Why “I Choose You” is the Best Pokemon Movie
Recently I’ve been rewatching the Pokemon movies. And while many of them have their merits, the 2017 film “I Choose You” stands out from the pack for a number of reasons. It’s got a strong story, great artwork/animation, and presents a wondorous retelling of the original story we all know and love. Here are just a few of the reasons “I Choose You” is officially my favorite Pokemon movie.
Why is Pokemon’s critic score so low on Rotten Tomatoes?
First and foremost, “I Choose You” doesn’t have a terribly favorable score on Rotten Tomatoes from Critics or Audiences (although the Audience score is twice that of the critical one). The only problem here is the fact that Pokemon movies (or any movie typically from an animated franchise like this one) isn’t geared towards casual film goers. The main complaint against movies like “I Choose You” tends to be that you have to be a fan of the film to enjoy it. However, that’s exactly who the audience for a movie like this is: a fan!
You don’t casually choose to go catch the latest Pokemon movie. You watch it because you absolutely can’t get enough of the world.
If you were to take the critical consensus of fans, I Choose You would certainly have a higher score.
With that aside, let’s get into why exactly this movie is so good.
I Choose You remakes the original episodes of Pokemon but does it even better
I really enjoyed watching Pokemon as a kid. It’s so easy to watch the show now it’s almost hard to remember what it was like to get up early on Saturday morning and watch the show on 4Kids TV or pick up DVDs from the library so you could watch the show in a disjointed fashion.
However, as an adult it’s hard for me to really deeply enjoy the show. It’s not the greatest quality, and while it certainly has its moments, in many ways it struggles to impart everything that is so wonderful about the Pokemon universe due to destractions like zanny subplots with Team Rocket.
I Choose You streamlines the narrative, presenting it in a compelling fashion, and giving added depth to Ash’s experiences as a brand new Pokemon trainer.
I Choose You portrays a unified Pokemon story
While having many of the same events as the original series makes I Choose You feel like it takes place in the regular Pokemon universe, clearly it takes place in an alternate timeline. Pokemon from other regions are present within Kanto, and iconic characters like Misty or Brock are missing (although Team Rocket remains for some reason).
While there are positives and negatives to this approach, ultimately choosing to totally alter the way this story was told was a the right choice, namely because it allows for not only a more condensed story to be told, but one that is more unified.
Although it’s been a long time since I watched the shows, Pokemon has been around for decades. There’s so much lore there that it can feel like the journey is a bit of a hodgepodge of adventures, characters and themes.
Things show up at one point in the story only to not be a big deal until much much later.
Take for example the mysterious Pokemon Ash sees when setting out as a Pokemon trainer. It was Ho-Oh as we now know. But that Pokemon doesn’t actually show up until well after the first generation of Pokemon, and is a major character in the Johto region.
Original goals that were established as being important in the show (pretty much copied from the games) don’t actually come to fruition in the show. Famously, it takes Ash decades to actually achieve his goal of winning the Pokemon League and becoming a Pokemon Master. Meanwhile, he never actually completes his most important mission: catching them all!
I Choose You, however, fixes this disunification in a lot of ways. While we don’t see Ash become a Pokemon Master exactly, we do see him complete an entire character arc and story. The story centers around Ho-Oh and gives closure to Ash’s character, showing how in his own way he has become a Pokemon master.
This is a much more enjoyable experience for viewers than slogging through endless seasons of a show with few moments of payout for our investment in Ash’s character.
I Choose You gives a better definition of “Pokemon Master” than any other show or movie has
Although we have a lot more hindsight today about the Pokemon universe now that in many ways the original show has come to an end, back when I Choose You came out it solved several of the problems with most other Pokemon movies and even the show. One of those problems was a single definition of what it means to be a Pokemon master. Is a Pokemon Master someone who completes their Pokedex? Is a Pokemon Master someone that battles and defeats the Elite Four?
In the games, this is all a bit more straightforward. After all, each game (interestingly like the I Choose You Movie) is a complete story in and of itself. You are one character at the beginning with a mission that you complete at the end of the game. You can become a Pokemon “Champion” by beating the Elite Four of your region and that’s pretty much it.
However, in the ever-expanding Pokemon universe, that’s not really how it works. You have to deal with the fact that you have always another region to explore, and new foes to battle and defeat.
In the final episode of the Pokemon show, Ash announces what it means to be a Pokemon Master. It means befriending Pokemon. However, I Choose You astutely declared this years earlier.
As is clearly evidenced in the movie, Ash has already completed this goal to a certain degree by the end of the film.
Charizard is a central character in “I Choose You”
Charizard has always been one of the more compelling Pokemon. And that’s not only because he looks like a dragon and breathes fire. He’s also got a very interesting character. However, I Choose You chooses to do something very different with his character than the show did, and in many ways its more satisfying. Although it was interesting watching Ash struggle to get Charizard to respect him (mimicking a game mechanic that sees Pokemon who are of too high a level not obeying you), in I Choose You Charizard instead is plagued by past weakness and abandonment by a trainer who he feels the need to prove himself to.
In many ways, this need to prove himself jives perfectly with Ash, and what happens is a powerful character arc that Charizard is well deserving of.
Charizard isn’t depicted as a stubborn, teenage Pokemon at all the way he was in the original show. That’s partly because we’ve already explored this theme in depth earlier on between Ash and Pikachu, and the movie wisely explores different grounds with Ash’s Charizard.
Pikachu and Ash’s relationship take central stage
Finally, Ash’s relationship with Pikachu takes center stage in I Choose You to powerful effect. Admittedly, their relationship is usually a key component of any Pokemon property. That being said, I’ve not seen the relationship as strongly presented in any other medium as its depicted in I Choose You. You really feel their bond and understand why it is so special, and it’s good for kids to see this sort of unconditional love displayed in a movie.
Their relationship is one of sacrificial love in a way that’s rarely depicted in kids shows, and all the more powerful because of its rarity.
Although there are many moments where this is depicted, the most poignant is when we see Ash succumb to the darker sides of his ambition out of anger over losing a battle badly. What we see is a universe devoid of Pokemon altogether, and how gray and dreary such a world would be – with nothing to explore but hills and valleys.
Ironically, this horrible world is actually (spoiler alert) the world we inhabit. We’re essentially getting a glimpse at how sad our own lives are. Luckily for Ash, he gets to wake up and reunite with Pikachu. We, however, don’t have that blessing.
I miss some of the original characters
The only thing that is a little odd about “I Choose You” is its choice to leave out several key characters, most notably Brock and Misty. They get brief cameos at the end. But if you have Ash and Pikachu and Team Rocket and Professor Oak etc…why not include these other loved characters? While the new characters we meet are cool (and more close in age to Ash which creates a more peership relationship), Brock and Misty are particularly iconic characters and I would have loved to see them in this adventure – preferably enhanced the way the rest of the story has been enhanced (like Brock being a bit more serious the way he was in Pokemon Origins).
Apart from that, however, Pokemon: I Choose You is the Pokemon movie I’ve always wanted, and only got later in life. It’s an incredibly dense film given its source material, and the perfect way to get introduced to the Pokemon World if you are lucky enough to not have experienced it yet.
