Allo, allo, allo! Davie Portman here reqursting all of your feedback for Pokémon: The First Movie (1998). There are many, many Pokémon films out there, this is the Mew vs Mewtwo one.
We would like to hear your thoughts on this movie, the tv show, the trading cards, GameBoy games etc etc. How did you first get into Pokémon? Are you still a fan? Which Pokémon did you first pick up from Professor Oak? We want to know everything!
Ahoy!
Scrump from Pro Wrestling Tees
Bang! Bang!
What is up?!
First time, long time, there’s three movies I vividly remember going to see as a child.
Those movies are The Mighy Morphin Power Rangers movie, The Phantom Menace, and Pokemon: The Movie.
Weirdly enough they’ve all been ones you guys have reviewed.
The one thing that always stuck out to me as kid and even now as a bigger kid is how dark Mewtwo’s origin is.
One could only hope that they eventually remake this movie with a plot similar to Kill Bill in which Mewtwo tracks down the scientists who made him leading to a culmination with Blane, the leader of the gym on Cinabar Island where HE WAS CREATED!
Love you guys and can’t wair for BOTH of you to come down to Chicago for Survivor Series.
Hooorrrrayyyy!
I have been playing pokemon for over 20 years. I like the many aspects of the games (hunting shinies, building competitive teams, breeding…) It’s a never ending quest. The anime is not as good as the manga or the games but Team Rocket has to be the best stable just ever.
I have watched the first four movies. I really love the third one. This one was a meh for me especially when you know what they are able to do story wise in the manga or in pokemon black/white. The story was too simple, no real plot and Ash is the most hateable character ever. Everyone should have jumped for joy when he died.
Pokemon has depth when the characters are reflecting on the conditions of the creatures and why they are used the way they are. They could have done this way more with Mewtwo but they didn’t. Kids would have enjoyed a clever story too.
at 51 I will be skipping this one. After my time I am sure my sons watched this at some point
Patrick from Toronto
I have been a big fan of the Pokemon franchise since it made it’s way to North America in 1998. I was 8 years old at the time and was all in on the Pokemon fever.
I started with the anime and toys, then moved on to collecting and playing the trading card game and eventually convinced my parent’s to buy me the old Gameboy colour. I became obsessed with Pokemon Red, Silver and Sapphire. First starter Pokemon I picked was Charmander (cliche, I know!)
The games are where my fandom has continued until this day. I got back into the franchise about 10 years ago when I bought a DS and have played most of the games that came out since then. The games provide a pretty simple and straight forward formula that hasn’t changed much since it’s debut. Very easy to play and still very enjoyable.
As for the movie itself, I remember watching this when it came out in 1999. The theater was giving out free holographic Mew or Mewtoo pokemon cards for every kid that showed up on opening day. Wish I had kept the card…
I am not going to watch it again since I remember it being kind of a crappy movie. Just wanted to leave my thoughts on the franchise as a whole.
Keep up the great work boys! All the best!!!
PS, Davie buy a DS and jump back on the bandwagon.
Andrew from Cape Breton
Pokemon is one of, if not the best video game franchise ever. And this is coming from someone with the Triforce tattooed on his hand. I was a huge fan of Pokemon when I was a kid. During the big Pokemania boom in the late 90s, I was into the anime, the cards and the games. I spent years as what’s known in the community as a “Genwunner”, where the best games were Red and Blue and I only counted the original 151 Pokemon. After starting to collect video games in 2013, I ended up with all the Pokemon games, so I decided to play them, one generation after the other. I became hooked all over again.
Pokemon has so much depth to it, just with the games alone. There’s the main games, which are straight forward, but then there’s details on specific Pokemon. Many of them are not just based on particular plants and animals, but concepts of life and death, truth vs ideals, and Alchemy. My favourite Pokemon is Shedinja, which is basically a left over husk of it’s pre-evolution that was possessed and became a ghost. The line of Nincada, Ninjask and Shedinja are based on the life span of real life cicada bugs. Nincada has two evolutions, the speedy Bug/Flying type Ninjask, and if you have an extra slot in your party and a pokeball in your bag, you get Shedinja. Ninjask is the adult cicada bug, and Shedinja is the left over husk. It has 1 hit point and is only damaged by Super Effective moves. The competitive Pokemon scene is something to behold. The website Smogon has tiered Pokemon from the general Overused tier, to a tier with all of the crazy strong Pokemon, to a tier with the worst Pokemon in the game. They also have yearly seasons of the Video Game Championships, which takes a lot of planning and strategy in their doubles format. Then, you have one of the crazier concepts, being Shiny Hunting. In the games prior to Generation 6, 1 out of every 8192 Pokemon had a chance to have a different colour and be a “shiny” pokemon, and people spend hours, months, days and years shiny hunting particular Pokemon.
So, this is definitely the longest feedback I’ve ever left. Pokemon is 10 out of 10. I’ll leave some extra links but I highly suggest both of you guys play some Pokemon games. They are coming out with Generation 8 this fall.
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Main_Page - The Pokemon Wikipedia page, Bulbapedia for all your Pokemon knowledge
https://www.smogon.com/ - A hub for competitive Pokemon with the Smogon rulesets, with detailed strategies on most of the 800 plus Pokemon.Tiers are Uber,Overused (OU), Underused (UU), Rarelyused (RU), Neverused (NU), and PU (because they stink). They also have the Untiered ZU tier for Pokemon who can’t even cut it in PU.
https://pokemonshowdown.com/ - A Pokemon battle simulator, which is played with Smogon Rules but you can also play under the rules of the types of battles played on the 3DS. There are also different generations to compete in, including Gen 1.
There are also many Poketubers on Youtube, but in particular, my favourite is False Swipe Gaming. He also does a few things with Smash Bros, but I wanted to give him some love as well.
Ok I like your style. We speak the same language. 
I use smogon, bulbapedia but also serebii. That’s the perfect combo.
Ari from montreal
Man i still remember going to the theater to see this epic movie. Still remember getting a free card if you went to the movies (pretty sure it was a machamp). Things frim the movies i remember is finally knowing wtf happened when ash went to get that gym badge and well mewtwo escaping. Also pikachu facing pikachu is still something tht doesnt leave a dry eye in house.
Ps i have also procured takeover tickets…however sry Davey im bringing my tottenham fan older brother to meet you guys should be interesting #Coys and hes also excited to roll one with you Braden ahaha
Chris from Queensland, Australia.
Like many in my generation Pokemon was a big thing with my friends at school. I remember the anime would air on tv before school, and both the Trading Cards and the Gameboy games (Red & Blue) were already released. And I remember that my family hired if on VHS from the local Video Store.
Without repeating everything that has been said above, the scene with all the Pokemon crying and Ash “dead” always got me as a kid.
Questions:
What is your favorite game from the core series? Mine is Gold, as my brothers main game was Silver. Gold was my first game of Pokemon I ever played. Also 16 gyms, 2 regions and 100 new Pokemon what’s not to love?
The shows slogan is “Gotta Catch 'Em All”, so did either of you ever complete an in game Pokedex? (SPOILERS, I did not).
Yes Gold and Silver also bring a lot of new mechanics like breeding and they have the 1/63 shiny rate thanks to red gyarados.
David from Ireland
First time upNXT comment.
I remember having over 600 pokemon cards but never actually playing the game.
And being jealous of my friend’s Charizard.
Pokemon yellow- Picakhu was under-powered and I hated he wouldn’t evolve.
I estimate I played over 2000 hours playing the different gameboy games.
Valuable life lessons learned:
You need patience to build up skills in order to master a task.
Do not forget to save your work.
Movie: I remember getting a card(possibly Mew) with my ticket to the movie.
Sidenote:I only watch Takeovers and War Raiders were my MVPs of the last two shows. Make a Dream match vs Sky Pirates happen.
Ventak from Mumbai,
I don’t want to bore you with my obsession with pokemon which includes 3 consoles, 20 odd games, more than a few thousand hours collectively logged in across all games. So I thought I’ll try to make this more topical
THIS IS OBLIGATORY READING FOR DAVIE AND BRADEN
There’s surprisingly a fair bit of crossover between Pokemon and Pro-wrestling and I’m surprised it’s not been bought up in previous comments. I’ll try to make it as exhaustive as I can, but I’m sure I’ll miss a few things.
Obviously, the most relatable type of Pokemon to pro-wrestling is the fighting type of Pokemon(Classics like Machamp and Hitmonchan to forgettable ones like Throh and Sawk), so a lot of this list will be based on fighting types. So hear goes
Starting off with the most recognizable pokemon of all time, there is a form for Pikachu exclusive to the Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire games called Cosplay Pikachu. This cannot be traded to any games except in between the OR and AS games. One of the cosplay’s Pikachu does is that of a Luchador called Pikachu Libre with the signature move flying press (Pokemon’s version of the Frog Splash which is infinitely better than Miz’ on MITB)
Speaking of Flying Press, It is technically, the signature and exclusive move for a Fighting/Flying Pokemon introduced in the generation 6 of pokemon (Pokemon X and Y) called Hawlucha. Hawlucha is categorized as the Wrestling Pokemon. It’s Japanese name roughly translates to Luchabull (Ruchaburu). In episode 51 of “XY Series” of Pokemon or the 850th episode overall titled “When Light and Dark Collide!”, there is a trainer who has a Shiny Hawlucha.
The story goes like a Show promoter is promoting a show where a Face pokemon (Gallade) is protecting his damsel (Snubbull) from the Heel pokemon (Shiny Hawlucha). Ash thinks it’s a shoot fight and asks Pikachu to attack Shiny Hawlucha. As a result, Gallade gets shoot injured and it is revealed to be a work by the promoter Carl. The crux of the story is Ash offering his Hawlucha as a replacement for Gallade as the face Pokemon in his show. Hawlucha is unable to grasp the worked nature of the show and involuntarily keeps shooting on Shiny Hawlucha. Hawlucha then goes through a crisis of confidence and training with Ash overnight.
When the show starts the next day, Team Rocket interrupts. Following their usual shenanigans and them blasting off and beyond, Hawlucha and Shiny Hawlucha have a worked shoot fight and this reminds Shiny Hawlucha of its battle days many moons ago. Hawlucha play’s the face and Shiny Hawlucha play’s the heel and they have a 4.75* match (6* if in Tokyo Dome) and the crowd pops huge. Hawlucha wins and after the match shiny Hawlucha turns face and they get a this is Awesome chant (Not Really).
Speaking of Heel Pokemon, The Fire Starter pokemon in generation 7 (Pokemon Sun and Mon) is Litten. It evolves into a Fire/Dark Pokemon called Incineroar(In-cina-roar). It’s category is the Heel Pokemon. It’s Signature and Exclusive move is the dark type move called the Darkest Lariat which is essentially a cross between the Clothesline from hell and Natalya’s Rolling Lariat. Now when Darkest Lariat is powered by the Incinium-Z, it becomes a move called the Malicious Moonsault which despite its name is a Spring board 450 (1530 as Incineroar does four full rotations in the air) Splash.
Looking forward to the day Richochet does a 1710 splash from the top of 3 hell in a cells stacked on top of each other.
The equivalent to professor Oak in the Alola Region, professor Kukui(Koo-kui) is also a masked wrestler called the Masked Royal. In the games, he meets you at the Battle Royal Dome as the masked royal and introduces you to the rules of the battle royal which is essentially a fatal four way style pokemon battle. Kukui/Masked Royal also loves to Woo!, so that is an obvious reference to NINE TIME WOMENS CHAMP CHARLOTTE (jk Ric Flair). There’s also a bunch of memorabilia and references to pro-wrestling inside the battle royal dome in terms of exhibits. The Masked Royal and his Incineroar also come a handful of times in the Anime in battle royals with incineroar using both darkest lariat and malicious moonsault.
Some lesser known references to pro-wrestling are
Crasher Wake, the water type gym leader in the Sinnoh region, is a masked wrestler who part times as a wrestler and donates all his proceedings to the disadvantaged ala Fray Tormenta. Is he really masked though? Also in the pokemon platinum game when you get your Villa for free in the resort area and after you buy some furniture, Crasher Wake suggests you buy a wrestling ring for the Villa, but it’s more of a rhetorical statement as the catalog of furniture doesn’t offer one.
The episode where Ash fights Chuck to win the storm Badge is supposedly a subtle nod to Randy Savage,but I’m not sure where and why the supposed nod to Macho Man
The grass type pokemon Tsareena introduced in generation 7 has a signature move called Trop Kick which seems to be a play on the word Tropical and Drop Kick.
Hulk Hogan was the host for the 10th Anniversary celebration of Pokemon in Bryant Park in New York City in 2006.
In the Super Mystery Dungeon Game, move tutor Hawlucha calls all his followers Hawlucha Maniacs.
Lastly and my favorite of all is in 2018, NJPW announced that an Eevee Mascot was their newest signee and there was a match scheduled on April 1st 2018 as part of April Fools Day. between EVIL and Eevee . According to an article that now can’t be found,
"Both EVIL and Eevee rammed each other shoulder-first as soon as the bell rang to mark the start of the fight. Numerous shoulder tackles were exchanged back and forth before EVIL raised his arm to try and catch Eevee in a headlock. In that instant, Eevee countered with ‘Baby-doll eyes’.
EVIL was taken aback by the sheer cuteness of the move. This gave Eevee an oppurtunity to land a swift strike that sent EVIL flying out of the ring. Eevee went to the outside to follow up, but his kindheartedness made him reconsider continuing with an attack. This moment of hesitation allowed EVIL to grab a chair. Before he could land a chair shot, Eevee became frightened and used 'Run" to quickly get back into the ring out of harm’s way.
EVIL also made his way back in, but Red Shoes Unno tried to grab the chair out of EVIL’s hands. While they wrestled for control of the chair, it gave Eevee an opening to use Take Down, inflicting huge damage on EVIL.
As if to rain down on his opponent, Eevee climbed to the top rope and executed his Z-Move ‘Extreme Evoboost’. EVIL was just able to rise to his own two feet after receiving the move, but it turned out that the Take Down he endured earlier was super effective, so he was half-conscious as he stood up. Eevee climbed to the top rope again and hit Double-Edge on a groggy EVIL. Eevee went for a cover, but the earlier Take Down had hit Red Shoes too. He was knocked down and unable fo count the fall. Eevee had the pin, but with no one to count, the match unfortunately ended in a time-limit draw, much to Eevee’s disappointment.
With EVIL unable to pull off his finishing move ‘Darkness Falls’, this debut match marked an exciting precedent for Eevee’s future bouts."
There is another article by njpw also describing the match. Friend of the Show and NJPW english commentator and resident google translator Chris Charlton also had a tweet.
There’s a bunch of wrestling ring references throughout the anime and manga, but it seems to be more of Sumo wrestling/ Boxing and general fighting references rather than Pro-wrestling references
I hope you guys enjoy this thread. It took me a bit to type it out but I had a blast going back and checking out all these cross promotional aspects between my two favorite hobbies/past times.
Wow do you contribute to bulbapedia or something ?
Not really lol! I knew most of the facts about pro wrestling, except for the Chuck -Macho Man stuff, I just did a quick search on bulbapedia and that fact popped out at me. It kinda comes with the territory of trading pokemon on online forums. I’m building an event pokemon collection and just doing research about availability and legitimacy of certain events, expands knowledge.
Hello guys it’s charbel from Victoriaville !
Real quick … someone said in the comments to davie to buy a ds and jump back in the bandwagon plz do not ! Go for the Nintendo switch as Pokémon sword and shield (Gen 8) is coming this fall !
Real quick I like how the Pokemon tv show sun n moon ( Gen 7 )bring my family together ! My 1 and a half year boy and my two daughter who are 3 and 11 or even my wife , we always have to watch Pokémon every Saturday !
Also the Pokémon tcg is the same thing I play with my wife and 11 yrs old daughter , we also took some cards we had two times to create a little memory game for my daughter who is 3 with all the Pokémon she likes …
Ok i guess I love Pokémon !
About the movie , I really liked it . I think smith did a good job acting ! Quick question davie like you know a little bit about the acting world … did the main character had to do all is scene by him self when he was filming beside Pikachu or Ryan Reynolds was there delivering the lines …how does it works ?
Because it most be hard as shit acting alone in front of mister mime or Pikachu ect …
Thank you for the phantom menace review
Thank you for this review !
Thank you for nxt reviews !
Thank you for all the good shows !
