MOVIE REVIEW: Pokemon: “Arceus and the Jewel of Life” (2009)
I ended up blowing off Iron Man on Friday night so I could watch this film and review it for you. Unfortunately stuff came up, and I didn't get to post it until Sunday. Meanwhile I went ahead and watched the Saturday repeat of Iron Man, and reviewing that before I completed writing this one. Obviously planning is not my strong suit, and I've always had a delicate relationship with time.
Apropos, as this is a time travel story. Is Pokemon SF? Not in its root concept, but in its actual inception, it definitely veers in to it. They make it very clear that The Pokemon World isn’t Earth (Or is perhaps a parallel Earth), and while their technology seems roughly on parity with our own, it’s far in advance in some other areas, such as limited teleportation and an inconsistent use of anti-gravity.
This might seem like putting too fine a point on it, and indeed I may be; but while Spy movies and show are not inherently SF, they do occasionally veer in to the SF purview for their MacGuffins, right? And if that’s the case, then why can’t I review a Pokemon movie when it veers in to SF territory?
PLAY BY PLAY
At the beginning of time, there was a Pokemon named “Arceus.” For whatever reason, and through no adequately described method, Arceus decided to create the universe that The Pokemon World is in, as well as several other universes and/or planes of existence as well. He also created the legendary Pokemon Dialga (lord of time), Palkia (lord of space), and Giratina (lord of the Reverse World, an alternate dimension). He might have also created the other legendary Pokemon and the regular ones, too, and maybe people. They’ve always been deliberately fuzzy about that. It’s also possible that some of the lesser beings that Arceus created went on to create other beings as well.
Anyway, immeasurable ages pass, and a big bohonkin’ asteroid is about to smack in to the Pokemon World, in a place called Michina, which is basically mainland Greece. The region is ruled by a guy called “Damos” who has some kind of telepathic connection with Pokemon. One night he goes out to see the asteroid just about to hit, and he prays or sends out a telepathic message or whatever, and suddenly, at the last minute, Arceus emerges out of a Babylon 5-looking jump point, and plunges in to the asteroid, blowing it up and saving Michina, and presumably the world as well. Of course Arceus is maybe be a god (or a demiurge), but he’s not of the omniscient, omnipotent sort, and the impact cold-cocks him, and injures him quite a bit as well.
Arceus has sixteen “Plates” that orbit around his body kinda’ like a cool-looking CGI hula-hoop, or perhaps a fan blade somehow centered on his waist. Damos finds one of these, and takes it over to the unconscious uber-Pokemon. Once the plate touches him, it’s absorbed in, and he wakes up, and thanks Damos for helping him. Turns out the plates protect him from all 16 kinds of attacks in the Pokemon world. Alas, shrapnel from the asteroid explosion has devastated Michina, but Arceus decides to help Damos out by loaning him four of the plates (Dragon, Electricity, and two others) which he
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Comments
27 December 2008
1 hour 3 min
I like 'em too.
My point was that there's a kind of "Harry Potter" incremental philosophy behind it. Just like "Potter" is intended for young readers, and then each subsequent book is a step up in difficulty and complexity until the final volume is an adult novel, so the Pokemon universe is intended to "age up" with their fans, so the stuffed animas are meant for babies, the really little ones like the cartoons, the older ones like the movies, older still like the videogames, and the card game is intended for 'Tweens, the live variety show is intended for teenagers and coolege students, and, of course, the theme parks are for families to take their kids so their kids get hooked and the whole thing starts again. It's brilliant, really, it's like Disney except that it doesn't suck...
24 July 2009
1 day 1 hour
The only aspect of Pokemon I have any personal interest in is the original Pokemon series, which is to say the video games. I confess, without too much embarrassment, that my wife and I were talked into buying Diamond and Pearl by friends of ours; we played ravenously for several months, but lost most of our motivation when said friends moved out of the country. One of our other acquaintances, however, is the current national senior-division Pokemon champ -- my wife considers it an honor to have had her ass kicked by the same team he won the championship with.
27 December 2008
1 hour 3 min
Yup. I'm familiar with all of that. I have only good things to say about, it, though. The Video Game was groundbreaking when it came out, the current video games are a lot of fun, the CCG is pretty good (Though the Yu-Gi-Oh! CCG is better), the movies are generally beautiful, and the TV show is a nice solid, family friendly show that ages up nicely. My kids discovered it for the cute factor, and they keep outgrowing it, then coming back to it when they notice some new aspect (Like Team Rocket is really, really funny, for instance) or because now they like the friendship aspect of it, or whatever. It's a good solid show aimed at young kids, but it ages up nicely, and it doesn't treat adults forced to watch it like idiots.
I mean, there's a reason it's the most successful individual entertainment franchise in history (12 movies, 13 seasons of high-rated cartoons, endess comics and specials, theme parks, scores of videogames, educational toys, and hundreds of billions of cards sold) and it's not because it's crap. I resisted it at first because I have a low "Cute Tolerance Threshold" but I've grown to really like watching it with my kids over the years.
Yu-Gi-Oh! on the other hand, that one's just dripping with edits to make it palatable for a kid-audience in the states. Some of the edits utterly mystify me, actually.
27 June 2009
4 min 32 sec
I am not into Pokomon since I am not ten but since I’m into anime and have read something’s about it. Pokomon is one of the few shows that is aired for kids in the US and is also for kids in Japan so it’s not edited to badly. Yu Gi Oh and the other hand have openly gay characters and murders and what not.
If you watch the movie with subtitles it might make more sense but you will get a lot more Japanese cultural references. Also the age level of the story might go up a few years.
Pokomon is an example of a Japanese company producing cross media products. Pokomon started out as a Nintendo video game.