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xyzzysqrlWith the Advanced Generation films, we enter into the movies that I watched fresh for the first time during this marathon. I had never seen any of these before. So join me in entering a bright new frontier of Pokemon movies where me and my watching partner had absolutely no idea who Ash's supporting cast were.
Jirachi: Wish Maker
Ash and companions happen to arrive at the exact place where a carnival/circus is being set up and decide what the heck, let's have a good time. During the performance, nerd child Max (who is traveling with Ash for some reason) develops a psychic bond with a meteoric crystal egg on stage. This egg hatches into adorable pokemon Jirachi, which is said to be able to grant wishes and is Max's best friend now.
Jirachi can't so much "grant wishes" as it is "capable of short-range teleportation", so that's the title of the movie up there bein' a big ol' lie.
Anyway the circus's ringmaster and primary magician is a disgraced former scientist who wants to prove that he's NOT mad, he's NOT MAD, bwahaha, they'll ALL see someday. His plan is to wrap Jirachi in a superscience ball and open Jirachi's mystical third eye via the power of a comet that passes PokeEarth for seven days once every thousand years, and then have some 3D printing machines create the legendary pokemon Groudon out of science goop amplified by the power of magical wish-irradiated Jirachi-infused comet energy.
I can't imagine why they threw this man out of the scientific community.
Groudon turns out to be a science-wish-powered jello monster GONE HORRIBLY WRONG and everyone, including the villain, fights it until Jirachi uses the last of its energy to make it explode. Jirachi then goes back to sleep in another egg crystal for a thousand years. Max is very sad briefly, then walks it off and stops being relevant to these movies forever.
Also there's a subplot where May (is in this movie) buys a wish-granting trinket you have to close panels on over the course of the seven nights the comet is visible. She forgets about it, and decides it doesn't matter because you can make your own damn wishes come true.
Okay, May.
Jirachi, who is not much of a Wish Maker but is very good at being cute and having a creepy extra eye which thankfully is closed most of the time. Flygon also shows up during the fight with Jello Groudon to be the coolest pokemon in the movie.
Oh!
And Absol was here too for some reason.
Wow Absol deserved better.
Jirachi neither granted wishes nor particularly made wishes. Someone did however make a wish OUT OF Jirachi, in the sense that they used Jirachi to infuse goo with the power of comet. I find this insufficent.
Speaking of which, my favorite thing about this movie was the villain. Why is he a stage magician? Because he loves magic! Why is he crazy-prepared for everything? Because he loves magic! Why can his circus tents magically set themselves up? Because he's a lunatic ex-super-scientist criminal from Team Magma! Why Groudon? Team Magma!
Everything about this guy makes as much or as little sense as everything else about this guy and he's so theatrical I half-wanted him to get away with it.
He also had a nice, unforced relationship with his Lovely Assistant Diane (because the Lovely Assistant is always Diane) and the two just walk away at the end of the movie to get married, pretty much totally unpunished for anything. So I guess he kind of got away with it!
This movie took like 45 minutes to address May by name, to the point where I was half-convinced maybe she was actually Dawn or one of the other girls or something, I dunno all of Ash's traveling companions. I still don't know who Max is or why he's present in this movie, and I watched them all. Bulbapedia says he's May's little brother, which ... huh. I guess?
The film also sparked a brief debate on whether superstitions like May's wish-trinket had any bearing whatsoever in a universe where weird supernatural shit happens seemingly all the time and can almost always be traced back to a Pokemon. The debate was spirited, but inconclusive. I'm still not sure what to think on the subject.
We SURE ARE in the Advanced era now, huh? Jirachi: Wish Maker was absolutely breathless in its lack of regard for anything approaching sense, and it felt wild and anarchic because of it. That said, while previous movies in the series had messages like "Respect our natural world", "Escapism bad? Probably?", "Kissing pokemon is a-okay!" and "Don't genocide humanity please" this movie ... didn't really have a message at all beyond "Science Jello is not a valid construction medium", unless it was supposed to be "Make your own dreams come true instead of trying to get someone else to do it".
Or maybe it was "stop playing with your wand and get married" ?
I dunno. Dragonfriend suggests "Every wish comes at someone else's expense." and that seems ... also possible?
It felt a lot more like just a bunch of STUFF THAT HAPPENED rather than a cohesive narrative.
A Cute Flygon/22
Destiny Deoxys
Somewhere in the PokeArctic, a meteor hits and creepy noodle alien pokemon Deoxys breaks out of it to terrorize a research base. We are spared a Pokemon remake of The Thing when Rayquaza, roary dragon noodle, shows up to fight the alien noodle. It's Noodle vs Noodle and only one will survive! The survivor is Rayquaza, Deoxys is reduced to a glowing ball which the researchers take home to study. Meanwhile, a small child in the research camp is severely traumatized by wild pokemon trying to escape.
'Home' is LaRousse City, a high-tech supercity full of moving walkways and block-shaped robots that can assemble themselves into buildings and other objects. Into this high-tech utopia walks Ash and company, and Ash promptly drags that traumatized kid out of his shell and into a Pokemon team battle. This fails heavily because Trauma Kid, AKA "Tory", is too upset to ever touch or raise a pokemon.
Naturally Ash makes this his problem. Tory does have a friend, though. It's a weird glowing holographic light cluster he talks to when he's alone. Pokemon bad, freaky glowing lights fine. There's some faffing around with pokemon, including a Munchlax that's hanging around and a Plusle and Minun that live in the city and seem to like Tory, and then Tory takes all the local kids including Ash to meet his hologram friend. They think it's neat.
A second Deoxys arrives in the city, and Rayquaza soon follows. Deoxys creates an electromagnetic barrier around the city that messes with electronics (the robots, the pokeball system, etc) as evacuation attempts fail, then splits off clones that start kidnapping people. While Rayquaza and Deoxys battle in the streets, Ash and friends work out that the globe in the research lab is the dormant first Deoxys and Tory's hologram friend is a projection from the globe. One of the kids uses her precious laptop battery power to decode its light patterns in a very Close Encounters style scene, and they realize the two Deoxys are looking for each other.
There's a lot of running around getting power to regenerate the orbed Deoxys, and there's more fighting in the streets, and eventually another EM pulse sends the weird block robots (do you remember the block robots?) out of control, leading to the wonderful scene of Ash and company riding a broken hot dog machine through the streets on a gray-goo-esqe wave of roboblocks, trying to get to the system terminal to reset it.
They do, Tory gets over his fears and teams up with Plusle and Minun, the day is saved, Rayquaza stops beating the hell out of the aliens for daring to come to Earth, and the Deoxys head back to space together.
Munchlax, who delivers the most clutch evolution in history.
Also I guess Ray and Deoxys. And the Plusle/Minun duo.
Man, a LOT HAPPENED in this movie, huh? Wow, dang. That was a long write-up!
Bulbapedia claims LaRousse City is based on real-life city Vancouver in Canada, in which case holy crap get me to Vancouver right now.
Also, LaRousse City? KIND OF shaped like a Dickbutt. No really, go back and look at it again. Narrow top, protruding right-facing rear, little stumpy harbor legs.
Ahem. CITY ASIDE, I felt real sorry for Tory throughout this movie.
Being traumatically afraid of your planet's primary pet, companion, work assistant, etc is easily the most debilitating condition the anime ever depicted. It's like being afraid of not just one type of animal, but all types of animals everywhere, and also people routinely live and work with multiple service animals and let them casually run through the streets and buildings.
Life for Tory must have been absolute misery and I was relieved to see him open up a little at the end.
Also I still want to sit around and worldbuild on the Pokeball Management System. How does it work? Why does it control the resizing of Pokeballs? How are living creatures encoded and stored within the balls if it doesn't require electrical power? I know the answer is "It's a children's cartoon, don't worry about it" and I risk getting into Star Trek/Star Wars levels of Overexplaining The Setting Because You're A Nerd Who Can't Stop Asking Questions, but... c'mon.
Also, we began this movie in space, with something that looks like the crystal Jirachi egg and prompted a Jojo reference out of my watch partner. I don't know shit about Jojo so ... hey. Jojo reference. I guess.
This movie was ... actually REALLY ENTERTAINING, as evidenced by the fact that I remembered 95% of it and typed all that stuff up there without having to hit Bulbapedia to look up the plot again. Having watched all of these movies in such a big glob, some of them blend together, but this was memorable and interesting the whole way through. It felt like it went with the Toy Story/Pixar climactic principle of 'every time the heroes overcome an obstacle, escalate the situation'.
Endless Minecraft Block Robots/22
Lucario and the Mystery of Mew
In the far distant past, the Aura Master Sir Aaron leaves his Lucario trapped in a crystal wand and vanishes. In the present, Ash arrives for an ancient kingdom's pokemon festival (do towns in the pokemon universe do anything BUT hold pokemon festivals?) and chooses an outfit that coincidentally makes him resemble Sir Aaron. When he's given the wand, Lucario pops out and throws a little fit. Aaron abandoned him and abandoned the kingdom!
Meanwhile, Pikachu is kidnapped by Mew, who is in this movie now.
Mew takes Pikachu to a giant tree, so Ash enlists Lucario to track Pikachu to the tree and on the way we learn the Backstory of Lucario and Aaron, and there's some stuff about Ash having a really powerful Aura that reminds Lucario of Aaron but we never really get into that.
Anyway it turns out Aaron also went to the tree in the distant pass and used the crystals there to save the kingdom but sacrficed his Aura to do it, and Ash starts to do the same thing because the tree is dying but Lucario clocks him one because Pikachu needs Ash. Then Lucario does the heroic sacrifice and dies. It is incredibly sad.
Mew just wanted a playmate, so Pikachu comes back. Ash and Pikachu reaffirm that they would totally die for each other, while Aaron and Lucario reconnect in the afterlife and eat chocolate.
Lucario.
This movie didn't really have much of a plot, being more a character examination of Lucario and Aaron's relationship, and Lucario's attitude after being (in his mind) betrayed by Aaron and left behind. It is NOT A SUBTLE relationship metaphor.
Technically if you look at it in the right light, by kidnapping Pikachu and forcing everyone to hike cross-country to the tree (which then goes into KILL THE INTRUDERS mode and runs out of energy and starts to die) Mew got a pokemon killed here today. This is never really addressed.
lucario was so bitter and resentful and they loved each other aauugh
A Waterfall of Tears/22
Pokemon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea
Plot Summary:
ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Primary Pokemon:
nnhhhh
Discord Log Quote:
bllurrrff
My thoughts:
pbhbbhbbhbht
Final Grade:
no/22
... OKAY FINE WE'LL DO THIS RIGHT
Pokemon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea
Jack 'Jackie' Walker, Pokemon Ranger, breaks his cover as a janitor on a pirate submarine and steals an egg, escaping in an incredibly over the top action hero way. Much later, on land, Ash and company meet up with a water-show circus and fall in with the performers for a while.
The pirates attack and that doesn't really go anywhere. Jack and his egg turn out to be among the circus folk, and the egg hatches. The newborn Manaphy within imprints on May as its mother. They all take a long, long, extremely long, very long, excessively lengthy trip to the water temple where Manaphy needs to go because of reasons.
This whole thing eventually ends up with everyone traveling to an underwater temple, where the pirates catch up. There are water temple shenanigans. The pirate guy breaks the temple while fighting with Jack and it starts flooding. Ash nearly drowns but doesn't because Manaphy did a thing. Everyone escapes from the temple except Ash, who appears flying on a giant golden beam shooting out of his butt because he activated the temple's hidden power and he's the prince of the ocean now or some goddamn thing. Then EVERYONE starts flying around on golden light beams, because WHY NOT HAVE THAT HAPPEN. The pirate submarine gets destroyed and Manaphy tells May it loves her and considers her its mother before swimming off. Then the movie ends thank you.
Manaphy, adorable baby water thing. I can't blame you for this movie, Manaphy.
Also Kyogre was there for a minute.
Bonus Discord Log Quote:
THIS MOVIE WAS AN HOUR AND FORTY FIVE MINUTES LONG AND I FELT EVERY MINUTE IN MY SOUL
Okay. So there was a subplot I didn't touch on, where May starts having dreams related to the sea temple and discovers she may be connected to the People of The Water, which is a whole indigenous people group, and she's gifted an official People of the Water bracelet and all, and most of the drive to go to the sea temple is based on her and her bond with Manaphy and it's starting to look like she'll have stuff to DO in this movie.
And she doesn't.
They just sort of give the whole thing to Ash. Ash gets to become Prince of the Sea and bloosh around on a light beam and all. Ash gets to save the day. Three cheers for Ash. May can't hero, she's too busy being a mommy.
Jack Walker is kind of an insufferable quipping action movie jerk.
This movie is, I repeat, an hour forty five and most of it is spent either dicking with the circus or in transit to the only place The Plot cares about, which promptly falls in on itself.
It felt like the pilot to a spinoff show we never got. I'm glad.
I resent having watched this movie. This is the only movie I can say that about in the entire 22-film run. Don't watch this movie.
I stand by my grade.
no/22
See you next time for the Diamond and Pearl movies!
Advance Generation Films - What's A Max And What Is He For?
Jirachi: Wish Maker
Plot Summary:
Ash and companions happen to arrive at the exact place where a carnival/circus is being set up and decide what the heck, let's have a good time. During the performance, nerd child Max (who is traveling with Ash for some reason) develops a psychic bond with a meteoric crystal egg on stage. This egg hatches into adorable pokemon Jirachi, which is said to be able to grant wishes and is Max's best friend now.
Jirachi can't so much "grant wishes" as it is "capable of short-range teleportation", so that's the title of the movie up there bein' a big ol' lie.
Anyway the circus's ringmaster and primary magician is a disgraced former scientist who wants to prove that he's NOT mad, he's NOT MAD, bwahaha, they'll ALL see someday. His plan is to wrap Jirachi in a superscience ball and open Jirachi's mystical third eye via the power of a comet that passes PokeEarth for seven days once every thousand years, and then have some 3D printing machines create the legendary pokemon Groudon out of science goop amplified by the power of magical wish-irradiated Jirachi-infused comet energy.
I can't imagine why they threw this man out of the scientific community.
Groudon turns out to be a science-wish-powered jello monster GONE HORRIBLY WRONG and everyone, including the villain, fights it until Jirachi uses the last of its energy to make it explode. Jirachi then goes back to sleep in another egg crystal for a thousand years. Max is very sad briefly, then walks it off and stops being relevant to these movies forever.
Also there's a subplot where May (is in this movie) buys a wish-granting trinket you have to close panels on over the course of the seven nights the comet is visible. She forgets about it, and decides it doesn't matter because you can make your own damn wishes come true.
Okay, May.
Primary Pokemon:
Jirachi, who is not much of a Wish Maker but is very good at being cute and having a creepy extra eye which thankfully is closed most of the time. Flygon also shows up during the fight with Jello Groudon to be the coolest pokemon in the movie.
Oh!
And Absol was here too for some reason.
Wow Absol deserved better.
Discord Log Quote:
DragonFriend: I have come before you to declare, you can get to heaven only through Jirachi
XyzzySqrl: The people were astounded at his doctrine.
DragonFriend: like, can Jirachi make it so Max will never age and die?
XyzzySqrl: Jirachi doesn't actually seem able to grant... like, actual wishes. At all.
XyzzySqrl: Unless they involve shoplifting.
XyzzySqrl: And I mean, I can grant wishes that involve shoplifting. I'm just as powerful as a Jirachi.
My thoughts:
Jirachi neither granted wishes nor particularly made wishes. Someone did however make a wish OUT OF Jirachi, in the sense that they used Jirachi to infuse goo with the power of comet. I find this insufficent.
Speaking of which, my favorite thing about this movie was the villain. Why is he a stage magician? Because he loves magic! Why is he crazy-prepared for everything? Because he loves magic! Why can his circus tents magically set themselves up? Because he's a lunatic ex-super-scientist criminal from Team Magma! Why Groudon? Team Magma!
Everything about this guy makes as much or as little sense as everything else about this guy and he's so theatrical I half-wanted him to get away with it.
He also had a nice, unforced relationship with his Lovely Assistant Diane (because the Lovely Assistant is always Diane) and the two just walk away at the end of the movie to get married, pretty much totally unpunished for anything. So I guess he kind of got away with it!
This movie took like 45 minutes to address May by name, to the point where I was half-convinced maybe she was actually Dawn or one of the other girls or something, I dunno all of Ash's traveling companions. I still don't know who Max is or why he's present in this movie, and I watched them all. Bulbapedia says he's May's little brother, which ... huh. I guess?
The film also sparked a brief debate on whether superstitions like May's wish-trinket had any bearing whatsoever in a universe where weird supernatural shit happens seemingly all the time and can almost always be traced back to a Pokemon. The debate was spirited, but inconclusive. I'm still not sure what to think on the subject.
Final Grade:
We SURE ARE in the Advanced era now, huh? Jirachi: Wish Maker was absolutely breathless in its lack of regard for anything approaching sense, and it felt wild and anarchic because of it. That said, while previous movies in the series had messages like "Respect our natural world", "Escapism bad? Probably?", "Kissing pokemon is a-okay!" and "Don't genocide humanity please" this movie ... didn't really have a message at all beyond "Science Jello is not a valid construction medium", unless it was supposed to be "Make your own dreams come true instead of trying to get someone else to do it".
Or maybe it was "stop playing with your wand and get married" ?
I dunno. Dragonfriend suggests "Every wish comes at someone else's expense." and that seems ... also possible?
It felt a lot more like just a bunch of STUFF THAT HAPPENED rather than a cohesive narrative.
A Cute Flygon/22
Destiny Deoxys
Plot Summary:
Somewhere in the PokeArctic, a meteor hits and creepy noodle alien pokemon Deoxys breaks out of it to terrorize a research base. We are spared a Pokemon remake of The Thing when Rayquaza, roary dragon noodle, shows up to fight the alien noodle. It's Noodle vs Noodle and only one will survive! The survivor is Rayquaza, Deoxys is reduced to a glowing ball which the researchers take home to study. Meanwhile, a small child in the research camp is severely traumatized by wild pokemon trying to escape.
'Home' is LaRousse City, a high-tech supercity full of moving walkways and block-shaped robots that can assemble themselves into buildings and other objects. Into this high-tech utopia walks Ash and company, and Ash promptly drags that traumatized kid out of his shell and into a Pokemon team battle. This fails heavily because Trauma Kid, AKA "Tory", is too upset to ever touch or raise a pokemon.
Naturally Ash makes this his problem. Tory does have a friend, though. It's a weird glowing holographic light cluster he talks to when he's alone. Pokemon bad, freaky glowing lights fine. There's some faffing around with pokemon, including a Munchlax that's hanging around and a Plusle and Minun that live in the city and seem to like Tory, and then Tory takes all the local kids including Ash to meet his hologram friend. They think it's neat.
A second Deoxys arrives in the city, and Rayquaza soon follows. Deoxys creates an electromagnetic barrier around the city that messes with electronics (the robots, the pokeball system, etc) as evacuation attempts fail, then splits off clones that start kidnapping people. While Rayquaza and Deoxys battle in the streets, Ash and friends work out that the globe in the research lab is the dormant first Deoxys and Tory's hologram friend is a projection from the globe. One of the kids uses her precious laptop battery power to decode its light patterns in a very Close Encounters style scene, and they realize the two Deoxys are looking for each other.
There's a lot of running around getting power to regenerate the orbed Deoxys, and there's more fighting in the streets, and eventually another EM pulse sends the weird block robots (do you remember the block robots?) out of control, leading to the wonderful scene of Ash and company riding a broken hot dog machine through the streets on a gray-goo-esqe wave of roboblocks, trying to get to the system terminal to reset it.
They do, Tory gets over his fears and teams up with Plusle and Minun, the day is saved, Rayquaza stops beating the hell out of the aliens for daring to come to Earth, and the Deoxys head back to space together.
Primary Pokemon:
Munchlax, who delivers the most clutch evolution in history.
Also I guess Ray and Deoxys. And the Plusle/Minun duo.
Discord Log Quote:
XyzzySqrl: ... the pokeball WHAT
XyzzySqrl: That's a thing?
DragonFriend: wow. That's pretty crazy that the pokeball just stops working.
XyzzySqrl: They're networked?
XyzzySqrl: Can they be hacked?
XyzzySqrl: I want to just sit down and worldbuild the Pokeball Management System for like three hours solid please what is that.
DragonFriend: what about that ancient ball? how did it still work?
XyzzySqrl: Well, Sam's ball was manual/fliptop.
XyzzySqrl: Not button-activated.
XyzzySqrl: Which implies that reducing pokemon to light beams is not the important/networked part of the pokeball.
DragonFriend: but it's still digitized. Is this network just to control the expansion of modern balls, to permit them to be used?
XyzzySqrl: ...I, uh...
XyzzySqrl: ...hey there's a movie on.
My thoughts:
Man, a LOT HAPPENED in this movie, huh? Wow, dang. That was a long write-up!
Bulbapedia claims LaRousse City is based on real-life city Vancouver in Canada, in which case holy crap get me to Vancouver right now.
Also, LaRousse City? KIND OF shaped like a Dickbutt. No really, go back and look at it again. Narrow top, protruding right-facing rear, little stumpy harbor legs.
Dragonfriend: "Upon verifying this information with photographic evidence, it appears this may be the first instance of a Dickbutt in the wild."
Ahem. CITY ASIDE, I felt real sorry for Tory throughout this movie.
Being traumatically afraid of your planet's primary pet, companion, work assistant, etc is easily the most debilitating condition the anime ever depicted. It's like being afraid of not just one type of animal, but all types of animals everywhere, and also people routinely live and work with multiple service animals and let them casually run through the streets and buildings.
Life for Tory must have been absolute misery and I was relieved to see him open up a little at the end.
Also I still want to sit around and worldbuild on the Pokeball Management System. How does it work? Why does it control the resizing of Pokeballs? How are living creatures encoded and stored within the balls if it doesn't require electrical power? I know the answer is "It's a children's cartoon, don't worry about it" and I risk getting into Star Trek/Star Wars levels of Overexplaining The Setting Because You're A Nerd Who Can't Stop Asking Questions, but... c'mon.
Also, we began this movie in space, with something that looks like the crystal Jirachi egg and prompted a Jojo reference out of my watch partner. I don't know shit about Jojo so ... hey. Jojo reference. I guess.
Final Grade:
This movie was ... actually REALLY ENTERTAINING, as evidenced by the fact that I remembered 95% of it and typed all that stuff up there without having to hit Bulbapedia to look up the plot again. Having watched all of these movies in such a big glob, some of them blend together, but this was memorable and interesting the whole way through. It felt like it went with the Toy Story/Pixar climactic principle of 'every time the heroes overcome an obstacle, escalate the situation'.
Endless Minecraft Block Robots/22
Lucario and the Mystery of Mew
Plot Summary:
In the far distant past, the Aura Master Sir Aaron leaves his Lucario trapped in a crystal wand and vanishes. In the present, Ash arrives for an ancient kingdom's pokemon festival (do towns in the pokemon universe do anything BUT hold pokemon festivals?) and chooses an outfit that coincidentally makes him resemble Sir Aaron. When he's given the wand, Lucario pops out and throws a little fit. Aaron abandoned him and abandoned the kingdom!
Meanwhile, Pikachu is kidnapped by Mew, who is in this movie now.
Mew takes Pikachu to a giant tree, so Ash enlists Lucario to track Pikachu to the tree and on the way we learn the Backstory of Lucario and Aaron, and there's some stuff about Ash having a really powerful Aura that reminds Lucario of Aaron but we never really get into that.
Anyway it turns out Aaron also went to the tree in the distant pass and used the crystals there to save the kingdom but sacrficed his Aura to do it, and Ash starts to do the same thing because the tree is dying but Lucario clocks him one because Pikachu needs Ash. Then Lucario does the heroic sacrifice and dies. It is incredibly sad.
Mew just wanted a playmate, so Pikachu comes back. Ash and Pikachu reaffirm that they would totally die for each other, while Aaron and Lucario reconnect in the afterlife and eat chocolate.
Primary Pokemon:
Lucario.
Discord Log Quote:
[7:09 AM] XyzzySqrl: Would you believe, I never liked Lucario much? But I never liked him in the overexposure sense. Way back in my Pokemon Y writeup I was like "Did you know Lucario was the first Lucario ever to Lucario? Buy all our mercendise!" and I STAND BY THAT
[7:09 AM] XyzzySqrl: But maybe this particular individual Lou Cario will be okay.
[TIME PASSES]
[8:54 AM] XyzzySqrl: I cannot believe I'm still crying over the goddamn edgedog/human relationship. this is fucking illegal I shouldn't be legally able to feel things about lucarios.
My thoughts:
This movie didn't really have much of a plot, being more a character examination of Lucario and Aaron's relationship, and Lucario's attitude after being (in his mind) betrayed by Aaron and left behind. It is NOT A SUBTLE relationship metaphor.
Technically if you look at it in the right light, by kidnapping Pikachu and forcing everyone to hike cross-country to the tree (which then goes into KILL THE INTRUDERS mode and runs out of energy and starts to die) Mew got a pokemon killed here today. This is never really addressed.
Final Grade:
lucario was so bitter and resentful and they loved each other aauugh
A Waterfall of Tears/22
Pokemon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea
Plot Summary:
ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Primary Pokemon:
nnhhhh
Discord Log Quote:
bllurrrff
My thoughts:
pbhbbhbbhbht
Final Grade:
no/22
... OKAY FINE WE'LL DO THIS RIGHT
Pokemon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea
Plot Summary:
Jack 'Jackie' Walker, Pokemon Ranger, breaks his cover as a janitor on a pirate submarine and steals an egg, escaping in an incredibly over the top action hero way. Much later, on land, Ash and company meet up with a water-show circus and fall in with the performers for a while.
The pirates attack and that doesn't really go anywhere. Jack and his egg turn out to be among the circus folk, and the egg hatches. The newborn Manaphy within imprints on May as its mother. They all take a long, long, extremely long, very long, excessively lengthy trip to the water temple where Manaphy needs to go because of reasons.
This whole thing eventually ends up with everyone traveling to an underwater temple, where the pirates catch up. There are water temple shenanigans. The pirate guy breaks the temple while fighting with Jack and it starts flooding. Ash nearly drowns but doesn't because Manaphy did a thing. Everyone escapes from the temple except Ash, who appears flying on a giant golden beam shooting out of his butt because he activated the temple's hidden power and he's the prince of the ocean now or some goddamn thing. Then EVERYONE starts flying around on golden light beams, because WHY NOT HAVE THAT HAPPEN. The pirate submarine gets destroyed and Manaphy tells May it loves her and considers her its mother before swimming off. Then the movie ends thank you.
Primary Pokemon:
Manaphy, adorable baby water thing. I can't blame you for this movie, Manaphy.
Also Kyogre was there for a minute.
Discord Log Quote:
XyzzySqrl: just starts laughing really hard.
XyzzySqrl: What the fuck. What the fuuuuck.
DragonFriend: and he's just fucking dragon ball flying around.
XyzzySqrl: oh my god this fucking finale.
XyzzySqrl: just ... gestures at the screen a while.
DragonFriend: nods emphatically!
XyzzySqrl: OH MY GOD
DragonFriend: now everyone is super sonic!
XyzzySqrl: oh my god
Bonus Discord Log Quote:
[7:05 AM] XyzzySqrl: Aside: I should warn you: My standards are very low, my heart is very open, and the company is very good. I'm likely to enjoy even the really -shitty- Pokemon films.
[9:42 AM] XyzzySqrl: ...
[9:42 AM] XyzzySqrl: no.
[9:42 AM] XyzzySqrl: no this isn't about Walker, Pokemon Ranger.
[9:42 AM] XyzzySqrl: please.
[9:42 AM] XyzzySqrl: please don't make me spend 1:45 with Walker, Pokemon Ranger.
[11:21 AM] XyzzySqrl: I feel like I made that comment about enjoying the movies no matter what.
[11:21 AM] XyzzySqrl: And was struck down for my hubris.
My thoughts:
THIS MOVIE WAS AN HOUR AND FORTY FIVE MINUTES LONG AND I FELT EVERY MINUTE IN MY SOUL
Okay. So there was a subplot I didn't touch on, where May starts having dreams related to the sea temple and discovers she may be connected to the People of The Water, which is a whole indigenous people group, and she's gifted an official People of the Water bracelet and all, and most of the drive to go to the sea temple is based on her and her bond with Manaphy and it's starting to look like she'll have stuff to DO in this movie.
And she doesn't.
They just sort of give the whole thing to Ash. Ash gets to become Prince of the Sea and bloosh around on a light beam and all. Ash gets to save the day. Three cheers for Ash. May can't hero, she's too busy being a mommy.
Jack Walker is kind of an insufferable quipping action movie jerk.
This movie is, I repeat, an hour forty five and most of it is spent either dicking with the circus or in transit to the only place The Plot cares about, which promptly falls in on itself.
It felt like the pilot to a spinoff show we never got. I'm glad.
Final Grade:
I resent having watched this movie. This is the only movie I can say that about in the entire 22-film run. Don't watch this movie.
I stand by my grade.
no/22
See you next time for the Diamond and Pearl movies!
