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

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Finishing this today.

Against Entei

Ash’s Charizard is ready to battle Entei, though when they headbutt each other, the pseudo-dragon is knocked back, hitting Ash, and almost sending his own trainer to fall to his doom again. Good thing he’s saved by Misty, Pikachu, Brock and Team Rocket, in their only true plot-relevant moment in the whole darn film.

This gang is like family! Yes, even Team Rocket. They're like
 the cousins nobody likes, who are only nice when the topic
of inheritance comes up. Also, lookit Pikachu, being all
"I'm helping!" as he tugs on Ash's leg.

Static screenshots just don't convey well the epicness of
some moments in this specific battle.

Ash again tries to tell Molly to drop the illusion, telling her that his friends and his Pokémon are like a family, and that she could have real Pokémon out there. But she’s still in denial, claiming her dream Pokémon from earlier were just as real. With that, the fight is on, with Entei defending its own belief of being Molly’s father. Charizard and Entei take the fight into the skies above the crystallized mansion, trading blows and fire breaths. The big fire cat has the field advantage, because Molly still clings on to the belief that it’s her papa, and therefore her Unown-powered wishes keep summoning crystal spikes for the illusory beast to land safely on... while also popping into Charizard’s path to hurt him. Ash is riding on his dragon’s back the whole time, so he’s risking death too. It’s one of the coolest battles in the whole franchise. You can tell that the stakes are high, and the deck is heavily stacked against our protagonists.

"Papa"'s about this close to going too far.

At the end of this brawl, a defeated Charizard lands on the floor by the group with a similarly weakened Ash, and Entei lands with its paw on the dragon’s neck, ready to deliver a killing blow. That’s what it took for Molly to realize that all this had gone too far, and she commands Entei to stop what it is doing. Seeing her in tears is enough to make the legendary beast let go. Brock and Misty encourage Molly on her skills and about how a good trainer knows when to stop; everyone offers kind words. When Delia extends a hand, the little girl takes it, and begs for things to be real again.

Perfect ending, we could end right here if we wanted.
But something's missing to this climax.

See? It’s like I said. They tried to force her to accept reality, and were too quick about it due to the situation around them. It’s only by being supportive, caring and reassuring that they manage a breakthrough. I’m no therapist so obviously I can’t speak on this like a professional, but that’s what it feels like. Then again, it also took her seeing her own wishes do things she couldn’t see as good (like her papa threatening to kill a Pokémon and coming close to killing another kid) to reject the illusions at last.

With that, the crystals seem to shrink. Entei leaves, declaring it could only be around if Molly wanted to stay in the mansion, with it as her dad. It has outlived its usefulness. But then, shouldn’t it be disappearing? We get that answer fast, as the Pokémon sense a disturbance, followed by more spikes sprouting out. It’s a miracle nobody in this place got randomly killed by a crystal stalagmite! The gang organizes a quick escape plan, putting Molly on Charizard’s back to get her to safety, while everyone follows, with Entei going last.

Against the Unown

I've never seen letters be chaotic, except when I read
something written by someone with dyslexia!

As they escape, Ash calls Prof Oak to figure out what's be going on. It seems that the Unown used so much psychic energy that they’ve completely lost control of it. Maybe sticking to Molly’s wishes was holding them back, but now that she’s rejected them, they’re no longer bound. The crystal fields grow again, faster than before, even taking over the Pokémon center, with everybody there fleeing just in time.

Not for lack of trying, but it's gonna take more than some
non-Legendaries to get through this.

The group in the mansion gets to the room where the Unown are, and Ash tries to think of a solution. His answer? Run at them. That only gets him violently thrown back. Ah, right. It’s not a Pokémon movie until Ash tries to punch or body-slam the threat of the day. So, instead, he does the smart thing and commands his Pokémon to try and break the psychic barrier the letters have protected themselves with. Charizard’s fire and Pikachu’s electricity combined aren't enough for a true breakthrough.

They created it, it can defeat them. Kinda poetic in a way.

However, who shows up to help but Entei itself, blasting into the room. Standing before them all it declares it was happy to be Molly’s papa, and that its final moments can be spent stopping what’s going on. All it needs is for Molly to believe that it can. It joins its forces to Ash’s Pokémon, trying to push its head into the Unown’s barrier.

You must believe, Molly! Believe in the heart of the cards! ...Wait, crap, I had said I would try to avoid Yu-Gi-Oh jokes!

He'll be gone, but he'll never be forgotten.

And Molly believing in Entei does work, with the feline getting its head through and spitting out a Fire Blast that finally tears through the Unown and disrupts them. Knowing it is its final moments, Entei bids farewell to Molly, asking her to keep it close in her dreams, and then it disappears, like a Pharaoh into the afterlife- dammit! As for the Unown, their flight halts, their tiles fall to the floor and disappear (so much for the research...), and the letters head home through a portal. After they’ve left, any trace of their psychic presence goes away; the crystals disappear entirely, and the mansion returns to normal. As they come back home, they also let Molly's father go free.

That specific scene of Professor Hale reappearing was actually shown during the end credits in the Japanese version. In one of the rare universally agreed-on changes from 4Kids Entertainment, it was moved so that families who left the theater as soon as credits began rolling wouldn’t think Molly’s dad never came back.

Considering people still get up and leave once credits start
when they see MCU movies, which are known for mid- and
post-credits goodies, it's no surprise that audiences in
2001 would have up and left before seeing Professor
Spencer be brought back, had this scene not been
moved forward to before the credits.

Another movie-level adventure finished. Man, they really
have some luck getting into so many conflicts this big.

As Ash, Misty, Brock, Pikachu, Charizard, Delia and Molly walk out, they see a line of vehicles coming towards the mansion – Oak, Schuyler, and several others congratulating them for a job well done. Looks like a happy ending! Well, except for Team Rocket, who spot a lot of cop cars and decide it’s wiser to lay low for a bit. They didn’t do much this time, but hey, there’s always the next movie. (Oh, they’ll have much more to do in the next movie alright. Doesn’t mean that’s a good thing...)

Roll credits. There isn’t much else to say of those, though before random shots of Ash and Co. continuing their adventure, we have a few more plot-relevant scenes: Prof Hale getting back home to an overjoyed Molly, and later, her mom is also seen coming back home. My heart! Goddammit, I’m weeping again!

Pokémon as companions?

I realize, as I come to the end of this long review, that I barely touched on the “Pokémon as companions” point I made at the beginning. Maybe because in this film, it’s a little more subtle than the deconstructions of battling and collecting were in the previous two. There’s a few ways we can look at it: Humans’ companionship with Pokémon, and vice versa.

Fun fact: It probably took Charizard a few hours to fly all
the way there from Charicific Valley, so he wasn't at full
energy when fighting Entei, yet still held his own.
Impressive.

Ash gets all the help he needs from his Pokémon through the adventure, and can always count on them. He has formed true bonds of friendship, always has Pikachu by his side, and in the climax, even one of his long-time buddies comes back to save him. I barely mentioned Togepi, but Misty still has the little guy through this adventure, safely tucked away in her backpack. These trainers care for their Pokémon, and their friends return it well. Not only that, but they use the Pokémon’s powers responsibly. It is by discussing the bonds of friendship created over time with his team that Ash manages to solve part of the crisis.

It's gonna hurt to accept reality. It had to hurt even more to
stay in the dream world, that's the only way she'd finally
accept change.

The only way it can be a deconstruction is if it contrasts by showing the wrong way it’s done, exemplified here by Molly and the Unown. For one, children of Kanto and Johto leave home for their Pokémon journey at the age of 10. Molly isn't too young to care for Pokémon (she's seen playing with a Teddiursa during the credits, and the games have you battle preschoolers who seem to have been given Pokémon for basic defense), but doesn't quite grasp everything that entails yet. Her mental state during the film must not have helped, making her prefer the wished-up perfect creatures. She was holding on to illusory Pokémon and insisting they're real, like a young kid defending the existence of their imaginary friend, and she was missing the fact that she couldn't really "care" for those.

The Unown bear the brunt of the blame for what happens in the film. The memetically weak Pokémon serves to highlight the other point about companionship. In the games, we rarely get to take care of our Pokémon as much as we’d like, with focus still being generally on battling and collecting. However, the anime regularly reminds us that every single one of these creatures can be massively dangerous, and Trainers like Ash put themselves in danger to understand these animals and maybe befriend them. On the plus side, the bonds they create as a result are strong, shown with all of Ash’s team supporting him. But of course, this requires work, time and understanding.

I don't know what's scarier: Someone who willingly does
the wrong things while knowing what would have been the
morally right things to do, or someone/something with a
sense of morality so alien that their behavior and
actions are completely and utterly unpredictable?

Molly and the Unown had none of those. She neither has the experience or knowledge of a Trainer to figure out what to do with the Unown. Since they're so mysterious, even if she did want to look them up, she wouldn't find much; very few had seen them in the flesh before. And even with their mind-reading, humans might be just as weird to them, too. It doesn't help that the one human mind they connect with is struggling with grief and trauma. (Of note, there is an episode of the anime where Ash and Co. care for a single fallen Unown, and they do manage it relatively well, though the Unown's powers makes things go weird.) To top it off, they don't seem to have a sense of morality like we do, which may also explain why the Entei they create doesn't have one, either. No wonder this situation turned into a disaster, everything that matters in a relationship between human and Pokémon was utterly skewered.

Final words

The only personality trait we can figure out from the Unown
is: They don't like to be disturbed.

Of the early Pokémon movies, this is the one that I could legitimately say is a good movie, even without the lenses of nostalgia. It’s a genuinely complex and touching story, that hits very different whether you watch it as a child, as an adult or as a parent. Its dub feels a lot more in line with the intentions of the original Japanese version, probably because not much could be modified without altering the story beyond recognition. The stakes start high yet further grow when they become personal, and the antagonists are one of the most unique ideas out there, with none being straight-up villainous.

Featuring the Unown as CGI was a clever idea to further highlight their Eldritch nature. The animation is great throughout. As for the film’s soundtrack, it’s beloved despite never seeing a full commercial release – though some people have seen to it by making the tracks available on YouTube. The film is on the very short end, clocking in at 73 minutes including credits; very few seconds, if any, are wasted.

I'm willing to bet Charizard's arrival was a huge moment
of cheering from kids in theaters.

Pokémon battles are a standout here, from the 6-on-6 at the beginning to the climactic fight between Entei and Ash’s Pokémon. Hell, Entei VS Charizard may be one of the coolest battles shown in the anime, period. Character-wise, this movie serves as a day in the limelight for Delia Ketchum, rarely seen at that point of the anime outside of her role as Ash’s mom, and she gets some great moments. On the other hand, Team Rocket serve very little purpose here outside of wisecracking and helping rescue Ash once, making their mandatory presence feel more forced than ever before. As for Lisa, her contributions are nice, but she ends up like most one-time characters, almost forgotten once her purpose is done.

We could argue as to whether we should have gotten Takeshi Shudō’s version of the story instead of Hideki Sonoda’s, or if 4Kids’ change was better. I’m personally fine with Sonoda’s idea, though I understand why it did not sit right with Shudō, considering how personal he wanted that story to be. His train of thought is sound as well, that Molly wouldn't have done all this had her mother only been away or incapacitated rather than deceased. At the least, barring the mid-credits scene, I can appreciate that the English dub keeps things implicit regarding Molly’s mother, so we can fill in the blanks however we like.

It is, without a doubt, the best of the early Pokémon movies. The absolute best? Again, I would need to watch them all to come to such a conclusion. But still pretty good. A Hell of a lot better than the movie that would come right after it. However, that’s for another time. Instead, next up I’ll cover a different Pokémon movie.