VGFlicks: Pokémon 3: Spell of the Unown (Part 2)

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Holy Hell there's so many. *readies Pokéballs*

Continuing from Part 1...

Hale Mansion Down

Team Rocket, as much as I like them and think they're
hilarious, are like a franchise tumor: Even when there's no
reason for them to be in the plot, they have to be jammed
in anyway, because they're always around.

Ash, Pikachu, Misty and Brock make their way towards the crystallized Hale Mansion. Far above them, Team Rocket observes, and instantly assumes that if the twerps are heading towards that dangerous-looking place, then there’s riches and rare Pokémon to be found. Well, they’re not entirely wrong. Still,  damn if the movie’s not grasping at straws to include them. They’re barely here, have one plot-relevant scene, and just spend the rest of their time snarking at the situation or at each other, borderline MST3K’ing the movie they star in. They come close, but their banter is interrupted by Entei appearing at the top of a tower and blowing up their hot air balloon, sending it crashing down. Thankfully, Team Rocket is as durable as roaches, so they’re unscathed; just trapped within the place. They're comic relief, which is fine since the film is otherwise light on comedy. Shout-out to what James says when they find the floating Unown: “I haven’t seen this many strange letters since the last time I placed a personal ad!”

"Ash, get down from there this second!
....Wait, where am I?"

Away from the mansion, the news crew is still reporting on the crystals, with Molly watching them on the computer, Delia and Entei by her side. Molly is made aware of Ash’s team trying to break into the mansion, seeing the trainers use their Pokémon to climb up a waterfall. Noctowl is seen taking Bulbasaur and Chikorita up, and then the two grass-types use Vine Whip to let their trainer climb up. The whole thing is caught on camera, even the moment where Ash nearly falls. Doesn’t seem like much, but it was enough to snap Delia out of hypnosis just so she could scream at her son. ...Hey, I can think of worse ways to get someone out of a trance. At least, Delia is clever enough to keep up the act around Molly, knowing that something’s not right. Molly, though, is overjoyed at seeing a trainer and his Pokémon.

Once the whole team has reached the top, they get called by Professor Oak from the PokéGear given to them by Lisa. Oak is mad that Ash took such a huge risk. Then again, it’s not exactly the first time this kid gets into adventures way beyond what a child should deal with; the climate catastrophe in “The Power of One” wasn't that long ago! At least, this call allows Oak to explain about the threat at hand: The Unown can read the minds of other beings, including humans’, and have the ability in large numbers to reshape reality and create dream worlds. The exact reason why they decided to become Molly Hale’s personal genie is unknown (...heh), or debatable, but it's crystal clear that what’s happening is the result of the little girl’s wishes.

*Ding!* Welcome to the second floor.

Using a very clever combination of fire and water blasts from their Pokémon, the three manage to break into the mansion through a pavilion. They make their way through, reaching a staircase, but the crystallized rooms are suddenly transformed into a different world. Yeah, if these things can warp reality, crap’s about to get weird. I mean, the new staircase leads to a huge field that could not possibly be some mansion’s upper floor. Time is warped and space is bendable!

The dreamer is a cheating meanie

Remembering the trainers, Molly expresses a wish that she could be a trainer, too. She’s falling asleep (it IS late into the night, after all), and Entei tells her that if she can wish it, it can happen. And as Molly closes her eyes huddled against Delia Ketchum, Entei walks away and into the floor. It floats through the nothingness between worlds, and a dream version of the young Molly, controlled by her consciousness, appears on its back. Upon expressing worry that she’s not old enough to have Pokémon (apparently, Entei and the letter genies don’t count), her wish is granted and her body changes to look and sound older.

Geez, good things she opts not to use the Legendary
in her Pokémon battles. Not right away, at least.

Molly and Entei appear on the field that Ash, Misty and Brock had reached, and challenge the group to a battle. Brock recognizes Molly, having figured out that the little girl’s current look was made possible by the dream world. He elects to stay behind and battle this Molly, letting Ash and Misty move forwards. An arena is created over the grass, and the trainers get ready. Molly summons her Pokéballs out of thin air and picks cute Pokémon to fight. This match is a 3-vs-3, and she uses Flaaffy, Teddiursa and Phanpy – again, more focus on the new creatures of Gen 2. All three easily overcome Brock’s Zubat, Vulpix and Onix, respectively. Hey, she got her type advantages right two times out of three.

Of course they win – they’re not real Pokémon. If all of them used moves they cannot learn, it would add an extra layer to this illusion; if they were shown using moves Molly doesn't know these Pokémon can't access, it would further highlight that they aren’t real. However, the movie keeps true to canon – all of the moves used by Molly’s Pokémon here can be learned by them, either through level-up or by TM, in Gold/Silver. They’re already shown to be much stronger than normal Pokémon, to the point they could defeat their opponents easily – Molly GameShark’d them into reality, after all. Why not go the extra step? Note that the higher power and accurate moves also applies to the other illusory Pokémon Molly is seen using – Kingdra, Mantine, Heck, this applies to Entei as well, come to think of it.

An underwater battle for the Water-type Gym Leader?
Okay, that is a very cool idea.

After defeating Brock, Molly’s dream self teleports to a beach, where Ash and Misty (oh, and Team Rocket) have ended up after going up another flight of stairs. This time, she challenges Misty, who says she was a Gym Leader despite her young age. This makes Molly happy, and the dream self reforms into a kid their age. Once again, Ash moves onwards while Misty stays behind for a trainer battle. Once the Gym Leader states she’ll only use Water-types in the battle, Molly elects to do the same. The kid also causes a tidal wave from the nearby water, which floods the whole place. However, it doesn’t kill anyone – they can breathe under the magical water just fine.

Y’know, I get the confusion. If the very rules of life kept changing because of reality-warping, I’d be confused too.

She adapts well, all things considered! It's her element.

In the English version, Delia knew Spencer, and so Ash and
Molly actually know each other, even if there's a 5-year
diffference between the two.

Misty’s Goldeen IS no match for Molly’s Kingdra, but her Staryu holds its own against a Mantine. Not that bit matters, the goal was to keep Molly busy while Ash ran upstairs. Good thing the bedroom is just one floor above. That’s where he finds his mom and Molly. Delia awakens the little girl and tries, with her son’s help, to convince her to leave the crystal palace, but they’re a little too forceful. She’s too caught up in the dream world she created to accept reality. So when she’s being taken out of it... well, things go horribly wrong, she breaks into tears, the Unown become frantic, and crystal spikes start sprouting everywhere.

The most mature Pokémon movie?

There’s so much to be said about this movie regarding themes and plot details. This subtitle is a bit of a liar because I’d need to have seen all the Pokémon movies to express such a definitive opinion. Still, of the Pokémon movies that I grew up with, that are nostalgic to me, this one legitimately feels like the most mature. The one that would be most likely to break out of the stigma of a “children’s film” to enter the realm of “family film”. At the time of these films' release, critics were heavily biased against the Pokémon movies. Look at those dismal ratings on review aggregate sites. Many critics couldn’t see the films past what they were – anime films, yes, but also marketing products to promote a video game series. (4Kids’ edits generally did NOT help, taking away nuances and complexities, spelling everything out, and stupidly moving the films away from family fare into strictly children’s entertainment.) Most of us who grew up with these films can now look at them with a fairer critical and analytical eye, but it took some time. What I’m saying is that I don’t think these films deserved the overly-negative treatment they received back then.

Nowhere is it clearer than here. Takeshi Shudō loved to explore the darker implications of the Pokémon universe, as evidenced by his other works associated to the franchise. Put away the creatures and we have the story of a (possibly workaholic) dad’s sudden disappearance/passing and his now orphaned daughter struggling to cope with that fact and process her grief. Isolating herself from the world and lashing out at others who try to reach out and force her towards acceptance. Hell, part of the climax of the film involves her having to realize that what’s happening isn’t okay, because she’s the only one who can put an end to it. It’s heavy stuff no matter which way you look at it.

That’s before we throw a genie into the mix, turning her trauma into a tangible reality that threatens the world. Can you think of a lot of animated films that discuss that topic? Some reviewers and analysts went as far as to compare this movie’s story to a child-friendly Silent Hill. (I don’t take credit for this observation, as I know very little about that franchise, but this film being compared to a horror series famous for tackling trauma has always stuck with me ever since I heard it.)

It's common for me on this blog to say "protagonist" for a
character who's not really a hero, but it's rarer for me to
have to say "antagonists" when the "bad guys" aren't
villains in the proper sense of the term.

The story also deals more in shades of gray. There are many antagonists, but none truly villainous. Team Rocket doesn’t count, they’re strictly comic relief today. The Unown are practically alien to the world, and their actions imply them to be well-intentioned but severely misguided, if you assume they’re even aware that what they’re doing isn’t right. Entei is an illusory creature with no true concept of right and wrong, its morality substituted for “what the little girl wants” versus “what she doesn’t want”. And Molly is an innocent girl put in a terrible situation, accidentally given immense power, who also doesn’t realize the extent of the damage she’s causing.

The English localization of this film is probably the one closest to the vision intended by the Japanese version, dark themes and all. There isn’t much 4Kids would have been able to change without altering the plot so dramatically it would stop making sense. It’s probably better that way, too, as Takeshi Shudō intended for this story to be very personal, reflecting his own relationship with his daughter and adding elements of his own life, hence why he was so angry that some of those elements were changed. Looking at it that way, it makes sense that the themes would be a lot more mature as a result.

The fights are intense. But so are the themes.

As a kid, I loved the action and the cool visuals and the scary parts. I spent my first time watching this film as an adult teary-eyed from start to end, because God DAMN can those themes hit close to home with how they’re presented. And I’m not even a parent; if you have children, I bet it’s even more poignant. The best way to define if a movie is a family film and not just children’s entertainment is when parents and adults enjoy it too, if it speaks to them as much as it speaks to the kids, if it works on multiple levels. Well, to me, Pokémon 3 fulfills the requirement, hands-down.

As crystals pop up around and threaten to skewer them, Ash tries to get his mom out, but is stopped by Entei, who reiterates that Delia is Molly’s mother now. Ash battles Entei, but his team is severely outmatched. Let’s see... Four first-stage starters (two of which are Grass-type), Pikachu, and a bird. Yeah, he’s not winning that one. The battle between Pikachu and Entei causes an explosion that blows a hole through the crystal, which Ash fall into when he tries to save Pikachu from a blast. The two seem to fall to their deaths... only to be rescued by Charizard. Took him long enough, an entire review part went by before he showed up! This time, Ash has some real firepower, no pun intended!

Speaking of, how about we end in Part 3?