Pokémon: The First Movie

While Pokémon as a brand is still insanely popular and continues to release new games, tv shows and multimedia properties to commercial success, it will probably never reach the same level it had during the late 1990s which many in the fandom have coined as ‘’ Pokémania’’. Sparked after the success of the original Gameboy games released in 1998, Pokémon became such a global sensation thanks to its subsequent games, its very popular 4Kids anime that started in 1997, and the mountains worth of merchandising, that it was practically impossible to not see Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Charizard and the remaining 147 monsters wherever you went, and hype of that magnitude needed to be capitalized on in the cinema space. Being the first theatrical release of the franchise, the 1998, Pokémon: The First Movie did well in Japan both critically and commercially but earned most of its money through its foreign market, with the 1999 English-adaptation internationally distributed by Warner Brothers being panned by critics but was eaten up by ravenous fans and became the highest grossing video game film at the time with $172.7 million dollars  (making it the only anime film to top the U.S. box office until Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train in 2021). Despite only being a few years old, this movie made it clear that Pokémon was going to last a long time.

While continuing on his journey to become a Pokémon master, Ash Ketchum (voiced again by Veronica Taylor) alongside his trustee Pokémon partner, Pikachu, and his human companions, Brock and Misty (voiced again by Eric Stuart and Rachael Lillis) are randomly invited to New Island in order to fight a mysterious trainer who claims to be the best in the world. After quickly accepting and joining other trainers who were also invited, the three are some of the only trainers able to reach the island as a harsh storm prevents any public transportation, leaving them without a way to leave. They quickly learn however that there is no human trainer, but rather MewTwo (voiced by Dan Green), a genetically engineered Pokémon based on one of the species’ progenitors, Mew, who resents humanity for callously created him, and has called the strongest trainers to fight his own genetically-called cloned Pokémon and then capture them himself. With Ash strongly disagreeing with MewTwo’s mindset, but with everybody’s Pokémon under threat of being taken (included Pikachu), this violent Pokémon ‘’Frankenstein’’ will need to be talked down to prevent the end of the world.

Pokémon: The First Movie was made to bank on the brand’s popularity and appeal to the young demographic eating this series up like crazy, so even though the movie in question is not very good, it’s hard to get mad at something that succeeded in its intended goal. The story is cliched and very dull, the soundtrack is lame and dated, the characters are flat and terribly voiced, and any intriguing aspects that could be found in this premise are heavily watered down by the English localization, but it’s also a quick, inoffensive product-of-the-time that will entertain those who wanted to see it regardless of quality.

While the brand has actually started leaning more into its adult demographic now that it has become nostalgic, Pokémon (unsurprisingly) started off specifically catered for children, and therefore the anime that was inspired from the Satoshi Tajiri-created game series, leaned very heavily into a very juvenile state of mind that was only further enhanced by the American dub, with the notoriously tone-deaf 4Kids Entertainment removing any level of potential maturity in the Japanese version in exchange for pandering, time-relevant dialogue, and features that’d be recognizable to an American youth (Onigiri are ‘clearly’ just jelly-filled donuts). Despite this, it didn’t stop the show from being a huge hit, so a movie was the right call and its success at the global box office proves making it a worldwide release was smart, but it might’ve been made purely for them and no one else. While the idea behind this film is decent with an uber-powerful Pokémon that’s the equivalent of the Frankenstein monster threatening to end the world is a simple, but effective enough idea for this kind of world and story, it strangely never feels that interesting or even that well thought out, and a lot of that could be because of how it was changed between versions.

Once Warner Brothers brought the film over and 4Kids got their hands on it, then president of the company, Norman J. Grossfeld, heavily changed and edited the film in a way that’d be considered ‘’appropriate’’ for American children, which included removing a lot of the film’s complicated and existential themes as well as making MewTwo a far more one-note evil figure as opposed to a morally ambiguous one (even removing the film’s prologue which effectively explained his thought process and motivation). This already leads to disaster as the film loses any sense of grandeur and presence after its main antagonist is neutered, but since any of the quality content that would’ve come from the original film directed by Kunihiko Yuyama and written by Takeshi Shudo has essentially been overwritten by Grossfield, John Touhey and Michael Haigney (who was also the English version’s voice director), all that’s left behind is a bland, immovable flick that doesn’t do a lot to stand out. The plot is annoyingly basic and goes by so quick with surprisingly little stakes that it’s hard to get invested, the characters barely do anything outside of spout annoyingly obvious dialogue that bluntly spells out a very simplified and even hypocritical message (can’t really preach ‘’violence is wrong’’ when your entire premise centred around forcing animals into cage fights for your own personal gain), and while the film on occasion feels upped to a cinematic level, it’s never to an extent that feels above just an extended episode. It’s not offensive enough to really get worked up over and it’ll entertain the children, but at least the original release could’ve offered something fresh. .

The characters for this anime were never that interesting, had any personality, or were even that well voiced in the early stages, but fans who grew up with the series would be extremely attached to them, so it’s hard to really fault the film for not doing anything to change them in their first feature. Not being a series that dedicated much time to plot or developments, it’s unsurprising that Ash, Misty and Brock don’t learn or take anything meaningful away from this experience (if anything, the ending practically makes the entire thing feel like a wasted detour), but even by the low standards that are set for this series, they really don’t do much in this film at all, particularly the latter two who could’ve been cut from this film entirely and nothing really would’ve been missed. The same can be said for the series’ reoccurring villainous group, Team Rocket; Jessie, James and Meowth (also voiced by Rachael Lillis, Eric Stuart, and Maddie Blaustein) as despite being some of the few genuinely enjoyable characters in the show with actual define personalities and colorful vocal performances, they feel so shoehorned into this plot that it’s hard to ignore even by the baseline this film set itself to.

Despite being the main focus and essentially getting introduced through this film, MewTwo really doesn’t feel that interesting in this version of the story. While it’s debatable how much better the Japanese version is, the added backstory along with an understanding about his conflicted mental state on the view of the world at least would’ve provided for a consistent character, whereas this more openly malicious rendition with shakingly described goals and a surface-level motivation doesn’t feel as imposing or as interesting as he arguably could’ve been. Also, his design is slightly memorable but not to an extreme degree, and the voice acting by Dan Green is certainly above most of the cast, but lacks the boom and base a figure of his power should have which, like the rest of the film, holds back what could be a more dramatic situation (for wanting to make him more one-note evil, they miss an opportunity to easily make him scarier).

The animation on the original anime handled by OLM Inc. (formerly Oriental Light and Magic) was never that good to begin and took some time before it became quality enough to be credited, but at least they were smart enough to upgrade their usual fare for this film. Given its strong popularity, they could’ve easily produced something identical to the show, and audiences wouldn’t have cared, so at least they did attempt an improvement, and while it does just feels like a slightly improved episode outside of a few choice shots, a couple moments of fluid moments, and stronger colouring and lighting, it did at least up things enough that it’s not distracting when watching on a bigger screen. What is distracting is the musical score and soundtrack (which was also changed between versions), which are both kind of off for different reasons. The actual score by John Loeffler and Ralph Schuckett has an orchestral quality to it that could be an okay replacement, but the overly light and preppy way it’s performed forces this very harmless tone into even supposedly serious sequences, preventing any moment of tension throughout the entire picture. On the flipside, it’s much better than the soundtrack, which is packed with R&B/grungy rock songs of the time that feel completely out of place in a mystical fantasy setting (at least they don’t stick around too long, but it really just reminds people of some of the worse music examples of that time period).

Pokémon will always be a big franchise, and The First Movie was a product of its time that knew how to capitalize on that feverish fandom in a way that’d appeal to its target audience, so while it’s obvious that it isn’t really that good and doesn’t work for anyone outside that bubble, it’s hard to fault it for achieving exactly what it set out to do. While the movie is bland, poorly delivered, awkwardly scored, and lacking in any sense of connectable drama, it doesn’t illicit any strong reactions that if people are willing to get suck into the familiar characters, vibe, and visuals, they can’t be faulted for that, and nor should they be ashamed of it. There are much better movies out there (even for this series), but for those that hold a nostalgic love for this incomplete flick, they have every right to hold onto that catch.