Digimon: The Movie may have just been made to go up against the first two Pokémon films, but it did so much more than its Nintendo counterpart by making a film that was wholly unique and not just a straight-up adaptation like Pokémon: The First Movie Mewtwo Strikes Back.
Now is Digimon: The Movie better than the three movies it was adapting from? No, not even in the slightest. That doesn’t mean this movie cannot stand on its own merits, especially as a great case study into the art of dubbing and adapting foreign media into English.
Lightning Connection
Digimon: The Movie and the anime series that it spawned from were all produced in English by none other than Saban Entertainment, famously known for their hit franchise, Power Rangers. For the uninitiated, every season of Power Rangers is adapted from a Japanese season of Super Sentai, a long-running Japanese franchise about teams of costumed heroes.What Saban does is they film American actors when the characters they are playing are not in costume and cut to Japanese footage whenever a battle between monsters is about to happen. They have done this for over 25 years, and they do so with a ton of changes to the plots and characters of the original show, adapting where they see fit.
Digimon was also similarly adapted into English, though not as extensive as the Power Rangers were getting. Saban’s edits mainly consisted of removal of anything that might have been a little too risque for English-speaking audiences and the anglicisation of character names. Like Taichi into just Tai, Takeru into TK, and Tailmon into Gatomon. Otherwise, the plots and mechanics of the show remained somewhat intact. This Tumblr post provides a much deeper look into the matter.
Our War Game
The problem that Saban was facing was that Digimon lacked a proper feature-length film since, in Japan, three short films were instead released to coincide with the rising popularity of the Digimon Adventure series. Nonetheless, the heads of Saban instead chose to splice them all together into one movie with an overarching theme and narrative.
And giving credit where it’s due, it works. Splitting into three parts, each focusing on the Digidestined and their bond with their Digimon, with Kari being the narrator for each segment since her character appears in all of them, and an overarching storyline about a Digidestined named Willis who somehow created a virus that turns Digimon evil.
From there, we get the opening segment of Kari and her brother Tai in their first-ever encounter with Agumon, culminating in a major battle between Greymon and Parrotmon. This segment also serves as an origin story on why the chosen children became the Digidestined.
The second segment, arguably the most action-packed and most remembered, involves a rogue Digimon posing as a threat to the Internet. From the introduction of Omnimon and the fact that two nuclear warheads almost destroy Tokyo and Colorado in a children’s movie definitely makes this segment the best one yet.
The third segment involves characters from the second season of the Digimon anime, as they help Willis finally destroy the virus. While this segment is great as we see the Mega evolutions of Angemon and Angewomon, as well as the Golden Digieggs, the Japanese version definitely had a more nuanced and fleshed-out plotline that was all cut out from the American dub to make room for the other segments.
Digivorce
There are a number of things that people remember from this movie, one particularly bizarre instance is an anonymous 4chan user whose parents got a divorce because of Digimon: The Movie. This seems to be because of the short that plays before the movie, involving another cartoon at the time, Angela Anaconda, where the titular character actually goes to watch the movie with her friends. This seems to have caused confusion with the user’s family, which led to a huge falling out between their parents.
Another particularly memorable aspect of the movie is the soundtrack, which features a lot of ska-punk songs that were popular at the time. This includes a cover of ‘Kids in America’ by LEN and ‘One Week’ by Barenaked Ladies before they did the theme song for The Big Bang Theory. This film is also notable for featuring ‘All-Star’ by Smash Mouth as its closing number, joining the pantheon of late-90s/early-2000s movies that feature it, like Shrek, Mystery Men, and Rat Race.
All in all, do yourself a favour and watch Digimon: The Movie soon. It is a treat to revisit this movie in 2020, especially when you catch all the jokes you might have missed as a kid, like everything Tai’s mother says being a gem, or Kari casually mentioning Power Rangers in one scene. It may not be as great as this year’s Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna, but it is definitely a rare delight from our childhood.Tai's mom is the most underrated Digimon character pic.twitter.com/DW9Cfg7ER6
— Ben B. Singer (Rooster Teeth, #DeathBattle) (@BenBSinger) September 28, 2020
