Thursday, November 15, 2018

Pokemon is my Generation's Star Wars

I'd expressed this on twitter a couple months ago, before I even looked and saw that Pokemon has indeed surpassed Star Wars as the highest grossing franchise of all time.

I was born October 31st 1985, though the average age of people Nostalgic for early Pokemon are 4-7 years younger then me, there are plenty who are a little older then me as well.

When I look back on the things I'm nostalgic for from the same era, they're all stuff I still love, but only Pokemon has become truly ubiquitous.  And only Pokemon is pretty much incapable of letting me down.

There was a time after the initial craze ended when it seemed like those of us still into it were a pretty niche group.  And yet Pokemon provided Trope names on TVTropes.  Then in 2016 with Pokemon Go was a resurgence that hasn't fully died down yet, and with Detective Pikachu coming soon it may well blow up bigger then ever.

My relationship with Pokemon has often been pretty off and on again.  This year it definitely helped me through a rough patch.

Detective Pikachu has quickly become the 2019 movie I'm most excited for.  Yeah Star Wars and the MCU are both ending an era of sorts, and I'm optimistic that Battle Angel Alita will be a game changer.  But I haven't gotten to experience Pokemon on the big screen at all since 2000.  And while I was skeptical of the ability to make Pokemon work in Live Action, that Trailer has made me realize that this is something I've wanted to see for nearly 20 years now.

The last time I thought a movie had the potential to make me as hyped as The Dark Knight made me was Batman V Superman which let me down.  But DC had let me down before, Nintendo and The Pokemon Company never have.  I've always known only the Nintendo Fanboy in me could top my status as a Batmaniac, but I used to think it'd take a (seemingly unlikely to ever happen) Live Action Zelda to translate that to a Big Screen experience. But now I realize that Pokemon may well have slowly but surely come to mean more to me then Mario and Zelda combined.

No comments:

Post a Comment