This page contains unmarked spoilers! You Have Been Warned!
- The second trailer had a number of new scenes, but several of the most promising include:
- The capture of a Charmander and the evolution of a Butterfree. While it wasn't confirmed if they are Ash's it did increase the possibility. An image released at a later point in time revealed that Charizard would indeed be appearing in the movie.
- The fact that Ash's Butterfree finally gets a movie appearance is a nice touch.
- Ash and Pikachu fighting a gym battle involving what appear to be Tangela tentacles. The movie seems to be planning to do more justice to the Erika Gym Battle than the anime originally gave it. The best part? It did! Ash managed to actually beat Erika himself this time, and there's no mention of her old anime self's adaptational selfishness. A minute or two in one movie did more justice to her than 22 minutes of an entire episode. That is an accomplishment. Not to mention in this version, she's the third gym leader he fights instead of the fifth.
- Small footage from the movie were released on the internet which show that the Legendary Beasts — Entei, Raikou and Suicune — are going to be in the movie and will be encountered by Ash and his friends.
- Ash's Charmeleon vs. Cross' Incineroar. Charmeleon seems to be doing better than last time until Cross begins to gain the edge using his Incineroar's brute force. Then Charmeleon evolves mid-battle, and the newly evolved Charizard proceeds to lay easily the most satisfying smackdown in the whole movie.
- When Marshadow takes control of the army of Pokemon, Cross undergoes a Heel–Face Turn and tackles his possessed Lycanroc, which proceeds to bite into him. Cross is having none of it, enduring the pain and talking Lycanroc out of his possession. Sure, he might have been an asshole, but he had some serious balls to do that.
- Ash and Pikachu challenge Marshadow to a fight. The result is one of the most mindblowing combat sequences in the entire movie, which is also a Moment of Awesome for the newly-introduced Gloomdweller Pokemon.
- Marshadow starts the fight by rapid-firing Shadow Ball at Pikachu, who not only dodges them but hits one back. Marshadow then one-ups him by karate-kicking the deflected Shadow Ball out of the way before rushing at Pikachu to engage him in close-quarters combat that results Marshadow landing a punch that blasts Pikachu across the mountaintop.
- Marshadow eats one of Pikachu's Thunderbolts and activates its aura, before proceeding to fire off Aura Spheres at the speed of a machine gun. Pikachu dodges one before getting hammered by the remainder, which all home in on him and explode.
- Pikachu fires a Thunderbolt to try and stop Marshadow from slamming into him. Ash looks like he's having a Hope Spot... but unfortunately, Marshadow cares little for Plot Armor or said Hope Spot, powering through it and kicking Pikachu within an inch of its life, creating a blast that envelops the mountain. The fact that Ash and Pikachu LOST should be an indicator of how goddamned powerful this Mythical Pokemon really is.
- Ash's Pikachu talking. For the first time, ever.Pikachu: It's pi-cause... It's because I always want to be with you...
- After Ash's death, Pikachu starts shedding Berserker Tears and lets loose an electrical blast so powerful that it all but obliterates the mountaintop and even causes the clouds to clear. Keep in mind that this is a generic, run-of-the-mill Pokemon, and it was able to use an attack with enough power to give legendaries a run for their money.
- After all that trouble, Ash finally gets to meet Ho-oh. The first thing he does? Challenge it to a battle. And it accepts.
- Just as the Japanese version of the movie featured an awesome remix of its original season's opening theme, so did the English version. And it's not like the X and Y remix, it sounds quite close to the original
. Destined to give chills to people who grew up with the original series.- The fact that these new singers managed to make the song sound so convincingly close to the original in many ways is awesome on its own.
- One for Caterpie and possibly Pikachu: Caterpie evolved into Metapod after the third gym, which leads into two options. One is that Caterpie, without evolving, helped Ash win three badges. The other is that Pikachu, solo, won Ash three badges given the lack of other Pokemon seen on him before Charmander.
- Caterpie in general shows himself as stronger than the regular canon ever did. He suplexed a Pinsir. By comparison, the canonical Ash was terrified of Metapod getting crushed in half by a Pinsir.
- For fans of Sarah Natochenny's voice for Ash, hearing a recreation of the first episode with the current voice.
- The very fact Ho-Oh finally got its own movie. After being foreshadowed in the first episode via a cameo, being teased multiple times throughout later sagas, and leaving fans hanging for decades, Ho-Oh gets its own movie — and a 20th anniversary celebration movie at that.
- The appearances by all of Ash's previous companions during the credits. It assures their fans that despite some of them not having shown up again for quite a while, they haven't been forgotten.
