I Watched All 24 Pokémon Movies So Let's Rank Them

0:00 there comes a time in everyone's life where they decide to watch all 24 pokemon movies over the course of a couple of weeks in order to rank them that might not be true actually i can say that i've reached that point though i'm writing this prior to beginning the marathon so i'm not exactly sure what conclusions i'll draw but i'm excited to watch through these movies of the 24 films released right now there are about 10 or so that i either haven't watched or have no memory of watching so lots of these are new to me i'll be ranking these starting with those that i consider worse so that we can have a bit more optimism with each passing minute hopefully that's how this works out a quick introduction for those completely unfamiliar with how these films work the pokemon movies almost exclusively center around ash ketchum and his various companions with a

0:46 legendary mythical or otherwise iconic pokemon heavily involved they always try to teach a valuable lesson that usually ash and the viewer can both learn it should probably go without saying but there's going to be quite a lot of spoilers for the various pokemon movies in this video so here's your warning anyway this is probably going to be an excruciatingly long video so let's get started with whichever film i've decided is worst number 24 pokemon mewtwo strikes back evolution this is a cgi remake of pokemon the first movie and i'm actually going to immediately contradict myself and say that this isn't the worst pokemon movie it just offers virtually nothing in the way of originality evolution tells the familiar story of mewtwo's laboratory creation subsequent escape and attempted vengeance on the

1:31 human race who've wronged him that's fair ash misty and brock experienced the legendary pokemon's wrath firsthand as they're all invited to a mysterious party on new island the site of the destroyed laboratory where mewtwo was created the climaxic battle sees mew taking on mewtwo as the titular character's clone army face off against their original counterparts in the end ash can't take the fighting anymore and runs between mew and mewtwo in an attempt to stop them always had more heart than brain that one their attacks both hit him turning him to obsidian whatever it is it breaks the heart of pikachu which in turn deeply pains all the unlooking pokemon clone or not as they all weep for what they're seeing their tears were absorbed by obsidian ash and when pikachu joins them ash is revived mewtwo sees the error of its ways dropping an iconic quote before wiping everyone's memories and leaving

2:19 new island with the clones i see now that the circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant it is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are so you may recognize the voice there that of dan green aka yugi who will be popping up a few times here that performance is one of the definite highlights in mewtwo strikes back evolution as a remake i feel like it needs to do more than it did though the major change from the original is obviously the look of the film at times i found myself really enjoying the new style but i thought the design of the human characters was sort of off-putting i think the biggest issue for me was the eyes because brock actually looks fine most of the time aside from the animation change several battle sequences were extended and some weird errors from the original were fixed nothing too significant brock does get

3:05 an original line in evolution though which i actually loved let's gaze upon sun dredge seas and eat my famous jelly donuts made with london i'm a simple man if you reference brock's jelly filled donuts i'm gonna enjoy it overall i did have a fun time watching this movie it's filled with great ash and pikachu moments which are essentially the backbone of almost every pokemon movie but they just don't have anything new to do here that's my only issue it feels completely unnecessary and that's why i've put it in last place it's also a good sign because i really struggled to find any pokemon movie that i didn't at least enjoy a little bit okay number 23 pokemon 3 the movie spell of the unknown entei wow that is not a catchy name i feel

3:53 like this might be an unpopular choice given my channel name i sort of wish the movie about unknown performed better here but this was the original movie i enjoyed the least here we have the story of professor spencer hale and his daughter molly while researching the quote-unquote legendary pokemon unknown professor hale is sucked into the unknown dimension after his mysterious disappearance molly is now parentless her mother also having disappeared years ago while playing with the unknown letters to further drive home that point molly summons a what do we think the collective noun for unknown would be a swarm of unknown a herd i'm gonna go for a scrabble so yeah molly unintentionally summons a scrabble of unknown they're able to create illusions and at her request conjure up an entei who sounds just like her father probably because they're both voiced by dan green i'm

4:38 like ante am i imagine that i am anyway back in pallet town professor oak speaks about research that professor hale had recently sent him on the unknown i guess i can't be mad that nobody spells my channel name right anymore this research is incredibly insightful telling us stuff like unknown speaks each other over the electric wave fascinating okay i'm only 15 minutes into this movie let's speed this up the illusion grows larger and larger until it's covering the entire town surrounding the hale mansion and eventually entei kidnapped stelia catch him because molly wants a mom this is a very confusing family dynamic eventually ash makes it inside the house along with misty and brock when ash reaches mali and explains to her what's happening she loses it a little bit in a

5:24 massive battle with entei ensues at the last second with entei readying to deal the killer blow molly calls for everything to stop and agrees to leave the illusion the unknown aren't too happy about that but entei stops them which feels confusing as it was an illusion that they created but at this point i'm happy to go along with it everyone's free and seeing as they apparently forgot it during the end credits that professor hale returns to the real world then out of nowhere molly's mom comes back too i honestly don't know why it was sort of implied that she was dead where has she been this whole time that was such an unnecessary detail to had so what makes this the worst original pokemon movie i don't want to say it was all about mrs hale returning at the end although that it really confuse me the whole thing is just kind of boring

6:10 my love for the franchise means i still had some fun with it but it was definitely the least enjoyable watch for the marathon number 22 pokemon jirachi wishmaker i think this might actually be an even more unpopular opinion than that the dislike button was removed while i was making this video it's possible that they did that just for me i sort of assume that people enjoy spell of the unknown because it's only the third movie but i've actually spoken to people who love jirachi wish maker let's just run through the story quickly ash brock may and max head for the millennium festival where the millennium comet will be seen for the first time in a thousand years as the name suggests the comet is only visible in the sky for seven days the only thing worth noting about the festival is the ferret coaster oh my god the furret coaster is

6:56 incredible i love it the four leads go to see the great butler perform and max hears voices coming from a rock that's part of his act butler tells max that he heard jirachi's voice and that the pokemon can only come out when the millennium comet is in the sky the comet appears above the rock transforms into jirachi and then we get lots of mechs which is really unfortunate it transpires the butler is evil and as an xt magma scientist wants to use jirachi to summon groudon or something my notes are kind of all over the place i've written here jirachi wishmaker was the main inspiration for james cameron's avatar question mark butler eventually uses jirachi to create some sort of tentacle monster to groudon and then when it starts destroying the entire world he has a change of heart ashjarachi and butler work together to get rid of groudon and everything is

7:43 fine again max and jirachi celebrate and then with the comic gone girachi turns back into a rock i think the biggest flaw with this movie was making max the character that jirachi bonded with because he's on screen a lot there's a movie later on in this list that does a really similar thing to wishmaker but just executes it far far better we'll get back to that later though ultimately by only briefly featuring the ferret coaster jirachi wishmaker was asking for a low ranking here if the plot centered around max wishing to be taller so he could ride the fart coaster this could have easily been top five as it stands though it's too short to ride number 21 pokemon the movie white victinian zekrom and pokemon the movie black victini and resharam okay let me just say up front my biggest grievance here was that i watched these

8:29 back-to-back and it's the exact same movie twice you could blame me for that and probably should i definitely didn't need to watch both i've got three a4 pages worth of notes on these two and at one point it just says in all caps why am i still taking notes on this that was during the second movie which for me was black victinion restaurant the biggest thing these movies have going for them was victini's adorability is that a word even then though it's far from the most adorable pokemon we'll meet on this list also no fart coaster 0 out of 10. number 20 pokemon the movie 2000 the power of one i am just roasting the original trilogy here this might be the most unpopular placement so far i had really fond memories of this movie but it did not live up to them even as

9:15 i'm saying this i can't believe that this rank's so low but that's where i've put it this ranking is incredibly arbitrary i wouldn't take it personally the plot of pokemon the movie 2000 revolves around a collector attempting to capture the three legendary birds articuno zapdos and moltres really i just need to read you a little bit of the shimmuti prophecy that pretty much tells the whole story disturb not the harmony of fire ice or lightning lest these titans wreak destruction upon the world in which they clash though the warder's great guardian shall arise to quell the fighting alone it song will fail thus the earth shall turn to ash we ultimately realize that instead of referring to the destruction of the earth the prophecy is suggesting that ash ketchum will be required to help lugia stop the legendary birds thus the earth shall turn to ash this leads to a

10:00 contender for the all-time greatest movie line well right now i wish my mom had named me bob instead of ash this movie really does have some incredibly quotable lines but yeah ash saves the world with the help of team rocket and all is good i should say this movie deserves some credit for actually giving team rocket something to do because most other entries on this list fail in that regard other than that there's not a lot to say about this one like its immediate sequel it's just kind of dull before moving on though we should go out on a high with another one of those amazing lines i could use pants number 19 pokemon giratina and the sky warrior so this serves as a direct sequel to a movie that we haven't covered yet in the

10:46 rise of dark cry all you really need to know about that one though is that dialga and palakia battle as we learn in giratina and the sky warrior this has clearly rubbed giratina the wrong way the movie sees ash brock and dawn trying to reunite a lost shaman with others of its kind while a generic villain named zero tries to take over the world it's all just sort of fine the reverse world is an interesting setting but beyond that there isn't much worth writing home about shaymin walks the line between adorable and annoying which hurts the movie quite a bit i really don't have a lot to say about this one let's move on number 18 pokemon the movie kyram vs the sword of justice i'm not sure whether this is a good or a bad thing but this hardly feels like a movie at all it's so short that it never really drags but in that sense it also just seems like a

11:33 long episode of all the animated movies it's probably the one where ash and his travelling companions have the least to do this movie gives exactly what the title promises it's essentially just a slightly broken up battle between qrm and the trainee sword of justice keldeo that's kind of why i like it kiram is much more captivating than most of the human villains that the pokemon movies have used and keldeo crowns a fair bit of growth into the short runtime if you've got a protagonist worth rooting for going up against a seemingly indomitable antagonist you are set for a good time that's exactly what clarion versus the sword of justice provides number 17 pokemon the movie diancie and the cocoon of destruction the first and narrowly worst of the xy generation diancie in the cocoon of destruction is an unremarkable but fun entry in the

12:20 series clearly the writer hideki sonoda is a man who watches spider-man 3 and thinks it could do with a few more villains because about half the characters in this movie are antagonists they're all keen to get their hands on diancie who has the rather unique ability to create diamonds from thin air well she's supposed to be able to at least at the beginning of the film while dancing can create diamonds they disappear after a short period of time that's less than ideal as she needs to make a new heart diamond for the diamond domain or it will crumble all hope is not lost yet though one of the many carbine from the diamond domain tells her to go and find xerneas in the all-earth forest and that its fairy aura will grant her the ability she requires so diancie sets off but she is quickly cornered by marilyn and riot two of our many many villains ash and friends save her while the two bicker and after

13:05 hearing diance's story agree to accompany her before they can get anywhere on their journey though diancie's kidnapped by team rocket welcome to the school of hard knocks i certainly do appreciate your kind educational offer but i must be going diance is rescued by miller steele and makes it back to ashenko you might be imagining that we've just added a new hero to offset the many villains but don't worry millis and her father are bad guys too anyway the group all traveled to the old earth forest where diancie does meet xerneas and experiences its fairy aura there's no time to see if diancie can now create permanent diamonds though as all of the bad guys show up on cue in all the chaos as the various villains attempt to capture diancie they accidentally disturb yveltal who emerges from its cocoon of destruction rather relatively veltal is less than pleased about being

13:52 woken up early less relatively it settles on destroying the entire forest along the way several people and pokemon are turned to stone before diancie mega evolves and creates a real heart diamond that only briefly stops yveltal though in the end zernia steps in and manages to calm yveltal who promptly leaves it's only then that we're shown that pikachu was clipped by oblivion wings so he turns to stone too we get a nice role reversal callback to pokemon the first movie before xerneas restores pikachu meaning we get an adorable reunion scene [Music] all those who return to stone are revived by xerneas who then turns into a tree to protect the balance of nature that's basically it dancing returns to the diamond domain and creates a brand new heart diamond and they all lived happily ever after

14:38 i really think that ash and pikachu moment moved this several places up the list because i found it so adorable in fairness dancing is a fun character and other than the overabundance of villains i really had no complaints about this one number 16 pokemon the movie volcanion and the mechanical mar no let's try that again number 16 pokemon the movie volcanion and the mechanical marvel so we move straight from the first xy movie to the last and there really isn't much to separate the two lots of my notes on this one center around how adorable helioptile is despite it only featuring in a few scenes i will say megirna the so-called mechanical marvel never quite captured my interest but i did really enjoy volcanion as a character volcanion is mistrustful of humans at

15:24 first which makes the electromagnetic link between him and ash somewhat problematic as the movie goes on though we learned that volcanion acts as a protector to the pokemon of the plateau they're all pokemon who were mistreated by humans leaving them fearful when ash serena clement and bonnie arrive in the end volcanion comes to trust ash after everything they go through together there's really not too much to say about this one it's another solid entry greatly helped by the presence of helioptile oh andamora number 15 pokemon the movie genesect and the legend awakened let me start by telling you this movie is set in new torque city i'm just gonna give you all a second to digest that just like these new torquers digest sandwiches as soon as we're done i can go for some

16:11 sandwiches myself okay no we can't just talk about the new torque tankies and sandwiches we've got to actually discuss the movie briefly it centers around ash iris and silence trip to pokemon hills a nature reserve in the middle of what i can only assume is central pork pokemon hills has a multitude of different environments with plants taken from all over the world to help the various pokemon get acclimated while visiting the pokemon sanctuary ash encounters a lost genesect who seems desperate to find its home naturally ash is a massive help mommy mommy where are you although that genesect takes a liking to ash for some reason the rest of its crew aren't so warm they eventually take over the reserve attacking any person or pokemon who stands in their way building a gigantic nest right at its center we come to realize that the genesect are

16:57 only at pokemon hills because the panelists is transplanted there are the only thing that they remember from the earth they once inhabited 300 million years ago the movie ends with ash and friends bringing the genesect to the last place where panalotus is still grown naturally and they make their new home there lovely so after finishing this movie i was pretty satisfied i'd enjoyed it but i wanted to mark how long it was for my notes because it felt pretty short i already had a wikipedia tab open so i just went there and searched the movie quickly when i scroll down to check the runtime i caught the last line of the movie's plot out of the corner of my eye ash iris silent eric and squiddly diddly take the genesect there where they start building another nest i was fairly sure one of these characters didn't exist to win the movie so i scrolled down further to the character section where i found

17:43 squiddly diddly a music loving anthropomorphic octopus who works at pokemon hills in new torque city originally from the secret squirrel show unlike his original counterpart squidly now speaks in a scottish accent squidly's voice in the original japanese release is provided by takashi yoshimura in the english dub squidly is voiced by david tennant i only bring this up because i genuinely believe i happened across one of the most bizarre vandalizations of a wikipedia page ever why did genesect 13 make those edits we may never know but yeah the movie was pretty good number 14 pokemon the rise of dark cry i suspect this will be the most unpopular placement on this list i know that a lot of people really love the rise of dark cry but i didn't enjoy it as much as i was expecting the movie

18:29 takes place in alamos town home to the space-time towers when dialga and palkia clash between dimensions strange things start happening around alamos town with darkrai being blamed by baron alberto the only thing i really have to say about him is that he's the worst why don't you come over to my place for a little dinner alice is so not interested after his overt harassment is quelled by dawn alberto takes out his anger on darkrai but while battling it with licky licky the mythical pokemon sends ash to the shadow realm when he wakes up in the pokemon center we get yet another adorable ashen pikachu moment palkia shows up in alamos the next day and transports the entire town to a different dimension darkrai reappears and although this isn't strictly relevant to the plot i feel like it's my duty to bring attention to the fact that

19:16 it has legs i feel like i'm not supposed to be seeing those it's like seeing an owl's legs it just feels wrong anyway diago shows up as well and we get round two with darkrai attempting to stop both the space and time pokemon alamos town begins crumbling and the only way to stop it is by calming the legendary pokemon the only way to do that is to play a certain song from the space-time towers which are essentially one big musical instrument the architect goatee yes really foresaw the clash between dialga and palkius who designed the towers for this exact moment ash and dawn ascend the tower to play the song as darkrai continues trying to stop the fight it eventually pulls an ash ketchum and gets between the two attacking pokemon to save everyone else by sacrificing itself darkrai gives ashen dawn just enough time to play the song and calm the elegant palakkia before

20:02 alamos town and its entire population was completely wiped out palkia restores the town and returns it to its rightful dimension before leaving without a word of apology as everyone mourns the loss of dark cry its shadow appears on a nearby cliff face and we see that it's still alive presumably that has something to do with the alga controlling time it's never really explained that mysterious return from the dead at least makes more sense than professor hale's wife in spell of the unknown but i still think it detracts a bit from the ending the pokemon films are a big fan of that move the emotional impact of a death followed up by a miraculous revival in fact almost every movie on this list so far has done it it just all feels like having your cake and eating it too this makes it sound like i want more dead pokemon which i don't i just feel like because they go to that well so often it really lessens the

20:48 weight of all of those scenes other than that i thought the rise of darkrai was good just not quite as good as the rest number 13 pokemon the movie hoopa and the clash of ages this is the only one of the 6th gen movies that really stood out to me it's just total chaos and i sort of love it let's just quickly go over the plot in the past hoopa had to be confined after it started summoning legendary pokemon and destroying them for a laugh in its new form hoopa can't travel through its own rings and won't be able to until it truly understands why it was confined in the present day ash and pikachu are pulled through a ring portal by hoopa who then summons lots of pikachu because ash likes them now which one's your pecan this one

21:34 there's a possessed object that causes a shadow of hooper to manifest itself as hoopa's unbound form that's not great the group splits into two with clement bonnie serena and hoopa's current keepers needing to create a new object to trap the shadow while ash pikachu and hoopa's stay to battle it this is where the real chaos begins hoopa summons latias latios and a shiny rayquaza all of whom end up mega evolved while the shadow brings forth primal kyogre and groudon kyurem dialga palkia and giratina then they all just battle just in time the big group returned to seal the shadow back inside the bottle before ash ends up possessed hoopa is able to calm the evil spirit with happy memories of its time in its confined form though and all is good with the world once more except for the fact that the space and time are collapsing around us apparently it's against the space-time laws to have

22:20 that many legendary pokemon in the same place at the same time there's no need to worry though ash ketchum is on hand and he's sure to save the day pikachu thunderbolt let's go [Music] um look i know thunderbolt has got ash out of a lot of tricky situations in the past but did he really just try to use it to stop space and time from collapsing yeah i mean that makes total sense in the end hoopa helps everyone escape from the dangerous void using its rings and finally understands its confinement allowing it to escape too other than the total carnage it's a happy ending to a movie built on chaos i don't know why i like this one so much look was hoop a good character yeah was the clash of ages exciting absolutely

23:06 did this mostly rank high because ash tried to stop space and time for crumbling with a thunderbolt i'm not going to lie to you it's very possible moving on number 12 pokemon zoroark master of illusions the first film to crack the top half is the only standalone 4th gen film there's a lot to like about master revolutions from one of the best pokemon movie villains to an interesting title pokemon to the well-paced solid plot focusing on that first point though kodai might be my favorite pokemon antagonist across all the movies it's not a category teeming with great options but kodai really stands out unlike a lot of the half-hearted villains whose actions are ultimately redeemed after some dumb and selfish actions kodai is just pure evil honestly as i'm saying this i feel like this movie should rank higher on the

23:52 list but this is where it's staying zara and zoroark are both solid characters to build around but this is really kodai's movie i feel like everyone should go and see this one for themselves still i've put it at number 12. even i'm starting to question my judgment now number 11 pokemon secrets of the jungle the most recent entry in the pcu only narrowly misses out on a top 10 spot we're firmly into territory of movies i thoroughly enjoyed at this point though secrets of the jungle begins with the zurud forced to leave his tribe to raise a human child he finds abandoned in the forest of okoya the mythical pokemon is given no choice and leaves the heart tree where the rest of the zurud live we then jump 10 years into the future where the boy coco is now traversing the forest with ease the pokemon who coco now calls dada has raised him to believe

24:38 that he's also as a rude when we join them it's just reaching the point where koko is starting to question whether or not that's really the truth after an argument koko runs away and goes full green goblin forcing ash ketchum to rescue him yes unsurprisingly ash happens to be in the forest of okoya at the time and transports the unconscious boy back to nearby militha town when koko awakes it's in a state of pure shock for the first time we realized that koko only speaks the language of the zerud it's just been helpfully translated for us during his scenes as koko attempts to escape the town he begins to notice similarities between himself and ash when he ultimately makes it back to dada the zarud admits the truth handing over a photo of koko's parents that he found at the beginning we then get an incredibly rare mention of ash's father which really caught me off guard before some clues lead ash and

25:25 koko to the nearby biotope company lab upon seeing the photo the man in charge dr zed reveals that koko's parents were unfortunately dead on top of that he tells us that koko's real name is al-malibdanum yeah i'd probably stick with coco after dr zed starts asking questions about the healing spring in the heart tree coco gets suspicious and rushes off as he heads straight for the home of the zeroed it's revealed that koko's had a tracker placed on him by dr zed who is to the surprise of nobody completely evil the zarood who've hoarded all of the food in the jungle have never been on great terms with the other pokemon there it's only when zed begins tearing the forest apart they all come together to protect one another in their home during the battle dada is killed by zed but it's pretty brief as coco revives him using jungle healing so he's

26:11 actually become parts rude anyway zed is defeated and arrested and everyone works together to heal the forest of akoya koku decides to go off on a journey of his own at the end and everyone lives happily ever after i don't know how much it came across but this is very much the jungle book meets tarzan meets avatar meets drive angry now i've never actually seen drive angry but i assume it's about driving angrily and there's a recurring road rage theme in this movie over the opening credits a car speeds up attempting to run over koko's baby then when he's brought to malifa town another vehicle attempts to run him down finally it's revealed that dr dead killed mr and mrs malibdinum by running them off the road so yeah that family just seems to have some sort of genetic predisposition for getting in car accidents secrets of the jungle may feel very

26:57 familiar but it does its job well koko's relationships with data and ash are both great and the setting is one of the best we've seen in a pokemon movie dr zedd is another lackluster villain but beyond that i really enjoyed secrets of the jungle number 10 pokemon destiny deoxis who thought this would crack the top 10 certainly not me when i looked through the movies before starting my marathon this one jumped out at me as a movie that i expected to rank low i think that's mostly because i've never really cared for deoxists and honestly i still don't destiny deoxys has a great setting some good characters and two of the most adorable pokemon in existence though so you don't even need to care about the titular character the story begins in the middle of an arctic expedition where professor lund's young son tori is left traumatized after a meteorite causes a

27:43 pokemon stampede there's a big battle with deoxys and rayquaza here too but i'm focusing on the b plot years later ash and friends arrive in larue city in uber modern tech heavy utopia that happens to be the home of tory and his father we get some brief interactions between ascentory where we learn that the boy who once adored pokemon now finds them petrifying completely by accident tori ends up competing alongside ash in a double battle but is unable to do anything frozen in fear by the pokemon around him as tori tries to run from ash to avoid a tough conversation he's approached by a plusser looking for assistance to help out its friend mine and who's stuck in one of those weird tech pins after helping mine and out tori flees once more okay just quickly deoxys shows up in lurie city at this point and creates an aurora in the sky now i know what

28:28 you're thinking an aurora at this time of year at this time of day in this part of the country localized entirely within that district but yeah that's what happens as ash brock may and max get to know tori a bit they ease him into the world of pokemon once he's bonded with the others he brings them to meet his best friend um this thing then rayquaza shows up because deoxys is there and professor lund calls for the city to be evacuated all of the main characters end up trapped in the city though with a force field going up around it they're eventually forced to go out into the city in search of food and mining gets captured by the deoxys i've skipped large chunks of the main story but that meteorite from the beginning contained deoxys which is now that thing that torrey calls his friend the other deoxys is only in larue city to rescue said friend it keeps carrying

29:15 away people and pokemon because they create waves that are blocking deoxys from finding its companion everyone works together to get the meteorite deoxys back into its body and they're reunited in the end they actually save rayquaza who finally understands them and leaves there's one final climactic moment where tori has to dive to save possible minor before he himself is saved by deoxys it's implied that possible minor stay with tory at the end and that's literally all that matters i've mostly just gone through the stuff with tori plus the mind in there because that's the part of the movie that kept me invested tori has a fairly simple character but his story arc really worked for me along with a unique setting that just made for a really fun movie to watch plus leminen are so so good ok number 9 pokemon arceus and the jewel of

30:01 life another movie that i'm surprised made it this high on the list arceus and the jewel of life is the final film in the original gen 4 trilogy it continues on from the rise of dark cry and giratina and the sky warrior finally bringing arceus into play the original one is such an obvious pokemon to make a movie about with such an interesting origin and i thought jewel of life did a good job with it a long time ago arceus was forced to protect the world from a series of meteorites losing its 16 life plates in the process seemingly destined to die arceus was rescued by a man named damos who's obviously voiced by dan green damos retrieves the life plates for archaea saving its life and as thanks it uses five of those plates to create the jewel of life arceus told damos it would turn machina town where he lived from desolate

30:46 wasteland to fertile paradise and it did sadly when arceus returned for the jewel domus refused attacking his former friend believing that without the jewel machina town would revert to a wasteland as it was still missing five of its life plates arceus was forced to retreat but vowed to return and unleash its fury upon the planet we learn all of this from sheena one of damos's distant relatives who reveals that she now possesses the jewel of life we also learned that arceus awakening is what sent dialga and palkia on a collision course with one another and thus led to the events of the last two movies when sheena attempts to return the jewel though it's revealed to be a fake and that makes arceus a little bit angry the alga palkia and giratina work to stop arceus's destruction with dialga sending ash brock dawn and sheena back in time to fix things there's also kevin but

31:32 guys named kevin don't get sent back in time the four are originally sent back far enough to witness the betrayal but that's not enough so dialga sends them back further to the beginning of that day when they arrive sheena accompanies marcus damos's assistant while the other three are sent to jail until their story is straightened out it's there that they meet damos who tells a completely different story to what we've heard from sheena damo says that he wants to return the jewel but marcus rose up against him intent on keeping it that's not the best news as sheen is currently telling him exactly what will happen and how to avoid it while all of that's going down we get lots of adorable cameos from pokemon being sadly overworked like cyndaquil and chikorita marcus convinces sheena that she should be the one to return the jewel to arcus not letting her in on the fact that he's taken it from the scepter where it's usually

32:19 housed so when arceus returns once more well for the first time technically i guess sheena fails to give back the jewel marcus attacks while our kiss is unprepared using the knowledge of what happened the first time marcus plans to kill arceus by burying it in molten silver which as far as villainous plans go is pretty evil in his mind if arceus dies there it won't be a problem in the future and sheena and the others will have no reason to come back elsewhere ash brock and dawn have escaped prison with dallas's help and they're fighting to wrestle the jewel from marcus ash ends up with it and thanks to some more help from damos and almost dead arceus reabsorbs the jewel and rescues everyone from the now collapsing temple ash brock dawn and sheena say their goodbyes to damos who thanks them before their return to the present although arceus is still furious when

33:06 they arrive it calms upon seeing ash the altered version of history now present in its memory thanks to the hard work of the people machina town has stayed lush and fertile despite the absence of the jewel of life there's also a mural celebrating ash brock dawn and sheena but not kevin because he was left home alone number 8 pokemon detective pikachu okay i don't think i really need to spend too much time on this one as i'm guessing most of you have seen it what i will say is that i massively preferred this one on a re-watch i wasn't too impressed on my first viewing but that's probably because i was getting too bogged down in the fairly unimpressive plot once you ignore all of that and absorb yourself in the world it becomes much more enjoyable look i obviously wish that detective pikachu was voiced by danny devito i mean i'm not a crazy

33:51 person but ryan reynolds does a really good job here part of what made me appreciate it so much this time around was realizing that if this was being made today you know that would have been chris pratt so let's just all be thankful that this one's already out more on the look of the movie it really is a bit of a roller coaster some pokemon look fantastic and others are kind of horrifying i think some of the best shots in this movie are just establishing shots where you aren't really getting close up on the pokemon and you can just appreciate the little details justice smith and catherine newton have a lot of cheesy dialogue to read through but i think they both do pretty well with it especially the latter bill nye is obviously never going to disappoint but doesn't really get much to do unfortunately so yeah a fun setting some great set pieces plenty of

34:37 funny lines and a solid cast aside from a few iffy designs the basic plot and the lack of danny devito this one's really good and well deserving of a spot in the top 10. number 7 pokemon the movie i choose you okay as someone who's produced hours of content pondering the question what if ash woke up on time i feel like it might have been obvious that i'd like this one instead of asking that question this movie is set in a universe where ash receives the rainbow wing when he first sees ho-oh in that sense it isn't exactly a like but it is just a reimagining of the original series instead of traveling with misty and brock it's verity and sorrow that accompany ash this time around rather than rescuing charmander from damien it's a trainer named cross that abandons it unlike damien cross is a recurring character in ash's journey popping up to battle him from time to time cross's

35:24 aggressive win it all cost mentality does lead the inexperienced ash down some darker paths if only my first pokemon have been a squirtle or a bulbasaur after falling out with pharisee sorrel and most importantly pikachu ash has a nightmare of a world without pokemon basically he dreams about the real world and realizes how awful it must be which is sort of a burn on all of us it does make ash realize how much pikachu means to him though before we let down another dark path sorrel tells the story of how his family's luxury was forced to rescue him after he got lost in the snow and it died yep sorrel was solely responsible for the death of his family's luxray i know you're thinking that later on i'm gonna reveal that it shows up at the end and everything's

36:09 okay nope luxory is dead that good mood just keeps on rolling into the next sequence where we have to relive the whole bye bye butterfree storyline let's just skip to the end ash makes it to the summit of mount tensai where the rainbow wing has been leading him this whole time but cross is there waiting for him they battle and ash wins but cross steals the rainbow wing anyway as cross is evil this doesn't lead to hoho being summoned but marshadow shows up instead and has the wild pokemon attack everyone we're eventually taken back to the beginning of the movie and the original series that moment where the only thing ash can think about is protecting pikachu so asks him to get inside his pokeball and then this happens can i offer you a nice egg in this trying time seriously how good would danny do so have been in detective pikachu such a missed opportunity

36:55 anyway pikachu gets back into his ball just in time as that is hit by all of the attacks but this time around it's his determination to be with pikachu that brings him back from the dead i guess luxray just didn't love sorrow enough which actually makes sense given how everything went down ash uses a new rainbow wing to summon hoe and they battle before we get to see the meme that ends the movie i think the pokemon movies were getting a bit stale by the time i choose you rolled around and it was a much needed shot in the arm for the series i love that they just chose a bit of a random concept and ran with it i've said it a few times in this video ash and pikachu are the heart of almost every movie here and this is a great movie to introduce you to their story good stuff number six pokemon forever celebi the voice of the forest i'm fairly certain

37:41 that nobody is going to agree with me on this one but my nostalgia for voice of the forest means it's gonna rank just outside the top five this was the last pokemon movie i watched within say a year of its release until i got back into the franchise i remember loving this movie as a kid and it didn't disappoint on a re-watch the movie begins with a young boy named sam being warned to be careful as he enters a forest with his sketchbook it's the voice of the forest that he's told to listen out for as it said that if you aren't perfectly still when you hear the voice it'll transport you through time when sam makes it inside the forest he finds a celebi being chased by a pokemon hunter and rescues it badly injured and worried about what could come though celebi the voice of the forest travels forward in time taking a sketch booklet sam with it years on in the future ash misty and

38:26 brock enter the same forest where they come across the newly arrived sam they take him back to a nearby village where the woman who warned him all those years ago recognizes him and returns his sketchbook sam comes to terms with the fact that he's traveled through time and then convinces everyone that they need to go and find celebi who brought him here once they find the injured celebi who is very adorable by the way it takes some time to convince it that they're there to help but it eventually accepts they're led to the lake of life by the wild pokemon where sam lowers celebi into the water is healing it almost instantly suddenly full of energy celebi takes ashton's sound flying and then picks berries for everyone and seriously it's all so adorable in case you're wondering the word adorable comes up in my notes for this movie about 15 times that night ash and sam bond over their

39:12 love of pokemon as sam draws what i've called an adorable picture of celebi and pikachu this whole time the iron masked marauder and apparent team rocket member has been hunting down celebi unsurprisingly he's voiced by dan green and his plan is to capture celebi in one of his dark balls which makes any pokemon evil and maxes out its power once yugi succeeds in catching celebi he just instructs it to start destroying the whole forest i think the iron mask marauder wanted to use the evil celebi to wrest power from giovanni and take over team rocket so i'm not exactly sure where the forest destruction comes into it ash and sam make their way to evil celebi and manage to snap it back to reality breaking the power of the dark ball but the titular pokemon is grievously injured i mean it looks like a wilted leak and that can't be a good

39:58 thing even the waters of the lake of life can't heal celebi this time though so a bunch of other celebs show up heal the wilted leak and all is good again celibi and sam say their goodbyes and then the voice of the forest returns the young boy to his time ash struggles with this having found a true friend in sam later on he's comforted by professor oak who he misty and brock have called to tell all about their adventure oak tells him that his friendship with sam will stand the test of time which really cheers him up as the call ends and artrio walk away misty wonders how professor oak knew the boy's name smash cut no there's no smash cut just cut to professor oak looking over the sketch of celebi and pikachu that he did all those years ago oh my god that's why

40:43 this movie's at number six look the year is 2001. m knight is arguably already past his best but pokemon forever is carrying on the beautiful tradition of wholly unnecessary twists that you'll still be thinking about 20 years later honestly if there's one person who didn't know what the twist in this movie was and i was able to give them that moment of excitement it was worth going through the whole plot what a film okay number five pokemon ranger and the temple of the sea do you remember like 40 minutes ago when i told you that there was a movie that did a lot of the same things as jirachi wishmaker but just executed them much better no me neither anyway this is that film the bond between may and manafee is so wonderful and it just blows everything wishmaker does out of the water

41:29 or into the water in this case i don't really care about the pokemon rangers who make up half of the title but when manafee is being adorable in every other scene i'm not sure that that matters we've also got a villain who's hilariously over the top but i think that's a massive improvement unforgettable there's some scenes of ash being obscenely heroic which are always fun but for the most part yeah this is all about mei and manafee you make me so happy number four pokemon the first movie mewtwo strikes back okay we made it full circle all the way back to the first movie going into this i figured it might rank fairly low maybe it's the nostalgia talking again but this deserves a top 5 spot yes there's a lot of really weird mistakes but a lot of them i just find kind of

42:15 funny i went over the basic plot of this movie when covering the cgi remake but there is a little bit to add here the version i'm covering which i consider to be the complete film adds a lot of backstory to explain the movie's origins essentially giovanni is funding the scientists because he wants the most powerful pokemon in existence but dr fuji's main motivation is to clone his deceased daughter this obsession with bringing her back has driven him over the edge causing his wife to leave him and it's all pretty dark beyond that though there's so much about this movie that i love like this missing poster for nurse joy wanted a missing person also the fact that minnesota is officially canon in the world of pokemon i didn't know vikings still existed they mostly live in minnesota there's also this bit where all of the pokemon are fighting with their clones

43:00 and vaporeon is clearly just playing with its mirror image 10 out of 10 very adorable you've also got this killer meowth line that was weirdly cut from the remake you're right we do have a lot in common maybe if we started looking at what's the same instead of always looking at what's different well who knows i'm not sure everyone will agree with this high placement but there's so much to like here that i couldn't make a case for it being lower number three pokemon heroes latios and latias very respectable podium finish for the final original series movie as the title suggests the movie tells the story of latios and latias two legendary pokemon who live secretly in the city of altamar their father a latios gave his life to protect the city once upon a time

43:47 leaving behind the soldier which is said to contain well his soul when ash saves latias who's disguised as a human from two team rocket members intent on stealing the soul jews she takes a liking to him although it takes ash a while to figure out what's going on with the silent girl he saved when he does we get some great scenes with the two of them latios and latias reside in a secret garden within altamar but annie and oakley the aforementioned rocket members ultimately track them down they steal the soldier and capture latios who protects zlatias and tells her to run annie and oakley's plan is to activate the defense mechanism of altamar an ancient but dangerous machine built to protect the city this doesn't quite work out for them as ash and latias save the day but their evil deeds end up draining altamar of water that minor problem becomes major when all the

44:33 water begins crashing back towards the city in one giant wave latios and latias fly out to meet it and manage to stop the tidal wave from causing any real damage the effort of stopping it costs and already weakened latios his life though it's honestly heartbreaking as latios has sacrificed lee's altamar with another soulju and we realize latias has now lost to father and brother because of human selfishness for the first time a pokemon passes on in a pokemon movie without miraculously returning like i mentioned earlier this hits so much harder for that fact after seeing numerous titular pokemon sacrificing themselves and then resurrecting the emotional impact of permanent death is really amplified beyond the ending though pokemon heroes latios and latias

45:19 is just an all-around good pokemon movie number two pokemon the movie the power of us when i talked about secrets of the jungle earlier i mentioned the few movies from which it seemed to draw heavily well the power of us really feels to me like it started based around the idea of one movie it's the breakfast club if you've seen the two films then you're probably seriously doubting me but listen other than ash ketchum we've got five main characters to deal with in the power of us there's tauren a shy genius researcher the brain risa a star runner who was shaken by a past injury the athletes margot the mayor's daughter the princess harriet a reclusive old woman who hates pokemon the basket case and callahan a compulsive liar who

46:04 doesn't not look like judd nelson whether or not the breakfast club was the starting point these characters work sometimes their stories are intertwined and sometimes they stand on their own or alongside ash but at no point does it stop working for me the movie takes place during the annual wind festival in fuller city ash ketchum is in attendance with his trusty partner pikachu but let's check in with the breakfast club first reese is in fula city because her brother rick who's in the hospital has asked her to catch him in evie risa isn't very knowledgeable about pokemon but rick tells her she'll find one in foolish city so she goes there for him callahan is at the wind festival with his sister and her daughter his niece kelly although she's ill she loves spending time with her uncle believing every word he tells her about his fabricated adventures tauren lives in fuller city so he's nervously milling

46:50 around preparing for a research presentation while harriet another local is just trying to avoid all of the pokemon present at the festival finally we've got margo she sees her father off and then after crossing paths with ash seems to head into the forest on the mountain overlooking the city that's where our journey begins it's basically detention before the festival properly gets underway kelly bumps into risa who informs her that she is looking for an eevee obviously the young girl points her to her all knowing uncle who sends risa off into the forest as a complete guess his knowledge of pokemon almost as limited as hers also harriet has to drop off some documents with tauren but when he startles her she spills something on herself the festival then opens with a pokemon catch race which is exactly what it sounds like callahan's niece insists he enter having

47:35 heard all of his amazing stories and wanting to see him in action luckily for him tauren saw him brashly telling a captivated crowd one of his fables earlier and agrees to help him on the condition that callahan presents his research for him so callahan enters using tauren staryu with ash the only other entrant of note thanks to tauren's earpiece instructions callahan is able to take an early lead saving a terrified suit of udo as he does ash spends the majority of his time in the catch race attempting to stop a rampaging tyranitar so callahan manages to win that night riza realizes that she's been sent on a wild goose chase by callahan searching in an area that's totally off limit while harriet's troubled to find a number of wild pokemon following her so the next day rizza enlists ash to help her find an eevee recognizing him from his second place finish in the

48:20 catch race they locate neevy quickly enough and ash walks her through the process of catching a pokemon even lending her pikachu for the task riza succeeds in catching the eevee and it's all very adorable at the same time harriet is confronting tauren who reveals that she spilled essence of sweet scent on herself yesterday and that's what's attracting the pokemon i haven't even mentioned team rocket yet in fact i've left jesse james and meowth out of most of my quick summaries because usually they're irrelevant but they actually play a big part here another tick for the power of us they've been skulking around the research pavilion since the start trying to get their hands on whatever tauren's working on and they do when callahan arrives late to his presentation tauren's forced to do it himself which goes disastrously with him accidentally showing the footage of his catch race guidance

49:06 before everyone including kelly has time to digest that team rocketer discovered trespassing and throw a smoke bomb to escape in the chaos eevee is trampled by the crowd and its leg is broken thankfully tar's on hand with his chancey to provide some immediate medical care kelly's unnamed illness also flares up possibly due to the smoke or more likely because her lying uncle broke her heart callaghan is told by his sister mia that she's going to take kelly home the next day to avoid any more complications callaghan leaves angry with himself but instead lashes out at the sududo who's been following him since the catch race the next morning the winds have died down and everyone learns that the eternal flame has been stolen the eternal flame is what helps lugia fight fool the city and lugi is the one who provides the city with wind that's the whole reason for the wind festival they need lugia for

49:52 wind they need wind for electricity and they need electricity for well everything they managed to track down the thief in the forest and it turns out to be margot yes the mayor's daughter who i've barely mentioned so far her time has been spent in the forest feeding a heretofore unseen pokemon that's now revealed to be zeraora margot stole the eternal flame hoping to put an end to the wind festival so everyone would leave fuller city and pokemon hunters would stop combing the woods looking for rare pokemon margo reveals that zera aura saved her life injuring itself in the process and she's been taking care of it ever since the mayor then confesses that he's been hiding something too the city's government invented a story about the forest being cursed after humans caused a wildfire 50 years ago zaraora saved many of the wild pokemon but became hostile towards humans so to protect it

50:38 the former mayor told the people of fula that it had fled now i never went into detail on what team rockets stole earlier but it was a capsule of effect spore that tauren was working on and it just exploded ash rallies the whole group and they each figure out what they can do to help tar needs to retrieve his natural cure solution in the city and then join callahan who's now called sudowudo and harriet at the abandoned power plant that she designed as a young woman they can disperse the solution from there riza needs to run the eternal flame back to its perch so lugi will be able to find fula city by morning and ashen margo will stay behind to help the sick and injured pokemon a problem slightly exacerbated by the forest fire that's now started even team rocket chip in to help giving taran the lumberies they were attempting to sell to fix the problem that they created the fire killed the power in town which prevented

51:24 tauren from making the natural cure resolution so lumberries will have to work instead on their way to the power plant harriet reveals to callaghan that her snuggle perished in the first fire 50 years ago which is why she distances herself from any and all pokemon now if she makes no more meaningful connections she can't be heard again maybe she's judd nelson that would make callaghan ally sheedy the group all work together and succeed in getting the lumbery solution dispersed preventing the effect spore from doing any damage the fire is still spreading though so the entire city has to band together to help out eventually they're able to put out the fire after zero or learns to trust ash and riza places the eternal flame just in time to summon lugia the guardian of the seas brings rain to put out the remaining embers present in the forest and then brings the wind that gives the festival its name on the one

52:10 hand i feel like i might have went into too much detail there but on the other i think everyone needs to know about the power of us it's got by far and away the best cast of human characters we've seen in any pokemon movie and they all have really satisfying arcs and stories it just gets the balance perfect for me the quality of i choose you the power of us and secrets of the jungle makes me really excited to see what's coming next so there's only one movie left now and it just pipped the power of us to the post number one pokemon lucario and the mystery of mew i sort of credit this movie with getting me back into the franchise it had probably been five or six years since i'd played a new pokemon game or consumed any content beyond replaying crystal for the millionth time i was really sick and decided to search out a

52:56 pokemon movie this was the first one i could find after finishing it i immediately wanted to go and play through the gen 4 games that i'd never played before if i'd happened upon jirachi wishmaker instead maybe i wouldn't have gotten back into it at all no scrap that fart coaster would have been enough to pull me back in what i'm getting at is that i had really high expectations when coming back to lucario in the mystery of mew and it lived up to them in the distant past we see lucario using its aura powers to locate two armies about to go to war at the nearby cameron palace queen wren discusses the impending war with sarah and lucario's master rin tells aaron that as queen she cannot leave her castle if it's going to fall she shall fall with it so he hops on a pidgeot and flies to lucario saran tells him that he's abandoned the queen and castle and

53:41 won't be returning before lucario can reason with him sir aaron throws his staff down capturing the pokemon inside like a pokeball as the army's clash queen rin is given the staff by pidgeot who has returned to the castle alone then the tree of beginning starts to glow green in the distance and the war suddenly ended it's said that the tree's power turned hatred to understanding and that saran was the hero who'd activated it centuries later ash brock may and max arrive at cameron palace for their annual celebration of saran where they crown a new guardian of the aura with a battle tournament of course ash wins the whole thing defeating kid summers in the final during a banquet that night ash is forced to sit and watch while everyone enjoys themselves serving his role as guardian of the aura with serrano and staff in hand throughout the opening sequence we see plenty of mew who lives in the tree of beginning transforming

54:28 into different pokemon as an apon mu leads all of the protagonist's pokemon to a playroom upstairs kid has been sneaking around during the party and spots mew from the roof of the castle sending in two weevile to place a tracker on the mythical pokemon there's a big scuffle and mew ultimately transforms into a pidgeot and flies away with pikachu and meowth saving them from the attackers meanwhile downstairs ash is told to copy the hero's pose from the painting of saran when he obeys lucario is released from the staff instantly confronting ash who he believes to be saran once lucario's able to open his eyes he realizes his mistake and flees when they track down lucario eileen a descendant of queen wren explains that everything he remembers happened long ago everyone explains their version of events to lucario who fills in the blanks telling them sir aaron is no hero

55:15 then max bursts in to tell everyone that mew was attacked and flew off with pikachu in meowth wait i can't remember what mute transformed into though maybe kid can help me out here i was on the roof when i saw mew change into a pigeon ah a pigeon of course how could i forget kid also points them in the direction of the tree of beginning which eileen explains is actually an elaborate rock formation ash figures the only way to get pikachu back is to head there himself so that's what he does brock may and max tag along and eileen asks lucario to accompany them kid joins them too apparently she's

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