With the huge success of Pokémon Go, the OG fans of Pokémon have been going back to the original Pokémon movies and TV shows. I am no different from these fans and have been searching for my copy of "Pokémon: The First Movie." Once I found it, my inner child jumped for joy as I re-watched one of my favorite movies of all time.
While I was watching it, I couldn't help but make real-life connections with this movie. Fair warning; if you have not seen "Pokémon: The First Movie," there are spoilers ahead. However, there is also some keen insight on our world today, so I encourage those of you who have not seen the movie to watch it and return to this article when you're done.
The story of "Pokémon: The First Movie" is of MewTwo, believing that Pokémon are "enslaved" by humans and deserve to live free of the human race. MewTwo decides to create his own Pokémon and make them more powerful than your everyday Charizard. He wants the world to not only be rid of humans, but also of Pokémons who have been "brainwashed" to like being "enslaved" by humans.
This eventually leads to Pokémon fighting Pokémon, to what we think is the death. The song playing behind the Pokémon fighting included the saying "my brother," and it made me think about our world today. Recently, we have had so many world tragedies, including attacks in Orlando, Dallas and Nice. We are all brothers and sisters, fighting each other until the death. We are all human beings and we should not be killing each other over nothing.
As the fight continues, Team Rocket's Meowth meets his clone and realizes that they are the same, just born different. Meowth said that they should not fight because even if they have so many differences, they are the exact same. I made this connection to the argument of Black Lives Matter. Every single person in the US and the world have the same organs and the same makeup. We are all the same, but we were given different opportunities because of where we were born or our skin colors. We need to stop focusing on our differences and focus on our similarities.
The Pokémon are wearing out and our favorite Pokémon trainer, Ash Ketchum, decides someone should take a stand to stop them from fighting. This ends up with Ash running between Mew and MewTwo's fight and turning to stone. Pikachu runs to try and find some proof that he is still alive. When every Pokémon realizes that their fighting made Ash die, they all start to cry. MewTwo then realizes that humans and Pokémon do live as equals and Ash magically comes back to life due to all of the Pokémon crying on him. MewTwo takes his clones away and wipes the memory of all the trainers that witnessed what happened clean.
This is the one part that made me so mad. When a tragedy happens, everyone cries and prays for the victims. We all try to show our support for the victims and their family for a solid week. Then, we forget. We forget about the lives that were lost and we stop praying for the family. We forget how messed up our country is and how it needs a change. Then, the next tragedy happens and we go back into this awful spiral. People die. We pray for them. We forget. Repeat.
When I was 8, I never realized all of the real life references Pokémon was throwing in its movie. If you have been an avid Pokémon fan, I recommend watching this movie again, not only for your viewing pleasure, but to see what Pokémon teaches us about the real world.
