Pokémon Movies
The return of Butterfree's movie reviews made me want to go looking for movie discussion, but
In any case, what do you think of the pokémon movies? Do you have any particular favorites or least favorites.
Overall, I'm not a huge fan of the movies, although I don't watch the anime in general, so that's probably not too surprising. I haven't seen the majority of them, and most of the ones I have seen are Butterfree's fault.
I do have a soft spot for Mewtwo Strikes Back, primarily because I love Mewtwo but also because, I'd argue, it does much more interesting things with its legendary star (or just in general) than the majority of the movies, and while its themes of identity and understanding aren't exactly profound or nuanced, at least it has themes. It's not just "legendary pokémon are cranky for reasons and fight for half an hour'/"bad guy steals a legendary and Ash has to rescue it using the power of friendship." (Okay, I guess there's some cranky legendary fighting.) But mostly I just love Mewtwo, okay? (Still haven't seen either "The Birth of Mewtwo" or "Mewtwo Returns"... I should probably try to track those down sometime.)
My least favorite would probably be the Diancie movie. Although Butterfree's probably right that the Manaphy movie is probably worse in terms of sheer tedium (seriously, nothing happens in the majority of the movie, and what does is hilarious wtf), the Diancie movie actively made me angry. It's unfortunate, because I think there was definitely potential in Diancie itself as a character, as well as in some of the villain characters, but there was too much going on, there wasn't time to devote to most of the different ideas (though of course they managed to find space for some godawful filler...), and it never really came together. And for the climactic battle, we get Xerneas and Yveltal shooting a few attacks at each other, and then Yveltal... leaving... because ??? Just generally incoherent.
The return of Butterfree's movie reviews made me want to go looking for movie discussion, but
In any case, what do you think of the pokémon movies? Do you have any particular favorites or least favorites.
Overall, I'm not a huge fan of the movies, although I don't watch the anime in general, so that's probably not too surprising. I haven't seen the majority of them, and most of the ones I have seen are Butterfree's fault.
I do have a soft spot for Mewtwo Strikes Back, primarily because I love Mewtwo but also because, I'd argue, it does much more interesting things with its legendary star (or just in general) than the majority of the movies, and while its themes of identity and understanding aren't exactly profound or nuanced, at least it has themes. It's not just "legendary pokémon are cranky for reasons and fight for half an hour'/"bad guy steals a legendary and Ash has to rescue it using the power of friendship." (Okay, I guess there's some cranky legendary fighting.) But mostly I just love Mewtwo, okay? (Still haven't seen either "The Birth of Mewtwo" or "Mewtwo Returns"... I should probably try to track those down sometime.)
My least favorite would probably be the Diancie movie. Although Butterfree's probably right that the Manaphy movie is probably worse in terms of sheer tedium (seriously, nothing happens in the majority of the movie, and what does is hilarious wtf), the Diancie movie actively made me angry. It's unfortunate, because I think there was definitely potential in Diancie itself as a character, as well as in some of the villain characters, but there was too much going on, there wasn't time to devote to most of the different ideas (though of course they managed to find space for some godawful filler...), and it never really came together. And for the climactic battle, we get Xerneas and Yveltal shooting a few attacks at each other, and then Yveltal... leaving... because ??? Just generally incoherent.