PokeAni Missed Opportunities

[FinnishPokéFan92]

How would they even do that? I mean, animation take months upon months to produce. Almost seemed like Team Plasma was to appear only there and then maybe around the league.

Well, with Team Plasma's intended debut never aired, their actual debut didn't even take place until after the Pokémon League, so my guess is that originally there was going to be a big enough gap before their second planned appearance that they had time to rewrite that part of the series.

One other thing: the twerps never getting any phones. No PokeGear, no X-Transceivers, no Holo Casters, they don't think that phones will help when they get lost.

Actually, didn't Brock get a PokéGear during the D&P series? Also, while I know that it's not quite the same thing, didn't Max have a PokéNav during the AG series?

 

[EscLucy]

Actually, didn't Brock get a PokéGear during the D&P series? Also, while I know that it's not quite the same thing, didn't Max have a PokéNav during the AG series?

Yeah same I thought so too. I was wondering what the phone has that these items don't have when it comes to being lost.

 

[matt0044]

Well, with Team Plasma's intended debut never aired, their actual debut didn't even take place until after the Pokémon League, so my guess is that originally there was going to be a big enough gap before their second planned appearance that they had time to rewrite that part of the series.

There's another one: they didn't take advantage of the Team Plasma storyline from the on-set. I mean, the games provided more meaty ideas compared to before but the writers seemed too content to just rely on the strictly episodic structure they always have. Hell, they don't always need BIG events for Team Plasma. Show their rallies, show them causing trouble like at the Battle Clubs rather than (just) Team Rocket like with Tepig's debut.

The story ideas were RIGHT THERE and they didn't even try.

 

[HiroHunter]

For Ash to get a latias and for Ash to become an traveling brain for the Kanto BF.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

I'm not sure if this has been discussed on this thread already, but I'm pretty sure that all of you by now are familiar with one of, if not the biggest case of "What Could've Been" in the history of the Pokémon anime: the GS Ball.

We all know how the story goes: after the Indigo League, Professor Oak asks Ash to travel to Orange Islands to get a strange Poké Ball from Professor Ivy. Ash gets the Ball, travels through the Orange Islands with it and, after winning the Orange League, returns to Kanto so that Professor Oak could study it. He does so, but can't figure it out, and he asks Ash to deliver the GS Ball to the Johtonian Poké Ball expert Kurt. After a short while, the group reaches Azalea Town and gives the ball to Kurt, who agrees to study it.

And that's it. That's the end of the story, sure, the GS Ball was mentioned in an episode or two afterwards, but we never, never got a payoff for the dozens of episodes worth of buildup! The mystery remained unsolved for years, until it was revealed that the GS Ball was supposed to have contained a Celebi, which would've eventually emerged from the ball and travel with the group for a while.

But NOPE! Instead, they decided to make Celebi star in the fourth movie, and decided to throw this carefully and passionately built-up plot point down the drain and hope the fans would just forget about it.

Spoiler

Just... How naive can one be?! They seriously expected the fans to forget the thing that they had spent dozens of episodes of looking at and wondering the purpose of?!

And considering I've seen several more or less negative reviews of Pokémon 4Ever, I've come to think that the producers of the Pokémon anime made a huge blunder in doing this maneuver. Years later, we got something similar with Meloetta, but I'm not sure if it was as good as what the intended Celebi arc would've been.

 

[Hidden Mew]

There's another one: they didn't take advantage of the Team Plasma storyline from the on-set. I mean, the games provided more meaty ideas compared to before but the writers seemed too content to just rely on the strictly episodic structure they always have. Hell, they don't always need BIG events for Team Plasma. Show their rallies, show them causing trouble like at the Battle Clubs rather than (just) Team Rocket like with Tepig's debut.

The story ideas were RIGHT THERE and they didn't even try.

That's been an issue with all of the evil teams practically. The anime doesn't really incorporate all of their appearances from the games into the show. This is done at least partly in case another game in the generation gives them something new to adapt, but it does usually mean that we don't get any of the major confrontations with the evil teams until much later in the series' run. In the case of Team Plasma, that's one reason why I'm not sure they would have been featured more often in the series if the two-parter had aired. It wouldn't have been unlikely for them to show up in that two parter and them disappear for months. It also would have made it more of a challenge to adapt the B/W storyline before they had to include elements from B2/W2.

I'm not sure if this has been discussed on this thread already, but I'm pretty sure that all of you by now are familiar with one of, if not the biggest case of "What Could've Been" in the history of the Pokémon anime: the GS Ball.

We all know how the story goes: after the Indigo League, Professor Oak asks Ash to travel to Orange Islands to get a strange Poké Ball from Professor Ivy. Ash gets the Ball, travels through the Orange Islands with it and, after winning the Orange League, returns to Kanto so that Professor Oak could study it. He does so, but can't figure it out, and he asks Ash to deliver the GS Ball to the Johtonian Poké Ball expert Kurt. After a short while, the group reaches Azalea Town and gives the ball to Kurt, who agrees to study it.

And that's it. That's the end of the story, sure, the GS Ball was mentioned in an episode or two afterwards, but we never, never got a payoff for the dozens of episodes worth of buildup! The mystery remained unsolved for years, until it was revealed that the GS Ball was supposed to have contained a Celebi, which would've eventually emerged from the ball and travel with the group for a while.

But NOPE! Instead, they decided to make Celebi star in the fourth movie, and decided to throw this carefully and passionately built-up plot point down the drain and hope the fans would just forget about it.

Spoiler

Just... How naive can one be?! They seriously expected the fans to forget the thing that they had spent dozens of episodes of looking at and wondering the purpose of?!

And considering I've seen several more or less negative reviews of Pokémon 4Ever, I've come to think that the producers of the Pokémon anime made a huge blunder in doing this maneuver. Years later, we got something similar with Meloetta, but I'm not sure if it was as good as what the intended Celebi arc would've been.

Before the Team Plasma two parter, this was the plot point that people were upset over. It definitely seemed like a weird decision. The GS Ball was basically a plot device to get Ash to go to the Orange Islands and then later Johto, but considering that it was a mystery for a good amount of time, one would think that they would have done something with it. I still remember thinking that they were going to find out about the GS Ball after the Johto League ended, but then they were already back in Kanto. It didn't really bother me as much as it did with other fans, but it definitely seemed like a wasted opportunity and the reason behind their decision didn't help either.

This might be a missed opportunity or just something I wish the show had done differently, but I think Iris should have been a brand new trainer with Axew as her only Pokemon at the beginning of BW. It felt extremely jarring to see Iris go from avoiding battles with Axew because she didn't want to lose to being this Dragon type expert and providing advice for a COTD with her Druddigon. I thought that they didn't make Iris into a special gifted trainer until her flashback with Excadril where she won nearly a hundred battles before she was even old enough to be a trainer, but it happened much earlier than I remembered with both Emolga's capture and Axew learning Dragon Rage. Not only is it jarring, but there's a huge disconnect to what the series shows us about Iris during her focus episodes and how she was presented at the beginning of the series. It does make sense that she'd know about Dragon types due to being from the Village of Dragons and wanting to be a Dragon Master herself, but considering how inexperienced she came off during the beginning of BW, it would have made more sense for her to just be a rookie trainer. She also said that she loves a good challenge when it comes to her Pokemon, but that also doesn't really fit when she doesn't do a lot of training on screen. The most she had done up to that point was just have Axew use Dragon Rage in the hopes that it would work in the middle of a practice battle. To be fair, she does put more effort into getting Axew to master Dragon Rage than I remember with any of her other accomplishments, but it still bugged me that she didn't try other ways of training Axew beyond the practice battles against Scraggy.

The whole Excadril subplot didn't really make Iris look good, mainly due to how Excadril had been mad at her for at least a year or two, and she didn't learn anything about how to handle disobedient Pokemon when she had to deal with Dragonite too. Emolga was so forgettable and included just because they wanted to include the electric mouse of the generation after Pachirisu. I can understand why they gave her more Pokemon besides Axew. There weren't a lot of Dragon Pokemon introduced in the fifth generation, so that did limit what kind of Pokemon Iris could promote, but it still would have made much more sense if Iris had been a new trainer instead of suddenly making her this special gifted trainer out of nowhere.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

A small thing, but I feel that it's an interesting missed opportunity that Ash and Misty never used the Fast Balls they got from Kurt, or that Brock never used his Heavy Ball. I was secretly hoping that since the Apricorn Balls made a return in the Generation VII games that maybe, just maybe, they'd have Ash finally use his Fast Ball on something, but at least so far it doesn't seem to be the case. And considering that most (if not all) references to Ash's past during the Sun & Moon series have been focusing on his season 1 adventures, my hopes of those any of those unused Apricorn Balls being used to catch something other than dust is withering away pretty quickly.

 

[SinnohEevee]

I'm not sure if this has been discussed on this thread already, but I'm pretty sure that all of you by now are familiar with one of, if not the biggest case of "What Could've Been" in the history of the Pokémon anime: the GS Ball.

We all know how the story goes: after the Indigo League, Professor Oak asks Ash to travel to Orange Islands to get a strange Poké Ball from Professor Ivy. Ash gets the Ball, travels through the Orange Islands with it and, after winning the Orange League, returns to Kanto so that Professor Oak could study it. He does so, but can't figure it out, and he asks Ash to deliver the GS Ball to the Johtonian Poké Ball expert Kurt. After a short while, the group reaches Azalea Town and gives the ball to Kurt, who agrees to study it.

And that's it. That's the end of the story, sure, the GS Ball was mentioned in an episode or two afterwards, but we never, never got a payoff for the dozens of episodes worth of buildup! The mystery remained unsolved for years, until it was revealed that the GS Ball was supposed to have contained a Celebi, which would've eventually emerged from the ball and travel with the group for a while.

But NOPE! Instead, they decided to make Celebi star in the fourth movie, and decided to throw this carefully and passionately built-up plot point down the drain and hope the fans would just forget about it.

Spoiler

Just... How naive can one be?! They seriously expected the fans to forget the thing that they had spent dozens of episodes of looking at and wondering the purpose of?!

And considering I've seen several more or less negative reviews of Pokémon 4Ever, I've come to think that the producers of the Pokémon anime made a huge blunder in doing this maneuver. Years later, we got something similar with Meloetta, but I'm not sure if it was as good as what the intended Celebi arc would've been.

They said kids will forget about it.
Idk if they think kids are dumb or something.

Couldn't they have brought back the GS Ball during the movie?

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Couldn't they have brought back the GS Ball during the movie?

I doubt it. Movies tend to be a part of their own continuity.

 

[Hidden Mew]

They said kids will forget about it.
Idk if they think kids are dumb or something.

While I don't like their assumption that kids will forget about the plot point either, I don't think that necessarily means that they think kids are stupid. It was a plot point that hadn't been mentioned for about two years or so. The idea that kids could have forgotten about it within that amount of time isn't unreasonable.

I doubt it. Movies tend to be a part of their own continuity.

Aside from the Victini movie, I Choose You and the upcoming movie, the Pokemon movies are still part of the anime's continuity. They rarely mention the movies' events in the series, but there aren't any contradictions within most of the movies to where they couldn't fit somewhere within their respective series.

 

[matt0044]

I'm not sure if this has been discussed on this thread already, but I'm pretty sure that all of you by now are familiar with one of, if not the biggest case of "What Could've Been" in the history of the Pokémon anime: the GS Ball.

I feel like they could've incorporated it into 4ever if Celebi was to be the star. That's another missed opportunity for the movies to be more definitively in canon with the series while being stand alone entities. It's tricky but not impossible.

Like we start the movie with Kurt directing them where they need to good and the story takes off from there. Basically, adapt the planned arc into a movie.

 

[Mikuri]

I don't know exactly how long it takes to develop a Pokémon game, but I'm pretty sure Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire were already in the works when Serena learned about Pokémon Showcases. The writers knew that Pokémon Contests would be back and yet they chose to ignore a competition from the games that they beautifully adapted to the TV screen in favor of creating a "new" one that didn't work so well. That, to me, was a huge missed opportunity.

I knew from Shauna's explanation in XY040 (Day Three Blockbusters!) that Pokémon Showcases would be bad, and everything after that only confirmed my thoughts. This time, I won't be commenting on the absurdity that was preventing male Trainers from entering the competition. I have detailed time and again how this was a stupid move and anyone who has read the review threads for XY episodes knows my opinion on the matter. Instead I'll focus on the writers' inability to make a good arc for the series' female lead.

As if having to wait 40 episodes for Serena to find something to do with her life wasn't enough, the writers delayed her debut as a Performer and we had to sit through another large amount of episodes before we finally got to see Serena competing in a Pokémon Showcase in XY060 (A Showcase Debut!). After her debut, Serena would not compete again until XY080 (Performing with Fiery Charm!). One would think that there was a trend; every 20 episodes we would get a Pokémon Showcase episode, right? Wrong. There are only two episodes separating Serena's third Princess Key and her participation in the Master Class, which concluded in XY113 (Performing a Pathway to the Future!). This is bad pacing, especially for a three-year series like XY.

Now help me out here because I'm not very good at math. Considering that Serena's Showcase arc began in XY040 and ended in XY113, lasting only 73 episodes, and that the XY series has a total of 140 episodes, am I right in saying that we have as much episodes of Serena being a useless cast member as we have of Serena working towards her goal?

Again, bad pacing, and I think this is important to note because there were people saying the writers didn't have enough room to make a Pokémon Contest arc for Serena, even though May's Kanto Contest arc was done in less than 60 episodes. But enough about this. Let's talk about the competition itself, starting with the Theme Performances.

Oh, the Theme Performances. They were bad, and worse of all, the writers knew they were bad, so much so that they were excluded from the Master Class. At the beginning I had a problem with how these performances revolved around the Performers more so than the Pokémon. I mean, there was a theme in which the Pokémon handed ingredients and kitchen utensils to the Performers. After a while, however, I noticed that the writers were running out of ideas for Theme Performances, and this made me hate the Theme Performances even more.

We had two themes dedicated to baking Poké Puffs, the difference being that in one of them the Performers baked three Poké Puffs for a panel of judges to taste, while in the other they had to bake just one Poké Puff while dancing and present the Poké Puff to the audience, which would vote on whichever looked tastier? Awful. Then we had a theme in which Performers had to drag Rhyhorn from one side of the stage to another. What is the connection between dragging Rhyhorn and the performing arts? None, it doesn't exist. Wanna know why? It's because the writers weren't developing themes for a well-planned concept like Pokémon Contests, they were tailoring these themes to Serena.

Serena had already been shown to be good at baking Poké Puffs before Pokémon Showcases were introduced, and she had something special about her that naturally made Rhyhorn gravitate around her. Meanwhile, the Pokévision videos, which were initially linked to Pokémon Showcases as Aria switched from being a YouTuber to becoming Kalos Queen, were completely ignored. The writers could have shown the Performers acting in a video, and acting is actually one of the performing arts, but they completely ignored that just so they could handle Serena another Princess Key.

Sadly, the Freestyle Performances weren't much better. Serena's performances were very repetitive and so were Shauna's. Jessie was the only Performer who would develop a new performance from one competition to another, and she was handled horribly. To this day we don't know how she got two of her three Princess Keys, while back in the Diamond & Pearl series we saw how she got each one of her five Contest Ribbons. But we should consider ourselves lucky to see these repetitive performances because it wasn't uncommon for the writers to cut them short in favor of showstopping scenes like Eevee frightened under a chair.

This brings us to another low point of Pokémon Showcases: they were boring. There was no real tension between Serena and her rivals, the Theme Performances were uninteresting and had little to do with the Pokémon, and the Freestyle Performances were repetitive. What to do to remedy this? Add drama, of course. Important haircut? Done! Pet goes missing? Also done! The writers couldn't entertain the audience with Pokémon Showcase proceedings alone, so they resorted to drama. I'm not against these tropes, but the way they were executed here was cheap to say the least.

All this because the writers refused to bring back Pokémon Contests, something that worked like magic for two whole series. To this day they haven't managed to make a more interesting career for the female lead to pursue. While this is very sad, it's even more so in a series that could have benefited from Pokémon Contests being present in the games during that generation. The writers have wasted a lot of opportunities over the years, as many pointed out in this thread, but ignoring Pokémon Contests during the XY series was particularly painful to me.

And don't forget the slap in the face that was Serena moving to Hoenn to compete in Pokémon Contests at the end when she should have been a Coordinator from the start.

 

[matt0044]

I always wondered why the female leads are never shown winning on-screen. Ash's journey has to be dragged out but the girls are each only around for ONE saga.

 

[MarshiyanMisutaa]

And that's it. That's the end of the story, sure, the GS Ball was mentioned in an episode or two afterwards, but we never, never got a payoff for the dozens of episodes worth of buildup! The mystery remained unsolved for years, until it was revealed that the GS Ball was supposed to have contained a Celebi, which would've eventually emerged from the ball and travel with the group for a while.

I previously stated some of my doubts about that interview, still, it's interesting that we still don't know what's really inside of GS Ball. In Pokemon Crystal, when you place the ball in Serebii's shrine, a Serebii is summoned, but it's not actually came out of the ball and you need another ball to catch it.

I don't know exactly how long it takes to develop a Pokémon game, but I'm pretty sure Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire were already in the works when Serena learned about Pokémon Showcases. The writers knew that Pokémon Contests would be back and yet they chose to ignore a competition from the games that they beautifully adapted to the TV screen in favor of creating a "new" one that didn't work so well. That, to me, was a huge missed opportunity.

Interestingly Pokemon Showcases seems to be based on Pokemon Musicals from BW games, which is a replacement of Pokemon Contests from the games.

Now help me out here because I'm not very good at math. Considering that Serena's Showcase arc began in XY040 and ended in XY113, lasting only 73 episodes, and that the XY series has a total of 140 episodes, am I right in saying that we have as much episodes of Serena being a useless cast member as we have of Serena working towards her goal?

I think problem is that they never really cared about her goal, because her true goal was something else...

Spoiler

 

[SinnohEevee]

I previously stated some of my doubts about that interview, still, it's interesting that we still don't know what's really inside of GS Ball. In Pokemon Crystal, when you place the ball in Serebii's shrine, a Serebii is summoned, but it's not actually came out of the ball and you need another ball to catch it.

Interestingly Pokemon Showcases seems to be based on Pokemon Musicals from BW games, which is a replacement of Pokemon Contests from the games.

I think problem is that they never really cared about her goal, because her true goal was something else...

Spoiler

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You can catch Joe Merrick in Crystal?

Well, I don't see any reason to doubt this interview, considering all the sh*t this show pulls out. And I don't see any other reason why the GS Ball simply disappeared (they didn't even bother trying to tie it to the movie). They acted as if it never existed thinking "dumb" kids will easily forget about it (which is ironic, as that seems to have made it more memorable).

 

[matt0044]

There's a missed opportunity with the GS ball, having it lead into the 4th movie and basing their plans for an Celebi arc for a movie version of them. I feel like having the movie tie into the main TV series more deprives them of a lot of opportunities to expand on characters and events too. I'd get people hyped when the GS Ball we've been building up turned out to be getting its own movie. Ticket sales would go through the roof.

 

[Almonds]

Eh, they could have made the GS Ball into something else that ties with the movie. Like, it doesn't have to be Celebi - or any pokemon. They could have made it something like a lost gift intended for Oak from a friend 50 years ago . It could be just a gift ball that was locked.

 

[ZDaemon09]

The entire Unova Saga was a missed opportunity.

Also they should have made a Sinnoh Battle Frontier season if only to give some of Ash's Sinnoh pokemon time to shine/ redeem themselves, much like the Battle Frontier Season during Gen 3 that done that to Ash's Johto pokemon!

 

[MarshiyanMisutaa]

Hikari should have defeat her main rival.

 

[SinnohEevee]

Hikari should have defeat her main rival.

Especially considering Dawn/Hikari isn't meant to stick around for more than one generation.