Would team rocket benefit from having different goals or motives?

[Thaiphlosion]

After watching almost 4 seasons of the anime, I still feel like Jessie, James and Meowth are great comic relief characters, and I actually think they're pretty funny. But the fact that they are constantly trying to get Pikachu, when it's obvious that there are better Pokemon out there is what puts me off. They've been in the show for so long, surely they don't need to be directly related to Ash in order to stay on the show. I understand that the show has tried different things, like having team rocket be less prevalent and having them be more serious, but I just wonder if all their humour and character would be better appreciated if they had a story running side by side with Ash maybe? It would depend on how often they appeared in the show though. But then again, with Sun and Moon taking a different turn, maybe Jessie and James will have different roles now? Just my opinion though.

 

[Green Pidgeot]

The Pikachu thing is comic, so it helps your argment. But they do become repetitve, because its played straight. They keep using them to get plots in filler epsodes.

 

[jjc927]

I agree that they should have found something else for Jessie and James to focus on after the first couple of seasons. It got annoying they kept focusing on Pikachu. When I watched the end of season 2 and the beginning of season 3 recently I thought they should have focused on Gary and trying to steal his Pokemon and get in his way like they did with Ash and co. It seemed like they might have been starting this, but after they show Gary just ignoring them and going on his way they never interacted with him other than a couple of episodes in Johto and Arcanine was the only one they attempted to steal. The Johto episodes that showed other Team Rocket members were really good and much more dramatic than other episodes and having more like those would've been better than focusing on Jessie and James imo.

The Sun and Moon previews and trailers make me wonder if Jessie and James are being phased out. They've yet to be shown in any of them besides the poster posted a while ago and the character designs on Tumblr. There's only been the one shot of Meowth and Wobbafett. I'm curious as to how they're going to get fit in.

 

[Z25]

It would be nice to see Jessie and James do something else. Unfortunately, their bio for the sun and moon anime says they are back to catch Pikachu, so their plots probably won't change. Black and White made them good as actual villains and it was nice that they didn't just show up every episode and instead were doing their own thing. In XY they at least didn't show up as often so it wasn't as bad.

I would like to see them get side plots where they either are sent to sabotage the evil team's plans, or they are trying to find a rare Pokemon in the wild to send to Giovanni. It would keep stories fresh and exciting, while also not being to repetitive. They could then just try for Pikachu less, because they wouldn't always be directly following Ash and Co. It would create a nice balance of story for them imo.

 

[Palamon]

Well... Team Rocket did have a different motive in Unova. They were promoted for some reason, and they were actually successful, so it happened briefly...until reverting back.

But I don't think they'd have "benefited" if they had a different goal, really. They'd probably still fail since it's a children's show. I'd like to see them not always going after Ash and his friends for sure, but not to Unova level degree, that was boring.