Ick, I was really fan-girly many years back x_x... not that I'm
not fan-girly, but I like to lay out my thoughts now over why I'm fan-girling or getting mad at something. So... proper review from me, yaaaaaay. Especially since I've actually now personally watched the original Japanese after the longest time.
Getting it out of the way: original is so much better when it comes to the morals. It handled everything maturely and in a well-mannered way. There's no “Pokémon aren't meant to fight, not like this [sub](not like thiiiiiis)[/sub]” being shoved in your face. They briefly,
briefly say in the dub that they're all living creatures, but in the original, that was what they were talking about the entire time: how they're all alive and that because of it, who cares how they were born, just don't fight like this. Jessie and James made it even more deep by mentioning how it's liking fighting with
yourself, as though your old-self and your new-self met face-to-face and started trying to murder each other. I'm sure we all have felt this way about our old selves however-many-years ago, but there is no reason why you should be beating yourself up over it. Now
that's powerful. And while that's going on, that was what Mewtwo and Mew were doing above them. Mewtwo
really was determined to prove he was just as strong as the original, even if it meant going so far as to
murder Mew. Well, it was more-or-less hinted at, but he said that only
he should be the one alive, so yeah.
The origin was too short, there should've been about an extra five minutes into the first ten minutes, seriously. The CD drama was so much more powerful even though both the anime and the drama have similar pieces of dialogue, it's just that the CD drama went into more detail. I understand that it's due to time constraints, but there should've been a bit more to Amber (or Ai in this case) and Mewtwo's relationship than what we got. I was actually a bit surprised how while I do like the original here, the dub may have actually done things slightly better with it. I don't know why, exactly, but it's possible the music may have something to do with it (though I'm kinda biased about "Tears of Life" since it's one of my favorite pieces of music). Both versions use a revamped version of the music that would later be used in the climax—which is a great decision—though the voice acting was a bit more dramatic with the scientists in the dub xD. The woman's voice bothered me in the original of how deadpan she sounded, though I guess it could make sense if she's really tired, but considering how much they sacrificed to get a clone to survive, you'd think she and the others would get antsy a bit more over it.
Just a personal nitpick of mine.
Moving on to the star of the movie, Mewtwo is verrrry tragic. He was nothing more than just an innocent kid asking questions whose friends
die before his eyes within a short period of time, and he's forced to forget about it because he'd end up accidentally killing himself otherwise. He then wakes up who-knows-when to find out he was nothing more than just an experiment over whether-or-not humans can play God (even though it
was to create the world's strongest Pokémon, but that was implied, too). He kills his creators only to have Giovanni show up and trick him into believing that he needs to control his powers or he'll destroy the world—which
is most likely true, but Giovanni ends up just using him for his own needs instead of what he promised. (Giovanni has to be devil incarnate when it comes to Mewtwo, I swear.) Then he goes, “Yeah, Pokémon are of no value to humans, because we're more superior,” which ticks Mewtwo off and it convinces him that humans are nothing more than a plague for controlling everything without a second thought just because they think they can (survival of the fittest, Mewtwo, but he doesn't really know that). He then takes it a step
further by saying Pokémon are pieces of trash because they allowed humans to be their superiors. So because of that, he pretty much intimidates everyone by talking down to them, taunting them (“Yes, I will let you humans go, that is
if you can make it safely through the storm.”
), and just kicking them to the curb over and over again just to prove his dominance and that he deserves to be better than humans. And all this because he was manipulated and used for evil purposes instead of being allowed to willingly discover who he is over time. Just because he was created to be a weapon doesn't mean he wants to.
So yeah, you can't blame him for getting really angry at everything because he was being taken advantaged of and thus screwing his perspective up (he may be intelligent, but he
does learn like any other living being). The dub
kinda touched upon some of this, but they made him become a villain by declaring a war against the world just because it
dared go against him—which doesn't really make sense because he
hadn't yet learned more about the world to make a proper decision, but it's villainous, gotta make a Pokémon evil just because! He was still a bada
ss either way, though, his motives were just much more clear in the original.
I'm also torn between whose voice is sexier, Philip Bartlett's or Ichimura Masachika's. [sub]Also, I wonder if Philip Bartlett could actually sing*SHOT*[/sub]
But in the meantime, Mew in the original really wasn't above it all compared to the saint-like version in the dub. Mew was kind of a jerk. Oh yeah, you say the originals will win because their power is more natural and thus real, and yet you're perfectly willing to let them fight to their deaths to prove it. Yeaaaaah, “god or devil” indeed. Though even “saint” doesn't work here, either, because in the dub Mew still didn't show
that much of a concern over it. Hypocrisy before Mewtwo was a hypocrite, hooray!
I still love the two of them, anyway.
I can't find the words to talk about the human characters for whatever reason (even though the side characters in this movie were okay, albeit still a bit memorable), but Ash really shines in this movie. It's like everything he did in the show was leading up to this point to show how much determination, trust, and love he has for his Pokémon. In a way, when you compare him to the Ash from the first episode, he really had grown a lot as a character. He may have had similar ideas prior to before he started, but he had to learn more about them, and it just comes to a head here. Like how he was willing to give his life for Pikachu, he actually went out of his way to give his life for
all of the Pokémon there.
Which leads to the climax everyone remembers and apparently cries over. “Tears of Life” will forever hold a special place in my heart (though the soundtrack was awesome in the original—that organ for Mewtwo's theme), but there was something much more powerful about just absolute silence that left a very heavy atmosphere. After all that happened, it just hadn't yet settled, and even if it did, it had come down hard. I didn't cry, but the emotions were there; helps everything was just pretty quiet during that part, and I live in a fairly noisy home. In the meantime, the Pokémon tears really didn't get any explanation in the original. All Amber (I mean Ai) said in the very beginning was, “Only humans cry when they're sad, Pokémon cry because their bodies hurt.” Sure, I suppose it was a way to take her words and expand upon them, but nothing was said about Pokémon tears carrying life or bringing people back to life. That's why I feel the warden's legend exposition in the dub was needed so it didn't become a deus ex machina that leave people confused (even though had the ten-minute origin remained, Amber would've had it covered).
The problem both versions have, however, is the ending. Both endings apparently pretend to forget none of this ever happened. Mewtwo in the English version was at
least kind enough to say, “It's best if you forget about this,”, but Mewtwo in the original goes, “Yeah, I learned something, but I don't care about these humans learning an important life lesson,” and then tells Ash that they will find a place to stay because they're alive, but that's it. Seriously, Mewtwo, I know you're still not trustworthy of humans, and that you were taking your anger out towards them, but that's a bit of a dick move. Wouldn't it have just been better to erase your own face from their minds and make them question, “Hey, I wonder who that guy was, and if he learned anything about this to better himself as much as we're bettering ourselves.” You know? Keeps it from being a
really good movie.
Meanwhile, Mewtwo's ever-quoted speech was deep in the dub. Unfortunately, it doesn't really fit in with everything else because of the dub trying to insert in a moral that didn't really need further explained to take over the moral of what your purpose in life is. I don't know what exactly made them do this, but had they just left things alone or at least not tweaked it as bad as they did, perhaps the dub would've been much better.
So yeah. 4KIDS' dub is a mess that shouldn't have happened but is too late to fix now (but is still a guilty pleasure for the nostalgia), however, we thankfully still have the original to help clear things up. I doubt the movie will be released with the original Japanese here in the States, though I think that just makes watching it elsewhere all that more worth it. This I feel was why Mewtwo has become so popular in the fandom because we got to see him in action, and also because he is one of the better written characters in the entire series, thus he sticks out a lot in memory. I really know of
very few characters in the series, humans and Pokémon, who were as deep and tragic as Mewtwo, and I really doubt we will at the rate things are going. But I think that helps with his uniqueness in the fandom, and why I love his character and this movie so much, flaws and all.
