The Blue Pengiun's Palace

[flowerfun]

Well, hello there. Welcome to my blog, this is basically a place where I vomit a bunch of random things whenever I'm bored. Here I'll talk about random tv shows or games I played/watched, as well as some pokemon related stuff, and maybe some small analysis of some things. So uh...ya, don't be an asshole here and have fun reading this series of entries by a Piplup simp. Well...when I start posting them anyway. Ok, bye!

 

[flowerfun]

Blog #1: Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction is painfully mid

So, about I month ago I watched the pokemon movie Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction, after stumbling into a trailer for the movie I got interested in it. Especially since it teased a Yvealtal vs Xerneas battle, and more about the legendaries, which was cool since we never really saw them in the XY series, plus the movie was more XY anime-related content so I decided to sit down and watch the movie.

I was...disappointed to say the least, the movie's first 40 minutes were so fucking boring, all that happens is that Ash, Serena, Bonnie, Clemont and Diance just go around traveling at random places and pretty much nothing happens until the second half where it gets a little bit interesting with the rising stakes but then we get to an underwhelming ass climax. Ya know that cool-ass Yvealtal vs Xerneas battle that the trailers showed? Well, that trailer was false advertising because in the actual movie, instead of the battle that the trailers showed we get...a glorified starring contest.

The characters were also...eh. Diance was actually a good addition, I like her whole arc and development she went through, but she's the only truly good character here. The XY gang weren't awful, their interactions with Diancie were nice but...they felt like they were there for the ride. Team Rocket had absolutely no reason to be in this movie, they contribute absolutely nothing to the plot except for being the 4th party that's after Diance. You can remove them from the plot and basically nothing would change.

Then there are the new villains the movie introduces, and I forgot all of their names. Why? Because they are not interesting in any way. They are just paper-thin shallow and forgettable villains with nothing interesting going on with them. The water ninja guy and the fire lady get a random forced romance at the end of the movie which...why? This was never built up and comes out of nowhere, and the green glasses-wearing girl initially looks like she's a good guy because she helps Diance escape from Team Rocket, however, it is later revealed that she is a villain who also wants to steal Diance and wait for the perfect opportunity to take her and- WAIT A MINUTE WHY DIDN'T SHE JUST IMMEDIATELY CAPTURE DIANCE WHEN SHE TOOK HER OUT FROM TEAM ROCKET?!?!? Nobody was around, she could have easily taken Diance to her ship that her dad runs after she takes Diance away from the shed team rocket was in. Wow, this villain is an idiot.

So anyways, Diance and the Cocoon of Destruction is a painfully mediocre movie. I felt bored throughout it and after watching it I was disappointed. This was actually the first pokemon movie I've ever watched, probably not a good pick.

Score:
5/10

 

[InfiniteBakuphoon]

From someone who’s watched most of the movies myself… no, that was probably not a good pick, haha. But through no fault of your own, though! It’s just that this movie should’ve been at least been decent, at least by Pokémon standards, and yet even by that standard, it wasn’t (in my opinion, of course). I certainly wouldn’t call it the worst Pokémon movie ever — a certain other “region starter” movie comes to mind (side-eyes Unova) — but I’d certainly put it in my personal bottom ten. “Mid”, in the truest, least memed-out sense of the word, is probably the most accurate way to describe how I myself feel about this movie, for many of the same reasons that you describe here. While I also happen to agree that Diancie, with her charming and often hilariously “polite” — but not “pushover” — personality and her sympathetic enough motivations, is easily the one of the best parts — if not the best part — of the movie, saving it from what would’ve otherwise been complete disaster (although, unlike you, I actually think that Team Rocket’s big scene with her also contributed to the movie not being a complete disaster, as I feel that it’s the single most hilarious and genuinely entertaining scene in the entire movie!).

As for how it all turned out this way, I’d put it down, above all things, to the series’ long-term movie writer at that point in time — Hideki Sonoda — simply running out of ideas, which I suppose tends to happen when you’ve been writing these things for over twelve years without pause. He’s normally a very imaginative writer, having come up with the likes of Altomare, LaRousse City, and Aura among other things, as well as some of the movies’ better-executed villains (like Annie and Oakley, Butler, and Grings Kodai, as well as “no real villains” like with the Deoxys and Lucario movies). On the other hand, he’s not always the best plotter (looking at you, Deoxys movie climax, and nearly all of the DP movie “trilogy”, too), has also written some of the movies’ worst-executed villains (like Phantom, Zero, and Damon oof), and managed to goof up a critical part of Takeshi Shudo’s original screenplay for the Entei movie (albeit under unknown circumstances; how much did they really communicate with each other?). That said, I think that, at his best, Sonoda is one of the anime’s better writers, perhaps just under the likes of Atsuhiro Tomioka (considered by many to be the best one).

Speaking of Tomioka, I think that it was probably best that he took the reins for the movies after this, as I feel that the fresh blood in the veins of the movies helped a lot with things, especially given, well… if you’re planning on watching the rest of the Kalos movies and don’t want your opinion to be influenced by mine, then I suggest refraining from hearing from what I have to say. But if you don’t mind…

…then I can say that his presence is really felt in Hoopa and Volcanion movies. In a good way, especially given that the Hoopa movie is otherwise not particularly good, while the Volcanion movie is… kind of a rollercoaster in quality, or at least might give you mixed feelings; when it’s good, it’s really and surprisingly good, but when it’s not, it’s frustratingly “just OK”. Like, with the Volcanion movie especially, there’s a lot of potential for greatness there, and I think that it does capitalize on it with Volcanion and Magearna’s relationship, which probably the main thing that makes me care about what happens in this movie (especially given the surprisingly visceral hell that the latter goes through), reminding me a lot of the more purposefully and noticeably character-driven focus of the XY series — which Tomioka was the head writer of — that gave said series a real sense of emotional stakes and humanity (compared to, say, some of Sonoda’s lesser contributions to the movie canon where characterization and motivations sometimes just seeming to breeze by). This even extends to Volcanion’s relationship with Ash, being convincing enough to make you almost forget that it’s all very “seen it all before” territory for this series (almost). Yet other elements, like Kimia and Raleigh, the whole “Mega Wave” thing, and Serena, Clemont, and Bonnie’s entire existence (Clemont especially, in a movie revolving around machines!?), are painfully underbaked and/or underutilized, reminding me more of the movies’ general recurring pattern, under close scrutiny at least, of being either “mid” or “so close, yet so far”.

As for as the Hoopa movie goes, I don’t remember as much about that one, but I do remember that they Tomioka had something pretty good going on with Hoopa’s backstory, with plenty of opportunities to explore the nature of power and the responsibility that comes with it, especially in the hands of a Pokémon as naive and arguably rather spoiled and selfish as Hoopa. The problem was that they decided to pretty much cut off said character development to make way for the extended Legendary Pokémon battle royale that dominates the film from that point forward (one that wasn’t particularly worth it, in my opinion, and that’s before we even begin to get into the question of continuity). By the time the film returns to focus to Hoopa as a character, rather than a mere force of nature and plot device to bring about said battle royale, at the very end, things are resolved rather too easily and neatly, in an unearned sort of way, as there’s simply no time left for anything else to happen. Disappointing, but even so, the mere fact that there was potential there showed hope for Tomioka’s worth as movie writer, a hope that I felt was justified, albeit only partially so, with the Volcanion movie and its own earnest, and slightly more successful, attempt at telling a decently-told Pokémon movie story.