Movie 1

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Movie 1

Movie Stats:

Japanese Movie #1: "Myuutsu no Gyakushuu" ("Myuutsu Strikes Back")
American Movie #1: "Mewtwo Strikes Back"
Japanese Air Date: July 18th, 1998
American Air Date: November 10th, 1999
Important Characters: Boija (???), Umio (???), Sweet (???), Sorao (???)
Important Places: New Island (New Island)

Myuutsu, a pokemon angry at the circumstances of its birth, decides to fight back at the humans who created it. It holds a tournament on its island to pit the original pokemon against their clones to see which one is superior. Satoshi is one of the trainers invited to the island, and he, along with Kasumi and Takeshi, travel to the island to face the super pokemon. Myuutsu proves itself to be extremely powerful, and decides that the originals are inferior to its clones. So it captures everyone's pokemon to make superior copies. Satoshi destroys Myuutsu's cloning machine and is about to face Myuutsu when Myuu comes to the scene. After witnessing a long fight, Satoshi tries to stop it by throwing himself in the middle. Satoshi is "killed," and the other pokemon unite to revive the young trainer. Myuutsu decides that the circumstances of one's birth isn't what's important and decides that it should just celebrate the fact that it has life. Myuutsu leaves the island with its copies and transports all the other trainers back to the mainland, their memories of the recent events erased.

Thoughts
Here is the infamous first movie dub. All over this site and others, the opinion that "this dub is horrible" has been stated over and over and over. Well, while rewatching it for this comparison (this was only my second time watching the dub), I find that I have even more disgust toward it than I did those years ago when I first saw it in theatres. It's the worst Pokemon dub ever, and it made the most money of any Pokemon dub. The fact that it took me 30 minutes and a sheet of college ruled paper filled with notes (without skipping lines!) to get from the beginning of the movie to the title screen should give you an idea of how bad this is. If you've never seen the Japanese version of this movie, take a few minutes (and it will take that long) to see why everyone's been bitching about this constantly. After reading everything below, you'll either a) see the horrors of the dub, or b) think I have no life and should stop overanalyzing every minute detail of a kids' movie. Either way, I believe that this is the most complete scene-by-scene analysis on the Internet, and I hope you find some interesting info.

There are a large amount of Video Edits, all of which are listed here. I've received several e-mails saying that these were done by the Japanese producers, not 4Kids, so it isn't really fair to put them in with the rest of the edits done by 4Kids.

Myuu and Kairyuu keep their Japanese voices.

Script
The script is rather bad. If I went through and listed every difference between the Japanese script and the American one, I'd be typing out the transcript of the entire movie. I'm not kidding. A few times, they got the gist of what was said, but a lot of what was said was ad-libbed, dumbed-down, or just altered for no known reason.

Music Edit
The soundtrack is changed for this movie like it was for the accompanying mini-movie. Again, the music isn't terrible, but as with "Pikachu's Summer Vacation," the original Japanese soundtrack would have been preferred. The vocal songs are rather bad, but I'll get to them as the comparison progresses. One thing that bothered me was that the Japanese movie had lots of silence, but the American movie had almost none. I think it's good that there WAS silence in the American movie, but the entire first scene up to the destruction of the lab had no background music. No music really does add to the mood sometimes.

Dialogue Edit
The opening scene in the Japanese version has Myuutsu asking itself who it is, where it came from, and all those other questions it asks itself about a million times in this movie. The American version has some random narrator talking about "Life, the great miracle, and the great mystery." Not only that, but the narrator's LOUD. Compared to the quite voice of the Japanese Myuutsu asking itself questions, the narrator's shouting really gets this movie off to a bad start.

Sound Effect Edit
When Myuutsu breaks free from its test tube, the dubbers added an alarm noise to the background that wasn't there in the Japanese version. No idea why.

Bad Dialogue
Thank you 4Kids for pointing out the obvious:

Dr. Fuji: "Let us hear its psychic powers."

The sad thing is, I read several critics point out the "bad animation" in the movie, commenting that "the animators were too lazy to move Mewtwo's mouth when he speaks." Um...yeah...

Dialogue Edit
Not once in the dub do they say the word "God." Mewtwo never asks if it was created by God in the dub because you can't say "God" in kids' cartoons. The conversation loses a lot by the exclusion of the "God" question.

Dialogue Edit
Giovanni tells Mewtwo that he'll help the pokemon gain control of its powers, suggesting that its powers are out of control. No such suggestion is made in the Japanese original--Myuutsu has complete control over its powers.

Title Screen
I just wanted to say how much cooler the Japanese title screen is than the American one. It's also done by computers, but the camera goes through the letters like a maze until the camera zooms out and reveals the title. The dub title just kind of appears with no flair whatsoever.

They actually could have used the Japanese title screen, as the English title "Mewtwo Strikes Back" appears on the Japanese title screen alongside the Japanese letters. But then they'd have to expose kids to Japanese words! Anything but that!!!

Side Note
The pirate trainer guy who challenges Satoshi to a battle is really funny in the Japanese version, and the main reason is his voice. He is voiced by Raymond Johnson, the American guy in Suzukisan! He's the guy who says "Imakuni? Kobayashi? Raymond? (me?) Such a strange combination! Who are we!? A super unit sensation! Suzukisaaaa~n! It's Showtime!" in the song Torikaekko PURIIZU. Almost everything the pirate says in the Japanese version is in English, and what he says in Japanese has a really heavy American accent (Raymond is from Boston, by the way). It's something the dubbers really couldn't reproduce.

On the dub side, he's given a standard American voice, but his lines are almost dead-on translations. So there is some good out of this movie.

Music Edit
A version of Pokemon Theme plays during the opening credits instead of Mezase Pokemon MASUTAA '98, but that was to be expected. I like the movie version of the American song better, for some reason.

During the opening theme, when Satoshi's pokemon win, you can see his mouth move, but you don't hear him talking. In the dub, we can hear Ash. I guess 4Kids thought it would freak kids out too much to see Ash's mouth move without sound coming out of it.

Video Edit
This one's strange. In the American version of the OP, we see Machamp come out of its Poke Ball, and then the animation is repeated. So we see Machamp come out of its Poke Ball twice. But in the Japanese version, we only see Kairikii come out of its Monster Ball once. The animation isn't looped again. So I'm thinking "Well, maybe 4Kids repeated the footage in the dub to make the video long enough to fit the new song." But then in the very next scene, 4Kids makes a series of cuts at the part where Ash throws his Poke Ball to release Squirtle. They cut off seconds from the end of each shot-the shot of Ash throwing the Poke Ball, the shot of the Poke Ball in the air shooting Squirtle out, and the shot of Squirtle landing on the ground.

So 4Kids added seconds to the opening by repeating the animation of Machamp coming out, but then took away seconds from the shots of Squirtle coming out? They couldn't have made done any of this to lengthen the song, because they took away as much footage as they added. I'm confused o_O

Sound Edit
In the Japanese version, we don't hear Pikachu at all when it releases its attack at the end of the song.

Dialogue Edit
In one of the funniest lines in all of Pocket Monsters, the pirate trainer says, in English, "Oh my God!" But the G-word isn't allowed in the dub, so it's changed to "Oh no!"

Music Edit--but it's a good one!
The whole "Dragonite Theme" is very similar to the Japanese version. Kairyuu had its own musical theme in the original, and Dragonite has its own song in the dub. Also, just like in the Japanese version, its theme is cut short when Team Rocket stops it. So 4Kids recreated that part of the Japanese version for the dub--I just wish they had done it more often.

Dialogue Edit
In the Japanese version, no one in the Pokemon Center says a word until Satoshi-tachi enters. But people sure are talking up a storm (get it...talking up a storm? I'll stop now...) in the dub. Actually, it's probably more realistic to think that there would be a commotion before Ash and everyone else arrives, so I see where the dub's coming from.

Dialogue Edit
The dubbed Boija makes up some legend about "the water of their tears" reviving people back to life, yadda yadda yadda. There is no such "legend" in the original, just talk about how Boija has lived on the pier all her life and that the storm is the most fierce one she's ever seen. The "legend" was added most likely to explain the crying scene at the end of the movie to the dumb little kids.

Sound Effect Edit
4Kids took away the noise of the oars hitting Team Rocket's boat. Originally, throughout the whole boat scene, you hear this "tunk...tunk...tunk..." noise, but you don't hear that noise at all in the dubbed version.

Bad Dialogue
This one was just uncalled for:

Brock: "I didn't know Vikings still existed."
Ash: "They mostly live in Minnesota."

Ha ha ha...American sports reference...ha ha ha...you sure are funny, 4Kids.

Sound Effect Edit
When Mew's flying around, 4Kids added this funky sound effect every time it swoops around. But it's only at this point of the movie, so I wonder what changed their mind.

Pokemon Mis-identification: #01
Now this is just lazy editing:

Dubbed Sorao: "Hurricane winds are a breeze for Pidgeotto here."

Even if you ignore the horrible pun, there's no excuse for that line. Even the dumbest 9-year old knows that the pokemon he's petting is Pidgeot, not Pidgeotto.

Voice Edit
The part when the cloning computer comes on and tells Musashi-tachi about the lab exploding and all that is a bit different in the Japanese version. First of all, Fuji-Hakase is narrating the whole time--it doesn't switch from some random femme-bot to Dr. Fuji the way it does in the dub. Also, the dub cleans the audio up considerably--in the Japanese version, the voice sounds distorted and staticy, as if the audio recorder was malfunctioning (and if you think about it, it makes sense-the lab's being destroyed. Of course the voice recorder won't be working at 100%). The dub's computer sounds like it was recorded yesterday in a sound booth.

Tape Edit
This really doesn't have anything to do with a change in the actual movie, but more of a change that occurred when the movie went to video. The Japanese video is presented in letterbox format, while the dub video is presented in...non-letterbox. Which means they go in and adjust the video to fit on a TV screen by cutting off the edges. A lot of people, myself included, don't like non-letterbox presentations because it feels like you're only getting part of the picture.

Well, here's a change made because the movie's not in letterbox format. First, Misty says "Can't Charizard move any faster!?" during Charizard's fight with the Charizard clone. At this point, Brock can't be seen because the left side had to be chopped off to fit the movie on a TV screen. Well, Brock has the next line, and the people in charge of transferring the movie from film to VHS decided that they didn't want Brock to talk off-camera. So, while Brock says "The clone is too fast!", the camera shifts from being focused on the right side of the screen where Brock can't be seen to being focused on the left side of the screen, where he can be seen. This doesn't happen in the Japanese VHS because it's presented in letterbox format and the whole scene fits on the TV screen all at once. It just looks rather jerky, switching around like that.

Pokemon Mis-identification: #02
Twice in one movie!? Wow, 4Kids is really on the ball with this one! This time, Team Rocket mis-identifies Scyther as Alakazam. Needless to say, this mistake doesn't occur in the Japanese version.

Pokemon Mis-identification: #03
This happens shortly after the second mis-identification--when a Sandslash comes out of the cloning tube thing, Meowth calls it a Sandshrew. Thanks to Kenneth-san for pointing this out to me.

Dialogue Edit
More of that "dumbing down Myuutsu" thing going on. This occurs when Myuutsu sees the explosion from its cloning machine.

Myuutsu: "What's happened here?"
Mewtwo: "Behold. With pokemon and humans eliminated, the clones shall inherit the world."

4Kids had to drive home that whole "I just want to take over Earth" thing they had going on for Mewtwo. Lines like this one really cheapens Mewtwo.

Dialogue Edit
They looooove explaining every minute plot detail to the stupid kiddies out there:

Mewtwo: "I will block all the pokemon's special abilities using my psychic powers. Now we shall see who triumphs."

Myuutsu never says that it's the one who's blocked all the pokemon's special abilities in the original. It's pretty much assumed. But they have to dumb this movie down for us dumb Americans, right?

Music Edit
The most awful, evil, vile, horrific, (insert insulting adjective here) song EVER to come out of the dub is played during the fight scene: Brother My Brother. First of all, it's not a great song to begin with. But to play that song during the movie's CLIMAX!? When there was only INSTRUMENTAL music in the Japanese original!? And then they play the song very softly in the background, so softly that it might as well not even be there. I mean really, what's the point of adding a vocal song when you can't hear half the words the singer's saying? To sell more soundtracks? Must be, because they need ALL the help they can get selling that pile of...*Ahem*

Dialogue Edit
There's this whole "anti-fighting" message going on in the dub which many movie critics jumped on as "hypocritical" and "unneeded." And they're right--these people are pokemon trainers, people who make their pokemon battle one another on an almost daily basis. That's like having a Jewish vegetarian going to a BBQ and eating all the pork chops in sight.

The whole message was added by the dubbers to make the movie more preachy. Good job, you've succeeded! Not that that's a good thing...

Dialogue Edit
This time, we get a really bad line from Misty:

Brock: "I don't think they'll ever stop. Those pokemon look like they're ready to fight to the death."
Misty: "That's a fight...that nobody's going to win."

Thank you Misty for that public service announcement. The whole conversation in the Japanese version was talking about how when one animal invades the territory of another animal, it doesn't give up until it's driven the trespasser away. And then everyone expresses fear that the pokemon will never give up, resulting in their deaths.

Dialogue Edit
Lots of people seem to bring this one up, so I will too. When Satoshi is "dead," Pikachu repeatedly tries shocking him back to life. Kasumi says "Pikachu..." while Misty says "Please no." Lots of people like the dubbed line better and see it as "an improvement." I really don't see why everyone brings THIS particular change up, because it's really minor, especially considering the other changes made throughout the movie...

Dialogue Edit
This one's rather nit-picky, but we don't hear the pokemon in the Japanese version as they're carried away by Myuutsu. In the dub we do.

A Good Point 2!
They kept the kanji on the Exit sign outside the pier! Yay! Keep it up! Of course, since it's an international pier, having signs written in a bunch of different languages isn't too far-fetched.

Music Edit
And the ending theme's different, but what'd you expect? 4Kids decided to go with the "have the entire soundtrack go by in two minutes" deal rather than sticking with one song for the end. The Japanese version used Kaze to'issho ni. It's really pretty, it isn't super-poppy, and it fits the theme of the movie rather well.

Final Thoughts
Most of our guests today haven't shown that level of commitment, and until they do, what we see here aren't relationships, but rather long dates...oh wait, not THAT kind of "Final Thought." Um...what more can I say? This movie fared the worst of all the movies. Luckily, 4Kids gets better with time, but at this point it's pretty bad. All I can say is that I'm glad the TV series turned out better...

Return to episode comparisons

Mini-Movie "Pikachu's Vacation"

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