M01: Difference between revisions

|usprem=November 10, 1999

'''Pokémon: The First Movie - Mewtwo Strikes Back''' (Japanese: '''{{tt|劇場版|げきじょうばん}}ポケットモンスター　ミュウツーの{{tt|逆襲|ぎゃくしゅう}}''' ''Pocket Monsters the Movie: Mewtwo's Counterattack'', officially known as '''Pocket Monsters the Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back!''' in Japan), and also known in English simply as '''Pokémon: The First Movie''', is the first [[Pokémon movie]]. It debuted in Japanese theaters on July 18, 1998, and then made its way to North American theaters on November 10, 1999.

In Japan the theatrical version had only two home video releases (VHS, February 12, 1999; LaserDisc, July 17, 1999) and was never shown on TV. A new version of the movie, know as the ''kanzenban'' (Japanese: 完全版 ''full version''), has been shown in all television airings in Japan (the first one being on July 8, 1999) and in the Japanese home video releases from the third one (VHS, November 12, 1999) onward: this version contains additional scenes and CGI edits.

A ten-minute short known as (Japanese: '''{{tt|ミュウツーの誕生|Mewtwo no Tanjō}}''' ''The Birth of Mewtwo'') was added at the beginning of the movie in the "kanzenban" version: this short details the history of Mewtwo's creation (based on the radio drama ''[[The Birth of Mewtwo]]''), increasing the movie's length from 75 to 85 minutes and the prologue's length from 10 to 20 minutes. Although the ''kanzenban'' was created to be later used in the United States, the North American theatrical version (November 10, 1999) removed the short while still using the footage from the ''kanzenban'' for the rest of the movie instead of the footage from the Japanese theatrical version. On March 21, 2000, ''Mewtwo Strikes Back'' was released in home video in the United States, and both the VHS and the DVD included the first two minutes of the short dubbed in English as '''The Story of Mewtwo's Origin''': in the VHS these scenes were added to the beginning of the movie while in the DVD they were included as an extra. On June 23, 2000, a Japanese DVD of the movie was released with both a Japanese and an English audio track, and this marked the first time the full English dubbed version of the short was available; it was later included under the title '''The Uncut Story of Mewtwo's Origin''' in the Special Features of the international DVD of ''[[Mewtwo Returns]]'', released on August 17, 2001 in Australia and on December 4, 2001 in the United States.

Similar to ''[[EP001|Pokémon - I Choose You!]]'' and ''[[Holiday Hi-Jynx]]'', the ''Kanzenban'' version of this movie was digitally remastered to HD, complete with slight color correction. An error is also corrected where [[Raymond]]'s {{p|Machamp}} now comes out of its [[Poké Ball]] only once. It was released on Blu-Ray in Japan November 28, 2012 with a boxset containing all the movies up to [[M13]], and aired on May 3, 2013 on [[TV Tokyo]]. The dub (which retains the [[4Kids Entertainment|4Kids]] audio) aired on Cartoon Network January 4, 2014, and was re-released on [[Pokémon TV]] June 6, 2015. In addition to all of the changes in the Japanese version, [[The Uncut Story of Mewtwo's Origin]] is once again cut out, along with the Alakazam error in the Cartoon Network version. The opening{{tt|*|Cartoon Network version only, they are removed from the Pokémon TV version}} and ending{{tt|*|Pokémon TV re-release only}} credits are retyped in a [[The Pokémon Company International|TPCi]] font instead of {{wp|Comic Sans}}, and the copyright year 2014 (2015 for the re-release) was added to the end of the credits.