Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue movie by Legendary

I will be waiting for my Pokemon Snap movie

I really want a Pokemon Rusty movie.

Twitch Plays Pokemon: The Movie, rife with tons of religious symbolism and psychological horror.

Why Red and Blue of all games? I mean, we all know why but do they seriously have to go with the weakest games, plot-wise? They're going to have to do a lot of Adaptation Expansion to fit it into a movie format.

People keep asking that question. Why do people keep asking that question?

They're doing Red and Blue because Red and Blue is the first game. This is like asking why you would choose The Philosopher's Stone to be your first Harry Potter movie when it's one of the more middling entries in terms of quality.

...That's Gold and Silver, really

Pokemon isn't a serialized story, though. Understanding the story of gen 4 does not require knowledge of gens 1-3

I know. That's why I said it makes sense on a technical level, but not on a plot level.

Johto has way more plot than Kanto, especially with the remakes in mind.

Maybe they should mix Kanto and Johto into one story? Make Red a Composite Character of both characters, I guess. That should fill up a plot.

Yeah, it's a no-brainer that the first and most iconic games of the entire franchise would be the first adapted out of the main games. Personally I think the Pokemon League should get emphasis than Team Rocket. This is the perfect chance to flesh out and reconstruct the idea of Pokemon battles and set it up as a popular combat sport than cockfighting. Like, Team Rocket is pretty much just a mafia group with uniforms, and Giovanni is a crime boss and a gym leader. Doesn't take much to link them together. Take some cues from the anime and make collecting eight gym badges a condition to enter an annual Pokemon tournament and Team Rocket rigging and fixing games like real mobs do.

Oh, collecting the Gym Badges would definitely have to go, one way or another. They're a big reason for why I don't think the League is a good place to emphasize.

One two-hour film doesn't have room for thirteen individual and distinctive action pieces (8 Gyms, Elite 4, Rival) spaced out with some narrative and plot-building between them.

If they do put the focus on the League, then expect to see maybe one or two Gyms, and then all the others happen offscreen because ain't nobody got time for that.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jan 20th 2019 at 11:03:38 AM

Sure, just establish how they work and all you need is to show aroune two, maybe one with Giovanni and the other the first one. Cutting the league out of the least story heavy entry of the franchise means the it will never get focus.

I like chase's suggestion, where it's treated as a sports movie. In particular, I'm imagining the movie starting and ending with the Elite Four and the Champion, interspersed with a handful of brief flashbacks as a How We Got Here. Show how Red got his first Pokemon, a very brief montage of gym battles, etc. The kind of thing that has shown up in a million sports movies before.

But above all else, they have to choose between the League or Team Rocket. They just don't have time for both.

Edited by Discar on Jan 20th 2019 at 10:49:18 AM

Well, Silver is the son of Giovanni. If any movie has to be about Team Rocket, it would be in Gold and Silver.

The thought of Kanto being difficult to adapt as a film story is a little baffling. The story is simple, but that doesn't mean it's any less adaptable than the more developed plots of the later games.

Simple kid from a small town goes on a journey to prove he's the greatest whatever, but the journey gets interrupted when he runs afoul of the Big Bad. He fights the villain, and in the end becomes a hero.

It's basically an 80's kids action adventure movie. It even ends with a championship.

The only real problem is that the Pokemon League then ends up being Ending Fatigue, but that's still workable, especially if you play up Blue as the primary antagonist whereas Giovanni is the main villain (in particular, focus on their differing ideologies throughout the movie, even taking into account the way they separately attempt to fight Team Rocket). Still, Team Rocket would probably have to have some pull in the League such they don't just disappear before the climax.

Tobias is right that the only thing that would really need to go is the individual gyms. That's absolutely something that's going to need to be a montage either way. All the story really needs is the first gym with Brock to introduce us to the way the stakes work, and then the bookends with the last gym with Giovanni after all the lead in to their confrontation, who perverts the pure sportsmanship we see with Brock for his own criminal ends.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jan 21st 2019 at 1:26:25 AM

I'm hoping they go for adapting a specific part of the journey and not the whole thing.

I'd even enjoy it if they did what the anime does so often, and have a plot with characters only inspired by the games, rather than based directly on the Kanto story.

If they wanted go really ambitious they could make it a trilogy and split the focus of each movie between Team Rocket and the Pokemon League. So movie 1 is gyms 1-3 and ends with Red fighting Blue on the SS Anne. Team Rocket only has a minor appearance at Mt Moon.

Movie 2 starts in Celadon and covers the next few gyms but most of the focus is on Team Rocket with the climax of the film taking place at the Silph Co building. The Stinger for this movie would show Mewtwo escaping and destroying the mansion on Cinnabar.

Movie 3 begins with Red defeating Blaine and exploring the mansion where he finds a journal about Mewtwo. The movie then proceeds to the Pokemon League. During the championship battle between Red and Blue Mewtwo attacks and the two of them team up to defeat him.

Alternatively, they could do movies (it would still take multiple) splitting up the story beats between the title characters. Red does the gym challenge. Green Oak goes after Team Rocket. Blue investigates Mew and MewTwo.

That seems like a plus in my books. It gives the writers way more room to actually tell a story rather than be slavishly devoted to a barely there plot.

It isn't really Kanto's simplistic story that is the problem as it is that Pokémon has the unique situation that isn't really seen in any of the 80s Kids Action Adventure movies: Pokémon as an Ensemble Team.

Origins' major weakness is that we have no emotional connection with Red and his Pokémon other than Charizard. The rest were rotated or used as Cannon Fodder to artificially increase the stakes. We do not know how, where or when Red got them and as a result, don't really care about them other than the annoyance that Red is a poor trainer.

Now Origins has the excuse of being a short mini-series and thus much of its flaws can be forgiven. But movies, especially in light of films like Avengers: Infinity War, are expected to be a bit more consistent in quality and smooth in narrative in spite of juggling large amounts of well-recognized characters. And these films play up the stakes, like this is not some baseball game where you can either win or lose.

Trying to cram a whole storyline for a Red and Blue adaptation, be it Team Rocket Arc or be it the Pokémon League, will go no better than attempts for The Last Airbender and especially Warcraft. In Warcraft's case, the film still feels crammed and rushed even when the original game itself is so bare bones that you can take the film to any direction as you please. And keep in mind, I like the Warcraft movie for what it is and what it tries to be.

For all its praise, Adventures has a similar issue with its Pokémon. Most feel like fodder for the trainers rather than characters of their own. Pika had a fun personality for all of one chapter.

I'm not particularly fond of it being a sports-like film. I know the games treat it as a sport, but I don't like the anime-style tournaments and gym battles. Being alone in a room, just you versus the Elite 4, always seemed cooler.

Maybe they can introduce the Johto Executives into the expanded Team Rocket plot. The problem with the Kanto games is that TR is so sparse compared to future generations. You have a bunch of nameless grunts and Giovanni.

You could always just use Jessie and James. They work both comedically and as serious antagonists. Depends on whether or not they wear their black uniforms.

If you split the plot over several films like was suggested you could introduce different Pokemon to the team in each film. So, for example, movie 1 introduces the starter and Red catches two other Pokemon during the film. Movie 2 starts with him having a fourth and shows him obtaining a fifth. Then movie 3 shows him getting a sixth.

I'm not expecting the Pokemon to get much more emphasis than Captain America's shield or Aragorn's sword. Maybe there'll be one or two that the protagonist bonds with, but. Like. They don't talk.

A Bulbasaur might be able to present a consistent personality over the course of ten or twenty episodes but for a 120-minute film, there's not a lot of room to define the mons any more than, say, Will Smith's dog from "I Am Legend".

There's a reason "Detective Pikachu" utilized the Dr. Doolittle trick to let its titular Pikachu character convey his thoughts verbally. For a film like this, the plot's going to have to rely heavily on characters who can actually express themselves verbally, and that means more emphasis on Human v. Human and less on trying to develop all the different Pokemon as distinctive characters.

They might not even bother giving Red six Pokemon and just stick to a few series favorites. Like, maybe he has the three Starters and that's it. Those are his mons.

EDIT: Incidentally, I'm not expecting him to have Pikachu. I think that's why they started the franchise with "Detective Pikachu" in the first place: so they could give Pikachu his own film, get it out of the way, and then move forward with Red instead of Ash for the first game adaptation.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jan 21st 2019 at 4:27:06 AM

I want him to get Bulbasaur since Adventures did that. Aside from that, it really doesn't matter. If they're depicting the trainer's journey, it's really more about the trainer than anything else.

Though it gets bonus points if we see Green surfing on a Golduck.

Perhaps it's time to elaborate on my thoughts on the hypothetical scenario of Red and Blue movie.

Saying it's an adaptation of Red and Blue is going to make me think they are literally adapting the plot of Red and Blue. Because if it's just a typical Pokémon trainer on a journey movie, it could be any region and we should not be confined to a certain generation of Pokémon. By implying that it's an adaptation of Red and Blue, I'm going to look into the actual plot line of Red and Blue to see if it's adaptable rather imagining they are going for an original screenplay. Truth be told, they should really take a page from the anime and the movie The Power of Us to realize what works and what doesn't.

This is why something like Detective Pikachu works so well as a potentially good Pokémon film. It's small and focuses on a few characters, primarily Tim and his Pikachu. Satoshi Tajiri has stated that the point of Pokémon is the bond between humans and Pokémon. He once stated that US got his idea better than Japan by comparing the Pokémon merchandise backpacks. Japanese Pokémon Backpack is just Pikachu while USA Pokémon Backpack is Ash and Pikachu. This is also why he had stated that Pokémon Adventures is the closest adaptation of Pokémon to capture his vision during the first volume run. The focus was primarily on Red and his Pokémon.

The reason I bring this up is because I notice a lot of people here have focus heavily on the human aspect of the Red and Blue story and not the Pokémon aspect. After all... Pokémon, as you said, would not get much more emphasis than Captain America's Shield or Aragon's Sword even though they are living, breathing creatures that embodies half the fun of Pokémon. This has the potential to go human-centric and treat Pokémon like an afterthought/plot devices that could easily be removed from the story. Think Micheal Bay Transformers if you will.

Why was something like Pokémon The Power of Us well received despite being a low-key Slice of Life film? Simple. Tetsuo Yajima focuses on the humans and their individual Pokémon partners rather than a grand spectacle that previous Pokémon films have fallen under.

If we're going to do a Pokémon Red and Blue adaptation, I say throw the "plot line" into the trash and start focusing on the basics. What draws people into Pokémon? Who do we focus, and what story would best present them within 2 hours? Start from there, and the story can become something great like a Pixar film.

An idea I just had. Should they release a Detective Pikachu short in front of the film, kinda like the old Pikachu shorts they used to have in front of the anime films?