Moment Pages are Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned.
- Even though he was really against doing it and is annoyed that Jack dragged him out to catch a Pokémon for him, there is that glint of joy coming from Tim's cheers when he manages to throw a Pokéball at Cubone and seemingly catch it.Tim: Still got it!
- There's a moment where Pikachu looks close to tears and Tim puts his detective hat on him. It marks the moment their friendship truly blossoms.
- Many Pokémon and Human interactions are this.
- Hideo's Snubbull may act standoffish and cold (even to Hideo himself). But when Tim leaves the office, Hideo doesn't hesitate to gently stroke its head, and Snubbull genuinely enjoys it.
- Lucy is shown to be very kind and patient towards her Psyduck. In her line of work, a lot of danger is endured, and she always tries to talk her Pokémon partner down whenever he starts getting stressed from it all.
- The fact that Harry's Pikachu was willing to give control of his body to Harry if it meant saving his life, and the heartbreaking way he pleads Mewtwo to save his partner's life, all conveyed with two short "pika-pika"s.
- Sebastian's antagonism towards Tim and Pikachu primarily stems from a previous fight with Pikachu injuring his beloved Charizard enough to leave scars. When Tim jumps into the ring during their rematch, Sebastian's reaction could be that he's angry that Tim is cheating or genuine concern that the young man is going to get killed in the crossfire.
- He also shows that his coat was damaged by Pikachu, too. It might mean that Sebastian jumped into the ring when his Pokémon was getting hurt.
- Sebastian refers to his Charizard as his "baby". You get the sense that he raised Charizard from when it was a Charmander, and it might even have been his starter.
- After Mewtwo undoes Howard's Assimilation Plot and unfuses everyone from their Pokémon, the people in the background are all checking on their Pokémon, and vice versa.
- Near the end of the film, there's a scene of Psyduck hugging Pikachu.
- Regarding Psyduck hugging Pikachu, the latter has suggested that not many Pokémon like him because of his attitude ("My problem is that I push people away and then hate them for leaving."). When he's hugged by Psyduck, though, he looks like he's ready to cry tears of joy.
- This also shows that Psyduck doesn't hold his earlier hurtful remarks (said to intentionally trigger a headache to drive back some Greninja) against him whatsoever.
- Tim's friend Jack tries to convince him to catch a Pokémon so he won't be alone when Jack, the last of Tim's friends, moves away.
- Before this, Jack mentions that he found out about the crying Cubone because his mother heard it crying, thought Jack had been having a nightmare and brought him a glass of warm milk. This isn't treated as a joke or embarrassing at any point, it's just left in the air as an example of parental love.
- Along with this, the look of absolute joy on Tim's face when he thinks he has successfully caught Cubone. Despite his reluctance towards being a trainer and Pokémon in general, it's clear that deep down, the eleven-year-old kid with hopes and dreams of being a trainer is still there inside him and excited about catching his first Pokémon.
- Harry, right before he disappeared, had bought a train ticket for Tim and was preparing to send him a letter asking for him to come visit as he wanted to mend their relationship.
- Harry also decorated the room he'd decided would be Tim's so that it looked exactly like his old childhood room.
- Pikachu tells Tim in absolute certainty (and close to tears) that this father - if he were here - would hug Tim so hard his bones would pop. This becomes even more heartwarming after The Reveal at the end of the movie.
- Said reveal makes a lot of their interactions more heartwarming in retrospect.
- A couple of Pancham are playing around on a big, intimidating Pangoro's shoulders. One of them loses its footing and falls, only for the bigger panda Pokémon to nonchalantly catch it before it hits the ground.
- The way Mewtwo reveals the plot twist at the end. Never has summing up a movie in one sentence been so heartwarming.Mewtwo: The father you've been searching for has been with you all along...
- Building on the above moment, the flashback reveals that although Mewtwo had to wipe "Detective Pikachu's" memory to save Harry's life, the process did not change who Harry was deep in his heart. Tim got to rediscover what kind of person his father was second-hand through Detective Pikachu.
- Also, the fact that Pikachu willingly submitted to temporarily losing his own consciousness in order to save Harry shows how devoted Pokémon are to their partners.
- The reason for why Tim is able to understand Pikachu. He doesn't have special powers or have a Touched by Vorlons thing going on, or an ability to understand all pokemon. They are father and son.
- Even though Harry was the one that captured him, Mewtwo forgave him the moment Harry realized what was happening and stated that Harry had proven to Mewtwo that not all humans are evil.
- In the end, Tim choosing to stay in Ryme City to spend time with his father and thinking he might follow in his footsteps and become a detective too.
- In general, how much of a heart Mewtwo has, especially compared to most of Mewtwo's media representation. Sure, you could just chalk it up to Mewtwo keeping his promise to Harry and Pikachu, especially when he didn't have to heal Pikachu but he chose to. But it shows clearly that, for all the contempt he has for humanity, Mewtwo very much wants to help them, and did actually care for Pikachu and Harry. Despite having likely no more than 5 minutes of in-person time with Tim and knowing he was tricked into being followed, Mewtwo doesn't hold his imprisonment against Tim, and implored Tim to flee while he still could.
- Related to this example, when Tim asks the wild Bulbasaur for a healer they bring him straight to Mewtwo. This implies that Mewtwo has spent the past several months, maybe years, improving the lives of every wild Pokémon he comes across. That whole forest knows Mewtwo as the go-to guy for when you're in trouble.
- At the end of the movie, following the reveal that Mewtwo has been Good All Along, Mewtwo is shown in brighter, cooler lighting, and isn't constantly frowning, instead with wider and emphatic eyes, which makes it look adorable in a way Mewtwo hasn't been seen since The Uncut Story of Mewtwo's Origin, when it was a baby.
- There's something about Roger's goals after his father's arrest. Although he partly resents Pokémon for presumably stealing his father's attention, it's apparent he's not going to strip Ryme City of its Human-Pokémon-Harmony policy. What's more, he plans to also help undo the damage done to the Pokémon his father experimented on.
- He recognises Lucy as the intern who figured out that something was up before anyone else did, and immediately promotes her to being a newscaster. Lucy's joyous reaction is adorable. This kind act goes a long way from the last time they encountered each other.
- Tim goes from pulling Pikachu off his shoulder to telling him it's okay if he wants to stay there during the lab investigation. Subtle, but sweet.
- As silly as Detective Pikachu's melancholy song was, it's where he stopped singing that mattered most.
- The entire theater was singing the line as he finds the crash site and realizes the truth before running off to save his son.
- The song that Rita Ora and Kygo made for this movie, "Carry On", which perfectly encapsulates the relationship between Tim and Pikachu/Harry, and how it helped them both grow.♪ You, you found me
Made me into something new
Led me through the deepest water
I promise loud to carry on for you ♪ - The fact that at least one Pokémon from every Generation up to that point (VII, to be precise) is majorly featured over the course of the movie shows that, for as much as Generation I tends to get marketed the most, even here, there is much love for every Generation of Pokémon that fans have either come to grow up with or entered the franchise with, and this attention to detail honors all of them.
