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shamanicshayminDON'T MIND ME these are just thoughts swimming around my head. Might as well type it out.
My biggest problem with the movie was how friggin' useless Sheena was, especially when you had an interesting plot bit such as Damos & Arceus yet even that just wasn't well thought out. So how would I handle it if say, I had to write a manga adaptation of the Arceus movie, assuming I can draw and meet deadlines and all that jazz? :P Let's see...
- Sheena's still a major NPC, but she's not the SUPER SPESHUL PRIESTESS WHO CAN SEE INTO POKEYMANZ HARTZ!!1!1 before being completely upstaged by Damos. Hell, she's not even related to him as a descendant anymore. I mean, think about it. If a man betrayed Arceus, would you ask him to bear your kids? Even so, the Machina citizens are going to fucking hate you forever and shun you out of existence looooooooooooong before Professor Oak's grandparents are even born. So instead of being a priestess, Sheena works as a historian/archeologist/mythologist of her home city. She'll still maintain knowledge of the Sinnoh legends and the history of Machina. Basically, what's she's doing is she's trying to solve the riddle that plagued her home town for centuries: why did Damos betray Arceus?
Kevin doesn't exist, by the way. It's her alone.
- Dialga, Palkia and Giratina, after the previous two movies, aren't nearly asstupid hot-headed as they used to be. Since Ash ranted to Palkia at the end of Darkrai and all the life-saving going on with Giratina in Shaymin, this gives the dragon trio two whole movies to think about their actions. That maybe all this senseless RAEG and fighting isn't what it's cracked up be, 'cause hey, Ash, this kid. Palkia & Giratina have to have remembered Ash. So that leaves Dialga, who's basically been avoiding confrontation with Palkia & Giratina 'cause he's a stubborn bitch. At the beginning of the movie, cue the opening sermon from Ash that Dialga had coming to him since the end of the Darkrai movie and can't avoid forever: "Dialga, wtf do you think you're doing!? Can't you see what you've been doing to everyone? Look, even Palkia and Giratina think this is bullshit. They're tired of this! Aren't you too?" Dialga, who is ghsjkgjskg over it at first, reluctantly relents. Sheena asks, "Dude, how on earth could you negotiate with the legends like that?" Then she tells them that all three were made by the same god, Arceus, and that there was once a human who, just like that, could read into their hearts and calm them.
Longwinded, preachy and cheesy? Maybe. But it's better than just Sheena popping up, snapping her fingers, then all of a sudden, "HAY GUIZ WE'RE TOTALLY COOL NOW WISH YOU'D BEEN HERE IN ALAMOS HUH!? :DDD" I mean, come on. That's just cheap. Requires no characterization or growth, let alone sympathy, on the part of the Dragon Trio. Ugh.
- "IT'S NOT DAMOZS FAULT!!11! MARCUS MAD3 HIM DO IT!!11!1" Can't tiptoe out of this one, Pokemon writers. In my edition, Damos required no hypnotism. Betraying Arceus was his own conscious decision. Not to say he didn't wrangle with it, of course. Let's face it; throughout the movie, Arceus is shown as a big bastard. He's mean, violent, abrasive, and bears a goddamn grudge against a city where one man disrespected him a thousand years ago. Hardly the god that "lovingly shaped the Earth with its thousand arms." That's why I was always receptive of the few scenes where Arceus was soft-spoken and kind, since it's such a different side of him compared to the "RAIN SOME JUDGEMENT UPON THE HEADS OF OUR JUDGED ENEMIES!!1!1!" that you get 90% of the movie. On one hand, it's easy to see why Damos turned his back on Arceus. On the other, who would be a goddamn moron to not return the Jewel of Life to the most powerful fucking god in the cosmos? Especially if he saved your fucking town from destruction? That's another thing that heavily bothered me about this movie: why the hell did Marcus think it was a fucking good idea to NOT keep the promise with Arceus, especially since he was the one fucking responsible for revilitizing Machina due to the Power of Friendship TM?
Maybe at that point in time, people feared Arceus. All those comets and junk? Maybe they thought he was the one that caused them because he was angry with them. Damos turned out to be the one human witness who actually saw that Arceus was saving them so he came and saved Arceus in return. Damos turned out to be the first person who saw Arceus for what he was; a god, yes, but someone who loved and cared for them and in a way passed on his own image--his flaws as well as his virtues--onto humankind, reminding him how vulnerable he could be and how it ties to himself and his creations. But only Damos could see that. No doubt he's well liked in Machina due to the power of reading Pokemon's hearts, but Arceus? Whoa. Heavy stuff man. You have those ready to believe him at the drop of a hat and others who accuse him of abusing his power and that he's going to lead them all to ruin. Or hell, Arceus is a legendary. There's a chance no one would believe he's met him at all. :P But Machina is at that Ancient Greece sort of time period, so who knows.
One of the most fervant believers of the people, as opposed to Arceus, is Damos' friend Marcus. Think of it as kind of like Moses vs. Ramses, but not. Who should Damos place his faith in? Arceus or Machina? Marcus is convinced of the horrors that Arceus committed in the name of Judgement. That if he saw fit, Arceus would turn his back on Damos and his own creations if it fancied him (see: myths of the flood, the acts committed by jealous Greek gods, etc) and that he could get away with it because he is the Alpha Pokemon. In this light, Marcus is worried about the people. He cares about Machina and wants it to stay thriving, not just have Arceus dump them when he decides Damos isn't good enough for him anymore. We finally see where Marcus is coming from, as opposed to "Oh god, what a fucking moron." In a land where time ponies and space penises are ripping each other's throats while ignoring the walking wounded, it's not hard to conceptulize.
Which leads to another question: who would be a goddamn moron to betray Arceus when you're the only human companion he can trust? Maybe that's the thing. Maybe Damos IS the only human Arceus truly gives a damn about. If they've known each other long enough to be friends, Damos would see plenty of Arceus' ugly side up close. You know the part about reading Pokemon's hearts and how much more difficult it becomes the more irrational and angry a Pokemon gets? Precisely. Even with his diplomatic and understanding nature, Damos is only human, and he can do so much to reason with Arceus when he does get mad, especially if Arceus gets angry enough to hurt him. You know how we hit things when we're mad? Arceus could do something simple like smash a boulder and it'd scare the living fuck out of the Pokemon and people around him. When we're angry we don't always think, and Arceus gets backlash for this for his own strength.Yandere!Arceus? OH SHI-- Not a perfect explanation, but when you're tied between a struggling race and a finicky god, well... ("DIE HUMAN RACE!!!11! Oops, I'm sorry, that was your leg, was it? Let me heal it again. Forgive me, please...")
As it turned out, hell blows over and the people of Machina have their revenge against Arceus. Marcus dies due to Arceus's backlash. Damos realizes he made the wrong choice and feels absolutely terrible about it. He's sent to prison. The people turn their rage against Damos for his decision to curse their city and execute him.
Fast-Forward. Thanks to Dialga, Ash & Gang fuck up the timeline. :D
After meeting and arresting Ash and friends, Marcus himself decides that he can't trust Damos, so he throws his ex-friend into prison early. Ash & Gang see the man that doomed Machina torn, confused and vulnerable, which gives them plenty of time to talk. Being able to communicate his feelings with someone who knows Pokemon like he does, and from the future nonetheless, this clears Damos' head and he becomes fully resolved to stop the catastrophic results of his first plan and put things right. After talking to Sheena (more on that later) Marcus is 100% convinced Arceus needs to die in order to save Machina. Drama! Explosions! Kaboom! Arceus learns of Damos' idea to betray him and goes ballistic. Drama! Explosions! Kaboom! At the near cost of his life, Damos is able to reach Arceus with the combined efforts of Ash, Brock and Dawn before the three of them are wiped from history. Because of everything a boy and his Pikachu went through to save both him and the city, Arceus learns the divine power of forgiveness. Thanks to that, not only is Machina standing and Damos & Arceus still friends, but Marcus is given a second chance at life too. That, my friends, is why you see him alive at the end credits.
- Misc. stuff! Marcus takes an interest in Sheena since she claims to be a historian (or a scribe, as they might call it in those days) In being told of the destruction of Machina in a 1000 years, Marcus decides, "Yep. Arceus is going down." Way to go, Sheena. But let's drop her a line here. Instead of making her send the Jewel of Life to Arceus herself and really fuck up history, Marcus claims he'll do that himself. He shows her the staff and the jewel and puts the jewel inside. But wait! Sheena tells him. She knows there's a fake Jewel of Life. At the beginning of the movie, Arceus mashes a fake jewel offered in hopes of appeasing him and takes the real one for himself, saying Machina is screwed now that he's finally got his strength back (As opposed to the real jewel just lying around forgotten in some prehistoric kitchen Team Rocket discovered, but... yeah) The fake jewel is light-weight. Unbeknownist to Sheena, Marcus is carrying both, but only holds out the real one for her to see. Just to prove the authnicity further, he gives it to Sheena to hold and asks her how heavy it is.
...Okay, that sounds dirty. He puts it in the staff and switches it in the shadows when she's not looking.
Regarding the "legendary" figure and his "yellow partner?" Let's say Ash & Gang and everyone hadn't realized they'd be changing history yet. :P
I think WAY too much about crappy Pokemon movies. It's fun though! XD Boy oh boy I can't wait to reinstall Photoshop so I can work onPokeNikki my creepy Rise of Darkrai fangame again. ♥
My biggest problem with the movie was how friggin' useless Sheena was, especially when you had an interesting plot bit such as Damos & Arceus yet even that just wasn't well thought out. So how would I handle it if say, I had to write a manga adaptation of the Arceus movie, assuming I can draw and meet deadlines and all that jazz? :P Let's see...
- Sheena's still a major NPC, but she's not the SUPER SPESHUL PRIESTESS WHO CAN SEE INTO POKEYMANZ HARTZ!!1!1 before being completely upstaged by Damos. Hell, she's not even related to him as a descendant anymore. I mean, think about it. If a man betrayed Arceus, would you ask him to bear your kids? Even so, the Machina citizens are going to fucking hate you forever and shun you out of existence looooooooooooong before Professor Oak's grandparents are even born. So instead of being a priestess, Sheena works as a historian/archeologist/mythologist of her home city. She'll still maintain knowledge of the Sinnoh legends and the history of Machina. Basically, what's she's doing is she's trying to solve the riddle that plagued her home town for centuries: why did Damos betray Arceus?
Kevin doesn't exist, by the way. It's her alone.
- Dialga, Palkia and Giratina, after the previous two movies, aren't nearly as
Longwinded, preachy and cheesy? Maybe. But it's better than just Sheena popping up, snapping her fingers, then all of a sudden, "HAY GUIZ WE'RE TOTALLY COOL NOW WISH YOU'D BEEN HERE IN ALAMOS HUH!? :DDD" I mean, come on. That's just cheap. Requires no characterization or growth, let alone sympathy, on the part of the Dragon Trio. Ugh.
- "IT'S NOT DAMOZS FAULT!!11! MARCUS MAD3 HIM DO IT!!11!1" Can't tiptoe out of this one, Pokemon writers. In my edition, Damos required no hypnotism. Betraying Arceus was his own conscious decision. Not to say he didn't wrangle with it, of course. Let's face it; throughout the movie, Arceus is shown as a big bastard. He's mean, violent, abrasive, and bears a goddamn grudge against a city where one man disrespected him a thousand years ago. Hardly the god that "lovingly shaped the Earth with its thousand arms." That's why I was always receptive of the few scenes where Arceus was soft-spoken and kind, since it's such a different side of him compared to the "RAIN SOME JUDGEMENT UPON THE HEADS OF OUR JUDGED ENEMIES!!1!1!" that you get 90% of the movie. On one hand, it's easy to see why Damos turned his back on Arceus. On the other, who would be a goddamn moron to not return the Jewel of Life to the most powerful fucking god in the cosmos? Especially if he saved your fucking town from destruction? That's another thing that heavily bothered me about this movie: why the hell did Marcus think it was a fucking good idea to NOT keep the promise with Arceus, especially since he was the one fucking responsible for revilitizing Machina due to the Power of Friendship TM?
Maybe at that point in time, people feared Arceus. All those comets and junk? Maybe they thought he was the one that caused them because he was angry with them. Damos turned out to be the one human witness who actually saw that Arceus was saving them so he came and saved Arceus in return. Damos turned out to be the first person who saw Arceus for what he was; a god, yes, but someone who loved and cared for them and in a way passed on his own image--his flaws as well as his virtues--onto humankind, reminding him how vulnerable he could be and how it ties to himself and his creations. But only Damos could see that. No doubt he's well liked in Machina due to the power of reading Pokemon's hearts, but Arceus? Whoa. Heavy stuff man. You have those ready to believe him at the drop of a hat and others who accuse him of abusing his power and that he's going to lead them all to ruin. Or hell, Arceus is a legendary. There's a chance no one would believe he's met him at all. :P But Machina is at that Ancient Greece sort of time period, so who knows.
One of the most fervant believers of the people, as opposed to Arceus, is Damos' friend Marcus. Think of it as kind of like Moses vs. Ramses, but not. Who should Damos place his faith in? Arceus or Machina? Marcus is convinced of the horrors that Arceus committed in the name of Judgement. That if he saw fit, Arceus would turn his back on Damos and his own creations if it fancied him (see: myths of the flood, the acts committed by jealous Greek gods, etc) and that he could get away with it because he is the Alpha Pokemon. In this light, Marcus is worried about the people. He cares about Machina and wants it to stay thriving, not just have Arceus dump them when he decides Damos isn't good enough for him anymore. We finally see where Marcus is coming from, as opposed to "Oh god, what a fucking moron." In a land where time ponies and space penises are ripping each other's throats while ignoring the walking wounded, it's not hard to conceptulize.
Which leads to another question: who would be a goddamn moron to betray Arceus when you're the only human companion he can trust? Maybe that's the thing. Maybe Damos IS the only human Arceus truly gives a damn about. If they've known each other long enough to be friends, Damos would see plenty of Arceus' ugly side up close. You know the part about reading Pokemon's hearts and how much more difficult it becomes the more irrational and angry a Pokemon gets? Precisely. Even with his diplomatic and understanding nature, Damos is only human, and he can do so much to reason with Arceus when he does get mad, especially if Arceus gets angry enough to hurt him. You know how we hit things when we're mad? Arceus could do something simple like smash a boulder and it'd scare the living fuck out of the Pokemon and people around him. When we're angry we don't always think, and Arceus gets backlash for this for his own strength.
As it turned out, hell blows over and the people of Machina have their revenge against Arceus. Marcus dies due to Arceus's backlash. Damos realizes he made the wrong choice and feels absolutely terrible about it. He's sent to prison. The people turn their rage against Damos for his decision to curse their city and execute him.
Fast-Forward. Thanks to Dialga, Ash & Gang fuck up the timeline. :D
After meeting and arresting Ash and friends, Marcus himself decides that he can't trust Damos, so he throws his ex-friend into prison early. Ash & Gang see the man that doomed Machina torn, confused and vulnerable, which gives them plenty of time to talk. Being able to communicate his feelings with someone who knows Pokemon like he does, and from the future nonetheless, this clears Damos' head and he becomes fully resolved to stop the catastrophic results of his first plan and put things right. After talking to Sheena (more on that later) Marcus is 100% convinced Arceus needs to die in order to save Machina. Drama! Explosions! Kaboom! Arceus learns of Damos' idea to betray him and goes ballistic. Drama! Explosions! Kaboom! At the near cost of his life, Damos is able to reach Arceus with the combined efforts of Ash, Brock and Dawn before the three of them are wiped from history. Because of everything a boy and his Pikachu went through to save both him and the city, Arceus learns the divine power of forgiveness. Thanks to that, not only is Machina standing and Damos & Arceus still friends, but Marcus is given a second chance at life too. That, my friends, is why you see him alive at the end credits.
- Misc. stuff! Marcus takes an interest in Sheena since she claims to be a historian (or a scribe, as they might call it in those days) In being told of the destruction of Machina in a 1000 years, Marcus decides, "Yep. Arceus is going down." Way to go, Sheena. But let's drop her a line here. Instead of making her send the Jewel of Life to Arceus herself and really fuck up history, Marcus claims he'll do that himself. He shows her the staff and the jewel and puts the jewel inside. But wait! Sheena tells him. She knows there's a fake Jewel of Life. At the beginning of the movie, Arceus mashes a fake jewel offered in hopes of appeasing him and takes the real one for himself, saying Machina is screwed now that he's finally got his strength back (As opposed to the real jewel just lying around forgotten in some prehistoric kitchen Team Rocket discovered, but... yeah) The fake jewel is light-weight. Unbeknownist to Sheena, Marcus is carrying both, but only holds out the real one for her to see. Just to prove the authnicity further, he gives it to Sheena to hold and asks her how heavy it is.
...Okay, that sounds dirty. He puts it in the staff and switches it in the shadows when she's not looking.
Regarding the "legendary" figure and his "yellow partner?" Let's say Ash & Gang and everyone hadn't realized they'd be changing history yet. :P
I think WAY too much about crappy Pokemon movies. It's fun though! XD Boy oh boy I can't wait to reinstall Photoshop so I can work on
