Rumors have been swirling around Nintendo wanting to adapt
their franchises to movies, and one of the first franchises attached to this
news was
none other than Pokémon. I’m not sure what to think of this news yet; it’s
exciting to see something that were such a large part of both my formative
years and my life as a whole getting a big adaptation, but there’s so much room
for things to grow horribly wrong. And unlike, say, comic book movies, which
have sort of always just been a part of my life since I was young, this will
mark totally new ground.
So, since the news broke, I’ve been thinking: what could a
Pokémon movie look like? How can you adapt something like that to a movie? And
almost as importantly, what exactly is it that made me like Pokémon? Because
that last question especially will be important in adapting the work into a new medium for a larger audience.
With that in mind, I’d like to propose my hypothetical list
of dos and don’ts for adapting Pokémon to the silver screen.