We're the Planeteers! You can be one too! Cuz saving our planet is the thing to do!

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Captain Planet~
He's our hero~...

This article was gotten from www.myprimetime.com, a site trying to tell parents the "best way" to raise their kids. Here is, according to them, the best way to show your kids the dub of the second Pokemon movie.

Make Pokemon The Movie 2000 a Learning Experience
W. Blake Gray
08/01/00

Of course you're going to take your kid to see Pokemon The Movie 2000. You wouldn't deprive your kid of the experience, would you? Hey, you meanie, stifle that thought.

Once you realize you have to go, you might as well make the best of it by turning the flick into one of those magic parental moments: a learning experience. Here's how.

The plot of the main film (there's a short film beforehand) is simple, and not particularly different from most recent James Bond movies. In a nutshell, a bad guy wants to capture a powerful undersea Pokemon.

To lure it out of the ocean, he captures two other powerful ones whose absence causes the world's weather to go haywire. The Pokemon trainer Ash must save the planet by freeing these force-of-nature Pokemon from captivity.

The filmmakers don't make the effort to twist this plot into an environmental message. That's where you come in.

Start outside the cinema with the movie's poster, which reads, "This summer, one person can make all the difference." Ask your kid if he or she can make all the difference in saving the planet. Don't press it. Just plant the seed.

Then, on the way home, explain how vulnerable the world's weather really is to small changes in the environment. For example, explain how volcanic eruptions, like the one in Krakatoa in Indonesia in 1883, affect weather around the world by spreading a layer of ash in the air, cooling temperatures and damaging crops and even causing famine. Throw in that word "ash" and the kid will listen to anything.

You can segue from that into a talk about how the plastic rings that hold a 6-pack of soda can choke a seabird, and how maybe having fewer seabirds will lead to more or fewer of some other kind of animal. Or talk about how conserving paper might save a few trees that produce oxygen. Play it by ear.

The point is, whether the Pokemon creators intended it or not, the film is ripe for your re-interpretation on how your kid can make all the difference in saving the planet. Now that's $8.50 (plus popcorn, soda, candy and parking) well spent.

Heeheehee...Let's do what they suggest, shall we?

-Phase One: The Poster: "Hey junior, see this poster? It says 'The Power of One.' Now, forget all that crap your mother and I told you about teamwork, and plant a friggin' tree! Plant one or you will die a slow and painful death due to suffocation! And um...Pokemon rules!"

-Phase Two of the evil brainwashing scheme: Talking about volcanoes: "Now, the ash flying everywhere can cause temperatures to drop, damage crops, and famine." <sprays half a bottle of aerosal air fresherner into the air> "So this 'Ash' will kill us all." <starts burning trash outside> "Yep, one person CAN make a difference. Pokemon rules!"

-Phase Three: Choking birds: "Now son, see these cool, refreshing sodas that you're drinking? See the plastic rings holding the six-pack together? These rings can choke a bird like Pidgey, Pidgeotto, Pidgeot, Spearow, Fearow, and Ho-oh. So they may be refreshing now, but how good will they taste when you single-handedly cause the extinction of all bird pokemon everywhere! Pokemon rules!"

-Phase Three and a half: Endangered species: "Let's draw a picture. Now, suppose there are no more bird pokemon." <draws x's over the pictures of the bug pokemon on his son's giant pokemon poster with a permanent marker> "The absense of these birds could cause the extinction of other animals. What's your favorite pokemon?"

"Pikachu!" said the little kid.

"OK." <draws big x over Pikachu's picture> "Now there are no more Pikachu. You killed them all, son. Pokemon rules!"

-Conclusion: "Well son, what did you learn today?"

"That pokemon want us to save the world!"

"That's the spirit! Now let's toss all these barrels of toxic waste into the river before my boss at the nuclear plant catches me!"

Pocket Monsters was not created by me. It was created by Satoshi Tajiri and the crew at TV-Tokyo. Pokemon is (c) Game Freak, Nintendo, 4Kids Productions, Hasbro, Bandai, and a ton of other companies. When you have a popular anime like Pokemon, lots of people own it so it's impossible to list every company who owns a piece of Pokemon. No infringement of copyrights is meant by the creation of the web site. All images were gotten from official websites (Nintendo, TV-Tokyo, etc.) unless otherwise noted (I don't steal images from other sites!).