#spell of the unown

[moonlit-ripples]

top 10 little girls who have never done anything wrong ever

[slutpoppers]

Zubat vs Flaffy - Brock vs Molly ->

Pokemon Movie 3 Entei - Spell of the Unown (2000)

[skull-pun]

This opening completely altered my brain chemistry as a kid and I've never been the same since.

[cyndaquilism]

[otakuman-san]

Molly Hale in the Ruins of Alph

[motoressagrados]

Pokémon 3: The Movie – Spell of the Unown: Entei (2000)

劇場版ポケットモンスター 結晶塔の帝王 ENTEI

directed by Kunihiko Yuyama

[scribz-ag24]

i rewatched Spell of the Unown today and. Huh. Molly is an... interesting candidate for Pokémon's best antagonist.

[bluecube92]

Same Voice Actor #8

[insurguitor]

Just finished watching Pokemon 3 Spell of the Unown and hhhhhholy shit Entei is such a good dad? Like he has no clue how he got there or why this child is calling him papa but damn is he going to do such a good job at it

AND HE LOOKS AT HER WITH SUCH ADORATION IN HIS EYES LIKE???

GOD HE LOVES THAT CHILD SO MUCH-

[illuminatedbackbone]

Artist: Luna_mokamoka

[pokemonlezbian]

Original tiger electronics 1999 Pokédex!

And lenticular 3D holo promo chip from the legends of the unown Pokémon 3 movie

[melanovia]

Pokémon 3 the Movie: Spell of the Unown (2000)

[yourknifemyside]

"On the outside, the battles might be hard… but the friends are real!"

#1. Pokémon 3: The Movie (2000) 🔁

I wasn't intending to start the year off with a rewatch of something, but sometimes the opportunity just sneaks up on you! A friend of mine happened to ask if I wanted to watch it, and I was like "hell yeah." I haven’t seen too many of the Pokemon movies, but for my money, this one clears the rest on that short list. I've long said this one is the best because it "has themes", but there's definitely more to it than that!

Easiest place to start: this movie looks fantastic. Though I didn't really grow up with it, I'm super nostalgic for the visuals of the early gen Pokemon anime. This is pretty much just that visual style slapped on the big screen, with even nicer animation, and you'll never catch me complaining about that. More specifically, the locale is checking all the boxes for me. In those wideshots of Greenfield you get the most beautiful contrast between its tall mountains, lush rolling hills, and the elephant-in-the-room giant flowery castle of ice that appears to have uprooted things. The spaces inside of Molly's castle are the other clear highlight, from her crystal-y princess bedroom, to the battlefield where she fights Brock. I can't get enough of that pink sky, that's gotta be my favorite little area in the whole film.

Something that really caught me on rewatch is just how well paced this movie is? This thing doesn't even clock in over 75 minutes long, and the pace is pretty brisk, but at no point does it ever really feel like it's rushing to get from Point A to Point B. At least for like, the first two thirds of it, there's a nice balance between letting its plot develop and not wasting time hanging around, things just keep moving at a natural pace. It's especially noticeable here because we really don't spend that much of the movie on Pokemon battles, it's a lot of travelling places and talking, but it never really gets boring or starts to drag. Again, the first two thirds of it, at least. When we do get battles, they're really fun! Honestly, they aren't as bombastic as maybe you'd expect them to be for the movies, and they're all pretty short. But, they break up the pace at the exact right times, and what they lack in spectacle, they more than make up for in character.

I think the movie starts to get a little wonky in the back third. There really isn't much actually wrong with it, it just starts losing my attention around here. Which is insane, because you'd think an eight minute long fight between Entei and Charizard would be the hypest shit on the planet, but its honestly the slowest part of the movie for me, which is a damn shame. I also feel like the movie just kinda... ends? Things are resolved sure, but this is the one part of the movie that really feels like they're rushing you out the door. I think this thing could've taken like five minutes off of the Charizard fight and put them into a more fleshed out, fuller-feeling ending, and it may have been better off for it. This is definitely the weakest stretch of the movie to me, which is a shame, because it also contains probably my favorite part of the whole thing, wedged right between the fight and the rushed ending (we'll get to it in a sec.)

Something unique about this movie compared to a lot of its peers is that it really isn't all that much about Pokemon. Of course, they’re all over the place, and they're doing stuff, and they inject a lot of charm into every scene, but they really aren’t what the movie is about. For example, Entei has a sweet role as an imaginary surrogate dad, but between him and Molly, he only becomes the focus when it’s time for action. The Unown are a hugely important piece to the plot too, but again, they’re much more a collective force of nature than they are important characters. It’s just surprising how human this “Pokemon Movie” is, but I think that's why it works so well!

Ash, Misty, and Brock are here! There's really not too much to say about them, since they're pretty much exactly how you'd expect them to be, which is fine by me. I think the standout character of the returning cast from the show is easily Ash's Mom, Delia. For someone who is otherwise a pretty nonexistent character, I really really love her role in this movie as... an actual character! There's a shocking amount of tension when she appears on screen after getting captured, like she knows giving up her facade could be a dangerous mistake. Her interactions with a certain five year old girl are also a great middle ground between sweet and tragic. I would not have expected her to be the most exciting one to watch out of all the preexisting characters, but I'm pleasantly surprised to see it. As for the characters original to the movie, Lisa, the trainer Ash fights during the opening credits, is pretty cool, but let's not beat around the bush—the standout is very clear here.

Why is this five year old the most compelling character to come out of this entire franchise... Molly Hale and her story are the highlight of this whole thing, and is where the "themes" come in. This kid's story is of the dangers in retreating too deep into escapism to deal with immense grief. I really like this exploration of how a scared, lonely, traumatized kid would use these sudden magic powers to further shut herself out from a difficult and painful reality. I like, in the face of all the fantastical elements at play in the Pokemon world, how realistic it ultimately is for her to act as she does throughout the whole movie.

I also appreciate how the movie makes a very large point of how unsustainable and dangerous it can be to continue handling her grief in the way that she does. It keeps her safe and comfortable for a while, but eventually becomes too much to uphold and begins to collapse in on itself. Molly's initial refusal to leave her castle and faux family behind, puts her at risk as the Unown's powers start going out of control. It wasn't until she finally chose to let go and persist in the face of her trauma, to continue to live and to desire reality, that her and everybody else could be saved. Her realization that there's so much more out there for her, and her decision to chase after it despite how much the world has taken from her, is my favorite part of the movie, and it really resonates for me.

I’ve seen some people take issue with the ending—as in, the very, very end during the credits, saying Molly’s reconnection with her father and especially her mother kinda tanks the impact of her story’s resolution. In a way I get where they’re coming from, but I think that line of thought kinda misses the forest for the trees. Her resolution is much more about the choice to move forward and continue living, which she makes fully uncertain either of her parents will ever return. Molly realized that what she really wanted was still out there all along, outside of the monument she built to her sorrow. And it's real. She just had to choose to keep living in order to have it. Sure, precious few of us will ever have the same fairy-tale ending to our story that she got, but what we do get is the choice to persevere, the choice to let our dreams push us forward towards a better reality, rather than cage us in place.

That's what I always take away from this movie, and that theme resonates a lot more than I would've expected it to. At the end of the day, sure, it's still a Pokemon movie, it's not the deepest thing in the world, written by the quill of a true auteur... but was it really trying to be? It's just a sweet, charming, heartfelt little movie, with a real sweet emotional core and impactful message tying it all together.

"I want things real again."

7 / 10 MVP: Molly Hale

Watched on Jan 6th, 2025

[torchu212]

Pokemon Movie Brain Blast

You know this scene in the credits of Spell of the Unown (M03)? In case you don't know, that woman is Molly Hale's mother. According to Takeshi Shudo (OG head writer), he asked for a copy of the final draft of the script, and it turned out the explanation was she was in the hospital for the entire movie. Shudo was not happy.

This was a very personal story to him, written with aspects of his own life in mind (Molly's Japanese name is Me, after Shudo's own daughter, and her mother was intended to be dead like his own). But as production went on, he was in no condition (he even landed in the hospital himself!) and eventually no mood to continue writing, so he asked fellow series writer and father Hideki Sonoda to take his stead. For most of the movie, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. This scene, however, became a major sticking point for Shudo as well as numerous fans for betraying the original intentions behind the story and Molly's character.

...But what if I told you that the dub fixed EVERYTHING about it?

On the DVD commentary for Mewtwo Strikes Back (M01), Michael Haigney (English writer/director) and Norman J. Grossfeld (English writer/producer) talk a bit how certain lines were added in an effort to explain things they felt didn't make sense in the original Japanese version. For example, the Tears of Life (pictured above) is set up as an old legend in the dub, while it goes unexplained in the Japanese version and both versions of MSB Evolution (M22).

In a similar vein (as explained on M03's own commentary), the dub implies that, rather than being dead, Mrs. Hale was also researching the Unown before being captured by them. While it was likely written with the short term in mind, this explanation not only fixes her sudden appearance in the ED, but also adds to the story in two major ways.

1: Molly having both of her parents be absentee Pokemon researchers taken away by the Unown allows the dub to maintain her initial loneliness and rationale without her mother dead and thus the ED contradicting the story. While it's further removed from the "dead mother" idea, it resolves the logical failing Sonoda introduced: "If Molly's mom was in the hospital the whole time, why didn't she visit her? Why have Entei kidnap Ash's mom?"

2: By having the explanation for Mrs. Hale's absence be that she was taken by the Unown much like Spencer would be in the movie's inciting incident, it adds a personal layer to why he's so feverishly researching them; not only to document their existence, but so he can find a way to bring his wife back, not unlike Dr. Fuji perfecting cloning to revive his daughter in M01's extended prologue, The Birth of Mewtwo.

Implying that Mrs. Hale went through a similar experience also makes it easy to infer that the Unown returned her to Molly as well. (Side note: This scene was originally part of the ED as well, but was moved up to take place right after Greenfield turns back to normal; another smart decision on the dub's part.)

Rewriting the story is frowned upon among the anime community, as it's often perceived as compromising the original vision and integrity. But Spell of the Unown already had it happen when Sonoda wrote the most controversial scene of the movie, a moment so opposed to Shudo's intent that he quit the series entirely not long after. This scene (and therefore, the entire story) was fixed because 4Kids were allowed to make the changes they did. They made a great movie even better, they held true to the themes and character, and they didn't even have to re-kill Mrs. Hale to do it.

[thaumana]

Molly Hale Pokémon battle screen (Commission)

[ether-gearhead]

Is it just me, or is Budding Expeditionist meant to be Sammy from the third movie? Meaning young Professor Oak, as a reminder.