Pokémon: Detective Pikachu

Apparently Legendary Entertainment, Warner Bros. Pictures and Sony Pictures are involved in battle for the rights to make a movie based on the popular Pokemon franchise. The Hollywood Reporter claims Legendary is the closest to winning

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/pokemon-movie-rights-bidding-war-884207?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=THR%20Breaking%20News_now_2016-04-14%2018:36:13_nstone&utm_term=hollywoodreporter_breakingnews

It seems there's nothing Hollywood won't try to make a movie out of :). I wish them all the best of luck. If a movie does get made I'm certain it won't be forgotten soon regardless of quality.

It's not going to have drying pans, will it?

The nostalgia market for movies is huge right now, and even though the franchise isn't nearly as big as it was in the 90's, the games still sell well. A Pokemon movie would be a Cash-Cow Franchise if done correctly.

You know, Robin Williams once said that he'd love to play Professor Oak in a live Action Pokemon movie.

Live action? Please no.

Man, if this ends up being a thing I just hope they aren't afraid to take it in a new direction and not just adapt the games or the anime "especially not the anime."

Going to play armchair writer here, but my concept of going about doing this would be starting from the real world. So in the games and the anime, Pokémon have just been there from the start? Well, in my take on it, this changes a lot where the world is essentially very similar to "our world" 20MinutesIntoTheFuture except Pokémon just showed up out of nowhere 5 years ago (prior to the events of the movie), think something like The New Universe.

We're basically looking and how "our world" becomes "the Pokémon" and thus the main plot line is essentially "what are we gonna a do about all these ultra dangerous creatures running around."

At the start of the movie, social order is basically breaking the hell down as random kids are basically using living, and essentially the main plotline is about how the political field basically turns into two factions, one that supports legal protections like animals, and one that believes Pokémon should be free to be explored by industry or whoever,and how this leads to the trainer system and the rise of Rocket Aerospace Engineering.

Actually......honestly, I never really was a fan of Pokémon's whole universe and settling (it's very bland and uninteresting imo) so maybe I'd be the wrong person to be armchair yelling about "this is the RIGHT WAY to do it", I dunno. Maybe I'm the wrong person to be saying this stuff since my idea of "a good Pokémon movie" is gonna be a very Pragmatic Adaptation simply because I never liked the source material all that much in the first place.

Yeah, no. If you're going to go that route, don't make a Pokemon movie. Make your own monster movie.

There's enough explicitly ancient Pokemon, and even some manmade ones, where that concept makes no sense, unless you want to turn it into a horribly cliche "video game characters represented in real life" schlock fest. And the last one of those we had was Pixels, so no thanks.

If it's going to be live-action, I demand they hire this guy.

Based on how the three film studios handle their licensed stuff, I'm hoping Legendary Pictures gets dibs, because a lot of their recent stuff involving fantastical creatures and other oddities has been nothing short of excellent.

If Pokemon are supposed to be in our world (whether the current or one with 20MinutesIntoTheFuture variations), and Pokemon are captured by Pokeballs and then put in fights against other Pokemons...

Will animal rights groups go berserk?

It would be one heck of a subplot...

In order to make sure we don't go easily off-topic, maybe we should change the title of the thread to 'Pokemon Live-Action Movie' or something (in order to make it a bit more open and avoid too much off-topicness?

edited 15th Apr '16 1:35:28 PM by Quag15

You kid, but PETA or someone tried to make a stink over one of the games a few years ago and compared it to dog fighting.

....Which you think wouldn't be an issue anymore since the franchise was like 15 years old by that point.

And that's why I couldn't care less about PETA.

To me, Nintendo's sacred territory. Mess with it by saying BS like Mario wearing a Tanuki suit is an analogy for animal skinning or Pokémon is an analogy for animal abuse and I won't have a high regard for you.

(Basically, I don't care if you love it or hate it, just don't make those gross analogies.)

I mean, they're not wrong. The anime and the games both like to make a fuss about forming bonds of friendship with your Pokémon but on its face, it's still a franchise about having your pets beat the shit out of someone else's pets for no real reason other than ego inflation; the main character wanting to be "the best" is their core motivation. Occasionally they save the world but that's secondary to the main point of just being better than everyone else and thus resolved much more quickly.

Strip away all the window-dressing and it's unapologetic cockfighting in more ways than one. But there is a lot of window-dressing. The franchise treats that as a sort of Necessary Weasel and goes out of its way to pull people's attention away from that.

edited 15th Apr '16 2:08:20 PM by TobiasDrake

The movie might at least have to include some justification for Pokemon dueling. Maybe comparing it to or having originate from animal dominance fights in the wild. Or go the Pokemon Black and White route and make it the central plot.

edited 15th Apr '16 2:08:30 PM by Tuckerscreator

It's not cock-fighting, really. To be honest it's more like boxing matches, just with fire-breathing dragons and mice that can shoot lightning.

Depends on how you look at it.

One of the tricks the games use to diminish the cock-fighting comparison is to suggest that Wild Pokémon want to be captured and trained by a strong trainer. While it's sort of at odds with how hard it is to catch some of them, this interpretation means the Pokémon is actively consenting to training and battling under their Trainer, This is a very important piece of context that the film should probably play up.

Where the cock-fighting comparison comes from is the idea that the wild Pokémon are being captured and effectively brainwashed into a life of violence in service to their slavemaster.

It's all about how clearly the Pokémon's consent is established. If the Poke Ball immediately forces obedience upon the Pokémon as it's actively struggling to break free, then it's cock-fighting. It also hurts that some existing mechanics such as Pokémon refusing orders if they're high enough in level work against the idea that they're consenting to battle.

edited 15th Apr '16 2:13:27 PM by TobiasDrake

Assuming this ever gets off the ground and becomes an actual thing:

Obviously, there's a lot that can go wrong in an adaptation like this. Hollywood doesn't exactly have a good video game film track record so far, and given how the designs of the Pokemon will need to be changed by necessity to look more realistic, there's a lot of ground for error in that process alone.

The one good part about this movie is that it doesn't really have a lot to live up in terms of narrative goals. Pretty much all the storylines in Pokemon, adaptation of otherwise, have been ok at best and most often middling and saccharine. There are a few outliers, but even those have caveats. If they were able to produce a fun action film, they would already be above the bar for what Pokemon storytelling usually is.

edited 15th Apr '16 2:18:15 PM by wehrmacht

The most solid Pokemon films, to me, are Pokémon Origins and Pokemon 3: Spell of the Unown. The latter's opening perfectly captures what the spirit of Pokemon battles should be.

An opening so good you almost don't realize the credits were written in Comic Sans...

edited 15th Apr '16 2:29:19 PM by Tuckerscreator

Yeah, that opening scene is perfect. It highlights the teamwork and the friendship between Trainer and Pokémon in exactly the way the franchise wants it to be interpreted. Ash's Pokémon are clearly thrilled to be a part of this team.

edited 15th Apr '16 2:32:22 PM by TobiasDrake

Spell of the Unown and Mewtwo Strikes Back (the original japanese, the dub is horrible) are the two best Pokemon movies, imo.

The main reason for this is because of their stronger psychological component; the original Mewtwo is a surprisingly compelling character, and Molly in the third film isn't a super rounded character but her struggle and the film's focus are certainly a cut above the usual for Pokemon.

edited 15th Apr '16 2:33:42 PM by wehrmacht

Agreed about Mewtwo as a villain, though I feel that the first movie's conflict starts to fall apart as the film progresses, while Spell of the Unown is overall more consistent.

edited 15th Apr '16 2:41:25 PM by Tuckerscreator

This might be game purism but I never liked the idea of Mewtwo as a sympathetic revolutionary fighting for his people.

The Mewtwo I know is a Blood Knight Person of Mass Destruction Gone Horribly Right.

edited 15th Apr '16 2:42:09 PM by TobiasDrake

Well, they adapted that version of Mewtwo in Origins, at least.

He's not really fighting for his people in Mewtwo Strikes Back so much as fighting for himself. The entire thing is basically him lashing out because he feels like his life has no purpose. He spends most of the film sounding like a confused child, and it's kind of depressing. Cloning Blues, basically.

I roll my eyes on this one. Pokémon works when it embraces its cartoonish nature in terms of the Pokémon designs and its healthcare. To make it live-action would simply be... controversial to say the least. If you are going to do a Pokémon movie (and I believe they would likely go after the first Generation), might as well adapt Pokémon, I Choose You! then. That has the best story of any Pokémon-related media hands down.