YMMV / Pokémon 2000

• Awesome Music:
  • Lugia's Song/"The Legend Comes To Life". The flute version is very pretty itself, but the orchestral version in the climax? Wow.
  • "The World Turns To Ash," a suitably epic and heart-racing piece that underscores what is considered by many fans of the dub to be the movie's Signature Scene: Ash and his party crossing the frozen sea on a makeshift sled to collect the final sphere from Ice Island while battling the Legendary birds with the help of Lugia.
  • One of the songs on the soundtrack, "Polka-mon," is amazing. Take two parts Pokémon, one part "Weird Al" Yankovic, and three parts awesome and you'll get what may be the best part of the movie.
  • "The Power of One," by the late great Donna Summer.
  • Another song from the soundtrack that is considered as Hilarious in Hindsight: "Flying Without Wings" by Westlife, later Covered Up by American Idol's Season 2 winner, Ruben Studdard.
  • From the short film, we have both versions of the song the Bellossom dance to. The Japanese version is a gorgeous sweeping score that would be right at home in a Disney movie, while the English version is just plain adorable.
  • "The Heartbeat of the Planet," Lugia's theme in the Japanese version, might not be quite as grandiose as its English equivalent, but it's still a beautiful piece of music in its own right and later gets a remaster in Pokémon: The Power of Us in both the English and Japanese versions.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The short film has two in quick succession—first Pikachu and the gang get sidetracked by a group of dancing Bellossom, then they enter a cave where a group of Clefairy apparently try to kill them. Neither of these moments impact the plot beyond preventing them from finding the lost Exeggcute and getting Togepi back.
• Broken Base: While many fans find this movie as one of the most memorable of the Pokémon movies for its grand scale and action, many have been offput by the sheer amount of Exposition that eats up the majority of the run time.
• Continuity Lockout: A very unique case can be found with Charizard. Charizard is obedient to Ash in this film but the episode in which Ash regained Charizard's loyality didn't air in Japan until the week AFTER the film released. Meaning those who saw the film on the first week (or those who simply missed the episode) would be confused while those who watched afterwards will be fine.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Not the movie itself, which tends to be highly regarded in the fandom and considered one of the better movies, but everything that comes after it (or alternately, everything that comes after the "Misty era" with the rest of those movies and episodes taking place before this movie); some fans (particularly Kanto/Orange Islands fans and Pokéshippers) fed up with the long-running Pokémon series never ending or having any big dramatic shake-up beyond cast changes look to this movie as the Grand Finale. Amongst boxes ticked are Ash fulfilling a prophecy, saving the whole world in the process (which would in a logical world, make him a Pokémon Master), Misty more or less putting her foot down and vowing that Ash will "always have her," and Team Rocket apparently turning good.
• Franchise Original Sin:
  • Lawrence III is the first in what would become a long line of movie-exclusive human villains, and a major criticism of the character is that he has no backstory or overall motive beyond greed^* At least, not in the movie itself; he does have some backstory, but only in a Japan-exclusive pamphlet, which is especially jarring considering he follows the well-developed Mewtwo. At the time, there was no precedent for this archetype in Pokémon, so he was mostly let off as the first. Almost every human villain to follow wouldn't change this, however, and as such they come off as flat characters, not helped by the fact that many of them recycle Lawrence's gimmick of having a large mechanical vehicle.
  • This is the first movie to feature a considerable number of Legendary Pokémon at once (Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres and Lugia). While still looked back on fondly today, a problem many fans have with later movies is a perceived overabundance of them; a problem that reaches its logical conclusion some fifteen years down the line. It also helps this film's case that, unlike many of those films (particularly Pokémon: Kyurem vs. The Sword of Justice), only Lugia communicates telepathically (before it became a dime-a-dozen ability even among non-Legendary and non-Psychic Pokémon), and as such it can be considered more of a main character than the birds, which are more akin to powerful forces.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In the movie's Pikachu Short, Pikachu's Rescue Adventure, Togepi goes missing, prompting the heroes' other Pokémon to form a rescue team to find their friend. Such premise became much more amusing after Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team was released six years later, as its gameplay revolves around the exact same concept.
  • The film's villain disturbs the harmony of fire, ice, and lightning by imprisoning the legendary birds. After being released, the three Pokémon engage in vicious combat as they try to expand their domains beyond their respective islands. Years later, Pokémon GO would be released, leading to jokes that now the fans are the ones disturbing the balance of the elements, as said game revolves around siding with one of three factions (each themed after one of the legendary birds) and participating in battles to exert influence across real world locations.
• Magnificent Bastard: Lawrence III wishes to obtain the Legendary Pokémon Lugia and add it to his collection. Using the prophecy of Shamouti Island as a guide, Lawrence III attacks and captures Moltres and Zapdos, causing enough of a disturbance for Lugia to be summoned. When Ash, his friends, and Team Rocket are accidentally captured, Lawrence III releases them so they can view his collection. Even when his Cool Airship crashes, Lawrence III is still able to almost capture a distracted Lugia, and accepts the subsequent destruction of his collection.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • This is the movie where the meme that Ash is The Chosen One for everything started. The prophecy springboarded the tendency. It perpetuated to the point that a common fanfiction cliche is for Ash, being The Chosen One, would get amazing powers on top of commanding numerous Legendary Pokémon.
  • This movie gained more memetic mileage in 2011 when Herman Cain quoted lyrics from the Donna Summer song at the end during a campaign stop. And then directly referenced it as coming from "the Pokeemon movie" a month or so later.
  • The scene where Professor Oak, on his bicycle, gets carried away by a bunch of Diglett and Dugtrio has been memed often solely because of his dialogue in the games about how 'you shouldn't be riding your bike right now' and 'there's a time and a place for everything'.
• Narm Charm: Misty's declaration to Lawrence about how you shouldn't be catching Pokémon as trophies is either Values Dissonance if you're following the games (see below)... or this because of the anime's stance, with the trainers having particular sets for long periods that are their friends and travelling companions as much as points of pride.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Lawrence III capturing the Legendary birds severely disrupts the world's climate, causing (among other things) snow during summer in Pallet Town.
  • The fighting between the three Legendary birds causes a lot of collateral damage. When the prophecy talked about them "wreak[ing] destruction on the world in which they clash", they weren't exaggerating.
• Tear Jerker: Team Rocket making the choice to jump off of Lugia to give Ash a better chance to stop Lawrence III. As they fall, the make peace with the fact they're dying for the greater good and tightly embrace each other before they hit the water. They may have ended up surviving, but it still doesn't change the fact that it looked like we were about to lose the lovable rogues.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Like Pokémon: The First Movie before it, the dub's soundtrack is a collection of late 90s-early 2000s pop music (minus "Weird Al" Yankovic, who's practically timeless).
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Thanks to Early-Installment Weirdness, Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres have fallen under this in retrospect. When the movie premiered, the anime portrayed most Pokémon as essentially just animals with superpowers, so it could be assumed that the legendary birds just didn't have the capability of higher thought and were acting on instinct. But as the show went on, more and more Pokémon, especially Legendaries, were given fully developed personalities and were implied to have intelligence comparable to or even greater than the human level, retroactively making the birds appear so selfish that they're willing to wipe out all life on Earth just because they don't want to be around one another. It's telling that countless fanfics that cover this movie have someone (usually Lugia) rip into the three for their behavior.
• Values Dissonance: Misty yells at Lawrence for collecting Legendary Pokémon as trophies. Which is, you know, basically what you do in the games. In the Japanese dub, she is merely asking why he is catching them so cruelly, instead of in a Poké Ball.
• Woolseyism:
  • The part specifically citing Ash as The Chosen One, and thus the Prophecy Twist, was a dub invention. Originally, the prophecy only cited that "an exceptional trainer" was capable of averting the catastrophe.
  • Also, Lawrence III's reference to his collection starting with an Ancient Mew Card was added into the dub. That information, in the original release, was not stated in the film itself: Rather, it was stated in an information pamphlet that also revealed that Lawrence III was an orphan, and the name of that airship of his. As you might guess, this pamphlet was Japanese-only, and since the card appears near the end of the film, it had to be mentioned somewhere in the English version.
  • The dub of the short film that came with the movie, Pikachu's Rescue Adventure, definitely had a good decision made for it by removing the narration that went with it in the Japanese version, allowing the Pokémon to speak for themselves to a very pleasing degree.

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