the BEST MOVIE EVER (no competition)

Yeah, this was the first movie I was ever hyped up for, I really couldn't wait for it to come out. I even memorized the date it came out just so that I wouldn't miss it, at the time it exceeded my expectations and I loved every moment of it. Sure it might not be the best movie nowadays, the ending is cheesy and the amount of sequels it spawned makes me groan, facepalm, and cringe. I still love Phillip Bartlett's unmatchable performance as Mewtwo though, it's definately the high point of the movie. It's just a shame that he's never had any roles since then, how he's barely popular is beyond me, it irks me that he's always confused for Dan Green and I would REALLY like to believe that Phillip truly didn't die as he is a really underrated actor. To this day that scene where he's destroying the lab is still completely badass in my book. You describe the experience as a kid quite well, OP.

But of course the Lion King was great too. Jeremy Irons was a brilliant voice for Scar...yeah, I like villains a lot, can you tell by now? But yeah the Lion King is a solid movie, the Bone Graveyard downright frightened me as a kid and Mufasa's death just shows that Scar is a real bastard, and a real badass. Managing to kill his own brother without a second thought.

Both were great movies in my book and both still hold up today (well, despite the fact that there are a few weak parts to the first Pokemon movie, but the nostalgic experience I had with it has me look back at it with fond memories.) Both actually had something in common too...really weak to downright terrible sequels. I can probably forgive the Lion King though as it really only spawned one sequel and one...I guess semi-sequel...commentary...thing...I can't really speak on the Lion King 1 & 1/2 since I never really saw it. However, Pokemon's huge amount of cash-in sequels just makes me shake my head and not even bother with them.

Although, I did like Pokemon 2000, it might not have been as hyped up about it as the first movie, but when I went in to see it I liked what I saw, it was a worthy sequel in my book. The effects were bright and colourful, the art was good to look at, Eric Rath made for a good Lugia, and at the time I found the plot pretty intense for a Pokemon movie. The weight of the world on one person's shoulders, again it's not without its cheesy moments, it's not perfect, but I liked it.

Pokemon the third movie was just...okay in my book, not really memorable though, I think at this time I just simply got tired of going back to the theatres for a third time to see Pokemon on the big screen. It all just got a little tiresome to me, the effects were neat and all, but I just could not get into the plot, it just seemed too weird to me although Dan Green's voice did suit Entei. But it just didn't hold up as much in my book as much as the previous two movies did.

I saw previews for the fourth movie, as well as Heroes, but after the third one I never even bothered watching any more Pokemon movies in theaters. The novelty of it wore off on me. I heard that they're not being released theatrically anymore, but seeing how I'm not into Pokemon movies anymore, I cannot see myself getting any of the Pokemon movies any time soon. Don't even get me started on how awful I found Mewtwo Returns, that was just shamefully terrible. It made me embarassed to be a Pokemon fan, the only thing that was remotelly good about it was that it gave me a chance to see previously cut out footage of the First Movie, but other than that I made an effort to pretend this one never even existed, although I'll try not to rant about it here, but if you want to see why I disliked both the performance and the movie, then go to the Mewtwo Returns board since I don't really want to repeat myself here.

As for the Lion King 2, I was greatly disappointed in it, no appearances or even cameos from the memorable hyenas in part 1...I couldn't really get into the story for this one either. The dream sequence with Scar in it was pretty cool though, most of the songs though, unlike the first movie, were completely unmemorable...seriously, I cannot remember a single song from it. However I suppose I can cut it some slack since it did turn out better than all of the other Disney shlock sequel cash-ins that they seem to churn out on direct to video. I was actually forced to watch some of them in school, Tarzan 2 and Hunchback 2 to be exact...ech...two incredibly lacking sequels that I honestly never needed to see, and wish I could unsee.

Wow, my post turned out to be a lot longer than I thought it would be. Sorry for ranting.