Digimon Adventure (1999) | DIGIMON ADVENTURE In Retrospect

0:00 at face value digimon adventure the 1999 movie in addition to the television showed the same name appear to be simple parts of a marketing franchise a means to sell toys to children although children may not know any better and engage in these things because mythical creatures are fascinating an adult delving into the Digimon franchise may wonder is this worth my time well here's the thing Digimon Adventure defies the simplicity of its commercial value the show is involved in the creation of a myth a modern myth the Digimon Adventure movie in addition to the television show were both produced during the late 1990s during that time the world wide web was becoming more and more publicly accessible naturally many forms of media

0:45 were trying to capture the imagination of the public as to what exactly all that entailed the 1999 film The Matrix is probably one of the most well known examples of this a public largely ignorant of the implications of worldwide social media platforms and the technology that made that possible would latch on to the themes and imagery present in such a film and wonder what it all meant Digimon Adventure is no different albe 'it it constructed its story in such a way as to appeal to children as well as adults sure it may have been part of a toy franchise but for whatever reason the writers wrote a story that in some ways transcended that simplicity and the best way of found to illustrate this is to compare Digimon Adventure with CS Lewis's The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe for while The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe may be recognized

1:31 as having been written for children the book and the Narnia series in general are still widely appealing to adults both the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and Digimon Adventure our stories that involve a number of children who are whisked away into a fantasy land full of mythical creatures and there the children go on a journey come of age and deliver that lands inhabitants from tyranny the Pevensie children of the line the witch in the wardrobe grew up amidst the Atomic Age and an ongoing world war well not engaged in the fighting abroad they would instead enter a fantastic conflict within the land of Narnia and that all starts when Lucy Pevensie the youngest of them enters a mysterious wardrobe when one is young even one's closet is home to any number of monsters the boogeyman for example and so

2:17 thematically a wardrobe functions as a doorway into the unknown and for a child that unknown is often filled with magic and monsters unlike the Pevensie children the children and Digimon Adventure grow up at the brink of the digital revolution advancing into the oncoming Information Age an age which is and still remains a mystery and unknown even to this day and so what the writers for Digimon Adventure did was fill that unknown with magic and monsters many of whom are based on creatures of myth while the Pevensie children were sequestered by the ongoing conflict abroad they were nonetheless affected by it in some measure on the other hand the children in Digimon Adventure have been raised in an environment completely devoid of the conflict of war and so they were taken from decadence into conflict and this

3:04 distinction is important to consider because the Pevensie children had volunteered to fight for Aslan in the war for Narnia whereas the children and Digimon Adventure were dragged into an ongoing conflict within the digital world and a few of the children in Digimon Adventure are also made to struggle with the temptation to return to the decadence from whence they came rather than experience the pain and suffering entailed by their pursuit of destiny and so the foray into digimon adventure begins with the 1999 film of the same name which while not essential to understanding the Digimon Adventure television show still serves as something of a pilot episode episodes 29 and 45 of the show make particular reference to the film as its events relate to the ongoing story that being said in addition to being animated quite differently from the television show the 1999 Digimon Adventure film is very

3:50 disjointed there hadn't been any plans to make a television show following the creation of this film rather plans to make the television show followed sometime after the film opens with narration one of the series main protagonists a boy named Taichi Yagami says that four years ago he met a digital monster one supposes Taichi is talking directly to the audience here but his narration is cryptic and as I said before it's difficult to tie into the television show given that the children in digimon adventure conveniently forget about the events of this film within the next four years in my commentary concerning the 21st episode of the television show and considering the nature of the events that occur in this film I mentioned how speaking for myself I can remember quite vividly where I was and what I was doing

4:35 when the World Trade Center buildings fell in September 11 2001 and so naturally I find it highly unusual that all of the children completely forget about their district being ripped apart but the battle of two gigantic monsters classical music scores the entire movie coming from the musical piece bolero by composer maurice ravel's my sentiments about the nature of bolero as a music piece are also elaborated upon within my commentary of the 21st episode of the Digimon Adventure television show wherein I determined that the piece is all about crescendo and falls within the evolutionary habits of the Digimon and so it begins very quietly and simplistically becomes very loud and more complex as time continues and appropriately the film introduces us to a Digimon that begins its life as a small black blob of a creature but

5:21 eventually it becomes a rampaging dragon during the opening credits to the movie Hikari egami Taichi sister wakes up in the middle of the night and is drawn to a strange signal being emitted by their home computer Tai Chi also wakes up and soon finds his sister alone in the computer den mesmerized by red colored binary running across the monitor lines written in English also appear amidst the binary and they're difficult to make out at a glance these lines come from Psalm 109 of the Hebrew Bible rabbit hole speculation would have one believe that this means a lot more than it most likely does although I should admit I don't know why the writers included it if anything Psalm 109 would be mostly applicable to Digimon Tamers given its context the psalmist is making a plea to God that he might visit his wrath against

6:06 false accusers that they would be stricken from memory that even their families be made to suffer for the lies in deceit here's some of what appears on the screen let the iniquities of his father's be remembered before the Lord and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out let them be continually before the Lord that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth and so briefly here I'll talk about how this might be more relatable to Digimon Tamers the Digimon in Digimon Tamers are artificial life-forms that were made by humans but they eventually becomes sentient even going so far as to establish their own society within the digital world well not human children the Digimon and Digimon Tamers are still children of humanity however given that their creators were also responsible for the creation of the D Reaper a program that threatened the genocide of the Digimon

6:52 race naturally there were some Digimon who saw humanity as being inherently evil and deserving death the protagonists of Digimon Tamers taqaddum Itsuki and his friends come to the digital world on a rescue mission and when they do so they come under fire by aggrieved Digimon who were visiting a vendetta upon the children for the sins of their parents but the question here is whether or not Digimon Adventure presents any themes similar to that and that would merely reiterate what I said before one would be required to engage in rabbit-hole speculation to uncover any deeper meaning to this what's for certain is that the Bible is the Word of God and therefore its mere presence in any media would invoke feelings that there's more going on than meets the eye and so effectively the fact that this sacred text appears amidst the binary

7:38 would show that God himself is in the details as I'd mentioned earlier about the boogeyman in one's closet one would naturally expect Tai Chi and Hikari to run away in fear from this anomaly but this isn't the case for even in having grown up amidst digital technology digital technology has become a facet in the day-to-day lives of these children and so even the monsters beyond the computer screen as dangerous as they are may be perceived as being friendly therefore ty Jean Hikari are far more intrigued than they are afraid of what's going on with their home computer even as the binary shapes itself into an egg and then proceeds to manifest itself within the real world the scene abruptly changes to Taichi waking up at dawn does this mean that last night was all a dream Taichi seemingly assumed so until he

8:23 finds Hickory still has the egg she brought it to bed with her last night and so later that morning Tai Chi is making breakfast for his sister while she harbors the lone egg and this scene will be mirrored within the 21st episode of the Digimon Adventure television show where in Tai Chi having returned to the real world makes a meal for himself and Akari in context Tai Chi's falling into making breakfast and trying to relax his part of his overall desire to revert back to his childlike innocence and ignorance to go back to a time before he had been abducted into the digital world and been made part of the conflict therein before long the Digimon egg hatches and does so in response to the sound of a whistle being blown by Hikari the sound of the whistle is significant as later on one can compare it to the sound of a dial-up tone when Taichi

9:09 picks up the house phone the creature inside the egg is small black and ball shaped and it has two yellow eyes that stare at the children ominously the film is scant about identifying the names of these Digimon this is boat amon and tai chi's dialogue even hints at its name as he suggests referring to it as boat to boat a-- which when translated from Japanese refers to coal rocks Hickory then feeds the boat Amon and miraculously the creature transforms causing the nearby electronics to act up boat Amon has evolved into quorum on another blob shaped creature it wraps itself about Taichi and hickories faces a gesture that is mistaken for aggression at first before Korman insists that it is affection Hickory then grabs the housecats food bowl in an attempt to

9:54 continue feeding coleman and this leads to some slapstick antics with a house cat attacks Tai Chi and koromon for interrupting its meal now unlike some other popular monster franchise the monsters in Digimon Adventure are inherently capable of human speech and one might assume this is due their being connected to a gigantic information network the grand majority of Digimon are not incessantly shouting their own names at some bizarre form of speech I should also note that during the course of the television show the fact that the Digimon seemed to know so much does nothing for them in terms of what they are to do with said information and this may be a commentary about the nature of the information age the saying goes like this knowledge is power but that simply isn't true knowledge is not power rather what one does with

10:41 knowledge is power and so looking at the World Wide Web this plethora of wild information flying about without anyone to nail it to the ground and sort it it lends itself to the allegory of being a wild beast a monster something that one must tame and master and so one can better understand the word tamer in digimon tamers for example or perhaps one may even call this massive database a new frontier now concerning the Mon ending to the names of any given digimon one naturally supposes this is a reference to the abbreviated form of the word monster and that has been tagged on to another word in semblance of a filename extension an example of what I'm talking about are extensions such as exe referring to an executable file or JPEG referring to a form of image

11:28 compression the Mon extension to each name would be appropriate for monsters who exist as mythical creatures in addition to there being sentient programs within a digital network and so now choral Mon introduces itself properly to Taichi and Akari who continued to bond with it later that night koromon evolves yet again shattering Taichi and hickories bunkbed as it turns into a large reptile named Agumon funnily this occurs while Taichi and hickories father comes home in a drunken stupor and he tries to enter their bedroom to say good night to them mr. Yagami Strunk eNOS adds some levity to the overall terror of Korra man's evolution into this giant monster as Taichi tries desperately to hide the damaging destruction caused by agumon's wake now unlike the Agumon that's portrayed in the television show this

12:14 Agumon is far bigger it appears far more menacing in comparison no longer content to stay put Agumon leaps from the banister of the apartment building with Akari clinging onto his back it then proceeds to wander about the streets and curiosity causing quite a bit of damage as it does so again unlike the more civilized version of the creature we see in the television show the ague mon here acts more like an animal with his fiery breath it tries to blast a few vehicles that pass him by in spite if it carries protests and for whatever reason Agumon won't even acknowledge her Tai Chi runs out to the street and eventually finds Hikari and Agumon but even as he does another egg-shaped anomaly appears in the sky diego pans up and summarily disappears but not before a great bird emerges from it and begins flying about

12:59 the hikari Galka district where tight jean hikari live this monster is appropriately named parrot mom befitting its distinct parrot like appearance instinctively Agumon spits a series of fireballs at parrot Wong who proceeds to land and retaliate with a bolt of lightning the lightning bolt causes the nearby infrastructure to collapse about Taichi hikari and Agumon seemingly crushing them however after another series of glitches about the surrounding electronics Agumon evolves and as the air clears a towering dragon can be seen where Agumon once was this new creature is called Greymon Greymon shielded tight jean dakari from the falling rubble and when Taichi looks into the large creatures eye he sees a sign of recognition immediately afterwards Greymon engages parrot Mon in combat

13:45 meanwhile several children from the surrounding apartments have come to watch the spectacle these children will later become the chosen children selected to serve in the ongoing conflict within the digital world as is played out in the Digimon Adventure television show the children all seemed drawn to rooting for gray mother perhaps to its having protected Tai Chi and Akari from danger and so gray mom manages to severely injure parrot mom before being tossed back and shot at point-blank range with another lightning bolt gremlin then falls to the ground motionless perhaps even dead as parrot Mun winds up for another blow Tai Chi gets an idea taking akari's whistle into his mouth he blows into it with all his breath suddenly Greymon reawakens the parrot Mun is summarily engulfed in a wave of fiery breath Taichi and Akari

14:31 then shield their faces from the blast when tied she looks up again he finds that both Digimon have vanished as hickory desperately calls out Corman's name we get more narration from the Tai Chi four years from now he says it was too short of a meeting it was a monster that we should not have met in our world and then he ends his narration with that's why I'm here now then the credits roll as I mentioned before Tai Chi's narration is confusing in cryptic when he says that's why I'm here now one wonders where exactly is the here that he's talking about is it a specific location like the digital world or is he referring to the journey itself that he and the other children embark on in the television show this is a clear example as to the distance of the film disjointedness also leaves one wondering

15:17 was digimon adventure ever meant to be played out in the television show as it had been in the movie in other words portraying digimon as being more savage like what we see with Agumon and Greymon especially a former as it attempted to terrorize the public now the dialogue in the movie is scant nevertheless I will add that one might not necessarily enjoy the movie or the Digimon Adventure television show depending on whether or not one is watching the original version or the english-language version that was translated by Saban entertainment and I mentioned this given how heavily the dialogue changes in the english-language version of the show as the English dub forced humor into otherwise serious situations something a more cynical audience would be averse to this is why an older or rather more mature audience will most likely enjoy the original Japanese version of the show as it

16:03 retains a serious approach to its storytelling I made this video with my father in mind and I was thinking of what exactly I'd have to say in order to convince someone his age to become interested in what at face value looks like just another vapid cartoon for kids who like to buy toys and so if anyone listening to my commentary is trying to introduce Digimon Adventure to others on the basis other than one's own personal nostalgia for it then I would encourage you to talk about Digimon Adventure in terms of the time it was made and how the film and the television show can be seen as the creation of a modern myth with the backdrop being a number of children who grow up at the brink of the digital revolution and head into the information age and naturally one should not forget the connections to see us Lewises the line the witch in the Wardrobe