RetroPokeFan's Corner (Reviews and other tat)

[RetroPokeFan]

Fixed (animated film, Genndy Tartakovsky, Netflix/Sony Pictures Animation, 2025)
2/5

Nice to see Genndy Tartakovsky of Dexter's Laboratory and Samurai Jack fame getting to do a 2D animated film and it definitely looks really nice but I can't really say I found this to be funny.

It's not aggravatingly annoying like Sausage Party was but a lot of the jokes in this are just lowbrow arse and dick jokes that barely raised much of a chuckle and got old quite fast. Animated adult films are really gonna need to raise the bar higher than stuff like this because I can't say I'll be tickled to the seams if more stuff like this comes out. Terribly disappointing.

On the other hand though it did make for a very fun game of Spot the Voice Actors (Josh Keaton, Michelle Ruff, Frank Todaro, Daran Norris, Todd Haberkorn and Eric Bauza among those appearing).

 

[RetroPokeFan]

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater (video game, PlayStation/N64, Activision/Neversoft, 1999)
PlayStation version - 4/5
N64 version - 3/5

Great first entry in the series that not only shaped the future of skateboarding games (even if it did bring a couple of copycats) but succeeded in making Tony Hawk one of the biggest names in video-games around. Who knew that the Hawk man himself would be sitting besides characters like Mario, Crash Bandicoot, Lara Croft or Pikachu as a recognisable video-game icon?

It is slightly dated when you compare it to the later entries and the lack of any manuals and reverts can be quite jarring making things more limited but the levels are still really fun to go back to and the iconic music tracks have easily earned their place in history. Superman will forever be one of the tracks that remain in my head.

Fantastic stuff that would be easily improved by the second game to come.



Quite fun to check the N64 version out too and see how it fared compared to the other consoles.

The game itself is still Pro Skater at heart so it's quite fun although if you did have an N64 I'm sure it would have taken quite a bit of getting used to the console's controller since it doesn't feel as nice as it does on a PlayStation or even a Dreamcast.

On top of that the music has been massively cut down and truncated due to the N64's cartridge limitations which means it doesn't take long for it to get quite repetitive and tiring fast. A fun curiosity but I prefer sticking to the PlayStation version.

 

[RetroPokeFan]

Happy 5th anniversary to Arte's dub produced by Sound Cadence.

By this point the COVID pandemic was in full swing with everyone but this was one of the first big dubs that started what I call "The Remote Recording Era" of dubbing kicking off an array of dubs that utilised remote recording/casting and stacked with voice actors from different places (LA, NY, Texas, the UK, Canada and other countries)

The cast featured Felecia Angelle, Gianni Matragrano, Wayne Grayson, Lisa Ortiz, Erica Schroeder, Michael Sorich, Doug Erholtz, Nicholas Corda, Michelle Marie, Christopher Guerrero, Jonah Scott, Marissa Lenti (also voice director), Dorothy Elias-Fahn, Brendan Hunter, Cait Powers-Page, Alejandro Saab, Kai Jordan, Natalie Van Sistine and Ian Sinclair.

 

[RetroPokeFan]

The Wind in the Willows (animated film, Mark Hall/Chris Taylor, Cosgrove Hall, 1983)
4/5

Cosgrove Hall made some wonderful animated stuff back in the day and this is right up there as one of the best. A delightful stop-motion version of one of my favourite classic stories that's beautifully animated and speaking of someone up there as one of the best Toad voices in an adaptation - David Jason (of Only Fools and Horses fame) is so much fun in the role and perfectly portrays this crazy and entertaining character.

Never seen the TV series this would eventually get aside from one or two clips although I'll definitely give it a watch after how good this was. Richard Pearson voices Rat in this with Peter Sallis (Wallace and Gromit) taking over for the series.

 

[RetroPokeFan]

Paddington (film, Paul King, StudioCanal/Heyday Films, 2014)
5/5

I haven't seen Paddington for quite a long while now but what a treat it was to see it again and it's still just as brilliant as when I first saw it in cinemas years ago (before I stopped going to them).

Back then I can remember being a little skeptical at first going in thinking it might either be great or it could end up just being another butchery of an iconic character that so many other franchises have been victims of (looking at you Peter Rabbit and your smug James Corden-ass face).

Luckily I shouldn't have even doubted Paul King because this wonderfully captures the charm and the spirit of Michael Bond's books and Ben Whishaw makes for a perfect Paddington too. Also nice seeing Peter Capaldi in the cast as by this point he became the new Doctor in Doctor Who.

A beautiful giant bear-hug of a movie. Never seen the second one but I'm absolutely going to now with all the rave reviews.

 

[RetroPokeFan]

Definitely was a happy dude on Saturday because I managed to get the Thunderbirds 60th anniversary Blu-Ray set (from the folks at Anderson Entertainment) that I pre-ordered last year from Zavvi. It's been one of my most anticipated releases for a long while as this is the first time the entire series has been made available in its original 4:3 aspect ratio. The show had previously seen a Blu-Ray release by ITV (who owns the series) years ago which came under controversy due to them choosing to crop it into widescreen (stretching the image to fit widescreen TV's) and aside from one or two episodes being used by the now long gone Network for some Supermarionation compilations, the only way to see it in 4:3 was by importing a foreign release that had it that way (most notably Japan).

Needless to say I was absolutely ecstatic when the news came out they would be doing this release and not only that, they were also going to go the extra mile and even fix a few things that the other releases never did (hence why they delayed it from 2025 to this year). It's very clear they want this to be THE best possible release of the show so I was perfectly fine with them taking a little longer.

Now the set's in my Blu-Ray collection and it looks absolutely gorgeous on the shelf with the others. I believe it should now be available in various stores and it's also Region Free which means it will work on any Blu-Ray player.

 

[RetroPokeFan]

Hey there folks, today (and since the big 30th anniversary for the franchise is looming closer and closer) I'm gonna do something a little different than normal for this BulbBlog seeing how I mostly tend to use it for reviews...

I'm giving you Part 1 of a little history of sorts involving the Pokémon anime franchise and its incredibly erratic home video releases (as well a a brief look at its full home video history). The series has had quite a bit of luck in other countries like the US and Australia managing to get a lot of the show out on the likes of VHS, DVD and sometimes even Blu-Ray but yet here in the UK it's never fared that well even though it's been just as popular as those countries. Today the franchise hasn't had a physical release in the UK since the Manga Entertainment days before they were swallowed up by FUNimation (now Crunchyroll) but how did we get here?

How did we go from just getting the movies every now and then to nothing at all and just having to rely on TV airings/streaming services or importing the foreign releases? Well to find that answer out we need to go way back to the beginning... back to when the world was struck by Pokemania!



On September 7, 1998 the Pokémon anime made its American debut on syndication not with the very first episode but instead the 15th episode - Battle Aboard the St. Anne (an episode 4Kids chose since it was an action-packed one ending on a cliffhanger which could be used to drum up excitement). When the series properly began a day later on September 8 (a couple of weeks before the games themselves debuted), little did people know that the show would go on to be a massive success garnering decent ratings and spawning all sorts of different merchandise - plushies, action figures, storybooks, board games (including Monopoly), a cereal with Kelloggs... you name it and it probably had either Ash or Pikachu's face on it. As soon as the games were released the rest of course is history.

They went on to sell over 400 million copies worldwide, were very well received by critics and fully kicked off a franchise that still remains popular to this day. The anime would eventually move over to Kids WB (the block on The WB) part-way through its first season and become a major staple of the block, garnering very high ratings and countless airings of episodes and marathons. Kids WB would continue airing the show until Advanced Battle (4Kids's final season before TPCI or PUSA as they were once known as took over production) in 2006 where it would move to Cartoon Network starting with Battle Frontier (the first TPCI dub season which ironically was dubbed by TAJ Productions, they had been used by 4Kids after replacing Button Sounds NY up until they got their own in-house studio). It remained there for a long while until 2016 after XYZ and then moved to Disney XD until after the end of Sun & Moon: Ultra Legends before moving yet again to streaming service Netflix for Journeys where it now currently remains.


With the franchise garnering major attention from kids and fans, naturally they would want to watch Ash and Pikachu's adventures over and over again and what better way to do that than releasing the series on VHS (and the then still-new DVD)?

VIZ Media (which was founded on July 2, 1986) was put in charge of releasing the series on home-media with the first volume I Choose You! Pikachu seeing a release on December 13, 1998 containing the first three episodes of the show. The second and third volumes The Mystery of Mount Moon and The Sisters of Cerluean City were both released on March 9, 1999 and from then on it would see volumes being released at a steady pace. September 21, 1999 had the most releases of the Kanto era seeing Volumes 8-10 (Primeape Problems, Fashion Victims and Fighting Tournament) all coming out on the same date. Eventually by January 23, 2001 VIZ managed to wrap up the entirety of the Kanto series when the 26th and final volume Friends & Rivals was released.

VIZ then moved on to the Johto era starting with The Johto Journeys and the first volume for the series - A Brand New World which released on March 27, 2001. They ended up skipping the Orange Islands for some reason with that half having to wait until November 12, 2002 when it would be released across three volumes. So far it's pretty obvious that the folks at VIZ were doing pretty well with the series managing to release volumes on a daily basis but what about us UK folks?

Well, Pokemania didn't hit over here until a year later in 1999 when the games came out on October 5. However months and months before their release, the anime premiered on Sky One on March 29, 1999 with Sky airing the show at 9am in the mornings during the week. Sky would air seasons 1 to 7 before 4Kids signed a deal with Cartoon Network to air the show on their Toonami channel with it officially moving there by the eighth season (just before it would eventually became Cartoon Network Two after the channel started decaying in quality). They would continue airing older episodes until dropping the series entirely by 2008 after the channel went through a rebrand.

However most UK fans will recognise Pokémon easily by a little Saturday morning show CITV had called: SMTV Live.

Starting on August 29, 1998 this was THE show that really propelled Ant & Dec to massive stardom after their appearances on the BBC series Byker Grove (where they were known as PJ and Duncan) and hosting alongside Cat Deeley had a variety of different sketches, games, competitions and all sorts of other stuff including Wonkey Donkey, Chums (a parody of massively popular US sitcom Friends), Challenge Ant and of course - the Pokérap where Ant and Dec would act as rappers and rap out various names of different Pokémon alongside the Pokéfight in which they would fight using Pokémon that were named after moves they would use on each other leading to some hilarious and unexpected results.

SMTV was indeed THE Saturday morning show to watch and what helped kick off Pikachu's UK success story regularly attracting millions of viewers and beating the shit out of BBC's now utterly flailing Live & Kicking which declined in ratings thanks to SMTV and never recovered, being cancelled on September 15, 2001. Pokémon would also be aired by CITV themselves on weekdays, coincidentally with Digimon (Fox Kids's rival show) which is funny to think about now. Eventually though once Ant & Dec and then Cat left the series, SMTV's ratings started to drop as they scrambled to find new presenters to take over (including the likes of Brian Dowling, Tess Daly, Ian "H" Watkins and Stephen Mulhern). Pokémon stopped being shown by 2001 with GMTV (a former breakfast TV contractor for ITV) taking over to air new episodes although it would make a brief return in 2003. By that point the show became SMTV Gold which focused on showing highlights of the series and then it officially ended on December 27, 2003 after which it was replaced by Ministry of Mayhem. Ant and Dec would go on to continue being big ITV faves hosting the likes of Saturday Night Takeaway, I'm a Celebrity, Britain's Got Talent and a more recent show: Limitless Win.

As for our Pika chum, GMTV as mentioned before would take over airing the series with newer episodes up until the Advanced series when it became exclusive to both Sky and Cartoon Network. It would not return to CITV/GMTV until the Diamond & Pearl era where it would stay with CITV via the CITV Channel until the end of Sun & Moon when it was passed to POP for Journeys and then the BBC for Horizons where it airs on CBBC.



And I still haven't even mentioned the first VHS release for the anime itself yet in the UK. But now that I've got the origin story all wrapped up I can do so now because the very first release for us was via the movies: Pokémon the First Movie!

Released on July 18, 1998 the first ever Pokémon movie would go on to become a box office behemoth when brought over a year later by Warner Bros. on November 10, 1999 and in the UK on April 14, 2000. Debuting at Number One at the box office and grossing $10.1 million just on its opening day, it became not just the biggest opening for any animated film Warner Bros. released but also THE only anime film to top the US box office until 2021 when Tanjiro and his Demon Slayer pals finally kicked Mewtwo off his throne with Mugen Train grossing $47.7 million. It did really well in the UK too making £10.8 million.

Safe to say there was no stopping Pikachu and co even though the movie was very negatively received by critics, gaining a 16% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and even a few Stinkers awards, one of which was Worst Screen Debut (for all 151 Pokémon). Yes, even the ones that don't appear in the film at all. Ouch!

On March 21, 2000 the movie was released by Warner Home Video on VHS and DVD. This release included the Pikachu's Vacation short that was shown before the movie as well as an extra prologue before the start of the film, a preview of the next film Pokémon the Movie 2000 and an intro by Professor Oak for the VHS giving us a rundown of what's on the tape. It was a big hit earning $58.8 million and by 2007 sold 10 million units in the US.

Meanwhile in the UK it came out on October 23, 2000. Since there hadn't been any other releases of the show itself, this technically makes it the first ever Pokémon home media release for the UK (unless you count promotional tapes for there was one for the movie before its cinema release). It featured the same stuff as the US release but at the start of the UK VHS also featured a promo advertising the different Pokémon video games that were either out now or were about to be released, a short trailer for the upcoming Scooby Doo & The Alien Invaders and an advert for the Trading Card Game at the end of the tape. Not sure if there's any info on how well it did but I assume that it did pretty good.


With The First Movie being a major hit, Warner would eventually get the rights to release the TV series on VHS in the UK around the time they would release the second film but since I've already blabbered on quite a bit, we'll come back to that another time so join me next time when I cover the rest of Warner's time with the series whether it was the show itself or the two other movies that they released.

 

[RetroPokeFan]

Welcome to Part 2 of my look at the Pokémon anime and the history of UK home media releases. Last time I gave a little examination about how the show started in both the US and the UK, the beginning of its VHS/DVD releases and the first title the UK got which was The First Movie. Today we continue spending time with Bugs Bunny and the Warner crew as I go over all the other releases that they put out including the series itself.



We begin of course with the second film released by them: Pokémon the Movie 2000.

With the first film being a massive runaway success at the box office (even though critics didn't think the same) it was pretty much all but guaranteed that we would be seeing Ash and Pikachu up on the big screen again soon. In 1999, the second movie was released on July 17 and was titled Pocket Monsters the Movie: The Phantom Pokémon - Lugia's Explosive Birth. This was the first movie to focus on a legendary Pokémon that would appear in the upcoming next generation (though the Pikachu's Vacation short and the first movie also featured a few Johto Pokémon making their debut before the games released) which other movies in the future would do the same thing until Zoroark: Master of Illusions. It was also the only movie back then to not feature Brock in the main cast with newcomer Tracey taking his place during the Orange Islands series, he does however make a quick cameo.



The folks at Warner quickly snapped up the rights to release the film and did so on July 21, 2000 in the US with UK folks not getting the film until near the end of the year on December 22, 2000. Once again reception from critics was not great but it did fair slightly better than the first film did and has a 20% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (which was 4% higher). It again suffered the wrath of the Stinkers Bad Movie Awards being nominated for "Worst Achievement in Animation" and "The Remake or Sequel Nobody Was Clamouring For" but lost to its rival Digimon: The Movie (I wonder if Angela bloody sodding Anaconda had something to do with it).

It was also pretty successful at the box office, not quite as big as The First Movie was but managing to still make a profit for Warner earning $9,250,000 on its opening day and a final total of $43,758,684.

Pokémon the Movie 2000 was released on VHS and DVD in the US on November 14, 2000. The tape once again featured another Pikachu short and a sneak peak at the upcoming third movie whereas the DVD was a bit thin on the ground in terms of special features compared to The First Movie.


A year later on March 19, 2001 it was released in the UK and happens to be a bit of a nostalgic one for me. Yet again we had the short and sneak peek but in terms of trailers at the start it included the awful See Spot Run, The Little Vampire (which featured Jonathan Lipnicki from Stuart Little), My Dog Skip and a teaser trailer for the first Harry Potter film. Pokémon wise there was a trailer for the TV series on VHS (which I will finally get too in a moment) and two adverts for the Neo Genesis set for the trading card game. Even better and something that always sticks on my mind with the VHS, there was even a random Tom and Jerry cartoon short before the film started which wasn't mentioned anywhere on the cover: said short was Polka-Dot Puss from 1949 btw.


So needless to say I have some pretty fond memories of the VHS release but alas we are now finally getting to the real focus in question: the TV series itself on VHS.

Around the time of the movie gearing up for its home media release, Warner managed to get the rights to release the show as well and on February 12, 2001 the first and second volumes I Choose You! Pikachu and The Mystery of Mount Moon were released.

This time however unlike the movies it was VHS only with no DVD release, a bit of a contrast to VIZ's US release where it was released on both formats. These releases were very much exactly the same as the US version containing three episodes of the show and a short music video at the end. Trailer wise there isn't much to talk about - just the promo for the series and The Little Vampire again alongside Pokémon the Movie 2000 and the same trailer for Pokémon 3 at the end.

Volumes 3 and 4 would come out two months later on April 9, 2001 and then 5 and 6 on May 28, 2001. Again, the same opening but this time the Harry Potter teaser trailer was added in. June 18th, 2001 saw Volumes 7 and 8 and then July 16, 2001 for Volumes 9 and 10. This time the opening was different for 9 and 10 - it still had the trailer for Movie 2000, 3 and the series plus the Harry Potter teaser but The Little Vampire trailer was instead replaced by one for the little known Australian animated film The Magic Pudding (which featured John Cleese as said pudding in question).

Aaaaannnnnddddd that was it. Yep, I'm not even joking folks. This was all that Warner released of the show on VHS and they did not go any further afterwards (possibly due to poor sales I guess?).

Well kinda, they did release one more volume a year later on January 29, 2002 which was Volume 11: The Great Race however this was only made available as a promotional tape if you bought Mewtwo Returns via a boxset which included this as an extra. It is the only tape in the range that did not have Closed Captions support (seen at the start of all the tapes) or any trailers at the start (aside from the standard BBFC stuff) and it honestly ends on a bit of a poor note with the final episode us UK fans got on VHS being The Kangashan Kid, one of the worst episodes of the original Kanto run.

By this point not only had VIZ finished all of Indigo League but they were well into The Johto Journeys and would get round to releasing Orange Islands soon. Us British folks were embarrassingly far behind in comparison and Warner after releasing Volume 11 basically threw their hands up in the air and gave up. Granted though I don't think they would have been able to continue as soon as they dropped the series after the third film but this almost felt like an omen of sorts for the show.

An omen that it's gonna be sitting next to Sailor Moon as one cursed show that can't ever seem to be fully released, and one day it would even eventually surpass Sailor Moon.

Anyway join me next time as I finish off the Warner releases, have a peek at how the US was faring and then get into the Disney/Miramax days for the films.

 

[RetroPokeFan]

Hope you all enjoyed Pokémon Day and getting a nice sneak peek at the upcoming 10th generation coming out next year. Now I'm back with Part 3 of the UK history of Pokémon home media releases, finishing the Warner titles and then heading into the House of Mouse itself Disney (or technically Miramax).

We begin with another promotional tape that was given away - Pikachu's Winter Vacation. This consisted of the first two Winter Vacation specials which were produced in 1998 and 1999 with both containing two segments each. A third one was also made in 2000 but was never dubbed until years later in 2006 where it and the first special would be used as episodes for the spin-off series Chronicles.

This tape came out on October 8th 2001 and was given away free if you bought Pokémon 3: The Movie on VHS or DVD. In the US the two specials were released separately though not by VIZ and got a DVD release in 2004 by a budget company called Platinum Disc Corporation who were mostly known for releasing public domain titles and low budget films from the PM Entertainment library. Platinum Disc would eventually become Echo Bridge Home Entertainment in 2005.



And speaking of Pokémon 3, it's time to finally go over it in a little bit more detail.

Releasing in Japan on July 8, 2000 as Emperor of the Crystal Tower: ENTEI, Pokémon 3 would be the final Pokémon film to be distributed by Warner Bros who would not return to the franchise until years later for Detective Pikachu in 2019. Brock by this point also returned to the main team and would stay on until Zoroark: Master of Illusions after which he parted ways with Ash by the end of the Diamond and Pearl series.

In the US the movie came out on April 6, 2001 while in the UK it was on July 13, 2001. This movie ended up being the last one to see a UK cinema release for a very long time as once things passed over to Miramax, all future films in the series would go straight to video. US theatrical releases would limp on for a little longer before officially dying out with Heroes but more on that later.

Reception wise it was still mostly negative from critics although many did agree it had the best plot of the three. The Rotten Tomatoes rating is 20% which is the same rating that the prior movie had and this time it was not nominated for any Stinkers Bad Movie Awards (which ceased existing in 2007, the other more well-known bad movie awards show the Razzies is still around). I guess they long stopped caring about Pokémon by this point or had no idea this movie even existed.

It's amusing I say that because by this point Pokémon's popularity was starting to decline and it really showed with the box office gross for Pokémon 3. This was the least successful of the three movies Warner released opening at Number 4 and grossing $8,240,752 with it being beaten by Robert Rodriguez's Spy Kids at Number 1. It still made a profit grossing $17,052,128 while in the UK it made £713,823 making a full total of $70,157,342 but by this point Warner knew the writing was on the wall for the series and they dropped the film rights entirely leaving Ash and Pikachu without a home for their next movie adventure.


For the VHS and DVD it came out in the US on August 21, 2001 and on October 8, 2001 for the UK. Opening wise the UK release is not quite as memorable as Pokémon 2000 was - it featured that same bloody Harry Potter trailer I keep mentioning over and over, two commercials for the Neo Genesis set for the trading card game and trailers for The Wizard of Oz (which used a reissue trailer from the 50's) and the line of Mary Kate and Ashley VHS releases. No other extra material this time other than the movie itself and the Pikachu short, not even a sneak peak at the next film.



While the series continued being put out in the US, the UK titles pretty much had shrivelled up once Warner parted ways. They did release all three of their movies but the show itself wasn't lucky, only managing to get 11 volumes out before stopping entirely. There wouldn't be any further releases of the main anime itself for a very long while and from this point on (aside from Chronicles which I'll mention next time) all we got were the movies.

The next one being Pokémon 4Ever, the first movie in the series to be released by Miramax (formerly part of Disney but now owned by Paramount and beIN Media Group), previously owned by former film producer and now world renowned and utterly disgraced sex offender Harvey Weinstein and his brother Bob.

Released on July 7, 2001 in Japan as Celebi - A Timeless Encounter, 4Ever was the last movie that TAJ Productions would dub for 4Kids as by the time the next film came out 4Kids had their own recording studio which would be used from Master Quest up till the end of their run with Advanced Battle. TAJ ended up getting the last laugh though when they got the show back in Battle Frontier when PUSA took over although they would only dub that and the first Diamond and Pearl season before it was passed on to DuArt.

Miramax brought the rights to release the films for $1 million and giving up 75% of the profits. Harvey even stated that Miramax would "reinvigorate the franchise" and "come up with a bolder, smarter marketing".

And by that he apparently meant that the "bolder, smarter marketing" was by not really giving a shit, not even promoting the film at all and giving it a very small limited release in less theatres (only 249) than what Warner Bros did. After all, he's got countless other films he needs to get his scissors out for. They didn't call him Harvey "Scissors" Weinstein for nothing you know.

Needless to say 4Ever's release on October 11, 2002 was a complete disaster.

Whereas it did very well in Japan making $39 million the same could not be said for its US run. It opened at a very pathetic (as Paul would say) #18 at the box office where Celebi was completely trampled upon and squashed by the likes of Barbershop, Disney's own Signs, Tuck Everlasting and Sweet Home Alabama, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, The Tuxedo and the then #1 film Red Dragon until the poor little legendary was left as a lifeless corpse.

Even VeggieTales with Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie was making more money than Pokémon 4Ever!

By the end of its run it had made a very disappointing $1,727,447 officially confirming that the Pokémon brand was no longer the big box office behemoth it once was in its glory days.

It once again received negative reviews but this time around, the critics were more than happy to get their claws out and rip the whole thing to shreds. 4Ever was the worst rated film in the series since The First Movie with the Rotten Tomatoes rating being 16% (same rating as said first film) and their consensus basically stating that it was "Only for diehard Pokémon fans". Lawrence Van Gelder of the New York Times even saying that "When it comes to entertainment, children deserve better."

As for the UK, Miramax didn't even bother giving this a cinema release here probably knowing the fact it would have flopped just as hard as it did in the US making it the first movie to go straight to video. In the US it was first released on VHS and DVD on March 18, 2003 and has been re-released countless times over the years by Echo Bridge and then Paramount.

The UK got it on October 20, 2003 and trailers on the VHS included the upcoming Special Edition release of The Lion King, The Santa Clause 2, Kim Possible: The Secret Files, Disney's Winter Wonderland (a lazy compilation of footage from some Christmas related stuff), Stitch! The Movie (essentially the pilot for Lilo and Stitch: The Series) and Bionicle: Mask of Light. No promotion for any Pokémon related stuff unlike what Warner did.

Unfortunately for us we actually got kinda screwed a bit with the DVD release. The US release featured the Pikachu short Pikachu's PikaBoo but for whatever reason was completely omitted from the UK release and nowhere to be seen. Even the later re-releases by StudioCanal/Paramount never added it back in and they eventually removed all the special features entirely for later versions of this and the next film.



So 4Ever was a complete and total embarrassment at the box office, not helped by the clearly waning popularity of the show as people left Ash and co in the past and moved on to other things in life. Miramax though weren't too clearly phased by any of this and so a year later, they tried again with the next film Pokémon Heroes.

Yes it's not a UK tape but this'll have to do as I can't find any images of one released here.

Released on July 13, 2002 as Guardians of the Water City Latias and Latios, Heroes has become something of a fan-favourite with fans with many proclaiming it as one of the best films in the series. It's certainly a big favourite of mine (Latias is an adorable little thing) and I'd even go as far as saying that it beats The First Movie hands down. They even did some location scouting in Venice as inspiration for Alto Mare which is where the film takes place in and would do the same for a few other films every so often.

Unfortunately when it released in Japan it ended up being the first disappointing entry box office wise. It was going up against the big behemoth that was Star Wars: Episode II - I Don't Like Sand, It's Course and Rough and Irratating and It Gets Everywhere (Attack of the Clones) and needless to say it didn't stand much of a chance against George Lucas's bad dialogue and quicky fell to Number 9 making $27 million.

It still however fared much better than its US release on May 16, 2003 where it officially crashed and burned, becoming the worst performing entry by a huge margin.

And not only did it crash and burn, it was released in even less theatres than 4Ever being slashed to just 196.

And although it opened slightly higher at #17, that still wasn't anything to write home about and was completely wrecked by Daredevil, Chicago, Holes, Anger Management, The Lizzie McGuire Movie, X-Men 2 and the Number #1 film The Matrix Reloaded.

And not only was it destroyed by those hit movies, as soon as its very limited release ended it had only made an abysmal $756,381. That even makes it one of the worst performing movies based on ANY video game franchise.

And of course the reviews were as poor as ever, Rotten Tomatoes rating it 19% stating that the series "isn't getting any better."

It was official. The death knell had officially rang for Ash Ketchum and Pikachu's time on the big screen. They were once kings of the box office and raking in huge amounts of money but now had been utterly beaten and defeated by everyone else, like a Pokémon battle that just didn't go their way. Miramax and Disney had finally noticed no one was caring about these films anymore and thus made this the final film that would be released in theatres (at least until I Choose You in 2017 but even then it was still a limited release). Starting from the next movie, they would now be going straight to DVD and bypassing a theatrical release altogether.

Home media wise in the US it came out on January 20, 2004 and in the UK on April 26, 2004. While it saw a VHS release in the US it didn't seem to get one in the UK as I can't find any info or even images of a copy. The Pikachu short Camp Pikachu this time was kept for the UK release although later re-releases would omit this and the special features.


Well, that's a pretty depressing way to end this part of my post. We've seen Warner ditch the series and said series finding a new home with Miramax only for the official downward spiral to begin and the movies eventually going straight to video. And while the US would eventually get back on its feet again one way or another, things were only going to get more strange for us UK lot.

 

[RetroPokeFan]

It's that time again folks, time for Part 3 of the history of UK Pokémon home media releases. Last time we watched as the Pokémon film series fell from grace going from a box office behemoth to being sent straight to video and probably tucked near the 900 Disney direct to video sequels they were cranking out.

Now we continue our look at the movies which was pretty much near the only thing we were getting now and one little series that the US never got (and still haven't).


Before I do that though I'm turning the hands of time back for a few seconds to give a quick mention to a Warner release I forgot to cover - Mewtwo Returns.

This was a TV special that aired in Japan on December 30, 2000, notable for being one of the first Pokémon productions done fully digitally instead of cel animation and was eventually split up into three parts for reruns. Dan Green would take over voicing Mewtwo and would return to the rule for the remake of Mewtwo Strikes Back and the one episode of Journeys he appeared in. For the dub release it came out in the US on December 4, 2001 while it wasn't released here until a year later on January 29, 2002 making it the final Pokémon release by Warner (alongside Volume 11 of the series).

The DVD release also notably contained the first few minutes from the first movie that had been removed which explained Mewtwo's entire backstory. However this DVD only came out in the US and Australia, meaning this special was VHS only for UK fans. And Warner weren't rolling out the red carpet for this either as there is nothing else but the special itself on the tape aside from trailers for Harry bloody Potter for the 9000th time, Mary-Kate and Ashley again, Osmosis Jones and the upcoming live-action Scooby-Doo movie.


So we now shift over to the year 2005 and for the first time in ages the UK managed to get something that wouldn't see a release in the US - Pokémon Chronicles.

Chronicles was a spin-off series consisting of episodes from Shūkan Pokémon Hōsōkyoku (from 2002 to 2004) focusing on characters who had been with Ash or encountered him before (Misty, Brock, Ritchie, Gary, etc). It also contained two of the Pikachu's Winter Vacation specials including the 2000 special that had never been dubbed till now and The Legend of Thunder (the first piece of Pokémon anime media without Ash) which aired in Japan in 2001 and was split into three parts.

Contender Entertainment Group was the company who released the series. They were founded in 1994 by former HIT Entertainment employee Richard Bridgewood and originally focused on children's titles including the popular CITV series Art Attack and fellow anime shows Beyblade and Cardcaptors although they would release some adult titles including Farscape and The Avengers (no not those Avengers). Contender would become best known for two big preschool hits - Tractor Tom for CITV and Peppa Pig for Channel Five/Nick Jr with Peppa still being a major hit to this very day.

They would purchase Medusa Communications in 2004 and pick up two of their sub-labels Hong Kong Legends (which would release martial arts movies) and Premier Asia (specialsing in Hong Kong films).

In 2007 Contender was purchased by Canadian company Entertainment One with them being renamed to E1 Entertainment in 2009. E1 then purchased Alliance Films in 2013 which included Momentum Pictures (another fellow UK distributor) who would be folded into eOne before years later were brought by big toy company Hasbro. Eventually years later in 2023 Hasbro would close their theartical division and then sell eOne off to Lionsgate while keeping the children's assets including Peppa Pig to themselves. eOne would then be renamed to Lionsgate Canada effectially ending the eOne name for good.

Contender released some 4Kids titles back in the day but to be honest they were incredibly spotty at it especially with the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise. With the original series they were very slow at releasing volumes much the same way Warner were with Pokémon and they would eventually stop around Volumes 11 or12 after wrapping up Yugi vs Pegasus with GX not getting very far either. The UK would not see the rest of the original series on home media until Manga Entertainment picked up the rights years later and released the entire series on DVD (and would continue to do so for the other series up until ZEXAL before dropping the series).

The first volume of Chronicles was released by them on June 13, 2005 containing 3 episodes including The Legend of Thunder which edited the three parts back into a feature length special and the third Pikachu's Winter Vacation special. It was followed two months later by Volumes 2 and 3 on August 22, 2005 in a special release that included the third volume as an extra bonus bumping it up to 10 whole episodes of content although Volume 3 was never released separately.

After a boxset of the first 3 volumes (which for some reason featured the Hoenn starters even though there were no Hoenn Pokémon seen, the covers had the Kanto starters) on September 5, 2005, Volume 4 released a year later on January 30, 2006 containing the last seven episodes including the first Pikachu's Winter Vacation special and the two Meowth/Pichu Brothers episodes.

These were the only Pokémon titles released by Contender as they did not do any further releases, not even for the main series itself and eventually they would stop releasing 4Kids titles entirely.


Now we turn our heads back at the movie series with Jirachi Wish Maker, the first entry that went straight to video after Miramax did such a disastrous job for both 4Ever and Heroes.

Released in Japan on July 19, 2003 as Wishing Star of the Seven Nights: Jirachi, this was the first movie outing for the Advanced cast including newcomers May and Max who had replaced Misty as Ash's new companions. Since there isn't going to be much info on critical reception you can expect the rest of the movie stuff to be very short.

It was released in the US by Disney on June 1, 2004 and then by Echo Bridge on April 3, 2012 as part of a movie pack with the other Miramax released films. Echo Bridge's release was barebones and dropped all the extras and the Pikachu short Gotta Dance!. Jirachi wouldn't hit UK shores until two years later on October 23, 2006 (on the franchise's 10th anniversary year) where instead of Disney it was released by Paramount. Kinda amusing actually since Paramount would eventually buy 49% of the company years later. This was also barebones and didn't carry over any of the extras or the short from the US release though we did get a photo gallery so yay? I guess?

That was a very quick one and you can expect me to rush through the remaining films in a breeze when I eventually continue covering the history again soon.

 

[RetroPokeFan]

Earth Expansion (manga, Yosshaa!/Hajime Yamamoto, 2024)
2.5/5

Interrupting the feature stuff for a regular review with the second manga I've finished reading this year (the other being Twisted Wonderland: Book of Heartslabyul) unfortunately it's a bit of a disappointment.

I liked the first two volumes and was really interested in where things could go for the story but by Volumes 3 and 4 it became far too obvious Square Enix cancelled it prematurely and told the crew to wrap things up as quicky as possible. It was especially sad to see two characters I enjoyed cease being relevant entirely after Volume 2.

Still the art by Hajime Yamamoto was great, Pomukichi was adorable all the way through and I love the whole idea of the Crystal Power but this is not one I'll be reading again anytime soon... unless it gets brought back for another manga series.

 

[RetroPokeFan]

Music 2000 (PS1, 1999)
4/5

The PlayStation wasn't just for playing games if Music 2000 is any indication. There were quite a few of these music program titles released on both the PS1 and PS2 and this is the one that I grew up with (Jester also did two more Music entries as well as MTV Music Generator 2).

Music 2000 is quite an enjoyable little piece of software. Things can look a bit cumbersome and tricky at first to the point you'll be reading the manual to understand what this does and what triggers that. Once you do get the hang of things though it's quite a lot of fun to mess around and make all sorts of different music as there's a variety of different music genres to choose from. Certainly a unique title to have in the PS1 collection.

Btw I will get back to the whole Pokemon related thing I was doing a while ago. Haven't forgotten about that.

 

[RetroPokeFan]

Pokémon Origins (anime special, 2013)
2/5

Ooof, another piece of Pokemon media I enjoyed back in the day but as the years go by this has not aged well at all for me.

The animation is nice and crisp but I feel this cripples itself by being too slavishly dedicated to following the games which means outside the battle with Mewtwo and Charizard at the end, the rest of the battles are kinda shit. Either most of the Pokémon get quickly one-shotted so Red's fire lizard can take the glory or they just stand there like drooling morons begging to be one shotted. And don't go thinking they'll get any development either because a lot of them only show up once and never appear again making it hard to care about most of the Pokémon he catches. Even his Charizard who gets the most focus is boring as all hell with no personality to speak of, at least Ash's actually did things we cared about whereas this one quickly turns into a Mega Evolution advertisement by the end.

Speaking of which (and I'm sure this'll rattle quite a few fans, especially those who despise a certain Ketchum who's no longer in the anime anyway) I don't care about Red. I think he's pretty boring... so boring in fact that when Blue or Giovanni aren't on screen (masterfully voiced by Lucien Dodge and Jamieson Price in the dub) I was begging for them to pop back up again just so we could have a little more life.

So on top of a dull protagonist, poor battles and clearly rushed pacing with this only being 4 episodes long, Origins has aged like milk that went out of date ages ago. There are far better Pokémon anime productions than this and if you really want to revisit Kanto for the 8000th time then just go play either the GBA remakes or the Let's Go games again. Best to leave this one behind in the past.

 

[RetroPokeFan]

Animal Farm (animated film, Andy Serkis, Angel Studios/Cinesite, 2026)
1/5

Andy Serkis the actor who's also worked on motion capture is a pretty cool dude but unfortunately I can't really say the same for Andy Serkis the director whose two previous movies weren't particularly well received by critics. And needless to say Animal Farm is not going to do much to help his cause when it's his worst film yet.

This has a lot in common with that awful Twits movie that Netflix shat out a while back - it's based off of a book by a famous name in literature (for The Twits it was Roald Dahl and for Animal Farm it's George Orwell), they both show a shocking lack of contempt for the source material in mind and neither can be considered funny in any way shape or form. In fact Animal Farm is brutally unfunny at that going for every tired lowbrow joke imaginable you'd expect from these kind of family films.

At least The Twits had Johnny Vegas being entertaining though because I can't really say the same for any of the big names here. This is your typical celebrity filled voice cast with not one performance that doesn't scream "Can I have my paycheque now?". In fact it describes the entire film perfectly. Everybody is just in it for the money and they don't give a flipping horse shit that they're diluting a novel many consider a classic.

Just stick to the old 50's animated version. Sure it isn't perfect and it even changes the ending but at least it actually treats the story with respect and doesn't throw in fart jokes for the bloody sake of it.