Hole in the 4th Wall

Well… here we go again…

I have many problems with bad dubbing for shows brought to the US from Japan. BUT that is not the point. Today I going to talk about the American version of first Pokémon movie, entitled Pokémon…the First Movie… How presumptuous the franchise was already to just assume that they’ll have sequels. And who can blame them, back in 1999, no one could go anywhere without hear about these creatures. Now don’t get me wrong, this is one of my guilty  pleasures, I love the franchise, I just do not like the English dub of the animated show or movies.

So anyway, the movie is just an American dub over of the Japanese film Pocket Monsters (that’s the  Japanese name for the series): Mewtwo’s Counter Attack. The story is that the evil Team Rocket created a creature called Mewtwo and when it realized it was being used as a tool, it escaped and vowed revenge on all humans. And thats where the similarities end between the  two films.

The rest of the American version is full of (current to that time period’s) pop culture references and jokes. None of which are funny or make sense in the continuity, for example there was a reference to the the Minnesota Vikings- THERE’S NO MINNESOTA IN POKÉMON! The references do not add anything to the movie and does not make the movie “cool” or  “modern”.  In fact, they make the movie sound outdated and make the film sound like that the writers were to lazy make dialogue. The original have no references to anything and had a flowing dialogue and storyline throughout. The film then continues using the animation but botches up everything the original film stood for.

In the original film, the climax is resolved when both sides that pointless fighting is a bad thing, that it does not matter who is more powerful, that the clones and originals both have value, and that the circumstances of one’s birth is irrelevant: it is what one does with life that determines one’s destiny. In the dub, it was distilled to “Fighting is bad.” Really?
IN A FRANCHISE WHERE CREATURES THAT READILY BLOW FIRE AND ELECTRICITY AT EACH OTHER AS A SPORT, FIGHTING IS BAD? WHAT TYPE OF LOGIC IS THAT?  Never mind the fact that there should be a suspension of disbelief for the series but, did the American branch thought their children audience are that dumb that  they had to dilute the message of the film that much? There IS a difference between simplifying a message to a younger audience and the treating them like they need everything explained to them. I never got why children’s movie makers thought it was necessary to  talk down to their audience. Many children can handle and start developing connections and ideas about things like destiny and choice, and most would know fighting is usually wrong, so I do not understand what is with the talking down and the overly simple moral.

Both movies end the fighting with the protagonist, gets turned to stone somehow. Both version don’t explain how or how that the tears of the creatures bring him back to life that well either.

So this movie, is without a doubt, some of the worst in voice acting, dubbing, and writing I have seen to this day. If you really want to see this, I highly recommend the Japanese one with English subtitles. The English one will have you cringing from the references and bad jokes. It was just bad and the company did nothing to fix it in the shows or the other movies. So if you’re ever in the mood to relive your childhood, watch Pokémon, just don’t watch the english version.