Pokemon 4Ever

The fourth Pokémon movie, Pokémon 4Eever: Celebi – Voice of the Forest was released in America in late 2002 by Miramax. Aired on Cartoon Network, Toon Disney also aired it five years later. Starring Veronica Taylor, Rachael Lillis, Eric Stuart, Maddie Blaustein, Tara Sands, and Dan Green, it grossed $28 million at the box office.

The forest guardian, Celebi, is chased by an unknown Pokémon poacher. But a young trainer, Sam, saves it and they travel through time to the present day. There, Ash, Misty, and Brock find and befriend him. However, the Team Rocket member Iron Mask Masked Marauder, plans to capture Celebi and overthrow Giovanni.

There’s quite a lot of things wrong with Pokémon 4Ever, even more so with the dub. About halfway through, I realized my error in watching the dub, which was produced by 4Kids Entertainment. But while the dub isn’t all that great, it’s definitely not the worst thing in the film.

It tries to bring about a message of the dangers of permanently wrestling the environment. It does this by killing off Celebi. Which is an important issue to tackle, but always needs to be done well. This message is rendered completely null and void by the use of a Deus ex Machina, where every iteration of Celebi from the beginning to the end of time just suddenly appear and revive it.

The film is also a mix of CGI and traditional animation. But while many other animated films have succeeded doing so in the past, this one doesn’t do it so well. Suicune and the weird monster thing that the brainwashed Celebi makes look very out of place.

On the other hand, the film does provide a nice twist. That the dub ruins by spelling out for the audience. 4Kids had the Japanese animators create additional scenes to do so as well, because kids apparently aren’t smart enough to put two and two together and figure out who Sam is without a scene that blatantly told them. I’ve done a little research, the Japanese film actually makes the hints quite nicely.

Tracy, Oak’s assistant, had two scenes that were removed in the dub version. He finds a sketchbook in Oak’s closet that has a sketch of a Pikachu sleeping next to a Celebi. Also, if the kids have seen this movie, then chances are they saw the second Pokemon movie, The Power of One, where Oak’s first name is shown to be Samuel. Calling back to a previous film along with the hints with Tracy are a great way to be subtle with a twist. But no, 4Kids had to have Oak close the sketchbook himself and make a comment on it after he let slip Sam’s name to the trio, even though they never told him his name. And they’re still clueless.

There is a humorous battle during the opening credits (aren’t there always). With this Australian kid named Dundee and his Croconaw though.

I wish I’d watched the original version.

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