Footage from "Johto League Champions" dub opening

[Jeff Zero]

Okay, this has been bugging me for a long while now, and I couldn't find any threads about it on the forum, so I figured I'd start one. The dub opening for the fourth season of Pokemon (Johto League Champions) shows a number of scenes I'm not familiar with, that arn't in any Japanese opening or ending I'm familiar with. These include:

-The opening shot with Totodile, Cyndaquil and Pikachu (possibly a dub-made scene using computers, I suppose)
-Ash putting his gloves on with Pikachu, Misty, Togepi Brock, and Vulpix, in what appears to be an unlit stadium
-Team Rocket in their balloon, followed by Lugia appearing in front of them out of a twister or whirlpool, they get very scared and it blows up the balloon with what appears to be a hyper beam
-The three legendary birds firing thier signiture attacks, all of which converge on a city environment.
-Ash, Brock and Misty standing before someone, followed by individual shots of each Morty and his Gengar, Bugsy and his Scyther, Whitney and her Miltank, and Claire and her Dragonair
-Ash throwing a Pokeball upwards in a city environment (nearly identical to the aformentioned one)
-Ash in a mountain environment with Charizard flying by him and he gets on, his arms wrapped around his neck as he continues to fly
-Ash standing before Rydon, Blastoise and Houndoom, then Steelix pops out of the ground behind them and Ash starts to point at something.
-A shot of the 8 Johto Gym Leaders all standing on a rock cropping, each one mostly obscured in shadow
-More shots of Ash on Charizard, including where it flies past a number of energy attacks being launced from offscreen, Ash and Pikachu jump off of Charizard's back
-Pikachu using an electric attack (could be stock footage, but animation, color, and the scene itself looks to be better quality then the show usually puts into an electric attack)
-Syther, Magnemite, Magneton, Aerodactyl are flying towards the screen, then Scizor flys in front of all of them
-Cyndaquil shooting Flamethrower to the left in rocky environment
-Noctowl diving towards something with a kind of energy aura surrounding it
-a shot of Mewtwo and Mew, not the one from OK! but similar, though both of them have a blue glow around them
-A left pan of Lugia's neck and head, Entei on a crystal platform (no doubt a referance to the third movie), Ho-Oh, and then Suicuine
-lastly A group shot of Ash, Brock, Misty, Pikachu, Togepi, Chikorita, Vulpix, Bulbasaur, Bellosom, Stantler, Sunflora, Onix, Nidoking, Heracross, Weezing, Ursaring, Houndoom, Cyndaquill, Totodile, Nidoqueen, Psyduck, Staryu, Scizor, and Snorlax, on what appears to be a Pokemon battlefield (judging by the markings on the floor)

Does anyone know where 4Kids got all this footage to make their dub opening from? Did they commission it like the extra scenes in the 4th movie? I'm really curious to find out.

 

[Chris]

4Kids got it straight from the animation studio. They asked for new animation, they made it. It was as simple as that.

Wasn't the last time they've had this done, either.

 

[Gravy]

What I find strange about the opening, is that all of it seems to be rather...well, mish-mash. There are certain parts that fit together, which are shown at different intervals. Such as when Ash and Pikachu jump off Charizard (at the 'Joh-To!' point). That's obviously supposed to be followed by that segment where he points at the oncoming wave of Blastoise, Steelix, Houndoom and friends, but the two sequences are shown apart.
And then we get some seemingly random stuff like Noctowl shooting out of nowhere, and other such garb.

What I'm getting at here, is that it seems to me that 4Kids went through the procedure of actually editing the footage they asked in the first place.
In other words, there's some unseen animation lying on the cutting room floor.

 

[Lupin]

-lastly A group shot of Ash, Brock, Misty, Pikachu, Togepi, Chikorita, Vulpix, Bulbasaur, Bellosom, Stantler, Sunflora, Onix, Nidoking, Heracross, Weezing, Ursaring, Houndoom, Cyndaquill, Totodile, Nidoqueen, Psyduck, Staryu, Scizor, and Snorlax, on what appears to be a Pokemon battlefield (judging by the markings on the floor)

Wow, you actually listed all the Pokemon in that shot.

 

[Korobooshi Kojiro]

The Charizard part feels false hope that he would appear that season, lol.

I personally like the original animation better.

 

[Jeff Zero]

Wow, you actually listed all the Pokemon in that shot.

Yeah, I actually enjoyed listing them all all. I'm weird like that. Don't get the wrong idea, I didn't remember them off memory--I watched the opening when describing these scenes.

Yeah, it did seem like a bit of a mismash, considering how certain scenes that look like they should flow together are just thrown in there randomly (such as any scene where they're in that rocky environment) plus there's a few scenes from the 4th Japanese opening and some stock footage.

As for the scenes with Charizard imbuing some false hope that he'd return in the series, well, this is a show that shows Mewtwo and Mew in several of the openings, yet Mew has never appeared in the main series and Mewtwo has only made small cameos meant more as a plug for the first movie than anything else. Ditto Ho-oh, Celebi, Raikou, Deoxys and Lucario.