Having more filler does more than just screw with plot and pacing

[Pokegirl Fan~]

I liked the Baseball filler and some of the earlier SM fillers as well. Not really a fan of the fillers where Team Rocket goes after the plushiemons or the potd honestly.

I think the Kanto fillers and early BW fillers were pretty good too.

 

[ash&charizardfan]

I liked the Baseball filler and some of the earlier SM fillers as well. Not really a fan of the fillers where Team Rocket goes after the plushiemons or the potd honestly.

I think the Kanto fillers and early BW fillers were pretty good too.

I cannot differentiate between the kanto fillers and non fillers, pretty much everything looked fillers with the way they treated the gym and battle parts in that arc.

 

[DatsRight]

I have come to accept that the overwhelming majority of the show consists of anti-climaxes, the only times we get big even handed face offs and what not are the actual official competitions where the writers know they absolutely positively HAVE to make it eventful, and even then if they can find an excuse not to, they'll damn well use it.

Now anti climaxes aren't exactly a bad thing, so long as they're not an excuse to avoid developing the characters and plot (one my favourite anti climaxes since childhood for example) but that's the common issue with Pokemon, it often plots out each story in a way so that the protagonists don't really have to get too involved or entertaining besides generic contributions like calling attacks or doing things any generic placeholder could do, which makes them very dull after a while. Situation is too complicated? Have Team Rocket interfere. Even Team Rocket putting up a not-completely-pitiful fight? Plot armour the twerps so it's back to square one. This tends to happen even in stories that seem like they are meant to be climatic or fulfilling about the protagonist's roles, when half the time most of their role that didn't consist of physics bending for them had barely any substance or entertainment value at all. Even worse they don't even make use of the anti climatic nature, remember when the twerps used to snark at how crappy Team Rocket's schemes were or how a lot of the COTD's issues were dumb or preventable? No they take it damn well seriously and by the script now which takes out even more of the fun and makes the whole thing like watching some machinery following some function on a loop.

SM is mundane, but intentionally so, and it tries to make each character's contribution to the story different and amusing. This of course doesn't always work, especially with a large cast, but it does have a better success rate and does help us connect to the characters and feel they are remarkable. The issue is that it still doesn't really deliver in many points it is SUPPOSED to be climatic and the characters are supposed to take a big step in development, even if it does work on subtle and gradual levels at times.

My hope is that SM is baby steps, and perhaps next series they'll be a bit better at writing more ambitious stories while keeping up the progression rate, all while still making them character driven.

 

[LilligantLewis]

I liked the Baseball filler

You liked the baseball filler because you're a huge baseball girl which I see sometimes from your statuses like the Bryce Harper one and about baseball in the early 1900s.

 

[AznKei]

You liked the baseball filler because you're a huge baseball girl which I see sometimes from your statuses like the Bryce Harper one and about baseball in the early 1900s.

I like it when the whole cast and their Pokemons got involved instead of just Ash, and despite having no battles and I don't watch baseball, it's a physical sport.

 

[Lord Starfish]

I find sports in general to be boring yet the baseball episode is one of my favorite episodes in the series because of how gloriously over-the-top it is.

"DAINAMIKKU FURU FUREIMU BOOOOOOOORU!!!!!!!!"

 

[Power Up]

I have come to accept that the overwhelming majority of the show consists of anti-climaxes, the only times we get big even handed face offs and what not are the actual official competitions where the writers know they absolutely positively HAVE to make it eventful, and even then if they can find an excuse not to, they'll damn well use it.

Now anti climaxes aren't exactly a bad thing, so long as they're not an excuse to avoid developing the characters and plot (one my favourite anti climaxes since childhood for example) but that's the common issue with Pokemon, it often plots out each story in a way so that the protagonists don't really have to get too involved or entertaining besides generic contributions like calling attacks or doing things any generic placeholder could do, which makes them very dull after a while. Situation is too complicated? Have Team Rocket interfere. Even Team Rocket putting up a not-completely-pitiful fight? Plot armour the twerps so it's back to square one. This tends to happen even in stories that seem like they are meant to be climatic or fulfilling about the protagonist's roles, when half the time most of their role that didn't consist of physics bending for them had barely any substance or entertainment value at all. Even worse they don't even make use of the anti climatic nature, remember when the twerps used to snark at how crappy Team Rocket's schemes were or how a lot of the COTD's issues were dumb or preventable? No they take it damn well seriously and by the script now which takes out even more of the fun and makes the whole thing like watching some machinery following some function on a loop.

SM is mundane, but intentionally so, and it tries to make each character's contribution to the story different and amusing. This of course doesn't always work, especially with a large cast, but it does have a better success rate and does help us connect to the characters and feel they are remarkable. The issue is that it still doesn't really deliver in many points it is SUPPOSED to be climatic and the characters are supposed to take a big step in development, even if it does work on subtle and gradual levels at times.

My hope is that SM is baby steps, and perhaps next series they'll be a bit better at writing more ambitious stories while keeping up the progression rate, all while still making them character driven.

Why are you so fixated on TR? They literally don’t matter and are gags. The only time where they did actually matter was BW in one of the most plot-heavy and serious episodes in BW which you also seem to detest. They are only a little bit better in SM, still relegated to gags.

In conclusion, TR doesn’t matter because they are viewed as gags abs should not be used at all when determine how good a series is. Even when they did become serious, people didn’t like it.

 

[MidnightMelody]

I mean it matters more on pacing over anything and GF is too blame at times. For example SUMO could have been done in a much better way by doing the island trials and Skull and Aether with a League all wrapped up by this past summer and had the next year with a return to Kanto and let Ash actually "earn" his badges for LGPE. Instead we got a series where it feels all over the place with no real end goal. I know Ash wants to graduate but it seems no real steps have been taking. If they had said you need to past the island stuff (which would not make sense considering Gladion) ok or we could have had ranks like in Yugioh GX. I can't really blame the fillers as much as I want too as much as I blame this series for not really knowing how to handle goals and progress like past series.

I feel the entire SUMO thing is them just trying to be fancy with the new animation and that got old really fast. Personally would have rather we had a normal pacing series where trials were treated as gyms,travelling or more of a school focus with progress and stuck with the old art since honestly for what it is the animation really was fine.

But I went off the rails a bit. The SUMO fillers just feel very weird to me. A pancake race is just stupid compared to let's say that cool concept back in season 5 where Ash got the Phanpy egg. Both races but one is far more interesting and makes sense. So far the only filler that felt like old Pokemon filler was the Pikachu Valley one

 

[DatsRight]

Why are you so fixated on TR? They literally don’t matter and are gags. The only time where they did actually matter was BW in one of the most plot-heavy and serious episodes in BW which you also seem to detest. They are only a little bit better in SM, still relegated to gags.

In conclusion, TR doesn’t matter because they are viewed as gags abs should not be used at all when determine how good a series is. Even when they did become serious, people didn’t like it.

But that's the thing though, they are irrelevant to the plot most of the time, but nearly every filler (and even some non-fillers) everything culminates around stopping them, which isn't much of an accomplishment. Even when a potentially more personal and developed situation occurs, they'll but in and make it null.

Even worse, despite being gags, the writers barely develop them in that regard. The twerps have pretty lost any chemistry with them and refuse to play along with any of their shtick, not even making much snark anymore, so they fail even in regards of making the situation more humorous. It's even worse in SM where most of the heroes are comical foils anyway, but suddenly lose all their comedic interactions once TR appear. They outright kill the mood.

TR (and other substitute villains) are often there when the writers want something simple, bland and effortless to write off each plot, and prior to SM, they wanted to use that NON-STOP, giving the twerps barely anything to work with.

 

[Sceptile Leaf Blade]

But that's the thing though, they are irrelevant to the plot most of the time, but nearly every filler (and even some non-fillers) everything culminates around stopping them, which isn't much of an accomplishment. Even when a potentially more personal and developed situation occurs, they'll but in and make it null.

Even worse, despite being gags, the writers barely develop them in that regard. The twerps have pretty lost any chemistry with them and refuse to play along with any of their shtick, not even making much snark anymore, so they fail even in regards of making the situation more humorous. It's even worse in SM where most of the heroes are comical foils anyway, but suddenly lose all their comedic interactions once TR appear. They outright kill the mood.

TR (and other substitute villains) are often there when the writers want something simple, bland and effortless to write off each plot, and prior to SM, they wanted to use that NON-STOP, giving the twerps barely anything to work with.

I think you're exaggerating the influence of Team Rocket in Sun and Moon here. I can think of only four episodes where they actively disrupted the plot. Bounsweets evolution episode, Steenee's evolution episode, the Ultra Guardians ride pokémon relaxation episode (arguably, there wasn't much of an overall plot to be disturbed here in the first place, and this way the Ride pokémon at least got a chance to show their fighting skills), and the first Gladion episode. For the rest they're usually doing their own separate thing, like with the pokémon sled jumping, the pancake race, the Charjabug race, the bread festival, or the pokémon ping pong tournament.

They don't have much chemistry with the main cast I agree, but they do serve as humorous antagonists at times in ways that Team Skull is simply too incompetent for, they at least usually have some kind of plan.

 

[DatsRight]

I think you're exaggerating the influence of Team Rocket in Sun and Moon here. I can think of only four episodes where they actively disrupted the plot. Bounsweets evolution episode, Steenee's evolution episode, the Ultra Guardians ride pokémon relaxation episode (arguably, there wasn't much of an overall plot to be disturbed here in the first place, and this way the Ride pokémon at least got a chance to show their fighting skills), and the first Gladion episode. For the rest they're usually doing their own separate thing, like with the pokémon sled jumping, the pancake race, the Charjabug race, the bread festival, or the pokémon ping pong tournament.

They don't have much chemistry with the main cast I agree, but they do serve as humorous antagonists at times in ways that Team Skull is simply too incompetent for, they at least usually have some kind of plan.

That's why I'm making the comparison. SM suffers the odd bad TR episode (though we have had a couple better ones recently), but nearly every series beforehand used them EVERY EPISODE. When they're the impetus of nearly every plot, the quality of their handling DOES matter.

SM has arguably made the right choice downplaying their role as antagonists, but even then that's just hiding and stalling the problem, they still need to be antagonists every once in a while.

 

[LilligantLewis]

That's why I'm making the comparison. SM suffers the odd bad TR episode (though we have had a couple better ones recently), but nearly every series beforehand used them EVERY EPISODE. When they're the impetus of nearly every plot, the quality of their handling DOES matter.

SM has arguably made the right choice downplaying their role as antagonists, but even then that's just hiding and stalling the problem, they still need to be antagonists every once in a while.

There's always a problem with you, dude. You're never satisfied. Something's fixed a problem, but then that's just hiding the problem. I look forward to your posts in Gen XIV regarding how removing TR totally from the show has only exposed the problem that having stuff that's not TR drive the plot is a problem because only TR should drive the plot, or how Ash winning the league was bad because his past companions weren't watching, or how Serena reappearing in a slapsticky generation was out of character, etc., etc., etc., the list goes on of all the things I could potentially expect you to say in the future. No matter what happens, you're never satisfied. If you make a criticism that something should be a different way, and it actually ends up that way (TR downplayed this saga), you're STILL not satisfied. Unbelievable. Every post of yours on this whole forum has a negative tone.

 

[Leonhart]

But I went off the rails a bit. The SUMO fillers just feel very weird to me. A pancake race is just stupid compared to let's say that cool concept back in season 5 where Ash got the Phanpy egg.

The main difference being that the race from Jouto wasn't even filler since Satoshi got Gomazou's egg.

 

[LilligantLewis]

The main difference being that the race from Jouto wasn't even filler since Satoshi got Gomazou's egg.

I don't think she was saying it was a filler (she even mentioned the egg), she was just comparing the two episodes since they were both races.

 

[DatsRight]

There's always a problem with you, dude. You're never satisfied. Something's fixed a problem, but then that's just hiding the problem. I look forward to your posts in Gen XIV regarding how removing TR totally from the show has only exposed the problem that having stuff that's not TR drive the plot is a problem because only TR should drive the plot, or how Ash winning the league was bad because his past companions weren't watching, or how Serena reappearing in a slapsticky generation was out of character, etc., etc., etc., the list goes on of all the things I could potentially expect you to say in the future. No matter what happens, you're never satisfied. If you make a criticism that something should be a different way, and it actually ends up that way (TR downplayed this saga), you're STILL not satisfied. Unbelievable. Every post of yours on this whole forum has a negative tone.

You're the one who said nearly all the filler sucked throughout every series. I find problems with SM, but I've said I enjoyed the fillers, just TR is an integral part that still needs to be fixed. OS and late BW had good TR use for example, merging that with SM's more moderated use does not seem mutually exclusive.

 

[Power Up]

You're the one who said nearly all the filler sucked throughout every series. I find problems with SM, but I've said I enjoyed the fillers, just TR is an integral part that still needs to be fixed. OS and late BW had good TR use for example, merging that with SM's more moderated use does not seem mutually exclusive.

TR isn’t an integral part of Pokémon and doesn’t matter

 

[DatsRight]

TR isn’t an integral part of Pokémon and doesn’t matter

Just like Ash, they're here FOREVER, whether people want them or not. They may as well make it count.

 

[Pokegirl Fan~]

TR isn’t an integral part of Pokémon and doesn’t matter

I really wish that they were written off, but sadly I don't think it'll ever happen

 

[Power Up]

Just like Ash, they're here FOREVER, whether people want them or not. They may as well make it count.

And just like Ash, they’re only still here to have some semblance of continuity and sameness in the series just to promote the anime

Ash and TR both should have been written off by now

 

[DatsRight]

Meh, I was bored of Ash by XY, then SM gave him a funny personality and tons of interactions. Some of Ash's episodes, even ones not connected to the trials, are awesome this series, and even when it's another character's turn, he can compliment that well without stealing their thunder. Basically they've thought about how Ash can give the show life besides his own self contained arc.

TR have moments of working great, especially during the OS, even if the times they're spammed in a half assed way surpass it. Still their personalities are fine in SM, it's just how that bounces off of the rest of the cast that's failing.