Awesome Music / Pokémon: The First Movie

• Something has to be said about the orchestral score made for the English dub, composed by Ralph Schuckett and John Loeffler. It's oozing with atmosphere and darkness, perfect for what this movie is all about: tampering with the natural order of things, what identity means if there's a "perfect" body double of yourself, trying to prove oneself as a real being, and finding justice on those who have used and abused you.
  • Mewtwo's leitmotifs include sorrowful tones with oboes and harps, and anger and rage tones with fast-played strings and brass. His destruction of the New Island laboratory throws the entire sorrowful tone (as Mewtwo discovers that he was created artificially, not born naturally) of the scene off-kilter in a panic, almost like the score in Psycho. Same with Mewtwo escaping from Giovanni's laboratory, as the strings and brass carry the scene of Mewtwo rocketing off into the sky back toward New Island.
  • The new intro that replaces the original Japanese version: This is not just the weekly half-hour TV show, this is a MAJOR story in the franchise, although one that semi-hits the Reset Button, and the score that highlights it is appropriately boisterous and action-toned.
  • As over-the-top as the music is for the scene with Mewtwo capturing the trainers' Pokémon, it perfectly captures the bedlam and panic that is going on, as one by one, the Pokémon are picked off in the G-rated equivalent of a sniper attack. Plus, there's even a motif representing Pikachu's ascent up the spiral ramp to Mewtwo's main lair, with Pikachu's shocks against the Shadow Pokéballs even causing the music to go silent for a few seconds at first, letting the audience hear the desperate panting in his voice as he's running.
  • The segment of the movie where Mew and Mewtwo's battle begins contains a score which brings a sense of impending doom, as if this was the place where the world is going to end.
  • "Tears of Life" is a massive Tear Jerker. Ash, in a desperate attempt to stop the fighting, throws himself in the path of Mew and Mewtwo's psychic blasts (which even shocks Mewtwo and Team Rocket) and causing him to become petrified. This halts the score to a crawl, bringing about a mystical, but extremely uncertain tone to what has just occurred, and whether or not Pikachu can bring his now-petrified friend back to life. The only thing that plays are quiet crystal bells and strings, only accentuated weakly (somehow) by Pikachu's desperate shocks and the electrical arcs from it. It is not until every Pokémon cries, the real ones and the clones, that Ash is brought back to life. According to the English DVD commentary, the Japanese creators went to America to see it with an American audience and were moved to tears during that scene. The song is that powerful.

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