day 501 ash's mom gets kidnapped and rescued {m3}
Although the commentary references future events, before the re-watch I had only seen the show up through Johto and only seen the first three movies. As a kid, I thought the 2nd movie was a improvement on the first in every way, and I really didn't care for the third one all that much. Tastes of course change and it has risen in my estimation considerably. (2013) #3 is coincidentally my #3 when ranking the movies.
Honestly, the best description for this movie would be a psychological thriller Inception-Style starring 6 year old orphan Molly Hale and guest starring Ash Ketchum and his super powered animal friends. Out of all the movies, it feels the least like a Pokémon movie, not a bad thing just an observation. Also you don't screw around with Ash's loved ones or he'll ram the door down and break into your so-called impenetrable fortress. Also fuck yeah charizard, look at what you can do now after 2 months of bad ass training. Only reason he couldn't beat Entei was because of Molly quite literally wishing it so... Hax. Also the last of the Pokémon movies so far where TR have any actual importance to the plot.
Lastly, let's talk about time-line placement for the third movie, it has to be before Brock's zubat evolves, and more importantly the last frame of the ending credits montage focuses on a city that looks remarkably similar to the panning shot of Goldenrod City in the show, the camera's just at a different angle. Canon hints for this movie, are that when unown appear in the anime Ash does not act as if he's never seen then before and also says to a guy trying to catch one in ep259 that he met an entei.
day 506 ash gets third badge {ep158+159}
The show did not properly convey how obnoxious Whitney's Miltank is, Ash only lost once. 160 is kind of funny and introduces DJ Mary, and the whole crew goes into voice acting for a day for some meta humor, but honestly isn't worth watching all that much.
day 507 ash wins bug catching contest/gives Casey the winning beedrill {ep161}
Take that Samurai you sword wielding rage-monkey! Ash finally caught part of the weedle line, after 157 episodes and 503 days. 162 is good and funny sudowoodo filler, that becomes funnier in hindsight since Brock gets one way later (unlike Ash's snorlax, this probably wasn't planned considering the time gap). 163+164 are both bad filler dealing with fossil Pokémon again and carrier pidgey respectively, but 164 has Mewtwo as the Who's that Pokémon answer so that's something cool I guess. (2013) Even re-recapping these episodes over watching them is too much of a bore.
day 516 brock's zubat evolves into golbat {ep165}
The above summary is the only reason why the episode is not bad filler, 165 is boring to the max. 166 is an average ok-ish filler with another dojo subplot, allow me to remind the audience that ep140 was only 26 episodes ago! 167 focuses on Ash's internal team dynamics... Your mileage may vary I liked parts of it but the rest was a letdown, 168 has the group enter a fishing contest, it's actually pretty alright, easy watching.
day 521 Ash saves Mewtwo's life and stops Giovanni's plans {Mewtwo returns}
Even though they're on the same screen for a scene Ash and Giovanni still haven't met yet, as Ash is dragging Mewtwo away to get healed and Giovanni is distracted fighting Brock+Misty, not to mention that Mewtwo erased the whole escapade from Giovanni's mind. Again this is where the special has to take place, because Brock's golbat is about to evolve again, and soon he won't have vulpix. I also like to think that when Mewtwo wipes everyone's memories of what happened except for Ash and co. + the main TR trio that he restores the memories of the first movie to them as well. Enough fan theories though, even more filler awaits us.
(2013) In this special, Mewtwo is Yugi and Giovanni is Bakura... maybe they could play a Pokémon card game to settle their differences? Also wow, digital cel animation out of nowhere nice preview on that, and lastly (insert frying pan pun here)
day 533 brock returns his vulpix to suzy {ep169}
The plot's about to drag on so much a slaking could get to ecruteak faster. 1st though, in 169 the above happens, I'm still not sure why Brock didn't keep her as it's shown later that he's a pretty good contest coordinator, Vulpix would have been great for that, and it really did seem back in Celadon that Vulpix would be a permenant addition to the team, but sigh missed opportunities.
170 is bad filler with shuckle (again sad, becaus shuckle is one of my favorites), 171 is surprisingly not filler as Gary shows up with his newly evolved Umbreon. I wonder if it means anything that Umbreon's colors are also Pikachu's, just inverted?
172 is bad ledian filler again, 173 is good filler as it centers around Wobbufett. 174 is great, as Duplica from ep37 returns and James makes a very convincing Ash cosplay. 175 has the snubbull that was stalking Meowth evolve and return home not a good episode on its own, but at least that running gag finished. 176 has ninja training with Koga's sister, that's good... why couldn't the 6th Kanto badge fight been more like this?
177+8 are bad focusing on yet more bug/grass types, and 179+180 deal with Pikachu plus some pichu and Togepi getting lost and rescued by a houndoom, in short they're both cutesy so it's 50-50 on quality scale depending on personal taste.
day 549 ash gets to ecruteak/ash gets fourth badge {ep181-182}
What's that on the horizon... plot? Yeah, followed by another chunk of filler. So much for getting my hopes up. Anyway we get foreshadowing/backstory on the legendary beasts, and ho-oh and the gym battle was really good. I like Morty as a character sure, but more importantly he held back the wave of plotless episodes if only for a little while, so for that he has my undying gratitude. In funny news, James spends most of his time in Ecruteak obsessed with the Dowsing Machine
Next time... "Ash if we don't get somewhere fast, I'm going to stop right here and badger you about our relationship" "Oh hey guys! There's Cianwood! Have anything to say Brock?" "That old lady looked real prettty 40 years—- OW Misty not the ear, I get it, no time travel!" Eps 183-207, movie#4 (Does anyone actually read these previews... or this liveblog? Self Deprecation)
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