BW023/BW024 (Unaired) Scripts FOUND.

[ObjectionMan]

Thanks to the incredible generosity of the owner of the actually purchased scripts, I have obtained all the pages and an English translation, which you can view here.

Enjoy and discuss!

 

[snowmint]

So.... When will a fandub reanimated project come out...

 

[GokaiRed8]

In order to get the scripts, did you also have to face...THE 7 TRIALS OF MONKEY LAGOON?!

 

[Nicolas721]

It's really cool they were released! Thanks!

Some things I noticed while skimming through

Spoiler

-Pierce was not a double agent.
-No major characters from Team Plasma appear, but their return is foreshadowed.
-Cilan actually notices the meteorite comes from the Nacrene Museum and Lenora is mentioned.
-Yamask is foreshadowed.
-It's surprising the idea of Pikachu becoming super-powerful wasn't revisited later.
-Krokorok does not appear?

 

[RetroPokeFan]

Very good news indeed.

Going through the script, it's somewhat fascinating to read through the whole thing and see how the two-parter that never was would have played out.

 

[ObjectionMan]

Some things I noticed while skimming through

You clearly skimmed since you are way off on three points:

Spoiler

Ghetsis, a major character from Team Plasma, and Krokorok both do appear. Krokorok helps the heroes out in Part 1, and Ghetsis' shadowy hands and his voice feature in Part 2 and he is directly named by the Plasma grunts. And super-powered Pikachu with a Giant Electro Ball did appear later in the big Meloetta / Forces of Nature Therian Formes episode.

 

[GokaiRed8]

I wish I had this kind of luck for trying to find the rest of a set of Settei/Refrence sheets for an obscure anime

 

[skynerel]

I’m overjoyed and happy! Thank you so much for this! This was a fantastic read, I couldn’t stop smiling.

 

[Gabo2oo]

Here we are, over a decade later and we can get a firm grasp at how these episodes would've played out. Should we consider this a script review thread?

---

The first half of Part 1 reads pretty slow-paced. I get that it's a build-up more than anything, but there's a lot of scenes with Team Rocket scheming in the Underground Ruins with not much going on. This was pretty common in BW though, so I'm not surprised. The scenes with Ash and co. sneaking around and the whole masquerade part sound quite interesting though, so I assume the episode picks up soon enough. I'm glad to hear it has some small comedic bits like Looker showing his badge from dozens of meters away or Juniper excited for involved in a spy mission.

Also Yamask was set to debut here! It makes sense in retrospect and I recall some people theorizing it since it made sense for him to come from the desert ruins.
By the way, I see that Meowth not doing anything and having zero lines in the entire first episode of the Meloetta two-parter was directly carried over from here. Huh.

As for Part 2, I certainly wasn't expecting Ghetsis to show up so early. It clearly paints a very different picture of how a Team Plasma arc would've played out and I'm glad we're getting stronger confirmation of it.

On the other hand, we also know of more tidbits that were passed onto both the Meloetta arc and Episode N, such as Looker getting into a physical fight with Team Plasma, great gusts of wind blowing both heroes and villains away, and Pikachu finishing the McGuffin with a powered-up Electro Ball, prompting Team Rocket to "renew" their wishes to capture Pikachu. It does line up to what happens in the next episodes when they switch back to their white uniforms, since they actually went back to more episodic schemes for a while. I'm surprised they managed to naturally fit that a second time for their Unova League hiatus.

By the way, I always liked it when the police actually appeared to do something in the anime, so it's nice that Officer Jenny showed up with an entire squad to raid the masquerade.

---

Overall, even if the plot seems a bit convoluted (jumping around locations a lot, two meteorites, etc), the two-parter manages to give closure to a lot of elements from the previous episodes. Early BW had this somewhat unique feel of a smoother progression from one episode to another and looks like this was to be the culmination of all of it, not just the Meteonite plot itself. The only thing that looks a bit out of the blue is Pikachu "synching" with the Meteonite IMO. I don't recall that being foreshadowed and not even the Meteonite's backstory seems to explain it either, unless I missed something here.

I wonder if some of the things here would've set up different plotlines as well (aside from the Team Plasma storyline, of course). I'm not sure if the writers would've come up with this group of shady Unova elite members simply as a way to stall Giovanni and allow Team Plasma to attack them, for example. I also find weird how Krokorok dissapeared for almost a year after this episode, and while there's nothing here to tell us anything about that, I wonder if the staff decided to halt pretty much all ongoing story arcs that showed up in this two-parter for a while, as they re-evaluated how to approach them.

Curiosity over this has dwindled over time but it's always been on the back of my mind honestly, thanks for the find. Here's to hoping we get the full footage from these episodes sometime during this century.

 

[skynerel]

Things that I liked,

1. Team Plasma messing up team rocket plans. Essentially two pokemon criminal organizations going at it. Not just trio, but everyone involved, even Giovanni. The threat was real.
2. Giovanni and his secret party to present the meteor, while Plasma is there waiting to do their move. Never in my wildest dreams I would’ve imagined two evil poke organizations sharing the same space in a serious setting.
3. Team Plasma wasn’t playing games. First they blasted the Helicopter with Ash and co in it. Then they blasted the building
4. This episodes shows both krokorok and yamask, which are eventually captured by Ash and James respectively.
5. Plasma grunts reference the Hero, showing that their intentions go beyond simple mind control. Ghetsis is pulling the strings from the shadows. Like how both bosses has a role in this plot and not just their agents working alone.
6. Liked how everyone was involved. Ash and Co, TR, TP, the police and some extras at the party.

 

[Emelie]

Interesting lore about the Ancient Unova people. The Meteorite is described as the sun and is kind of like Volcarona which is Alder's ace? Could the mysterious death of the first Volcarona he had be related to this? Just wild speculation lol. Would be interesting if they used this lore for a future Legends game. Fun fact the Sinnoh temple appears in an unused scene from the trailer for the Arceus movie, so I guess it's not unheard of for unused anime content to be repurposed for the games.

It's also interesting that Giovanni seems to have so much inside information about Team Plasma? Or did anime!Team Plasma never try to liberate Pokémon? If that is the case why would N join them?

Who was the guy from the preview who wore a similar shirt to N though? I have always assumed that he was N wearing a cape but that seems to not be the case. Ghetsis owns a similar shirt? Does that mean he buys all of N's clothing just like Lusamine did for Lillie in the games? I guess that makes sense considering how controlling he is.

 

[Momentum]

What a great find. So glad these are finally available to read. That being said...

Spoiler

I was convinced Pierce would get an interesting development in this two-parter to explain his abrupt disappearance, like he was a double-agent for Plasma or something. But in the end, I guess he simply wasn't intended to be important to the plot.

But aside from that, loved this!

 

[ObjectionMan]

Who was the guy from the preview who wore a similar shirt to N though? I have always assumed that he was N wearing a cape but that seems to not be the case.

That was just Plasma Grunt A.

The only thing that looks a bit out of the blue is Pikachu "synching" with the Meteonite IMO. I don't recall that being foreshadowed and not even the Meteonite's backstory seems to explain it either, unless I missed something here.

I think the implication was supposed to be that it happened because Pikachu had gotten zapped by Zekrom in BW001.

It wouldn't have happened with any other Pikachu, only Ash's because it was still carrying Zekrom's electricity.

I wonder if the staff decided to halt pretty much all ongoing story arcs that showed up in this two-parter for a while, as they re-evaluated how to approach them.

The strange thing about that is it wasn't due to this two-parter getting banned, since the remainder of BW's first year's episodes (up to the Nimbasa Subway two-parter) were firmly in production at that point, and the episodes up to the Milos Island two-parter not far along behind. I truly believe Team Plasma was supposed to return at the same point in time we got Krokorok's return and the Black Hero's Ruins (which had the Golden Dark Stone that would've been used to bring about a Zekrom vs. Reshiram showdown), but this two-parter's banning plus B2/W2 put the kibosh on those plans. I still personally enjoy BW, even its Team Plasma arc, but knowing what it could have been will still always be a source of disappointment.

 

[Mr. MoonStone]

This makes me really curious how different the BW anime would have played out in the long run. This 2-parter does feel like it ties up some loose ends from the previous 22 episodes or some, so part of me wonders if the rest of the anime would have been approached in the same manner with essentially half a year story arcs. People point out Pierce disappearing (and not really having much relevance to these episodes), but maybe there were plans for him to return?

It's so weird reading these scripts though lol...these episodes were supposed to air when I was in high school, but then the 3/11 disaster occurred and the anime shifted directions entirely. Now I'm a working adult revisiting something that I was so curious about in my teenage years.

 

[snowmint]

I'm shocked there hasn't been much traction here about it.

 

[XavierAnime]

Sorry, this two episodes of Pokémon the series: Black and White: "Team Rocket vs. Team Plasma" has already been canceled forever, that was a long time ago and it is no longer confirmed before.

 

[Poke Trey]

This would've been great for it's time but, man, just another reason why I can't like this series.

 

[Charmander4]

Do any old pre-BW Pokémon appear with TR grunts?

The version that did air had Rhydon and Golem appear.

 

[sc190191]

Wow I'm really happy to be able to read this script! This is a really enjoyable episode, I just wish we had the visuals to go along with it (I'm sure the pictures I've imagined in my head aren't accurate). I would be especially curious to see what the interior of the relic castle was intended to look like as well as the desert resort (which it would appear is a real resort and not really what it was in the games). I like how Cilan realized Looker knew Ash before they were reunited, I always enjoy little nods like that! Krokorok helping out was a fun touch as well, and Cilan being a waiter at the party was also fitting! Also the hint to Yamask at several instances was interesting. I'm not sure I totally understand everything that occurred (which is why visuals would help), but this is still a tremendous gift to us fans to get this script and certainly something I was never expecting to see! Great timing for me as well since I am presently re-watching BW (although quite a bit past this part as I just got to Decolore).

These episodes missing obviously threw off a lot from that season, and seeing how interesting they were makes it even more of a bummer we will never see them. Actually reading through it there doesn't seem to be anything overly awful that got them banned, but I guess the damage being done to Castelia through the energy waves must be what did it. I can think of quite a few instances of worse world-altering criminal events occurring in the anime since that time, so again its a real bummer these never aired. It is interesting to imagine what may have been different about the series, but like mentioned above it may actually be that not much would have changed. Krokorok's long absence may have been in the cards anyway, seeing as other episodes were already in production. Probably the biggest impact was just how Team Plasma was eventually incorporated and the TR/Meloetta plot, but who knows. I was quite happy with both the Meloetta arc and the Team Plasma arc as they were, so maybe it all worked out for the best anyway, but it would have been interesting if there had been snippets of Team Plasma being tracked by TR/Looker throughout the series before their eventual greater inclusion in the plot. Overall I'm just really happy this was found, and not to get greedy, but maybe some day we will also be so lucky as to get the visuals!

 

[Antiyonder]

So since a slightly different version "A Fishing Connoisseur in a Fishy Competition!" was supposed to precede "Battling For The Love of Bug-Types!" (Bianca originally staying at the end of the former), would that have been the last appearance then of Jessie and James in the different uniforms?