Welcome Back to Pokemon Movies in Review, a weekly recap of the entire Pokemon cinematic universe. This week, we’re revisiting Pokemon: Destiny Deoxys, the seventh film in the series and the second in the Advanced Generation, AKA the Ruby & Sapphire era. Unlike Wish Maker, which dug into the politics and ecological themes of the third generation, Destiny Deoxys looks beyond the stars, expanding the world of Pokemon in ways we’ve never seen before. Despite their differences, Wish Maker and Destiny Deoxys actually make perfect companion films. They’re both more or less adaptations of classic films; Wish Maker being the Pokemon version of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Destiny Deoxys being Pokemon’s take on the Kaiju genre.

Destiny Deoxys begins, like Wish Maker, with a meteor. Instead of streaking across the night sky for seven days, however, this one comes crashing down to earth. From the meteor emerges Deoxys, an alien Pokemon with noodly arms and the ability to change forms, among other things. Deoxy emerges from the crater and scoops up a glowing stone, but before it can get far, the Legendary ‘Sky High’ Pokemon Rayquaza descends from the ozone layer to challenge it. Nearby, Professor Lund and his son Tory watch as the two Legendaries trade blows back and forth. Lund explains that Rayquaza never leaves the ozone, so it must be trying to defend its territory from the Deoxys. Rayquaza unleashes a devastating hyper beam that obliterates the Deoxys and sends it careening into the ocean, while Professor Lund collects the mysterious stone it was carrying and brings it to LaRousse City in order to study it further.

destiny deoxys rayquaza

Right from the start, Destiny Deoxys is set up like a quintessential Kaiju story. Forgive me if this is common knowledge, but Rayquaza and Godzilla have a lot in common beyond their green, reptile-like appearance and penchant for shooting energy beams out of their mouths. Both monsters are territorial and defend the planet from other, more dangerous monsters. Both monsters are generally indifferent to humans, but are never-the-less worshipped by them as guardians and protectors. When Rayquaza or Godzilla battle against invading Kaiju from outer space - like Deoxys or King Ghidorah - the people caught in the crossfire do whatever they can to help them win. I’ve always found Godzilla’s ambivalence towards mankind to be its most interesting quality. He’s saved the world from total destruction countless times, but he would also have no problem leveling Tokyo if provoked. By the end of Destiny Deoxys, Rayquaza is fighting alongside Ash and Pikachu in a pretty direct way, but you still get the sense that Ray is simply defending its territory. I love the idea that the Pokemon Universe has a snakey Godzilla flying around in space, just waiting for trouble.

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Though we’ve seen other Godzilla-sized pocket monsters wreaking havoc in past Pokemon movies - like the Celebi monster in Pokemon 4Ever and FrankenGroudon in Wish Maker - the film series has never evoked the Kaiju genre as strongly as it does in Destiny Deoxys. This is partly due to the dynamic between Rayquaza and Deoxys - who are very much proxies for Godzilla and pick-you-favorite-space-Kaiju - but it's also thanks to the setting. LaRousse is a sprawling, futuristic city that makes for the perfect environment for a Kaiju fight. The connection between Pokemon and Godzilla should have been more obvious - they’re both Japanese franchises about monsters that fight each other - but somehow, it never clicked for me until I saw Rayquaza and Deoxys duking it out in a Tokyo-like city.

destiny deoxys larousse
LaRousse City is actually based on Vancouver

There’s a lot of moving parts to this story, and frankly, the plot is more complicated than it needs to be. The stone that Professor Lund brought back to LaRousse contains a second Deoxys who is able to project itself as a triangle made of light that befriends Tory. The Professor’s son was traumatized by a stampede of Pokemon during the first Deoxys battle, and has been terrified of Pokemon ever since. Like most Godzilla movies, there’s way too many characters, and nothing that any of them do matters that much. There’s also a weird B-story about Munchlax, Plusle, and Minun. Destiny Deoxys is the first Pokemon movie to not start with a Pokemon-only short film, so instead, those elements have been awkwardly worked into the movie.

Meanwhile, Deoxys finally recovers from its first fight with Rayquaza and heads to LaRousse City to rescue its friend. It begins its attack by surrounding the entire city with a forcefield to prevent anyone from escaping with the stone. Since LaRousse is wind-powered, the forcefield causes the entire city to lose power, which, for some reason, means no one can activate their Poke Balls and free their Pokemon. Deoxys then begins self-replicating and kidnapping people just like the monster Groudon did in Wish Maker.

destiny deoxys army

Interestingly, Deoxys Destiny has a lot in common with Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, which just so happened to come out the same year. It also featured an army of aliens that used force fields, kidnapped people, and cut power with an EMP blast. It’s an interesting coincidence, considering Wish Maker also has a lot of similarities to a Spielberg movie.

Rayquaza returns to challenge Deoxys once again, but this time, the DNA Pokemon has no trouble tanking the space snake. In Godzilla lore, Space Kaiju are considered to be considerably more powerful than Godzilla, and any one of them could easily defeat the giant lizard. It seems Deoxys was holding back in their first battle, but now its patience has run out. Ash - oh yeah, he shows up at this point - and Professor Lund manage to resurrect the second Deoxys just in time for it to intercept the first, but suddenly, Rayquaza and the Deoxys are faced with an even greater threat.

While battling in the city, Deoxys and Rayquaza inadvertently corrupted the city’s defense system, which has now come to life in the form of a thousand murderous block robots. Ash, Rayquaza, and the Deoxys all work together to stop the cube avalanche from burying the city, and at this point, the similarities to Godzilla are as Ann as the nose on Plain’s face. What could make the titans Gozilla and King Kong stop fighting, other than an even greater, robotic threat? The Mechagodzilla intervention in last summer’s Godzilla vs. Kong isn’t the first time a robot has suddenly appeared at the end of a Kaiju fight and become the true villain of the film. In both Godzilla and Deoxys Destiny, the robots give the monsters a common enemy and allow the film to end without any upsetting casualties. No Pokemon were harmed in the making of Destiny Deoxys.

destiny deoxys cubes

Rayquaza comes to understand that Deoxys was only trying to save its friend, which makes the whole attack on LaRousse City no big deal in the end, I guess. Reunited, the aliens leave and Rayquaza returns to patrol Earth’s outer atmosphere. And oh yeah, Tory gets over his fear of Pokemon - despite living through a Pokemon attack on the city that almost killed everyone he’s ever known - because Plusle and Minun are just so dang cute. Honestly, who can blame him?

A few stray thoughts before we wrap things up:

  • It’s pronounced Ray-Kway-Za, not Ray-Kwa-Za, and I hate that.
  • The Rayquaza/Deoxys rivalry isn’t really part of the original Ruby & Sapphire, but their story is explored in a much deeper way in the Delta Episode of Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire. The story there is different, but it was clearly inspired by this movie.
  • Munchlax was the first appearance of a Gen 4 Pokemon.
  • Brock’s simping goes way too hard in this movie, please give this guy some other character traits besides horny.
  • Team Rocket is here for absolutely no reason.
  • I don’t know how many more movies May and Max are going to be in, but I hope they get swallowed by a Wailmer and are never seen again.

Next week we’re watching Lucario and the Mystery of Mew. If this Advanced Generation trend continues with adaptations of popular Spielberg movies, I fully expect Lucario to be a treasure hunter that runs around with a whip and punches Nazis, and I’m going to be sorely disappointed if it’s not.

Next: Every Pokemon Movie Ever Made, Reviewed