Digimon The Movie is One of A Kind

0:00 I love Digimon and I always have since I was a kid granted I didn't really understand the first season all that well when I first watched it but upon re-watching it over the years it's definitely solidified itself as one of my favorite franchises but the Digimon the them often regarded as the the Digimon movie of all time I've been wanting to talk about this movie for a long time now but I really just wasn't sure what angle of attack to take at it because there are already many videos on YouTube talking about this movie and I didn't want to do the typical thing of just bashing on it for 20 minutes or making fun of the soundtrack or you know just making fun of the dub and some of the questionable decisions that were made or how much was cut from it after three

0:47 drafts of the script I think I've finally found a good happy medium so I'm gonna try to explain why Digimon the movie turned out the way it did in the hopes of answering the question of what happened when Digimon met the big screen first I feel like I should give a bit of background on the original Digimon see most people have the misconception that Digimon was created as a rip-off or competitor to Pokemon which isn't entirely true Digimon was actually released in 1997 as a boy oriented counterpart to Tamagotchi the digital pet Digimon became way more popular than I guess they thought it would to the point where it actually led to an anime being

1:33 produced in March of 1999 which ran all the way until March of 2000. Digimon Adventure or Digimon Digital Monsters as it became known in the West is a pretty typical kids anime that manages to tackle some mature themes while still keeping the atmosphere of a kid's show the theme song is Iconic as this was the era where every English dub for some reason needed an original English opening I'm guessing that was for legal reasons or maybe they just didn't want to pay the licensing fee for the original soundtracks but who knows that's between Fox toei and the floorboards because seriously the Japanese opening for Digimon butterfly is an amazing song But

2:19 as good as it is it's just not as iconic to me as the Digimon Theme Song [Music] the classic what else can I say [Music] with the success of the English release of Pokemon the Movie in November of 1999 another Banger of a movie by the way Fox wanted to capitalize on digimon's popularity and localized the first Digimon movie since they own the rights to localize the series while Warner Brothers was just able to take Pokemon the Movie and dub it in English with some mild editing Fox was left with a bit of a

3:06 problem on their hands you see Digimon didn't have a movie what did have were three seasonal short films produced at toei's animation festivals over the years but the first one being Digimon Adventure which only has a run time of about 20 minutes and is a prequel to The anime that was released in early 1999 in the lead up to the premiere of the anime but there was also a sequel film produced titled Digimon Adventure our war game which takes place in the spring after the events of the first season of the show so the decision was made to combine the two films to make one feature-length film anime movies were pretty short back then because they were often shown in animation festivals as a double feature they'd be shown back to back with another short anime movie but

3:53 another problem soon presented itself for Fox turned out Fox was contractually obligated by toei to localize the third Digimon movie as well Digimon Adventure zero two zero two stands for 2002 which is the year the movie takes place to zero two isn't technically a movie it's an OVA split into two parts that was shown as like a TV special in Japan the two parts are titled Digimon Adventure zero two hurricane landing and Transcendent Evolution the golden digimentals now with all that background out of the way I'm gonna give an overview of these films in order to show you what made them good individually

4:38 before they got stitched together you want to play a fun drinking game of course you do take a shot every time I say Digimon on this video actually you know what don't do that I don't wanna I don't want to have that on my conscience Digimon Adventure is a 20 minute short film that was made in anticipation of the anime's premiere in 1999. the film follows a young Thai and Kari and I mean like really young like toddler young through their first encounter with the Digimon genuinely animated in the way that really makes them feel like children Kari has this really fun Quirk where she usually just communicates through blowing a whistle which will be important later

5:24 talk about chekhov's whistle huh anyway their dad's computer spits out a Digi egg which eventually hatches into a digimon it's followed by this really cute moment where karei uses her whistle to communicate with the Digimon which is just a really cute scene that I wanted to mention after a bit of feeding it evolves into koramon and then they use their cat's bull to feed it which the cat takes personally and attacks koramon and it's at this point that I should mention that the Digimon movie saw this as the perfect place to have Rockefeller skank by Fatboy Slim play yeah trust me we'll get into the soundtrack later it's a bit of a trip anyway Tai steps in to protect coramon but ends up getting scratched by their cat but Gorman is thankful and shows his

6:12 appreciation by giving both Ty and Kari a big old sloppy kiss by the way this isn't the same coramon they would meet during the events of the first season of the show that night the koraman did evolves into an abnormally large Agumon and takes Kari off on a romp throughout the town destroying property and blowing stuff up with Tai following closely behind then the pair are attacked by a parrotmon and Agumon protects the kids from the Paramount much like how Thai protected him from the cat it's just honestly a really nice parallel that I wanted to draw attention to it then did evolves again into Greymon and we get an amazing Kaiju Battle seriously the animation in this movie has aged very well considering how old it is anyway

6:59 Greymon gets kind of bodied by parrotmon and knocked unconscious and it's followed by this really nice scene where Kari tries to blow her whistle in order to wake him up but she just is too panicked to be able to do it so Tai realizes what she's trying to do and grabs the whistle and just ah honestly that whole sequence it gave me chills when I watched it Greymon then bodies Paramount and that's really it both the Digimon disappear and the movie ends like I said before it's a very fun movie then I do recommend you

7:44 watch it's only about 20 minutes long and it is a great introduction to two of the main characters from the show and the concept of Digimon in general Digimon Adventure our war game is honestly a really fun movie that takes place between the events of the first and second seasons of the show a new mysterious Digimon has appeared on the internet and is eating data at an alarming rate there's also a subplot between Thai and Sora because she's mad at him for giving her a hairpin as a gift so after Izzy the computer whiz kid that he is figures out that the Digimon will eventually eat all of the data on the internet and while we're here just look at that old computer I mean that thing has to weigh at least 50 pounds and it's on dial-up internet man I feel old sometimes

8:30 existential crisis aside they reunite with their Digimon from the digital world and just look at the cute pixel art they upload tantamon and Agumon to the internet in order to fight the rapidly evolving Digimon before it takes out the phone company because yeah no phones means no internet well what a time to be alive the Digimon evolves into infamon and absolutely bodies Greymon and kabudomon before skedaddling off to another corner of the internet so Izzy hacks a military satellite to get them back online and they find out that information is digivolved into diaboromon and has hacked into the Pentagon and launched a nuclear missile aimed at Thai's neighborhood yeah safe to say the stakes

9:16 are high with this one turns out the Digimon were being slowed by all the emails as he's been getting from kids around the world showing their support So as he manages to track down diormon once again and they go after him this time being joined by Matt and TK and their Digimon gabumon and padamon the oboramon takes out tentamon and padamon while Agumon and gabumon did you evolve into WarGreymon and metal Guru Ramon and they still get bodied because there are still too many emails coming in this is where like the emotional height of the film is and it's done super well the ambience drops down and you can hear Ty's breathing as he reaches towards the screen hahaha through the power of friendship he

10:02 enters the internet and helps his Digimon along with Matt just so cool and in the original version It's accompanied by like some really somber almost church-like music [Music] power friendship and all the kids around the world better War Greymon and metal Guru Ramon combined the first ever Digimon Fusion omnimon and omnimon just obliterates all the Clones of diaboroma until there's just one left but he's still too faster than the catch until Izzy has the bright idea of forwarding all of the emails he's getting to dioramon to cause it to lag which

10:49 actually works and omnimon manages to land a brutal final blow which in the Digimon movie he says the one-liner which genuinely got a chuckle out of me but I feel like just saying nothing just was better to let the scene kind of speak for itself you know the nuke lands in the bay with two seconds left on the clock and it doesn't explode Sora finally gets her email from Tai where he accidentally says he loves her and the day is saved honestly another Banger of a movie with amazing visuals that I recommend you watch it has amazing visualizations of what the internet would look like if you could go inside of it really touching in heartfelt moments a really amazing climax with

11:35 omnimon versus the aboramon it's great Digimon Adventure zero two is honestly a pretty sad story like it truly has the darkest plot out of the three films the plot revolves around the cast of the second season of the show as they attempt to help Willis who only exists for this special by the way he doesn't appear in any other form of media in the franchise just this one movie they're trying to help him save one of his Digimon kokomon that's been corrupted by a computer virus there's also a subplot where the older kids get kidnapped by kokomon with the exception of a now older TK and Kari who are now a part of the new team it's genuinely a sad story that has some really good fight scenes and emotional weight while our war game had vibrant visuals and action-packed climaxes

12:21 Adventure zero two's climax swallow really well animated with cool visuals is just totally depressing since they end up having to destroy kokomon in order to save the older kids and protect the world it doesn't end on a completely depressing note since Willis finds kokomon's Digi egg before the credits roll but man this really has some heavy moments in it so how do they mess it up in adaptation well before I can answer that question I have to talk about a show I never thought I'd be bringing up both a theatrical and DVD releases of Digimon the movie start off with a short made with the characters from the show Angela Anaconda and I'm only talking about this because it's counted in the official run time of the film

13:08 it's not a part of the previews and it's not a DVD extra like you think it would be Angela Anaconda was a show created on the Canadian network teletune but it eventually aired alongside Digimon on the fox kids Block in the US this show is well the best way you can describe it is bowling shoe ugly it's not even like this is just a clip from the show either this is an original Short commissioned by Fox for Digimon the movie and it's crazy like imagine you're a kid going to see Digimon the movie for the first time and the first thing you see is this face I would have ran out of the theater screaming and crying as a kid the short was eventually repurposed into an actual episode of the show with all mentions of

13:53 Digimon removed even though Angela is still wearing Ty's hair and goggles I guess Fox was trying to push Angela Anaconda as a core part of its children's block and I don't know maybe this show was really popular and it's Heyday but I do know it does have a bit of a cult following nowadays okay now with all of that out of the way we can finally talk about Willis the movie I mean Digimon the movie [Music] so ironically fox actually planned to release all three movies with English dubs as individual theatrical releases

14:41 in early 1999 once production of the English dub of Digimon Adventure had wrapped writers Jeff Nimoy and Bob buchos I hope I pronounced that right or offered to write Digimon the movie while negotiating their contracts to return to write the second season of the show initially the writers didn't want to shoehorn in the plot of Digimon Adventure zero two and instead pitched to have it release on either its own or as a DVD extra or even a television special as you can tell all of those ideas were shot down by toei who kept pushing the edict that they must adapt zero two with the other two films fun fact it was this decision that actually LED Jeff and Bob to leave the writing team after the second season of the show originally they plan to have Tai narrate

15:28 the movie in order to connect the plots but this was changed to Kari since she was the only character who appeared in all three films initially you don't really notice the changes all that much some soundtrack changes like the battle between Greymon and Paramon now I have an Orchestral Version of the Digimon Theme which is kind of a cool change to me certain scenes were edited to remove depictions of violence like parrotmon's Wing getting ripped off and it's beat getting impaled by greymon's horn honestly the first 15 minutes of Digimon the movie are relatively unchanged except for the mention of Willis in the beginning and that's Willis in America

16:13 while the rest of us in Japan only had one Digimon he had twins and while we had our team to count on Willis didn't have any human friends only his two Digimon his digital inventor as well as ours began that night eight years ago is it one thing that I liked that they did is they introduced this like subplot slash reoccurring joke of Ty's mom being a terrible cook and it actually plays an important part in the movie later on during the fight with dioramon see in the original Izzy has to go to the bathroom because she's serving oolong tea and he's a caffeine addict and it makes him have to use the bathroom while in this version he has to go to the bathroom because the food is so bad that it made him have to go there's a lot of jokes that they managed to slide in to help match the humor of the show just

17:00 little lines like this did you see that no I was goofy jokes like this is you're all sweaty what's wrong well it's about the egg huh the egg is already hatched no no not that egg a Digi egg or just just weird characters like this guy [Music] foreign [Music] the movie is full of little background jokes like that he also gets tipped off about diabormon by Willis in this version as opposed to a friend from La in the original here's

17:47 one from that kid Wilson America it says Izzy I'm sorry this is all my fault find a way to slow him down the biggest complaint I have about Digimon the movie is that it feels like it goes on for too long like the best comparison that I have is comparing it to Last of Us Part Two when Ellie and her friends fail to kill Abby almost get killed themselves and then just pack up and go home and you think okay the story is winding down this is gonna be a pretty good place to end things and then boom it hits you with like another three hours worth of story and gameplay because because perfect climactic battle for the movie with a happy ending right bam the movie skips forward like four years and

18:34 introduces a whole cast of eight new characters that have nothing to do with any of the previous events of the movie 50 minutes into the movie with like a half hour left this is really where the pacing starts to hurt the movie because Adventure zero two had the most things cut out of it in fact over 40 minutes of content was cut from this movie and it really shows as a result the last half hour feels like a rushed mess with characters showing up out of nowhere the subplot of the older kids getting kidnapped is cut completely fight scenes being cut short emotional moments being cut short which results in probably the one clip most people will point to when they try to say the movie is bad

19:21 what's the matter with you as a saddest story I ever heard I'm the one with the problem not you get over it okay granted the original scene isn't that different but what made it work was the dialogue you see in the original scene Davis empathizes with Willis's situation and states that if the roles are reversed and he would have to destroy veeamon that he wouldn't be able to bring himself to do it and that's why he starts crying while here he just cries for no reason after hearing Willis's backstory then they just beat kokomon and go their separate ways and then the movie ends also while Willis is reminiscing about kokomon it's

20:07 set to All-Star by Smash Mouth and the credits are set to a cover of the kids in America by [Music] length this was before Shrek or the Jimmy Neutron movie so Digimon the movie was really ahead of the curve with this one which leads me to my next point the soundtrack the thing that really solidifies Digimon the movie as a Time Capsule of the 2000s has to be the soundtrack composed of both original songs and licensed songs from the time it it genuinely threw me for a loop when some of these songs played I already mentioned Rockefeller skank by Fatboy Slim

20:54 [Music] but there's also One Week by Barenaked Ladies [Music] all my best friends are metal heads by less than Jay the impression that I get by The Mighty Mighty Boss Tones like they may just be short clips of the songs that are used but they're wild looking back man like that's like if you went to Pokemon the Movie and they played a Blink 182 song over a scene it would just be weird the funniest part is the fact that these songs are used at like the weirdest times like they don't play during fight scenes or heartfelt moments they just kind of

21:40 come out of nowhere which somehow makes them better the marketing was on point though with commercials trailers and even a sweepstakes for a private viewing party of the movie and we're so excited we're throwing the Digimon the movie half party sweepstakes when you'll get a digimon the movie video's greeting party posted by a surprise Diggy destined character for you and 20 of your best friends let me tell you something I would have committed several war crimes they have a private viewing party of Digimon the movie hosted by a Digi Dustin guest and 20 of my friends you can't say that Digimon the movie wasn't a commercial success since it grossed 16 million dollars on a 5 million dollar budget it wasn't received well by critics but the

22:27 fans loved it and that's really all that matters hell it did so well the director mamoru hosura was offered the opportunity to direct Howell's Moving Castle he later left the project due to create a differences but still that's like crazy jump like Digimon the movie Howl's Moving Castle like you're going from a stitch together dub to a Ghibli movie that's moving up in the world Digimon the movie is a beautiful mess of a movie that honestly isn't as bad as most people make it out to be sure it's cheesy and a lot of the jokes are dated and the soundtrack is a little weird and it does cut out quite a bit of stuff from the originals but ultimately it serves as a pretty entertaining movie

23:13 there will never and I mean never be another movie like this it is a time capsule of the time this movie has never been re-released years since its initial theatrical and DVD release most likely because of Licensing issues like hell who knows how long they have their licenses for the soundtrack for plus Disney now owns Fox which means they own Digimon so they don't really like to play well with others so I don't know if they'd even be able to work out a deal with toei to have the movie on like Disney Plus or something that would be nice but I don't really see it happening so Digimon the movie remains an almost perfect time capsule of the 2000s

23:58 a one-of-a-kind movie for a one-of-a-kind franchise thanks for watching me talk about one of my favorite movies I do hope to do more videos in this style in the future it all depends how uh forgiving the YouTube copyright system is when I try to upload this here's the hope and I don't have to upload it 10 times this is one of my favorite childhood movies and I do hope to talk about more movies and shows in the future I'll still talk about video games because they are my first love but anyway I'm the wild card consider subscribing if you like this tell me what you loved about Digimon the movie in the comments below or just tell me how bad it is honestly I think that'd be funny too

24:46 and I'll see you next time peace [Music]