Featured image from Rotten Tomatoes
Introduction
Welcome to Video Game Movies Part 2. As I was making this post I started to think are Pokémon movies video game movies? At first I assumed they were but then I started thinking about how the movies were based on the anime so I created a poll on twitter. Here were the results:
Most people seemed to agree with my initial thoughts that they were indeed video game movies. With input from Lodestar_Valor, he mentioned that they have shared rules such as gyms, Pokémon, and other things. Winst0lf(The Bizzaro Mage) brought up another excellent point that Ash is basically based off of Red, the character from the games. After reviewing these two points one could see how they are video game movies. I also understand the people that voted no. As I mentioned earlier some might not consider them video game movies since they are based directly on the anime. It was great seeing the different opinions that people had. Without any further delays let’s move on the the 5 movies that we’re discussing in this post.
Pokémon: The First Movie -Mewtwo Strikes Back
Pokémon: The First Movie – Mewtwo Strikes Back was the first movie in the series releasing in 1998 in Japan and 1999 in the United States. I remember having the VHS when I was a kid. The legendary Pokémon in this movie are Mew and Mewtwo. I probably watched this movie about four or five times and I enjoyed. IMDB estimates that the budget was $30,000,000 and that the worldwide gross was $163,644,662. This movie currently sits at a 6.3/10 on IMDb. The kid me would probably give this movie an 7/10. I think the only negative I can think of is the slow start which I think is a trend for the movies. One thing I noticed is that the negative reviews complain that the movie has nothing for adults. I’m not sure why they went into a movie rated G based off a kid show to have content for adults. One review mentioned being disappointed that every Pokémon wasn’t in the movie and there was no history discussed. I think a lot of adults went into this movie with unreal expectations. A majority of reviews are 5 or above.
Pokémon: The Movie 2000 – The Power of One
This movie released in Japan in 1999. In Japan it was called Pocket Monsters the Movie Revelation-Lugia. In the US this movie was released in 2000 hence the name. The legendary Pokémon featured in this movie are Moltres, Articuno, Zapdos, and Lugia. This movie had an estimated budget of $30,00,000 just like the previous movie. It made an estimated $133,949,270 which is less than the previous movie. It was rated slightly lower on IMDb at a 6.1/10. Personally I don’t remember much about this movie, but I know that it has a serious tone as I noticed with each movie. Most reviews were 5 – 7. Based on that one can come to the conclusion that this movie received more mediocre reviews. One thing that I would like to point out is that when I say most reviews were between 5 and 7 I mean that a majority of reviews were those ratings. Below is a chart breakdown that better illustrates this.
Pokémon 3: The Movie – Spell of the Unknown
This movie released in 2000 in Japan and 2001 in the US. The featured Legendary Pokémon in this movie is Entei. This movie was the strangest one out of all of these. This girl’s parents are missing and she bonds with the Pokémon Unknown. They create a dream world for her where her dad is an Entei who then goes and kidnaps Ash’s mom to be the girl’s mom. The kid me would give this movie a 5/10. I actually found this movie a little scary as a kid. I mean you watch Ash’s mom get kidnapped and Entei was pretty intimidating to me as a kid. The estimated budget for this film was $16,000,000. The estimated worldwide gross was $68,411,275. This movie so far has made the least of all them as well as having the smallest budget. This movie currently sits at a 5.9/10. The reviews just like the last one are mostly mediocre as they are mostly 5, 6, or 7. One thing that I’ve noticed is that with each release the movies make less money and has less favorable reviews than the previous.
Pokémon 4Ever: Celebi – Voice of the Forest
I don’t believe that I watched this one fully. The Legendary Pokémon are Suicune and Celebi. This movie released in 2001 in Japan and 2002 in the US. I could not find a credible source that listed the estimated budget. I usually use IMDb as my main source and Rotten Tomatoes as a backup. Neither of them had the estimated budget. It did make an estimated $28,023,563 worldwide. This movie continues the trend of making less than the one before. It also scored lower currently sitting at a 5.8/10. For a summary of the movie be sure to visit IMDb. Once again a majority of the reviews are mostly mediocre with mostly fives, sixes, and sevens.
Pokémon Heroes: Latios and Latias
I remember watching this movie and I didn’t have a strong opinion either way. The kid me rewards this movie a 5/10. Nothing too memorable as I remember it being mediocre. The featured Legendary Pokémon in this movie are Latios and Latias. Once again I could not find a budget but the estimated world gross was $20,867,919. One again the money made has dropped again. I’ll go over what I think the reasons are for this in my final thoughts. It currently sits at a 5.9/10. Once again a majority of the reviews are mostly mediocre with mostly fives, sixes, and sevens.
Final Thoughts
I think that the reason that the earnings with each game decreased is because the movies all came out so close to each other. I also believe that a decrease in budget attributed to loss of earnings and lower ratings. I think cutting the budget led to a decrease in overall quality of the films. I think it felt more like watching an extended Pokémon episode with smaller bits of above normal animation. From what I can remember after Pokémon Heroes: Latios and Latias most movies premiered on television at a set time on Cartoon Network, here in the US. Why do you think the movies got lower ratings and earned less money? Let me know in the comments. As always thank you for reading and be sure to follow my blog notifications when I have new posts.