would be GOD, ALL PRAISE LORD HELIX!
Anyways we can see when Mewtwo
calls forth his Pokémon to see if his clone Pokémon are superior Pokémon or the
originals are superior then we see that his Pokémon come out thought this like
organic tube thing and this is gross and nasty and I love it, Mewtwo’s Castle
is like something H.R. Giger would create. Mewtwo’s Clone Pokémon take down the
original Pokémon Down with ease and as the victor Mewtwo will now capture the
real Pokémon to make clones for himself, even though he said earlier that
Humans enslave Pokémon and well that is what he is doing himself (I’m not
saying Mewtwo is a hypocrite but… I think I can blame the dialog for this one).
Mewtwo has his own special Pokeballs that are a lot like a Master Ball but can
catch other people’s Pokémon and a smart thing from ash if they put their
Pokémon back in the Pokeballs he can’t capture them but the Mewtwo Balls can
take the Pokémon even when in the Pokeball. Ash go to get Pikachu when he is
captured (and let’s get this mistake out of the way, yah I know it happen in
the film for being the early days of 4Kids I know it sucks) and Ash James the machine which then release
all the Pokémon.
When
Mewtwo is just about to destroy all of humanity Ash comes in with the real
Pokémon and decides to try and punch Mewtwo but fails (if we had Marcus Damon
here he would be able to beat Mewtwo in no time). And Mew saves ash and then we
get a massive change in this dialog with the Dub Mew saying that true straight
comes from the heart when in actually what Mew says is all unnatural life (IE,
clones) are inferior to the originals, and thus should perish, so yah mew is a
dick, always has been a dick and always will be a dick. And another crappy part
of the movie the battle where it Plays Brother My Brother and where I was
complementing the music from before but here GGGAAA this so does not work with
what is going on. And on top of that they then spent the next minute saying
violence is wrong because oh yah biting cutting and also burning you open OK
compare to this battle, and this is 4Kids fault in the dialog since in the
original Japanese ver. the message is you aren’t define by your organs.
After
that scene the escalation of Mew and Mewtwo’s battle reach its peak with both
unleashing a Kamehameha and Ash takes the blast and turning Ash into stone and
stopping all the Pokémon from fighting. Pikachu try’s to revive ash but nothing
works and then All the Pokémon starts crying and but the power of Ash is
revived and Mewtwo then has no more hatred to worse humanity and then erasing
everyone memory of this event (somehow) and making none of this ever happining in
the first place. So the lesion fighting is wrong, COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN.
The movie ends with everything going back to normal
and Ash sees mew just like how he saw Ho-Ho and then very dated 90’s pop songs.
Overall I give Pokémon the first
movie a very strong 3/5
I like this movie more than most
people.
Granted I am looking at more in the Japanese Ver.
but still I do like this movie then most people and even more then some
Hardcore Pokémon fans. I love Mewtwo he is so complex and very symphonic and
this really is his movie since we spend so much time with him and Ash is just
for the ride along. I mean if you can get pass over all the crappy stuff 4Kids
did to the movie this is a pretty good movie with a pretty mature message for
kids being you are not defied by your origin. So yah I like this movie then
most people do and maybe even more so then most Hard Core Pokémon fans and if
all of you like this review I can do more Pokémon movie reviews, that or review
the Sinnoh trilogy of movie because those 3 movies are REALLY CRAPPY and I want to bitch
about them badly!
