Omg, i posted about it minutes ago. I searched on google, and the old thread appeared to me. So i'll copy and paste:
No ash Ketchum. Ash is an anime product, and would be too childish with him as the protagonist. Red need to be the hero, or the other game progatonists depeding what game/region they chose to base the movie.
The game has a interesting lore that can make a good movie. Dimensions, alternate universes, aliens, auras, etc.. Kanto and Johto is fighting the mafia, Hoenn is eco terrorism, Sinnoh is pure sci fi, Unova discuss ideologies and politics, and Kalos is about motarlity/imortality.
The best route is a dark tone, like that fan made pokemon apokelipse and the manga. A miniseries would be a good option too, cayse in a serious pokemon adapatation will need worldbuilding, and if everything were put in a movie will be too rushed and confusing.
The games characters has no personality and background, so like the manga, the writers are free to insert any details they want on them to make the story work.
:<
Heh, this brings back to mind the (rather brutal?) fan trailer of Pokémon Apokélypse.. This movie-making execution could end up going wonderfully/unexpectedly right (2012's Rurouni Kenshin movie? Not sure about the 2015 Attack on Titan: End of the World movie), middingly average/above-average (2008's Speed Racer movie, from what I've heard), or horribly wrong (M. Night Shyamalan's 2010 movie The Last Airbender, but that movie had cool posters.. XD) (I haven't fully seen any of those movies, by the way, save for the Pokemon Apokelypse trailer)..
that is the movie I was mentioning earlier, pokemon apokelipse was amateur, but.. hm... I can see something with that tone but not exactly this plot.
I'm not sure how the pacing would work; it would be kind of hard to condense an average Pokemon game (8 Gym Leaders, Elite 4 members and Champion, in addition to thwarting the villainous team and potentially awakening/encountering Legendary Pokemon) into a 1.5-2-hour movie, unless you spread the plot across multiple movies and/or skipped some Pokemon League members.. Pokemon Origins had the right idea in condensation (although I felt that it should have been longer, and it managed to work because the Kanto story has been told so many times..), so I would be interested in seeing how movie condensation would pan out..
I think a plot similar to pokemon special, focused on the evil team is better than the formulatic beat the gym leader to become a pokemon master. If someone want to see this simplistic plot, the there's the anime the offer this experience. Pokemon is more than beat the gym leaders.
As for concerns of potential
"whitewashing"; that's kind of a mixed bag for me.. Being a fictional world with character designs that don't match reality (all that multi-colored hair!), I would say that the perceived "races" of
Pokemon can't really be equated to those in our world, so really anyone could be cast regardless of race. However, with the Pokemon world's regions
somewhat being based on real-life areas, I personally interpret that people from Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh would be Japanese in real life, with the people from Unova being New-York/New Jersey American in real life (which runs the gamut of races already as a nice melting pot {XD}) and the people of Kalos being French in real life. With this, I would expect to have casting accurately reflect the regional origin of the Pokemon Trainer (Kanto-native Pokemon Trainer being played by a Japanese actor or actress).. I would anticipate that viewers might expect attempts for actors/actresses to match skin tones (if Brock happens to appear but the actor's skin tone doesn't somewhat match the anime depiction, I would expect that it would be jarring for viewers).
Then again, Pokemon doesn't seem to concern itself too much with "race" (forgive me, I feel like I'm using the wrong concept; maybe "culture" would be more appropriate?) except in select circumstances (Pokedex multi-language entries, those Pokemon Trainers that randomly speak other languages, the Pokemon Sun and Moon first trailer emphasizing worldwide connectivity and interaction) and is more focused on story/world-building, so again, potentially anyone could be cast. Casting ultimately should be race-blind (unless race factors in as a story element, like someone's origin/culture), and casting should amass people based on the best talent/ability, although it does seem like there are not many chances for Asian individuals to gain acting roles in Hollywood, so they would greatly benefit from such a likely blockbuster-ish movie opportunity (namely, Japanese actors and actresses, I guess, since Pokemon did originate in Japan and has a lot of Japanese-influenced elements). Sigh...I just hope that the casting department would do a good job, and that the people who are cast do justice to the role.
I think all Pokemon protagonists, except maybe Red/Leaf and maybe Ethan/Lyra look western. For example, May and Brendan have blue eyes and auburn hair, I can't see them being japanese. Much less characters like Silver, Steven Stone, Cynthia, etc... Regarding the hair color, mostly those who have red/green and other fantastic collor will be "translated" to brown more or less light, depending on the color palette. Like happened with Bulma.
Yeah, I don't like the eurocetric hollywood standard, but even the japanese have it when design their characters. Would be nice to see Leaf, for example, being japanese or with a beauty like Freida Pinto.
Take this with a grain of salt, and Echidna, the Zelda TV rumor was debunked by Nintendo themselves last year. Never trust video game-related rumors from other sources unless it's coming straight from the horse's mouth.
This was reported on forbes, so I don't think is 100% wrong... But I really hope is not true, because has great chances of be a flop like DBZ. And maybe they are buying the rights, but will not produce anything so early.
