Here we go with the fourth film, cunningly called "Pokémon 4Ever". I say "cunningly", but we all know better. At least Duke Nukem Forever didn't stoop to using the actual number in its title, even if it does use the play on words. But Duke Nukem isn't exactly aimed at the kiddies, is it? And it seems 3D Realms has shut down due to lack of funding, so we may never see the king of vapourware (but I'm holding out hope that it's part of some big publicity stunt, and that the game's to be release shortly).
But I digress. Note, please, that this will be only the second time I've seen this film; the first time was after I'd seen some of the later ones ("Destiny Deoxys" and possibly "Lucario and the Myserty of Mew"). It may be important, I don't know.
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Pokémon 4Ever: Celebi, the Voice of the Forest
We begin with a montage of loads of pokémon all living on-screen. The forests are swarming with them, as is everywhere else. Perhaps it represents the unlimited number of encounters one can have in long grass.
Porygon! Sadly, only ever seen nowadays in some of the films, thanks to Pikachu's intense electric attack. There is absolutely no reason why Porygon should get the flack for that - if anyone, it's the animators' fault.
Then we see a very brief summary of Ash's adventures so far, beginning with a scene (or rather, a redrawing) from the start of the very first Pokémon episode. I like that music, both the opening theme and the battle music played there.
This prologue, incidentally, is only in the Western version and has been copy-pasted from the film "Pokémon Heroes" (i.e. the next film), which had already come out in Japan before this film's Western release.
Now the film proper, and it starts with a very nicely animated (CG plus high frame rate) chase after Celebi in a forest.
The guest star Sammy comes across a cave (actually a tunnel carved through an impossibly huge fallen treetrunk) that leads into a forest (obviously the same one, because otherwise it would be confusing), and is stopped by a young woman saying "Don't tell me you haven't heard about [the legend]!". It's lines like that that just make me want to turn off.
"Well, it's only a legend, but..." ...it's entirely true. Have we yet come across a legend that isn't 100% pure fact (and/or isn't stupidly worded)? That's one of the things I hate about fantasy, by the way - an alternate world may have magic all over the place, but it can have its own fiction as well. Not every old wives' tale needs to be true, or even accurate (and stupidly worded).
A mention of time travel, and everyone should be able to figure out what comes next. This is interesting to me, as time travel in general is. I'd like to see what its laws are in the Pokéverse. For the record, I prefer a "you can't change time" predestination set of rules, because then there's no messing around with alternate realities and hand-waving why the protagonists don't die when they kill their ancestors (predestination means you couldn't kill them in the first place, for whatever reason). There's also significantly fewer stories you can write under these rules, though, so it's swings and roundabouts.
Celebi gets injured by a Flamethrower and starts screeching. Something's gonna happen. All the pokémon know it (somehow), and flee, right past a doodling Sammy.
Celebi and its pursuers fly past him as well (small forest), and Sammy gives chase. He sees it getting beaten up and collapsing into his arms. Then the Pokémon hunter shows up on his motorbike, and his best argument for obtaining Celebi is that he'd make lots of money, and, "Give it to me!" Aah, bad guys...
Sammy legs it, and Celebi screeches some more. The forest goes trippy colours, and the two explode.
No, not really, but they do time travel, right in front of a shrine where a GS Ball might have sat if that wasn't an abandoned plot. For those not in the know, the GS Ball was originally meant to contain a Celebi, and it would become a companion for the gang through half of their Johto journeys. Instead, everyone wants you to forget about it.
Cut to the present day, and the old Pokémon hunter is being smacked around by the Big Bad (Vicious, a.k.a. the Iron-Masked Marauder. Stupid macho names). He and his caged pokémon (the Tyranitar looks particularly miffed, actually) are looking for information about Celebi. The Tyranitar gets thrust into a Dark Ball and becomes evil (somehow) and goes to Level 100. Interestingly, Tyranitar's stats total is equal to Celebi's, but maybe you don't care.
Tyranitar starts destroying the old Pokémon hunter's home, and when he's forced to concede defeat and spill everything he knows (which is practically nothing), his hand is positioned rather high up on the Big Bad's inside thigh. Kinda sets the tone for the whole film, I think.
Vicious, by the way, never has his name mentioned in this film (and his "Marauder" silliness is only mentioned once). He is also voiced by DAN GREEN. That's right; Mewtwo is beating up (or trying to beat up) a small flying Psychic legendary pokémon. Wait, what?
Opening titles. They're unimpressive. But, you know, they serve their purpose, and that's fine. They're not supposed to be one of the highlights of the film.
We find the heroes, and the Announcer seems to be getting a bit tired of things by now, as you may be able to tell from his dialogue:
"Today we find our friends waiting for a ferry that will carry them to
yet another Pokémon Gym..."
Actually, not all the heroes are there. Ash is missing (good!), so Brock sends out his Crobat to go look for him. Crobat sounds like Gollum with a cold and something caught in his throat.
Ash is busy fighting a boy trainer voiced by a woman (and very obviously so). "He" is also called Dundee, has an Australian accent and owns a Croconaw, so we don't know who or what he's based on. Ash slaughters him (the Croconaw never put up any kind of fight, and actually even tried using a Bite attack! It would obviously never work, because this is a children's cartoon). The battle is so minor that the second half of the movie version theme music shows Ash running to catch the ferry, which is obviously on so tight a schedule it can't wait for literally 30 seconds. Although maybe Misty and Brock didn't
want Ash to make it, and I wouldn't blame them.
As usual, the promise of unusual pokémon leads the heroes into the plot. We even see Suicune, who won't become very important later on. Seriously, it does nothing. It's only there because Entei got a film to itself, and that's favouritism (having said that, though, I wonder where Raikou's gotten to?).
Professor Oak shows the heroes a drawing of a Suicune over a video call. Suicune's only plot-relevant power is revealed here - it can purify water. No, honestly, it's a big deal. It's the only thing that justifies its Water type (I always thought Ice would be better, based solely on its appearance and by keeping the trio trend going). The plot manages to get in the way of Oak revealing that very same plot ahead of time, and perhaps it's for the best. It's at least marginally more interesting this way.
This scene, the video call, was specifically changed from the original for the benefit of (stupid) Western audiences. Originally, Professor Oak assumes the pokémon was Suicune, gives some info about it, then begins to write a haiku about it but is jumped by Ash's Muk. In this version, Oak confirms it's legendary, talks about Celebi as well, then the call ends and Oak wonders if he should have told them about everything. The original version has only the mildest hints about the plot twist (which I suspect you already know).
Enter Team Rocket. Despite being contractually obliged to fail miserably, they're clearly the best characters around. For example, take James's very first line:
"Of course they're beneath us; they're twerps!"
That's just style, man. And bonus points if you read that in James's voice (or rather, negative points if you didn't - you should be doing it as standard, people!).
The heroes arrive in Arborville (very literally named, as always). They immediately go off through that stupidly huge tree trunk into the forest, after meeting the young woman (who is now an old woman) and her granddaughter Diana. Brock is ignored completely, and again I'll complain about him not being allowed to even
try. The twerps have ruined more potential relationships for him than they've... done something else that they do a lot. The one time Brock escaped from them was when he stayed with Professor Ivy... but we don't know what happened there. And it's best not to ask.
The forest goes all trippy again, and after some special effects Sammy and Celebi show up. Celebi legs it (or "psychically levitates it", if you will), and the heroes take Sammy to Diana's house (having just met her). Misty wonders what the light was, but that line is delivered so offhandedly that it's hilarious.
Sammy wakes up, and the old woman immediately recognises Sammy. That's a good memory. She gives him his sketchbook, which he dropped before time travelling. Sammy takes it all remarkably calmly. Celebi's apparently gone back to the Lake of Life, and that's where the plot's headed.
The heroes spot a load of pokémon crowded around a hole in a tree, and go to investigate. Celebi's in there, and it doesn't want to be disturbed. The heroes win it over, though, by saying they just want to help it. Celebi isn't very genre savvy - you just don't trust people saying that, even if they mean it! Because they probably don't!
They run off with it, passing a brief encounter with Team Rocket, and run into Vicious. He's atop a big quadrupedal machine, which means he's evil. That (the machine) and the mask and cape. They're always signs of evil, as everyone knows. Ash is way too quick to judge. But Tyranitar comes out and starts blasting away, so he's right. But still, he was being an arse right from the start, and that's just not nice.
Team Rocket join up with Vicious while the heroes escape. Vicious sends a Scizor and a Sneasel after them, which Ash and Sammy beat up. Of note is Sammy's old-style Poké Ball, which has a dial on it instead of a button. It has a Charmeleon inside it, which is a cool pokémon. I think, with just a few exceptions (like Croconaw and its stupid bathing suit), the middle forms of the starters look cooler than their final forms.
Ash and Sammy beat the attackers, and they "make a good team" (according to Sammy). Note that I'm reading into all these lines in exactly the way that wasn't intended. You can too!
The heroes go off, encounter an Ursaring and follow it to the lake. As you do. Ursaring is one of the forgotten pokémon. There's also a Stantler and Furret to follow, which are just as obscure. It's nice to see them being part of the plot (even slightly). I'm a big fan of Furret in particular, because it's so cute.
Celebi gets dunked into the lake, where it swims off. Another Mew parallel. It gets healed by the water, and the heroes have a play around with Celebi. They then go off to find a tree full of probably Cheri Berries (heals paralysis). Ash and Sammy even climb up the tree to pick them. Ash and Sammy, sitting in a tree...
It's night now, and everyone's asleep except Sammy, who is drawing pokémon. Ash stirs and has a look at his sketchbook, mentioning something about a Pokédex. Predestination paradox, perhaps? But that doesn't explain why the first Pokédex didn't have information about any Johto pokémon, even though the film is set there and Sammy has sketches of a load of them.
They then go on to talk about Sammy being stuck in the future. Ash gets hungry, and Sammy shares the bread he got off the young woman 40 years previously.
Pikachu wakes up, as you can see:
"Everyone leaves me in the end..."
They've found a bunch of Metapod evolving (in a different way to how Ash's Metapod did). Once again, Ash completely fails to remember his very first captured pokémon. It's made all the more bastardly when you realise that Butterfree die after mating (which is what it went off to do). He really just doesn't care, does he?
No, instead he climbs up another tree with Sammy to watch them and hug.
Some time later (and I'll let you decide what happened in the interim), the heroes are on their way back to the village. They encounter Vicious and Team Rocket, who attack and capture Celebi. Vicious lobs a Dark Ball, and the heroes are shocked that someone has
dared to even
think about capturing a pokémon in a film.
The rest of the forest pokémon all gather to disapprove of this, and Celebi is called out. And it's now evil, and tears things up. All the debris and Jessie get drawn into a nest around Celebi.
Remember Suicune? Neither do I. But it's shown up again, and it runs off again.
Celebi and its nest fly through the forest, with Jessie tied up by vine tentacles. Hey, that mental image is
your fault,
not mine!
Celebi metamorphoses the nest into a rather interesting shape. Looks a bit like a cross between Darkrai and Dusknoir, but made out of wood. And, as all pokémon do to show they're boss, it uses Hyper Beam and blows up the lake. It then comes across the heroes and blasts them a few times.
Suicune jumps in and saves them from one of the blasts, and Vicious whips out his Tyranitar. Ash and Sammy get to ride Suicune up onto the twig monster, and Celebi starts having flashbacks of when it was a good and decent pokémon. That only happened because the heroes are nearby, of course.
Celebi turns good again, its Dark Ball explodes, and the twig monster disintegrates into the lake.
Celebi shrivels up, and the lake water won't help it now. Suicune's only plot-relevant power comes into play, and it cleanses the lake. It still doesn't work, though, and neither do the berries they picked earlier.
Time for an environmental message about how humans caused the death of the voice of the forest and blah blah blah. All the forest pokémon are unhappy about that, but they don't start crying to revive Celebi (see the first film for more details), so maybe they just don't care that much after all.
More time travel, and a flock of Celebi appear. They fly around it, and our Celebi is revived. Are they different Celebi, though, or the same Celebi from different times? That's something to think about.
Vicious pops out of nowhere and steals Celebi, but a Thunderbolt quickly puts a stop to his jetpack. Celebi cushions Ash's landing, but Vicious drops a long way into trees and onto solid ground. He survives but is implied to be punished by the forest pokémon for doing such horrible things, because that's how these things work.
Celebi is about to take Sammy back to his own time, and Sammy looks over at Ash, eyes shimmering, as if asking permission to leave him. Aww... They're great "friends".
Now there's a scene where the heroes are talking to Professor Oak, which wasn't in the original film, but was created for the Western version. The original scene shows Sammy returning home believing that the events of the film were a dream.
Team Rocket relaxes in the lake, while the heroes head off to somewhere else.
In the credits, Tracey is cleaning up books and discovers a sketchbook (now 80 years old if you do the maths). This scene is literally the only hint the Japanese audience have that Sammy is Professor Oak.
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So that's the film. As always, there's some time paradoxes: why aren't the Johto pokémon not in the original Pokédex? Was Sammy always destined to return back to his time in the end, considering that Professor Oak is rather significant in Ash's past (and if Sammy didn't get back, Oak couldn't have influenced Ash which would have made him do different things)? Since Sammy also saw Ash's Bayleef, he could have made Ash's starter be a Chikorita instead of Pikachu (since he knew Ash would have a Bayleef, and he knows Chikorita is a starter somewhere). Perhaps exactly that happened, but with Pikachu instead (i.e. Ash was only given a Pikachu because Oak knew Ash would have one in the future).
There's a couple of GameCube games that feature similar plots. They're all about dark (shadow) pokémon that the player needs to purify. And Celebi is a main character in those games (or so I heard).
Did I like the film, though? It was alright. Perhaps it's just because I've only seen it twice (now), but it's a bit meh. Films about the lesser legendaries seem to be not as good in general (i.e. the "cute" legendaries, trio-related legendaries, Unown isn't
even legendary). The Manaphy and Jirachi films also suffer from this, I think (although I've only seen those two films once each too, so I may just be forgetting things). Or maybe my standards have just shifted, making
all Pokémon films get the "meh" rating now, and I just don't realise it.
I don't know. It's fun to read (probably) completely unintended things into the story, but as a film it's just not quite up to snuff. Perhaps it's just nostalgia for the original one, or perhaps it's the "nature good technology bad" plot that I dislike, but it doesn't quite grab me. The overarching plot is good and all (it's not too big, not too small, just the right size/scale, in that it's not Armageddon but it's not "Ash gets a cold" either), but several of the individual scenes in it just feel like filler, rather than plot-relevant. And when I say "several" I mean "more than acceptable" - no film is filled completely with improtant scenes - our brains would melt if we watched such a film.
So... yeah. That's my review this time around.
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