Haven't decided let when to release the next one let.
After Ash nearly gave away Pikachu in the touching episode 'Pikachu's Goodbye', a number of things happened before Ash finally competed in his first league tournament. These included...
- What some over-sensitive people might call "a certain type of rag doll's Christmas special."
- Ash getting trapped in snow.
- The Eevee Brothers.
- The battle of the gyms in Dark City.
- Melvin the magician.
- Jigglypuff's début at Neon Town.
- Gary Oak's Indiana Jones tribute and Ash's "ride" with an Aerodactyl.
- James' past catches up with him.
- The birth of Togepi.
- The secret evolution garden of the Bulbasaurs.
- The Jessie vs. Misty battle on Girls' Day, where Jessie uses her recently required Lickitung.
- Todd Snap the photographer.
- The worst exam ever.
- Team Rocket's more successful duo, Cassidy and Biff (Its Butch for god sake! How hard can it be? Have they heard of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?)
- The performance of this water ballet.
- Clefairies from Space and the Jigglypuff bitch-slap fest.
- Gary Oak's encounter of that Pokémon.
- The runaway Mr Mine.
- The surfing Pikachu.
- Psyduck get's cast in a movie.
- The première and Meowth's back story.
- And Ancient giant Pokémon.
Oh, and that incident on New Island - the site of Ash's encounter of that Pokémon that beat Gary in the Viridian City Gym - Mewtwo.
We all know the story that Mewtwo is a clone of Mew commissioned by the (initially) orange-suited power-hungry Svengali figure that is Giovanni and created with the cloning skills of Dr Fugi. But how many of you know of the real reason how Dr Fugi got involved in this project? Are you aware of the extra 10-minute short that was added to the start of the first movie after it's first release? Like me, you may have already seen the first few minutes of it as an added extra on the film's first VHS/DVD release in late-2000, the scene where the scientists find the Mew fossil in Guyana. What happened in the remaining seven minutes is (SPOILER ALERT) tragic. Dr Fugi's main motive to work on this project was to aid his personal project to clone his dead daughter. It was like what happened to Shou Tucker in the 2003 version of the Fullmetal Alchemist anime. He had successfully made a copy of her conciousness (in the form of a holographic cloud) inside a tube (I think he planned to make her body after working out the kinks in the making of Mewtwo.). The interesting thing is that in the lab Amber (the dead daughter) and Mewtwo (in an infant stage) communicated telepathically. During their correspondence Amber showed Mewtwo the outside world through her (child-like) memories. But during so her concious in a tube began to die in the lab. As she began to fade from Mewtwo's mind Mewtwo started to cry. Been the first time he ever cried he was puzzled by the liquid coming out of his eyes. Amber said they were called tears and said....
"They say living beings only cry when their bodies are in pain. Humans are the only ones who let out tears when their sad. ... Thank you. Thank you for your tears. But please don't cry. You're living! Stay alive okay? I'm sure it'll be fun."Then she disappeared. But Mewtwo couldn't stop crying.
"The tears aren't stopping! What should I do? Answer me Amber!"That that was when his brainwaves spiked alerting the scientists. Because it was too early for him to be awake, they induce deep sleep through a tranquillizer. And during that sleep his memories of Amber were "forgotten." But were they? During their first communication Mewtwo wondered if he were a human or a Pokémon. Amber's comment about him crying adds fuel to this question of his identity. So by the time he finally woke up he was already confused about his purpose in life. But as the scientists treated him as a "final product" of a long R&D session in fossil genetic cloning, Mewtwo went ballistic and blew up the lab. Seeing the destruction, Giovanni saw all he needed to see to know if his project was a success. Very soon after the destruction of the lab he offers Mewtwo the chance to learn ow to focus his power. He agreed and spent some time in a suit of armour (as he did when he battled Gary). After a few weeks of this Mewtwo still questioned his purpose in life, but Giovanni made the mistake of coming clean and telling him that he was a "tool" made for his selfish means. Mewtwo went ballistic again and ran away back to New Island and vowed to take his revenge on humankind for his slavery and the supposed slavery of all Pokémon. Then the opening titles roll.
Most of us who saw the first movie when it first came out, we only saw from the part I made bold above. In fact, (according to Takeshi Shudō) the original plan was not to reveal Mewtwo until Ash reaches the island. The prologue was not planned, but the hiatus of the TV series caused by the exploding missiles incident forced the animators to make them, as they originally planned to hint Mewtwo's existence in these three episodes, which only finally aired after the film premièred (ouch). Although the original film was a good "fate of the world in the balance" story for kids, I feel that the additional ten minutes added more maturity and not-subtle foreshadowing in the story. Maybe the idea of a reviving a dead child may have been considered "scary" for kids in the late-1990s (years before the pandemic of superhero movies forced the creation of the 12A/PG-12 rating). Despite the fact that (SPOILER ALERT) in the finale of the film, Ash "dies" in the crossfire in the battle between Mew and Mewtwo... and then is revived by the tears of all the Pokémon present (clone and original). Did Mewtwo really "forget" about Amber's words? There's something to think about.
With its plot featuring a very powerful Pokémon and a fate of the world in the balance premise involving it (with some deep exploration of humanity's relationship with nature and the environment), Mewtwo Strikes Back set the template for all future feature films.
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