Review M12: Arceus and the Jewel of Life

[NyaChan]

At first I didn't like the way Arceus' voice sounded. It sounded to... I'm not sure on the right word, but kind of whiny. However, after he talked NORMALLY as we heard him in the past, I liked the voice. Arceus' rage voice just... just didn't suit him well. But so long as he wasn't rage fitting, it was pretty good.

Kevin took Brock's role as being COMPLETELY useless (at least Brock kinda did something... Kevin was stuck in present day lolfail). I liked Sheena, though her eyebrows began bothered me part way through the movie, they seemed to over 'detail' (not exactly the right word, but if you've seen it, you probably know what I'm talking about) her face, which really looked odd.

Overall I enjoyed it. Hated the mass of commercials stuffed into the thing, but overall it was enjoyable. Also still hate how they squish and mute the credits. *sighs* Would have liked to see the pictures/animations they had stuck in with the credits, buuut no one wants to actually WATCH credits or something. =3=

 

[Rocker32703]

Actually I thought it was because all electrical devices wouldn't work properly or whatever, but I don't remember the Deoxys Movie clearly. I think in this movie, it was a simple electronic device sent back in time, in which case it would work. Because I'm sure if you had a fully charged D.S. and traveled back in time it would work, sure you won't have Wi-fi, but the D.S. and the game would still work.

And also if anything those were "Hoenn" Pokeballs. Ash had "Sinnoh" Pokeballs in the Arceus movie.

That may be true, but a Poke-ball in effect won't work on it's own. Let's go with your DS example. The way the Poke-ball works is kind of like trading all of your Pokemon to a friend's game through the Wi-Fi connection. The Pokeball is just a transport. If the DS does not have a Wi-Fi connection, and all your Pokemon are on the other DS, then obviously you can't use them. So, yes, a Poke-ball will "work". It will sent the input command to send a message, asking for the Poke-binary-data and then to release it into a physical form. The psychic barrier Deoxys created reflected that computer message back to the ground, never reaching the Grid System.

A Poke-ball is a Poke-ball. And even if your theory was true, LaRousse City is in the Hoenn region.

 

[empoleon dynamite]

Since I can't be bothered arguing against that whole "Grid Theory", I'll just say Dialga, the creator of time, was probably able to transport these grids along with Ash and co without breaking a sweat.

 

[Nando]

That may be true, but a Poke-ball in effect won't work on it's own. Let's go with your DS example. The way the Poke-ball works is kind of like trading all of your Pokemon to a friend's game through the Wi-Fi connection. The Pokeball is just a transport. If the DS does not have a Wi-Fi connection, and all your Pokemon are on the other DS, then obviously you can't use them. So, yes, a Poke-ball will "work". It will sent the input command to send a message, asking for the Poke-binary-data and then to release it into a physical form. The psychic barrier Deoxys created reflected that computer message back to the ground, never reaching the Grid System.

A Poke-ball is a Poke-ball. And even if your theory was true, LaRousse City is in the Hoenn region.

I always thought that Deoxys's barrier interrupted electronics within the city, like how its brain waves shorted out all the electric devices it looked at.

 

[PokemonHero]

People, let's stop arguing about anime physics and talk about something else please. I already have to deal with plenty of crazy physics in real life...

Anyway, who else agrees that Croagunk may have had one of his most epic Poison Jabs ever?

 

[Rocker32703]

There is a difference between arguing and debating honest questions. But I'll stop.

*raises hand*

 

[Ino-Chan]

Eh, it was good, but not as good as 2000 imo. I thought they did a good job with Damon though, and I like that Alex look like he would sacrifice himself from that blast before it was interrupted.

Also, did they really kill off the ruler?

 

[Water Pokémon Master]

It just started here. Was the video frame cut off for you guys?

 

[Meowth]

...Cartoon Network cropped it.
This completely destroys the coolness of the movie. D:

 

[Flare Blitz]

Does the movie air again tommorow?

I missed it tonight.

 

[Meowth]

It's on again Sunday at 7pm, I think.

Edit- Er... never mind.

 

[PokemonHero]

It just started here. Was the video frame cut off for you guys?

It did say "HD where available" beforehand, but yeah, it was cropped. I ended up compensating by changing the aspect ratio on my TV. Still wasn't perfect, but looked a heck of a lot better.

 

[NyaChan]

It did say "HD where available" beforehand, but yeah, it was cropped. I ended up compensating by changing the aspect ratio on my TV. Still wasn't perfect, but looked a heck of a lot better.

They have an HD channel over on iO I know for sure. They should have just left the bars in honestly. The text being cut off in the beginning bothered me and I couldn't do a thing about it (at school, using school's TV connection, not to mention I only have a small standard definition TV).

 

[Cybersai]

Speaking strictly of the DP era movies:

12 > 10 > 11.

This was the best movie of the DP era so far. Movie 13 could be overall better though, but this movie was pretty good.

 

[Rocker32703]

I'll agree with that Scott. I didn't particularly like ANY of the latest movies, but this one was probably the best, with Darkrai being 2nd place.

 

[Steven]

This is how I rate the DP movies:

JPN: 12 > 10 > 11

Dub: 11 > 10 > 12

=/

"AR-KEE-US" ruined the entirety of movie 12's dub, ntm the full version of the opening at the beginning, which was the first time where I actually had to mute that part. I still can't believe they gave Damos Atem's voice actor..... *shakes head in disappointment*

 

[Lil Brother]

Ummm... yeah, I didn't like it. x.x

Of course the twerps just so happen to come across this town as... the water goes crazy for some reason... (was there an explination for that when I wasn't paying attention?). Oh, and btw, Arceus is about to awake and possibly erradicate humanity. On the same day Ash stops by town, just in time to save the universe. Again. Like, within an hour of him coming into town. Again. That goes along perfectly with the "Ash is naturally drawn to cataclysmic events in order to stop them" theory, but it still just feels so lazy in this instance in particular.

So Sheena can connect to the hearts of Pokémon and make them see others' viewpoints, Ranger-style. Great. How exactly does that explain her making Dialga her bitch and coming at her call? I did like that Giratina's been chasing after Dialga and (and presumably Palkia) this whole time, but then that got dropped with Sheena's showing off her powers. Oh wait, no, Giratina didn't really understand her, and is still on the offensive, which is sure to be important later on! Wait, scratch that too, it's just gonna pop up and understand everything even though Sheena gave every indication that that was not the case. 'Kay.

Did they mention where the Space-Time Monitor thingy came from? I'm gonna have to re-watch that scene carefully again. I remember them referencing the main universe (or world or whatever they called it), the Reverse World, Dialga's dimension, Palkia's dimension, and... I think they mentioned Arceus had its own little dimension? So where does the Unown dimension come in? Is the "space" between the dimensions where the Unown thrive, and when Dialga's and Palkia's dimensions came into contact, it brought some Unown along with them?

Alright, Sheena and Kevin were there watching Movies 10 and 11 unfold... were they aware of who the twerps are and what they've done? They didn't seem to go "Oh, hey, it's those kids!" but at the same time never asked why Giratina knew Ash. Yet the way Sheena brought up those events made it seem like she was aware of the twerps' presence. Did the kids tell them about their prior experiences at some point off-screen? Plus, seriously, they were there at the Flower Garden the whole time and didn't see and/or come up and talk to the people at the center of the event? So confused!

And that's not even getting into the absolute mess the time traveling caused. Honestly, it was every Butterfly Effect story ever but with far less sense than one would think possible. Where do you even begin with the plotholes here? o.o That bothered the crap out of me. Sure, with Dialga right there you can easily say "Oh, the timeline just corrects itself in order to avoid the universe imploding" but it was all just so illogical.

It's absolutely hilarious that after all the promotion for Pichu and all the fandom's speculation and rage over it, it did next to nothing and its ear is like that just because.

Okay, you know what? I love Piplup. There. I said it. It tries so hard to be Pikachu, and fails so utterly each and every time. They're totally using Piplup as a deconstruction of flawless mascot characters, and it's the most awesome thing ever. Screw all this "OMG Piplup gets too much focus!!!!!!" crap. No. Piplup rules.

Johto starters! ^^

I did like the touches about the past world:

-Knowing how Pokémon were treated and thought of before they were Pocket Monsters.

-I liked Damos's story with a story. It seemed a lot like something an epic would do; very fitting and clever. Even though CN's commercial breaks made it last forever.

-Arceus's capture involving cement is brilliant! Seriously, compare it to Movie 11: Giratina, a god, is captured and nearly killed by man's most advanced equipment: futuristic technology the likes of which reality will never know. And then in Movie 12: Arceus, an even more powerful god, is captured and nearly killed by what would be considered more high-tech at the time than it is today: cement. I thought it was pretty cool. Especially in the way it was introduced: as the mysterious "Silver Water", assumed by the audience as a fantastical substance with magical properties. And then when we see it, it appears as a majestic liquid, sure to be brewing up certain doom...! Oh, wait, it's just cement. And it works. I loved it.

-Marcus's motivation for being an antagonst actually existed, something we don't really see as much as we should. And it was a pretty clever motivation, too.

But yeah, at its core, it was just a run-of-the-mill "go back and change the past" story. Which would be fine, but I felt like it was lacking the strong characterization which makes Pokémon shine. Which would also be fine, if the Butterfly Effect plot was treated well and made sense, which it wasn't.

And something bugging me: those were supposed to be the plates, right? Um, didn't Saturn use those in the series? And didn't they look completely different? o.o;

So I'm gonna say 11 > 10 > 12. I've been pretty dissapointed with the DP movies so far; DP's been the one series so far where the episodes have been consistenly better than the movies. Hopefully, Movie 13, as a more stand-alone story, will fare better.

 

[dman_dustin]

Ummm... yeah, I didn't like it. x.x

Of course the twerps just so happen to come across this town as... the water goes crazy for some reason... (was there an explination for that when I wasn't paying attention?). Oh, and btw, Arceus is about to awake and possibly erradicate humanity. On the same day Ash stops by town, just in time to save the universe. Again. Like, within an hour of him coming into town. Again. That goes along perfectly with the "Ash is naturally drawn to cataclysmic events in order to stop them" theory, but it still just feels so lazy in this instance in particular.

Actually I have to disagree with you on that. Because you could use that logic for every movie plot and so forth. Like why was So-and so chosen to be a hero? If you go along that line of thinking and think about everything it gets annoying. Trust me I've thought about it, there is no real reason why these things happen other than it's the writers choice, since the writer is God, and wills it to happen.

So you pretty much have to ignore it, because it's not worth the headache.

 

[PokemonHero]

-Arceus being taken down involving cement is brilliant! Seriously, compare it to Movie 11: Giratina, a god, is captured and nearly killed by man's most advanced equipment: futuristic technology the likes of which reality will never know. And then in Movie 12: Arceus, an even more powerful god, is captured and nearly killed my what would be considering more high-tech at the time: cement. I thought it was pretty cool. Especially in the way it was introduced: as the mysterious "Silver Water", assumed by the audience as a fantastical substance with magical properties. And then when we see it, it appears as a majestic liquid, sure to be brewing up certain doom...! Oh, wait, it's just cement. And it works. I loved it.

They called it silver water (which mostly likely means it's molten silver). Or it could be cement. Still, it's quite a clever plan and Marcus' part. As soon as he learned of them coming from the future, he took advantage of Sheena's knowledge to use it against them.

And Lil Brother, were you not the one who suggested that Ash's aura could be the reason behind him always coming upon these events?

 

[Cybersai]

Of course the twerps just so happen to come across this town as... the water goes crazy for some reason... (was there an explination for that when I wasn't paying attention?). Oh, and btw, Arceus is about to awake and possibly erradicate humanity. On the same day Ash stops by town, just in time to save the universe. Again. Like, within an hour of him coming into town. Again.

Ash is just in the right place at the right time for every major movie story. In all cartoons, its common sense that the protagonists always happen to be in the same place where the big stories happen. This is not real life. This is no different than every other movie, or episode in the show where Ash just HAPPENS to help a filler character who has a problem the day Ash shows up.

So Sheena can connect to the hearts of Pokémon and make them see others' viewpoints, Ranger-style. Great. How exactly does that explain her making Dialga her bitch and coming at her call?

She's a descendent of the guy from the movie and has the powers to speak with them. That's good enough.

So Sheena and Kevin were there watching Movies 10 and 11 unfold... were they aware of who the twerps are and what they've done? They didn't seem to go "Oh, hey, it's those kids!" but at the same time never asked why Giratina knew Ash. And the way Sheena brought up those events made it seem like she was aware of the twerps' presence. Did the kids tell them about their prior experiences at some point off-screen?

They were probably focusing on what the legends were doing in the town, not the people stopping them. Although I agree they should have recognized them.

That bothered the crap out of me. Sure, with Dialga right there you can easily say "Oh, the timeline just corrects itself in order to avoid the universe imploding" but it was all just so illogical.

Why can't the timeline perfect itself? Although the main characters shouldn't have remembered what happens as they would have never been sent back in time in the first place if Arceus was never betrayed, otherwise I can't think of how it didn't make sense.

But yeah, at its core, it was just a run-of-the-mill "go back and change the past" story. Which would be fine, but I felt like it was lacking the strong characterization which makes Pokémon shine. Which would also be fine, if the Butterfly Effect plot was treated well and made sense, which it wasn't.

The movie characters were pretty well-defined, I can't see what characterization was needed. Arceus was betrayed due to the guy being hypnotized by Bronzon, blah blah, they correct a wrong.

So I'm gonna say 11 > 10 > 12. I've been pretty dissapointed with the DP movies so far; DP's been the one series so far where the episodes have been consistenly better than the movies. Hopefully, Movie 13, as a more stand-alone story, will fare better.

I disagree overall. I've liked the DP movies more than the Johto or AG movies. Movie 11 wasn't as good as the other two, but usually the "middle story" is never as good as the beginning or climax, only exception being the original Star Wars trilogy.