Arceus made its debut in Arceus and the Jewel of Life. Thousands of years in the past, when the world was threatened by a meteor, Arceus summoned all of its power and tackled the massive rock, destroying it. However, in the process Arceus lost the sixteen Plates that gave it life and began to die. At this time it met Damos, who found the missing Plates and returned them, giving Arceus strength to pull back the others and thus fully recover. In gratitude for Damos's actions, Arceus detached five of its Plates and formed the Jewel of Life, which it loaned to him in order to make the desolate wasteland of Michina Town rich and fertile.
Arceus did, however, stipulate that the Jewel of Life had to be returned. The date was the next solar eclipse - an event that was a harbinger of Arceus's appearance - but when Arceus appeared to reclaim the Jewel, Damos viciously attacked it with the intent to kill, much to its abject shock. Arceus managed to fight off the attack and counter, killing Damos, then it went into a deep sleep, vowing to judge humanity when it next appeared.
Its next appearance came in the era of Ash and his friends, in which it appeared in Michina Town and began passing down its Judgment to destroy the area. Sheena attempted to return the Jewel of Life in this era but inadvertently gave it a fake (which had been created to further prevent it from retaking the real Jewel), making it even angrier. When the creation trio appeared to protect the world from Arceus, Palkia restrained it while Dialga sent the heroes back in time to Damos's betrayal.
Arceus's elemental plates (5 are missing)
In the ancient past the group discovers that Damos was controlled by another man, Marcus, who had grown bitter with his belief that returning the Jewel of Life to Arceus would result in Michina Town once again becoming desolate and wished to destroy it to prevent such events. By manipulating Sheena, Marcus nearly succeeded in killing Arceus and permanently altering the fabric of space-time (nearly destroying Ash and all the other heroes except Damos in the process). Fortunately, Damos managed to reach the last bit of life in Arceus's heart, giving it enough strength to re-absorb the Jewel of Life from Ash, saving it from certain death. It then revived the heroes, and they returned to the future. Although Arceus was still furious when they returned, it remembered Ash's role in saving its life, thus soothing its rage and, as it later remarked, making it feel part of the world Ash and the others lived in for the "first time".
Like the other stars of the "Dragon Trilogy" movies, Darkrai (The Rise of Darkrai) and Shaymin (Giratina and the Sky Warrior), Arceus has the ability to communicate through telepathy. Interestingly, all three Pokémon are only available through Nintendo events, all three only appeared in a single film of the trilogy and are the last three Pokémon in National Pokédex order as of Generation IV.
Arceus' elemental plates appear as a certain color and are brick-shaped in the games, but in the movie, they are coffin-shaped and glow in rainbow colors. However, in the episode Journey to the Unown!, they appear as in the games.
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For more information on this Pokémon's species, see Arceus.
