#054 Pokemon The Movie: I Choose You! (With Briana Joy)

0:00 [Music] hey this is ash ketchum and you're listening to silk radio [Applause] [Music]

0:56 this is self radio a pokemon centered podcast i'm nathan k in every episode we delve way too deep into a different aspect of the pokemon universe be it a character a pokemon a game a anime uh [Music] a card we haven't done an episode about a specific card yet that'll be a first when we do a whole episode about one card from the pokemon game uh today we're gonna be doing something a little unexpected i guess if you're a regular listener i promised a trilogy of episodes about crime and punishment we've already talked about team aqua and officer jenny next uh on the lineup if you listened all the way to the end

1:42 last time was looker justin addison was going to return to discuss the international police agent and master of disguise looker however that's not going to be happening today it was a little tough scheduling that so i figured why make you guys wait another three months for another episode of silver radio we will do the looker episode in the future but today we're bringing back my good friend brianna joy to discuss the newest pokemon movie pokemon the movie i choose you the 20th pokemon movie right or is it it is the 20th and it's the 20th anniversary so they've done one a year i think so yeah if you think about it um

2:28 they did each like character reset lasts like three years and they do like two or three movies for each of those so yeah i think it's about a movie a year character reset meaning like when ash goes to a new region and gets new friends yeah i just call it a character reset because new friends bye ash is the opposite of drake um first of all spoiler alert obviously we're gonna cover the hell out of this movie if you haven't seen it yet go watch it or at least be comfortable with us spoiling the [ __ ] out of it for you please watch this movie i'm not kidding it changed my life you need to watch it changed your life yes it did i have watched it three times now i've cried every time and it's amazing like i honestly i'm sure you and

3:14 i have very different feelings about this movie but like me personally i loved it i wouldn't say this movie changed my life but i will say that it did rekindle a few feelings which changed my life about 20 years ago um this movie is of course a uh reboot sort of like they did it with dragon ball where they're just like you know what screw it let's just start from the beginning and tell the tv show as a movie but it's also its own story it just kind of re-establishes the beginning of ash's journey and uh changes details it's an adaptation so in this you know like tradition self-radio tradition now of uh hey they've established that there's a multiverse in this pokemon world so there's different universes that different versions of these characters

4:00 come from this is sort of just another pocket universe where a different version of ash went on a different adventure and you notice a lot of um changes not only in the storyline itself but in the personalities of the pokemon and the characters you definitely can tell it's a multiverse just because it's so different yet similar in a lot of ways yeah and this actually what you're just saying about the character resets maybe that's another explanation for why ash is always uh forgetting [ __ ] or not remembering like what pokemon is that it's a [ __ ] crabby nimrod uh is because the episodes all might not take place in the same pocket universe

4:46 much like a lot of rick and morty fans theorize that certain episodes might just be in a completely different universe for no reason like the mr poopy butthole episode they jumped universe i don't know if you watch rick and morty yeah i do okay rick and morty just likes to [ __ ] with their fans because the guys that wrote the show are really [ __ ] smart you know and they like purposely made the show for dumb people but the show itself is smart if you pay attention but they are marketing the [ __ ] out of dumb people and it's so smart on their behalf it's really smart i like i call the show smart because it's super smart writing in my opinion and recently i've seen a lot of things on facebook like come on rick and morty fans the show's not as smart as you think like okay we're not saying that it's

5:32 groundbreaking science it doesn't do anything like futurama does where they actually create new equations for the purpose of a chalkboard in the background and then win a mathematical award for creating something no one's created before they don't do anything like that but it's incredibly smart writing like as a writer um dan harmon is a phenomenal writer i've got to say like especially with how rigidly he sticks to a framework he's obsessed with the hero's journey joseph campbell well the writing in this movie the one that we're actually talking about i love how they actually took a new road they have done something they haven't necessarily done before with any of the other pokemon movies they actually gave the story more of a narrative

6:19 it's not all about you know this big boss legendary pokemon that just like gets pissed off and tries to [ __ ] up the world it's not about saving the world the story is about a relationship between two characters and i love how it's something that pokemon hasn't done before it is about ash and pikachu but there's also areas in which i think it falters because of that propensity for pokemon to be for the pokemon movies and franchise and shows like okay roger ebert's uh criticism of pokemon the first movie was like what is this movie about it's just about pokemon the the message of this movie is you gotta catch the pokemon and

7:04 battle the pokemon what the [ __ ] does they didn't take the world and craft craft a story that's about something from it it's just yeah this movie's about pokemon and learning more about the pokemon because pokemon are awesome and they're pokemon and that is a very fair criticism that a lot of pokemon media is like that and to a certain extent that's okay i mean what is lord of the rings about oh lord of the rings is about nationalism and racism well what is harry potter about it's just about indulging in this world uh you know it's about indulging in this world what are the marvel movies about they're just about indulging in this these characters and having fun with it so to a certain extent i'm okay with that but also as a writer i believe you should be able to do both

7:50 right right yes you know as much as i do love the movie i will probably agree with you on a few points just the fact that um they could have done things differently because i could tell kind of uh toward the end and we'll get into it i kind of feel like they kind of went back to okay this is still marketing we have to like put the new pokemon in we have to like kind of make it about that and that's where it got a little choppy for me but you know we'll get into that later in the episode so yeah then let's just jump right in we're gonna sort of try our best to go through the movie narratively no promises and uh you know recount and give our impressions and thoughts as if you didn't know that what the [ __ ] you've never listened to a podcast before have you ever listened to our podcast before where we go off on tangents well if you haven't sit back and enjoy because we're gonna have a great [ __ ] time today actually

8:36 this episode's a little different me and brianna are just gonna sit back and stream the entire audio of the movie so this is the last episode of self radio oh and then not the best idea as much as i would love to we don't oh yeah disclaimer we don't own pokemon [ __ ] nope we own a lot of pokemon products and a lot of pokemon merchandise but we do not own the uh merchandising rights so we can't play the movie but we can talk about it and that's what we're gonna do so let's jump in uh it starts up with this beautiful opening scene of a pidgey flying down this stream up upon this pokemon stadium where corey and nisha actually from the

9:22 pokemon the first movie are battling their blastoise versus gengar yeah and it's funny because like i was trying to when i was watching i'm like those characters look really familiar and i had to look it up today i'm like oh my god that's where i've seen them from and i just thought it was really cool how they kind of like threw those little cameos in there like they they're referencing um you know the first movie and i thought that was kind of cool and i like how they kind of begin the same too you know it all begins with ash watching this battle on tv and you know right right off the bat you can see the animation is like incredible yeah it's it is a really fun scene and um i mean honestly i really like the pidgey flying down the stream even more than i like the pokemon battle just that's where this movie shines to me the most

10:09 is the scenery oh my god the setting they get it right the coloring and the music too is just amazing yeah the music is very cinematic um yes i enjoyed it a lot i love the design of pallet town um the poster on ash's wall is the same one he had in the first episode i didn't go back and watch the first episode i just knew right when i saw it i actually went back this morning and watched the first episode and a lot of things um were very similar you know just to just to kind of try to remember what the differences were because you know it's not going to be exactly the same but i really like the way they did it in the movie yeah the first 10-15 minutes are basically just the first episode

10:54 it's it's honestly like almost the same length it's a little less like maybe three-fourths the length of the first episode yeah minus gary they just cut gary out so right off the bat you can tell that professor oak um is more chill in this version you know he was kind of a dick in the original episode like he let ash like like go to each ball and he's like i'm just gonna sit back no but like he actually like flat out said okay this is what's up this is what's going on you know you kind of [ __ ] up bro but like you know we got another one for you and another thing i noticed too pikachu wasn't initially in the ball in the movie it was just kind of running around his lab oh yeah he did have it in the pokeball in the show that's right yeah yeah and

11:39 for the first time we get we do see gary when he's saying like i want charmander has already been taken you see for the first time you see glimpses of the two other palette trainers right exactly and you know i checked the episode and the movie and the order is the same ash wants squirtle first and then it shows gary the back of gary's head shows gary choosing squirtle and then um then he's like okay bulbasaur and i i kind of recognized the back of the girl's head in the shot and i had to look it up but um it's actually the character's name is marina wait a minute from uh episode bye-bye so you're talking you're talking about the movie now yes the order is the same as it was in the show but you don't see the trainers in the show yeah that's what i thought so wait that was an actual character from the show

12:26 yes yes the back of their heads and i recognized um the trainer that was taking the charmander was tierno so wait who was the one taking the bulbasaur marina she's a character from an episode called bye bye psyduck um what happens in that episode is that an older episode or a newer episode i was trying to read the i was reading the description because it's been a while for me too um it's an episode uh where misty is battling this water pokemon trainer and cydex tail turns pink and this trainer marina that they meet is like oh psych's gonna evolve soon and there was like a mix-up and um misty ended up battling with her gold duck and the episode like misty thought psyduck evolved but it didn't so she was from that episode okay it was

13:11 kind of a random character to throw in there but you know it's fine but i did recognize gary and tierno who's tierno he uh it's funny too because um the pokemon that he chose isn't exactly accurate i mean if you're going for like the the other timeline with pokemon tierno has a squirtle in the episodes for the x and y series so he chose the charmander in this universe which is cool you know who's that who is tierno my trainer chooses the grass type so like i don't know i just kind of feel like they threw pokemon trainers in there for cameos and like they don't want us to read too much into it but guess what we're doing so who is who he's a he's a character from the x and y series he's uh one of your companions in the

13:57 game he's kind of a heavier set guy he loves to dance uh oh i know the guy you're talking about yeah he looks got like a weird little hairstyle it's like spiky and like the sides of his head are bald yeah okay cool i i think i remember who you're talking about that's super sweet i love that um although that doesn't make sense yeah why would he come from palette it's a pocket universe yeah exactly you know we've got you know the trainers in the first movie battling each other you know whatever it's fine it's fine uh so yeah the the beginning is really nostalgic if slightly lazy uh seeing ash pikachu and caterpie together again was so satisfying like i really enjoy um how they how they had like the opening song

14:43 and it was honestly beautifully done yes for the first time they finally realized if you want to make the song more epic for the movie or for the new saga or season don't [ __ ] change it like they granted it wasn't updated newly recorded remastered like remixed not remixed like remix but you know like it was mixed better i guess so they did go in and redo the song but hitting all the same notes performing it in the same way that it originally was like every time they've tried to redo that song for a different movie or season it it never lives up to that original right but yeah i loved all the scenes they were showing of ash and pikachu and

15:28 caterpie like ash pikachu and caterpie sitting there and they see the butterfree and like caterpie gets all wistful and like oh i i love it it takes me back to the way that i always imagine these journeys would be seeing they show bits and pieces of the adventure and that's i love that yeah seeing and it's seeing ash alone with his pokemon not walking with misty and brock just walking down you see them in profile walking while the narrator says something and then they meet the character for this episode and this was a lot more like here's the minutia in the everyday life of a pokemon trainer right and you know it's very similar to the episode itself you know even before the opening credits the situation with the spiro and how they're being chased

16:15 like i love how they even had the gyarados you know in the scene just like they did in the original show you know and instead of meeting misty they just jump right into the scene where it starts to rain and ash stands up for pikachu and that that visual of pikachu like jumping up on ash's shoulder you know to defend him from the spiros was amazing and it was also interesting to hear um the the way the writers um kind of translated it because there's two different companies that have taken over the english version of pokemon in the last 20 years you know so the what they say in the original episode is translated differently from what they say in the movie you know so some of the things ash says

17:02 is very different but it has the same feel to it and it was interesting listening to the two different voice actors for ash kind of trying to do the same scene so that itself was fascinating for me i don't hate the uh voice cast the the voice ash isn't bad i prefer veronica taylor but i don't mind this new voice same thing for jesse and james professor oak delia like none of their voices were that bad it wasn't like in the episode that i saw brock in that just made me want to die they have had 12 years to get their [ __ ] together so i think they've improved quite a bit from where they started off because in the beginning they were just hired for sound alike you know there wasn't as much put into it but like you know sarah no to cheney she's the voice actor for ash now she's really stepped up her game for the

17:48 emotion you know because before ash was kind of like monotone and emotionless but like i can finally hear emotion in her voice for him you know and it just it just sounds so much better than it used to granted it's not veronica taylor i mean wouldn't it be cool if she actually did this movie um but you know it's i'm sure the current voice cast would take that as a pretty big slap to the face though well then again misty and brock weren't even in this one so well they're not in the show anymore either right right exactly so the main difference in this that actually progresses the story forward is when ash sees ho oh and the difference between um the movie and the anime ash actually is like i'm gonna meet that pokemon and the rainbow wing comes floating down from ho-oh and um just looks so beautiful like i

18:34 like the way it was like floating down there was like a little bell yeah it was a beautiful scene that scene did really take me back to being like in the days of wonder of like what is that pokemon ash saw before we knew what ho-oh was and then i'd find it googling you know go back and listen to i think it's episode 41 the poke gods episode but uh yeah that definitely took me back to those early days of the mystery and the wonder of pokemon and the director or whoever actually said that this alternate timeline or whatever is sort of what if ash had gotten the rainbow wing from hello right and it also um i believe there was also a fan theory about

19:20 this something very similar too so i wonder if they acknowledged the fan theory and wrote off of that or if they came up with concept themselves it's interesting to think about what's the fan theory well the fan theory was stating that ho oak uh grants eternal happiness to any trainer that sees it so the the actual um fan theory was you know ash's wish was to forever be on a journey because that's what made him happy so maybe they were you know taking pieces of that who knows yeah that's right i've heard of that theory and another important note um too because it actually happens again later in the movie you know just the scene where ash is like telling pikachu listen you have to get inside the ball you know you'll be protected you know

20:05 this is the only way i can protect you and pikachu refuses like i said the animation in that scene is just phenomenal you have the lightning crashing the slow motion shot of spiro's coming in you know and ash just mess with me you're gonna lose and you know i am proud of who i am i'm gonna defeat you all at once and pikachu comes and saves the day so an interesting thing i noticed too um between the anime and the movie for this scene as well is that pikachu in the anime got struck by lightning and used that power to annihilate all the spheros but in this movie pikachu takes the power from itself to do that so i don't know because looking back i always thought that maybe pikachu was so strong because it got

20:51 struck by lightning you know what i mean like that was kind of my own theory with that that ash's pikachu wasn't just this naturally abnormally strong pikachu but it was that bolt of lightning that supercharged it in the first episode that's what i always thought so i thought it was interesting that the power came from itself and wanting to protect its trainer that's amazing well first of all i love your theory and that very well could be the case in you know ash prime's universe but uh in this one it's not they never make a big deal that it's some special pikachu in this that's like super powerful like exactly it's just a normal pikachu that happens to be ash's friend there's no he is clearly a strong

21:37 pokemon ash comments you know pikachu would have won but like he uh there's no like emphasis that pikachu is like some super special pikachu i'm so thankful that they kept this scene in there and they kept it the way it was because no other way to see that would have perfectly encompassed the relationship between ash and pikachu because that scene was when pikachu and ash finally started to see eye to eye and understand each other and like we are a team this is what we have to do i'm so happy they kept it the way it was all right so it was that scene right yes that scene was when pikachu started and ash started to see eye to eye let's just put a bookmark on that tab that for later your words not mine that scene that scene

22:25 that specific scene so after we have the opening credits you know where they show little bits and pieces of their journey um they cut right to the third gym battle with erica and you know watching it i was kind of disappointed because i was hoping because i knew brock and misty weren't going to be in the movie it would have been really nice though just to see ash battling or like some sort of cameo i would have been happy with but you know it was fine i accepted it so it cuts right to the scene with erica that was probably a deliberate decision on their part to jump to the third gym leader just because it's not about brock and misty and including i was thinking as i was watching it oh this is clearly going to be focusing on the relationship between ash and pikachu and that's got to be why they didn't put brock and misty in it because that's just

23:11 just distracting but then they end up giving him two more traveling companions but still right and i thought it was interesting too that they gave him the rainbow badge so i don't know if they did that on purpose you know what i mean like the movie is very much about the rainbow wing and you know we'll find out later on in the podcast and the movie ash is considered the rainbow hero and we'll discuss more of that later but i just thought that was interesting that they specifically were like here's the rainbow badge hey we're foreshadowing something about rainbows yay like they're like it in your face making it obvious that is i never really picked up on that that's that's great well that's what you get when you watch it three times and cry every time so you know you start paying attention to the little details yeah

23:57 you didn't notice that detail until the third time because you had too much too many tears in your eyes the first two times to pick up on minor details i think i drunk the third time to be honest with you so i just kind of like let's let's philosophically look at this this time and try to distance my knowledge and just watch it as it sells uh immediately after the gym battle with erica they cut to this like pokemon center in the forest i have a feeling that somewhere in johto but i didn't search to find out yeah i wonder um i wonder how far it skips with that timeline because you know ash at this point just has um a pikachu and a caterpie and um he's talking to his mom in this scene so one thing i kind of noticed because i actually watched this initially in the theater

24:43 i was just kind of like surprised at how ash talked to his mom like he just kind of seemed really rude like his mom was like oh i was so worried about you and she actually said um you're just like your father it would be nice if you could give me a call every once in a while and i just kind of laugh because they did barely mention his father in like the anime too because yeah she's well in that one his mom seemed like a lot more proud of him like oh your father would be so proud of you you're the apple of his eye and ash was more like unsure of himself but this time ash is like i know what i'm doing i got this and he's like i was like damn like he is like yeah isn't he like well if that's all this was about then i'm just gonna hang up like oh my god dude

25:31 oh [ __ ] and we also in this scene see um ash's two new companions uh verity and sorel they picked the most interesting names for these characters anyway so um i love this pokemon center that like the the aesthetics of this environment the forest the center it looks so beautiful i want to go there so [ __ ] bad like it i love it yeah it's like i love how they kind of show it's like a hangout area too like it like if they did the original anime like traders can just kind of chill there it's not like this tiny ass thing like it's just kind of like a social place so in the next scene you see this like traitor running in with this tiny ass vaporeon like i did not think they were

26:18 that small it was so like it was so cute and small and i was like maybe maybe a young vaporeon is smaller than an older vaporeon because you can evolve your eevee to a vaporeon at level one with a water stone so it's true maybe with pokemon that evolved by stone or trading or not by leveling and growth maybe they actually can be smaller and then become bigger as they grow i would love a tiny ass vaporeon then just never train it so it always stays tiny yeah so um the trainer you know nurse joy's like oh my god what happened and the trainer goes there was an entei and i was like wait a minute entei like okay so um and then all these

27:04 trainers get really excited they're like oh my god there's dente but it's still outside they all go running out and um you know i really enjoy how they show the legendaries in this because they you know lately they just kind of seem like anyone can get a legendary but like the movie's kind of like recapture the fact that they are legendary and they're massive and they're terrifying and they're strong and i just i love how they show that so ash and the girl verity yeah she's this girl that was at the uh pokemon center with a piplup when the guy runs in like yeah it was an entei they both are like oh we gotta go catch it and they run out there uh also present at the pokemon center is team rocket well jesse james and meowth

27:50 not giovanni and the entire organization that would be weird i think that'd be interesting you just walk in you're like i think i'll get the next pokemon center rocket members everywhere it's funny too because they have the same kind of introduction as they did you know it's a wanted poster and the trainer's like oh who's that and nurse joy tells them instead of officer jenny this time around she's like oh there are these really horrible people that steal pokemon and they're you know they're kind of sitting there in the corner with their newspapers with eyes cut out and they're just kind of like watching they're like yeah they know we're bad it's funny because in this movie team rocket doesn't really get directly involved with ash and pikachu at all they're more of a comedic relief character they're just kind of like they're their own little thing like with the cameos but that's about it

28:36 well you know what you could say that about pretty much any of the [ __ ] pokemon movies like but this one especially in this one all they do is follow ash and that's it they do nothing else you just see them every once in a while they never meet their goal is not getting pikachu no and i i will i will cite that as a positive i love that team rocket is after the uh legendaries they follow ash to try to find entei and then they follow ash further to try to find ho-oh which makes so much more sense to me even if i was making the anime and i wanted team rocket to be consistently following ash i wouldn't have had them after the pikachu

29:22 i would have them just be like how come this kid keeps encountering all these rare pokemon we should follow him something is up yeah and it's i love i love jesse's one-liners so speaking of the entei scene um just shortly after the battle ensues and everything and entei moves to a different location yeah so they they battle the entei they go out and they find it and try to battle it and it's just like oh please [ __ ] you and then it leaves and this also was really nostalgic for me because playing fire rat well i was playing leaf green i had no idea that entei was in leaf green and uh i ran and they'll flee the second after you encounter them and it's super [ __ ] rare i hated that and it's super

30:08 rare to run into them um so when i ran into one i was like what's going on aren't we in kanto what and i just threw my master ball at it so i kind of watching the movie too i was like wait entei aren't we in kanto what's going on and and i love how they actually have a real end tape in this movie because if you go back to the third movie entei was just a dream entei was a vision created by the unknown it wasn't actually entei this time it's like the real [ __ ] entei and he's there and he's badass and he's like i don't give a [ __ ] about y'all you know like he like people there was a scene where he just like kind of looked at ash just glared at him and like the piercing gaze like you could you could see the

30:53 power that this is the real deal and i love that yeah i 100 agree like princess mononoke like if you have you seen princess mononoke i've heard about it i need to get more into other movies have you have you seen any studio yeah i've seen ponyo i've seen um spirited away i've seen helen's ribbon castle all of them but cool you've seen most of the great ones now they're all great spirited away and hell's moving castle and princess mononoke are the three that's like the holy trinity i would love to see a studio ghibli pokemon movie oh stop yes well that's nino cooney wrath of the white witch i have to go watch that then that's a game they made a video game a couple years ago which is basically a pokemon

31:39 ripoff that actually sounds like fun so after entei flees uh going back to team rockets amazing one-liners like i love the writing for this jessie's standing there on the rocks she's like well i'm here so where's entei like i just think it's so funny that like just this the [ __ ] they say like i i will watch the anime sometimes and just listen to what they say and i just crack up there was an episode recently where they were standing inside a haunted house or they were like right outside a haunted house and jesse was like well there's a good chance it's not raining inside that house like just the most random [ __ ] lines they're hilarious they're like that i like that but i don't get the other one she says well i'm here so where's entei

32:26 yeah she's like like enzy should be here because i'm here like oh like she's that into herself yeah like it's just like the way she said it just just cracked me up sure yeah i can see that that's why they're the perfect comedy trio they just they just don't care they're just like i'm either so whatever it would be nice to see them have a real role in one of the movies though one of these days we should give them a spin-off just like a day in the life of team rocket agreed they did all that pokemon chronicles [ __ ] like why didn't they do any episodes about team rocket well they have done a few like the story of me out that was very much a team rocket episode and i know i remember they just kind of hang out wait was that the one where he he was in love with another meowth right yeah the very beginning when we found out why meowth learned to speak

33:13 i remember that and then there was the one about james's history and the one about jesse's history i always wish james would get growly back it pissed me off so bad like watching that episode as a kid i was like sweet james has a growlithe now wait he's not taking it with him why the [ __ ] isn't he taking it with him that's dumb anyway so um let's see so verity and ash uh decide to have a battle after this and as they start battling they disturb uh probably sleeping onyx which is nearby and the onyx just starts charging at them this is another thing i love because these are the little moments in a trainer's journey

33:59 that are so over often overlooked that must obviously happen which fascinate me and pull me into the world if you're two trainers and you decide to have a battle out in the middle of the woods and there's all these big giant aggressive creatures around you might disturb one of them and have to put your battle on hold and run away that never happens in the games but of course it would happen in the real world right exactly because if you go into the woods you're going to see some sort of wildlife and you know can you imagine being in the woods and just seeing a giant pile of rocks and it's a [ __ ] onyx like i would lose my [ __ ] like i would run so [ __ ] fast i can't imagine it i imagine it all the time which is why i was so thankful for that scene yeah and it's kind of funny too um

34:45 because like i was just kind of watching it again and again and um it was just funny to me like how in some sometimes the anime like there was a scene where they're like let's run on top of this rock like they ran up that rock really [ __ ] quick like that giant massive rock that was in the way to try to get away from the onyx oh yeah like they ran up that rock really [ __ ] quick i'm like that doesn't even seem human but okay ash pulls a [ __ ] legolas and like runs up the onix's head and jumps off and lands on his feet and then okay okay ash is a [ __ ] idiot okay that's something that's never been said before on this podcast he thinks he can stop anything by holding his arms out

35:31 spread eagle and yelling [ __ ] about like dude it's not a [ __ ] bear ash he thinks he can stop mew and mewtwo he thinks he can stop a flock of spiros saying stop in front of a pokemon will stop it he doesn't even say stop he's like well yeah mute to mewtwo he says you gotta stop right now like he's like i'm ash ketchum and i'm gonna be the greatest and my mom dates professor oak and the onyx is like why is that relevant why is that gonna make me stop charging at you by the way did you notice that ash's mom like walked in the professor's lab and didn't even knock she just walked in i didn't notice but more evidence

36:18 even in other pocket universes i would like to see an episode about the day in the life actually i'm sure they've done like snippets of it like a day in the life of ash's mom yeah they have done little snips with the mr mime and stuff yeah that's true i don't know i'll have to go back and re-watch it because we all know there's something going on there what a coincidence brianna i'd like to spend a day of my life in ash's mom all right um so uh so following that scene it oh well they run into some guy like right before they battle and they're like yeah i'm gonna want to battle you too and he's like yeah it's about to rain you dumbasses like i'm gonna go find shelter you guys

37:04 should too and he leaves then after they run away from the onyx it eventually does start raining and they stumble across the charmander out in the rain yeah so um out of the shadows comes damien just kidding it's a new character named cross this could mean two things either they were like this is a totally different charmander or they were just trying to introduce you know a new um villain a new character and honestly he definitely does become the villain yeah it's a different universe so everything's different so um they run into this guy cross and he's got this lychen rock in the midnight form and honestly like it's the first well piplup is technically the first pokemon that isn't from this generation that you

37:50 see but like and rock like you can tell this is kind of like a okay they're trying to like advertise the new pokemon with this character so um in the scene charmander you know just kind of weakly happily stumbles over to cross and cross kicks it and you know you just feel so much pain for that poor charmander you know it just it's trying to love its trainer and they give you the like definitely the same feel that they did in the original anime with that charmander yeah and uh i mean that's that's a pretty decent scene it's better than the episode i'll say the way they the emotion and the it's more believable like the way ash is being defensive about the charmander and the way the guy like pushes him back and the lycan rock comes up on him like oh you're getting him

38:36 you're getting my trainer's face what we got a problem um i i enjoyed it cross is a cooler character than damien two by cooler i mean just as a character he's a prick i don't think he's cool i think he's a piece of [ __ ] picking pokemon is not cool no unless you're another pokemon but uh i i just think he's he looks cooler than damian as a character design he don't have this stupid dumb cockney accent that doesn't even belong there uh he he doesn't uh he he seems more like a character like i don't know i i liked him like there's more of a um and you know a lot of things he says like he's just very mean-spirited like you know pokemon are

39:22 weak what's the point of training them you know if they're just gonna be weak and ash is like the whole point of training them is to be friends with them like what the hell dude and he just like you know this pokemon's a piece of trash and you know it just it kind of shows you like the opposite side of like the good trainer you know like there are bad people in the pokemon universe there are bad trainers that treat their pokemon like [ __ ] garbage and just like release them like it's like i can see like him being in the category of trainers that will constantly breed pokemon for ivs like positive good ivs and like just keep releasing all these [ __ ] pokemon because they aren't good enough like i can see him in the same category as these people yeah that's how you get the international police on your ass i guarantee the they won't let that happen they would stop somebody

40:08 doing that because that's cruelty but then again i don't know we're still sorting the morality and you know social values of this world out i was one thing that i thought about which i had never thought about before was when ash picks up the charmander so they can run to try to save it before the flame on its tail goes out he he holds it under his jacket and i'm like oh [ __ ] you know how hard that would be to like keep your jacket from catching on fire to keep to keep the flame alive and you have to run through the rain so you got the wind trying to put it out so you're trying to keep your jacket around it but not so close that it catches on fire the rain like so you're not trying to run too fast or the wind will put it out

40:54 or the flame will touch your jacket like god that would be so nerve-wracking honestly if i were into making pokemon clothing i would make them all like flame retardant like they have to be because if you're a fire pokemon i mean honestly look at all the times ash has been burned by his charizard and hasn't died like obviously there's gotta be like like his clothes have to be like flame retardant however the genes won't be because the scene with uh when they were fighting entei there was like clearly a part where ash's ass was on fire and it was so funny to see that because like if you think about it oh like mario i was like what the [ __ ] did you just do that's what mario does when his ass is on fire come on keep up

41:39 i was like what the [ __ ] noise did you just make and then it like took me five minutes um mario needs some preparation h [Laughter] so they they go into a cave to try to save the charmander and the other character that we haven't quite met yet his name is sorrel and he's there and he starts like yelling ash like what the [ __ ] you left it out in the rain like are you an idiot the girl's like whoa whoa like it wasn't his like someone abandoned it i liked that too and i love this character because he's really [ __ ] sarcastic and like knows his [ __ ] and he's got a little mario

42:24 huh and he's got a lucario which is cool true look lucario's pretty awesome so he's like trying to help the charmander now she's like like are you gonna help it and he's like that's what i'm trying to do and i'm like i like you so they set up a fire and you know they're trying to get charmander healthy and keep everybody warm and they start like small talking around the fire and sorrel asks them like oh what do what do you where do you guys come from verity what are you doing here and verity gets so guarded about what she's doing there she's like huh me oh i don't know what about you ash what the [ __ ] was that all about yeah i think that was well and it's interesting because they they try to give them a little bit of a

43:09 backstory this time around because like a lot of characters that they meet in the pokemon world don't really have a backstory it's just like we're just gonna design and throw in new characters and they're just gonna be there for battling purposes they actually are like these people have a backstory i don't remember them ever following up on that actually they did um but we'll get into that later on um all right well i guess you'll have to explain to me because i want to know why the [ __ ] verdi was so guarded about her past i don't i don't remember but while they're there in the cave the entei comes in with a bunch of other pokemon from the forest and uh like it's leading them to shelter and you expect again it's like princess mononoke like it's the guardian of the forest almost you expect it to be like wtf there's people in here

43:55 but it's kind of just like i don't even care they pose about as much threat to me as the zubats in this cave it's just late it sees the people looks at him and it's like what and lays down i kind of love that because even though they're peop they're pokemon that generally avoid people they're also so powerful they don't give a [ __ ] he's like oh well i'm not gonna waste my energy kicking these humans out of the cave any more than i'm gonna waste my energy kicking a couple spinner racks crawling around the walls out of the cave you know and i absolutely love how like like just little forest pokemon like entei protects them like i love that me too that's amazing that like this big powerful being that could easily like probably eat them it's just like you know we'll keep you warm but i think that's a great

44:42 in between the like so there's sometimes we see wild pokemon in gangs like the squirtle squad or the pokemon gang in pikachu's vacation that antagonizes ash's pokemon and then something those are like really human-like friendships very anthropomorphic friendships and then we see a lot of wild pokemon in like herds or swarms and that's very animalistic i like this that there's this mystical pokemon that's the guardian of the forest that is just kind of like it's it's not like they're not being too human and buddy buddy it seems more animalistic but on a level that like if you had seen that in the real world you'd be like holy [ __ ] there's a deer and a fox and a raccoon and they're all going into this cave but more like when you see all those

45:27 different animals running from an earthquake like something more like oh wow these animals have some i don't know connection that we don't know about standing yeah like no time to [ __ ] around i can't eat you right now we got [ __ ] to do you know like i i like that um so ash verity and sorrel are sitting there just kind of hanging out this is really fascinating sorrel um started talking about entei's story um how all three pokemon entei raiku and suicune came to be and i never heard it verbalized this way because you know in the gold and silver games they briefly tell you about the bell tower that burned down yeah so for our listeners i'll just um retell the story

46:14 so the story is about three nameless pokemon that perished when the tower burned and ho-oh came and breathed life into these three pokemon and they became entei raiku and suicune so the way soro was describing it each of the pokemon represent a force of nature and what happened in the tower so entei is the flames that engulf the tower raiku is the thunder that struck the tower and suicune is the rain that distinguished the flame oh wow i've never heard it put that way either it was in the movie did you not pay attention oh no i did i'm just saying that's a really cool i've never seen that in any other in the video games or anything like that either and that is also a really cool take and i just think it's so

47:01 amazing because like that's the first time that they really were like these are what these three pokemon represent and like suicune is my ultimate favorite so it was just amazing to me to just hear that story because you know we knew we know like entei represents fire raiku is lightning and suicune was fire or water and ice and it's just amazing that it actually represents what happened in the tower as well i just thought that was so cool and the animation for that story was so cool like it was like the style they used was beautiful they you saw the pokemon generations episode about that too right i did forever ago i'd have to rewatch it yeah that was cool with with you scene so um after sorrel tells the story about uh the three pokemon ash like he

47:46 mentions ho oh and ash is like i've seen ho oh and they're like wait what and he shows them the rainbow wing and over by entei you can see entei like looks over and for the first time we see a little glimpse of the new legendary pokemon in this movie marsh shadow you see it's little eyes that look like little lanterns hiding in entei's shadow then soro mentions the story about the rainbow hero which is kind of like what the movie is about ash is like i would love to meet that pokemon again and you know at that point cyril and rarity are like we'd like to go with you i think that'd be really cool i'd like to see it for myself so at that point they decide to travel together and ash has his misty and brock for this movie so charmander gets better ash is like hey do you want to come with

48:32 us and you know of course charmander says yes and ash gets a charmander so the next few scenes we have um are kind of like a little fast forward like showing their adventure and um you know how how the characters progress how the pokemon progress you know they show battles that um the pokemon evolve in so there was a pincer battle and caterpie evolves into metapod i love the way the pins are because they're out in the woods and i love how the pincers sort of just like marches up fights with him and then he's like nah [ __ ] this and just marches off like it's so bug-like like you can see an actual beetle just kinda like marching up [ __ ] with another bug and then he's like ah nah [ __ ] this bug this bug is too

49:18 alright just march off like i like the pincer theme song you've created then if i can get les claypool to just play that on his base that's pincer's theme song and they show you know cute little scenes of like um them having fun together and there's uh the next scene which actually we're gonna guess what we're gonna find out about someone's backstory they have the characters you know just kind of sleeping underneath the stars and um then you have verity sitting by the water and she's just looking through her little phone and it's funny because like they kind of throw in the technology that we have today in the pokemon universe so she's just kind of swiping through pictures she took and kind of giggling and i think that's kind of funny because i'm like this girl

50:04 is like you know swiping through like pictures and stuff and it's technology we have now like they had that technology first though like they did so um she continues swiping through and then she comes across this picture of a woman with long blonde hair with who's uh looks like she's playing with her piplup and there's a napoleon in the background the the identity of the woman is never revealed but i looked on bulbapedia underneath the characters and it's stating that that is cynthia cynthia from from what cynthia is the rugrats cynthia is the champion of the oh cynthia yeah yeah i don't know the champion of uh cinno that's what it was so yeah like they say

50:50 that that is cynthia so um you obviously can tell that this is her mom so she's cynthia's daughter yeah i didn't even notice that that was cynthia wow right well it might just be speculation but like i looked underneath the characters and it said cynthia and i you know and i i made the connection like she has the same exact hair like it has to be because they've already had all these other characters make cameos so it's got to be there's got to be a purpose for it because like her true identity is never revealed so i i knew right off the bat that this was her mother whoever that she was like avoiding i figured that out that it was her mom i just didn't realize it was cynthia and in the scene verity looks up from her phone you know feeling that deep emotion of you know like

51:37 i'm upset about this photo and she sees sweet [ __ ] and suicune just kind of like looks up and looks at her and you know suikin's my absolute favorite so i'm happy this weekend made an appearance in the movie and then it was gone and the next scene was the morning after and um she had mentioned that she saw suicune oh yeah my my mom is a really good pokemon trainer back home and nothing i ever do is good enough for her and she said we haven't talked since i left you know so she finally kind of like okay mentions that i'm just like kind of fogged through that line or something yeah it was just kind of like a they wrap up the backstory really quick with that one but it was interesting when i found out that

52:23 they believe it was cynthia like that's really interesting to me yeah so then they're at this place it's like uh it's outdoors in some town or city and it's clearly an arena designed for pokemon battling uh but what's going on seems to be some i like the varying degrees of formality that we see for pokemon battles in this we see a pokemon league battle at the very beginning in the stadium you know like broadcast on tv we see ash and verity challenge each other in the forest so just a one-on-one battle in the middle of the forest and then we see these battles which don't seem to be some official league thing but more like if you're walking through the hood and you see some people playing basketball and you're like i got winners you know what i mean like

53:10 a crowd has gathered to watch them and when ash wins you know the guy's like all right well who's next who's his next challenger since he won so it seems almost like they've got an informal thing going on where it's just like all right come on let's play whoever whoever wins the next person challenges but it's not like an officially league sanction event or anything and i love that because it's real um and i love the jigglypuff trainer that ash is battling against it's like super german like it's oh really i saw her as just like super cool badass punk rock lesbian chick like i don't know i thought she seems super cool bikes on her head like she i don't know she just she just has like that german like olga type of look to her

53:55 she reminded me of ramona flower's ex-girlfriend i don't know she just needed a hammer but uh no ramona flowers had the hammer what did she have i don't remember a whip you've seen scott pilgrim right forever ago but yeah it's so good you should read the comic you'll love it i should you're right it's up your alley trust me you will like it so while the charmander well so while ash is battling his charmander against the jiggly puff the charmander evolves the charmeleon it's funny too because like the second charmander evolves in charmeleon like it just like it's just mid-jump and then like ash goes to catch it and just knocks him over and i can tell that this is not the same temperament that ash's original charmeleon had because this one is more like

54:41 loving and affectionate and like you know charmeleon like as soon as ashes involved in the anime it was kind of like a dick yeah that's a totally different charmeleon and you know why it's because that was the only pokemon that he got from somebody else that evolved correct that's true oh that makes sense yeah because in the game you get it from a trade if you're not up to a certain level it can't it will it won't obey you past a certain level and charmander was originally damien's bulbasaur never evolved squirtle never evolved so yeah i don't know i never made that connection that's good to know so in this movie though the charizard charmeleon charizard whatever never disobeys him

55:27 no none of that's present right and honestly i'm okay with that for the purpose of this movie because it would just hinder the plot line yeah what are we gonna have a three hour movie this isn't [ __ ] peter jackson it should have been though because i feel like they rushed a lot of scenes so um in between the battles they're in a library and soro is checking out this book and um the book is about ho-oh and the rainbow hero and they found an interesting fact in the book that if the rainbow wing is handled by someone with an evil heart it turns black and you can kind of see in the corner that cross and like and rock just kind of standing there like listening in and that's no good because you know what they say once you go black you never go back

56:12 true this is true so in the next scene which it's kind of funny um pikachu versus the snorlax i just all you see is snorlax just like thousands of feet up in the air just coming down ready to pummel pikachu and like ash calls the iron tail attack and then pikachu just sends it flying it's just so funny to like see a snorlax like that [ __ ] far up in the air like it cracks me up i love snorlax i thought that was a really cool scene yeah like i just it's so funny like it doesn't make any sense physically but i mean what think about it what if snorlax was actually like made of like helium

56:59 snorlax is not made of helium that was wouldn't it be funny though he was just hit with an incredibly powerful pokemon move that's all pikachu's a badass truthfully uh so ash wins that battle and his next challenger is of course damien i mean cross i mean isn't it interesting that their names are almost like opposites like damien is the antichrist and christ yeah and the cross is associated with christ do you think they just named him cross because of his bangs because of his bangs yeah i don't think it was an intentional but again i think this is another example of pokemon just crystallizing into these like apophenic coincidences they named them cross you don't cross them epiphenic coincidences is also the name

57:45 of my vaporwave band anyway so this scene is like okay so like this scene blew my mind the way that they actually got more into what they don't normally talk about so cross damien throws out his incineroar which i'm sorry i can't handle this pokemon like it just i can't no you misspoke you meant to say digimon you said pokemon yeah oh actually yeah that makes sense yeah no i i'm okay with it but it did really let me down as i've said before i really like litten and i really wanted it to evolve to something more feline but i like i like it it's just not my favorite

58:30 like an entei style like you know like a big dog type of thing like on all fours like i don't want like a a giant muscle cat that shoots flamethrowers from its belt the [ __ ] like i don't know so anyway you have um you have gi joe cat versus ash's um charmeleon and charmeleon it's i love how they did this charmeleon the second he sees who he's facing like you can see his expression like oh [ __ ] it's [ __ ] face like oh my god it actually like shows that charmeleon recognizes who this trainer is and you know which cross is like even though it evolved it's still [ __ ] weak you know and he continuously exash on and ash is just trying to like defeat it so he calls flamethrower for charmeleon and incineroar keeps taking attack after

59:16 attack after attack letting charmeleon hit him right and then they realize after a while that that is cross's battle strategy which is kind of a [ __ ] up strategy if you think about it just letting your pokemon continuously get beaten just so it can have increased attack power to counter it but it's part of that pokemon's natural abilities is that the more damage it takes the more powerful it gets kind of like a saiyan so i think that's actually really cool to incorporate that into the battling on on this movie because a lot of times they don't really incorporate much from the games into the actual show like that you know right and they're starting to more now than ever you know and they did something different with this battle that i hadn't seen before and i really enjoyed it ash just kept calling attack after

1:00:02 attack and then his friends all realized oh [ __ ] like this is we know exactly what he's up to now ah she can't call these moves and then he calls flamethrower again and charmeleon starts coughing and it can't unleash the attack sorrel says from the sideline charmeleon just evolved it its powers aren't ready yet and they never ever said that before in the anime where they acknowledge that these pokemon have to grow into these new moves they can't just know him off the bat i like that or into this new body like even because it's you think puberty was bad like it just went through the most drastic change an organism could ever go through it's so much more fast than any type of metamorphosis that occurs in the real world there's no cocoon stage it just changes its entire body

1:00:49 and that does probably take some time to get to getting used to that's probably also part of being a pokemon trainer is helping your pokemon get used to its growing body yeah you're going to notice some feathers in some weird places firo so this battle like ash loses horribly too it's heartbreaking like you can you can see like how devastating it is for charmeleon and ash to lose this battle you know because charmeleon just can't use flamethrower it's not able to and you know just watching them crash and burn so hard in this battle like they really showed how upsetting it can be to lose

1:01:35 and then it doesn't help that afterward cross comes up to him and goes you know your pokemon is still weak you were calling moves that it didn't know you were the worst trainer i've ever seen and you know like just just hearing those words like they really they really captured like how upsetting it is as a trainer to lose a battle and especially for charmeleon can you imagine how badly charmeleon wanted to get back at cross for abandoning it and then you know to just brutally lose and like they really like tremendous was like knocked into a like a brick wall and like just skidded across the ground and just couldn't do it it was just like you could really sense ash's frustration

1:02:21 with the battle he gets like darkly frustrated after this like afterwards he's just like this is [ __ ] [ __ ] man pikachu would have won that match the fact that he said that that is something and here's another thing visually you'll notice he kind of was kind of walking you know away from everybody and then he walked into the shadow as soon as he walked into the shadow he said pikachu would have won that thing so there's a significance with shadows in this movie yeah and you see marsh shadow also exactly and there's a definite like visual significance and ash would never say something like that everyone was like oh my god why would you say that what if charmeleon could hear you yeah his friends are like dude come on chill you're being a [ __ ]

1:03:08 dick it doesn't matter you lost a match it's like trying to talk to phil after he loses in smash brothers it's like come on phil so he goes into the forest and he's obviously really upset and he's in denial i'm pretty sure this is the first match he's lost and he just can't grasp the fact that he's lost and i'm sure there was a lot riding on this match for him as well trying to get back at that dick for abandoning this poor charmander only to lose and fall flat on his face it hurt his pride like he was it hurt his pride and his his what do you call like your beliefs your uh things you stand for principles and his principles like he he was trying to stand up for

1:03:54 his principles and this dude is just this dude beat him and then humiliated him like verbally and he's got how could anyone like that win you know like his training he he says his training is all wrong how can someone like that win the world's not black and white that except in unova but uh he yeah he gets really pissy and his friends are like dude like you lost a battle like don't talk [ __ ] about charmeleon he did his best that happens and he's like well [ __ ] you guys too then i'm going on my own i don't know what he says so but he goes off on his own and pikachu he's like well pikachu you agree with me right and pikachu is like dude and he's like are you [ __ ] fine

1:04:39 [ __ ] you too then like he doesn't say it but he's just kind of like all right well i'm just going to ignore you and walk ahead and just be kind of a dicky grumpy butt and uh eventually he turns around and pikachu's gone right and then at this point he's just like he's just feels defeated and he sits against a tree and he kind of sounds whiny in the scene he's like i thought i was the rainbow hero and he's like you know what i can do this all by myself who needs pikachu this is [ __ ] i thought iva the rainbow hero so you see the wings starting to turn black and marshado comes out and it sounds like a [ __ ] horror movie because like marsha is like whispering in his ear and it's like it sounds like like a bug infestation like it's a weird [ __ ]

1:05:24 noise like it just sounds like a horror movie and then ash's eyes just kind of glow and then they slowly close and he wakes up and everything is black and white and this scene just i'm gonna describe it in every detail i can because the scene just changed my life we're talking about his dream right yes so he's he wakes up and the first thing you notice is his mom saying you're going to be late for professor oak's class and ash runs out of bed and the poster on the wall is of cars

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