Brief Summary
The video is a retrospective review of "Digimon: The Movie," comparing it to Pokémon, discussing its disjointed structure, and highlighting the humorous English dub. The review covers the movie's three distinct parts, their varying quality, and the behind-the-scenes issues that led to its creation.
- The movie is a compilation of three separate Digimon short films.
- The English dub is noted for its humor and changes to the original plot.
- The third part of the movie is considered the weakest due to its disjointed plot and forced inclusion.
Intro (Digimon VS. Pokemon)
The video introduces "Digimon: The Movie" as a childhood fever dream and addresses the common comparison to Pokémon. While Pokémon is a cultural phenomenon with games, toys, anime, and trading cards, Digimon is often seen as a ripoff. The speaker argues that the shows are different, with Digimon featuring a more compelling plot involving saving both the human and digital worlds. Digimon's evolutions are also considered cooler. Despite having Pokémon phases, the speaker was a big fan of Digimon and excited about the movie on VHS.
Angela Anaconda Ruined My Life
Before the movie, there's an episode of "Angela Anaconda" where the characters go to see the Digimon movie. The speaker believes this was to pad the runtime and finds it odd that this particular show was chosen. The speaker can't imagine kids being happy to see this before the Digimon movie. The speaker notes that the upcoming remaster of the movie will not include the "Angela Anaconda" episode, possibly due to copyright issues or its poor reception.
The Digirap
The video mentions the movie's theme song, "The DigiRap," but the speaker can't play it due to copyright.
Why They Made A Digimon Movie (Allegedly)
The movie is split into three parts that are loosely tied together, which wasn't the best idea. The Digimon people wanted their own movie after the Pokémon movie made $85 million at the US box office. Digimon didn't have a feature film to adapt, only three short films in different timelines. The writers only wanted to use the first two, but Saban contractually obligated them to make all three into a single film, which didn't do well at the box office and led to disputes with Saban and the Screen Actors Guild.
Part 1
The first part is a prequel short film about Tai and Kari's first encounter with Digimon. It starts with a narration from Kari, which gives a lot of information about the digital world, Digimon, the DigiDestined, and a kid named Willis. Willis is important in the third part of the movie but doesn't exist in the first two, so the dub rewrites the script to include him. The dub adds jokes. There's one Digimon battle reminiscent of Kaiju Godzilla fights.
Part 2
The second part is adapted from the short film "Our War Game" and is the speaker's favorite part of the movie. The English dub is a masterpiece. The plot involves a Digimon hatching on the internet and getting infected by a virus, causing problems with phone lines and internet data. The USA launches two nuclear missiles. The speaker loved the action and was hyped up by the battle. It has an innocent early 2000s depiction of the internet. Tai tries to get the team back together, but Kari is at a birthday party.
Part 3
The third part of the movie is the one the writers didn't want to include but were contractually obligated to. This part introduces Willis and his Digimon, Terriermon. Willis's other Digimon, Kokomon, gets infected by the same virus that infected Diaboromon because Willis created the virus. The movie shifts focus to the protagonists from season 2. The original DigiDestined had a bigger part in the original plot, where they disappeared and were abducted by Kokomon. Kari and T.K. are present but don't have much to do with the plot. The new trio gets to America with Yolie's uncles. Willis refuses to tell them why Kokomon is attacking them. The final battle involves everyone fighting Kokomon, and Kari brings Angemon. Angemon and Angewomon digivolve to their mega forms to become the keepers of the golden Digi-Eggs. The soundtrack includes "Only Sometimes They Come Back."
Saban VS SAG
Saban clashed with the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) over payment and residuals for the dubbing work. SAG argued that the dub deviated so much from the original plots that it was technically an original work.
Outro
The speaker concludes that while the movie didn't reach Pokémon's success, it was still fun to watch due to nostalgia and the humorous bad parts. The speaker recommends watching it, whether you're a newcomer or a long-time fan. The movie is getting a re-release from Discotek Media, who are remastering the original movie and redubbing the three original movies as separate entities.
