Japanese Movie #1:  Pocket Monsters The Movie "Mewtwo Strikes Back!" - The Kanzenban
American Movie #1:  The Uncut Story of Mewtwo's Origin
Japanese Release Date:  July 8th, 1999
American Release Date:  November 12th, 1999
Important Characters:  Doctor (Dr. Fuji), Ai (Amber)

Deep in a jungle a team of researchers are on the hunt for any hints that could lead them toward the Mythical Pokémon Mew. If they can get their hands on even just a sample of Mew's DNA, they theorize, they may have a shot at unlocking the secrets to life everlasting. The team eventually finds a fossil of one of Mew's eyelashes and so they rush it back to their lab where a team of doctors get to work. They create an experimental “Copy” of Mew they name "Mewtwo" and watch closely to see if Mew’s DNA allows it to survive any longer than their previous attempts. Meanwhile, inside Mewtwo's consciousness, the newly created Pokémon meets a human girl named Aitwo, the Copy of the deceased daughter of one of the lab’s doctors. Ai’s death is what caused her father to set his sights on Mew and its rumored ability to control life itself. As Mewtwo continues to grow, Aitwo introduces the young Copy to various concepts of the world such as language, the sun, and the moon and the stars. Suddenly, Aitwo’s body starts to break down, just like all the other Copies before it. Ai’s Copy fades away right in front of Mewtwo’s eyes, causing its brain waves to start going haywire. The doctors, in response, administer a sedative to help put their experiment into a deep sleep. As time marches onward and Mewtwo continues to grow bigger and bigger, its memories of Aitwo begin to fade…

---

Thoughts
"The Uncut Story of Mewtwo's Origin" is, like the movie it should have been attached to, an extremely unfaithful localization of the story Takeshi Shudo presented Japanese audiences.

There is reason to believe that when 4Kids started working on their adaptation of the first movie, Pokémon The First Movie, they actually did dub this along with everything else and intended to have it air as the first ten minutes of the movie, just like it does in Japan. But then at some point it got cut. The most popular theory -- and the one that makes the most sense to me -- is that someone at 4Kids, or Warner Bros, or somewhere, thought this opening was too depressing and heavy to open a kids' movie like this and so the whole thing just got the axe. The English dub would eventually see the light of day, first in June 2000 with the Japanese DVD release of Pocket Monsters The Movie "Mewtwo Strikes Back!" & "Pikachu's Summer Vacation," which includes both the Japanese original and the 4Kids English dub, and then later in December 2001 when Mewtwo Returns was released on DVD in the U.S.

"The Uncut Story of Mewtwo's Origin," like the rest of the movie it should have been attached to, has like 90% of its script rewritten and so what follows is more or less a line-by-line comparison between the Japanese original and the English dub.

Music Edit
Like with the rest of the movie itself, Shinji Miyzaki's soundtrack for "The Birth of Mewtwo" is completely thrown out and replaced with new dub music produced by 4Kids. The original soundtrack is a mix of music from the main feature and music from the TV series (which 4Kids had used plenty of times up until this point, by the way), but it all gets the axe for the English dub.

The replacement dub music is...well, it's just there, which is about the nicest thing I can say about it. There are several moments where the original score is just so, so perfect -- Aitwo's death being the main one that pops into my mind -- and yet the music 4Kids comes up with to replace it is just lacking in pretty much every single way. The music replacement in this isn't quite as ghastly as what we see in the rest of the movie but it's not great, either.

Dialogue Edit
I hope you like to read because I'll basically have to transcribe like 90% of the movie's script for this comparison.  Here's the very first line:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
調査員 A　「幻のポケモン」	Inspector A:  "So this Mythical Pokémon we're going after..."	Dr. Fuji:  "August 6th. Today my colleagues will reach the site where an ancient civilization may have created a shrine to Mew, the most powerful Pokémon to have ever existed, now believed to be extinct."
調査員 B　「ミュウか」	Inspector B:  "Mew, is it?"
発掘隊員　「神秘の力を持ち大洪水を引き起こしたとか、荒れ地に作物を実らせ人 々に分け与えたとか。さまざまな伝説が語り次がれています」	Excavator:  "I've heard it has all these mysterious powers, like causing massive floods and making crops grow in barren wastelands before sharing them with the people. There are lots of legends that've been passed down."

The overwhelming majority of this comparison is just going to be going "Here's what they said in the Japanese version, and here's what they said in the English version. I have no idea why any of this was changed. Shrug."

The August 6th date the dub throws out there, by the way? If we want to give 4Kids the benefit of the doubt and assume that they didn't just yank that out of thin air (but really, there's a good 99% chance that that was the case), then I'd guess that it's a reference to how the modern spelling of Mew's name in Japan was supposedly trademarked on August 6th, 1999. But...probably not.

The very next line!

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
調査員　「天使か悪魔か？気まぐれなだけかも」	Inspector:  "So is it an angel or a devil? Or maybe neither...it could just be doing whatever it wants."	Dr. Fuji:  "Giovanni is financing the expedition. When he learned of my work in the field of cloning, he agreed to fund my research. But only if I would try to create for him an enhanced, living replica of Mew. I had to agree. All he wants is to control the most powerful Pokémon the world has ever known. I, of course, want something more. Much more..."
発掘隊員　「永遠の命があるとも言われています」	Excavator:  "It's also said to be able to live forever."
研究員　「しかし絶滅したんだろ」	Researcher:  "But isn't it supposed to be extinct?"
発掘隊員　「ところがミュウを見たという話は最近になっても報告されているんで す」	Excavator:  "Well, there have been reports of Mew sightings recently."
調査員　「確認はされていない」	Inspector:  "These haven't been confirmed yet?"
発掘隊員　「はい」	Excavator:  "No sir."
調査員　「まとまな写真１枚撮られていない」	Inspector:  "And have any clear photographs been taken of it?"
発掘隊員　「はい」	Excavator:  "No sir."

It's tempting to write this off as 4Kids just making stuff up for the sake of making stuff up (and boy is there plenty of that in this movie), but I'll be nice just this once and assume that they added this in here to give American audiences some of that extra information that came from the undubbed The Birth of Mewtwo radio drama. 4Kids sure as hell wasn't ever going to dub it (given how radio dramas died out in the U.S. a good 60 years before this movie came out and all that), so they probably thought adding this dialogue here would be the best way to give us English speakers this backstory. I of course would have preferred they just translate the dialogue that's there in the Japanese script, but I could see why they'd want to go this route instead.

Unfortunately, the result of all this is that the first minute of the movie absolutely bombards the viewer with a ton of backstory that's difficult for the non-fan to digest. Who is this Giovanni fellow? I guess he has some cash if he's able to finance expeditions out into some jungle and hire cloning scientists? Why did our unnamed narrator "(have) to agree" to work with him? Does his use of the phrase "of course" indicate that we're supposed to already be familiar with who he is? You and I know the answers to all these questions, of course, but I don't think it's hard to see why someone who isn't as invested in this franchise as we are would be confused by all this.

The researchers find a Mew fossil:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
発掘隊員　「そしてこれが今回発見された化石です」	Excavator:  "And here's the fossil we found earlier."	Dr. Fuji:  "Our team is bringing back what we believe to be a Mew fossil. I pray it's authentic. If so, I may finally have the DNA I need to create a Pokémon powerful enough to survive the cloning process. Perhaps then I can unlock the secret to restoring life...itself."
調査員 A　「ミュウの体の一部」	Inspector A:  "This is from a Mew?"
発掘隊員　「ではないかと」	Excavator:  "That's what we're thinking."
調査員 A　「早速 研究所に持ち帰ろう」	Inspector A:  "Alright then, let's hurry up and take it back to the lab."
調査員 B　「もし本当にミュウの化石だとすれば	Inspector B:  "If this really is a fossil of a Mew..."
調査員 A　「ああ。最強のポケモンが作られるはずだ」	Inspector A:  "Mm-hmm. Then we should be able to create the world's strongest Pokémon."

I will say one thing for the dub, turning a series of conversations among four men (and therefore, four human voice actors) into a narration delivered by a single person is a very smart way to cut costs!

After a brief montage the scientists gathered around a young Mewtwo wonder why it hasn't woken up yet:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
研究員　「生まれてくるのを嫌がっているとか」	Researcher:  "Maybe it just doesn't want to be born...?"	Dr. Fuji:  "When measuring brain activity..."
博士　「バカな」	Doctor:  "Don't be ridiculous."

The researchers think Mewtwo's struggling with its birth, its very existence? Yeah sure, you can remove that no problem.

Ambertwo introduces herself:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
ミュウツー　「誰かが僕の話をしている。でも何を言ってるの？」	Mewtwo:  "Someone out there's talking about me. What what are they saying?"	Mewtwo:  "I sense others near me. But what are those strange sounds they make?"
アイツー　「あれって言葉なの。人間の」	Aitwo:  "Those are words. Human words."	Amber:  "Those are words. They're talking."
ミュウツー　「えっ？誰？君」	Mewtwo:  "Eh? Who's there?"	Mewtwo:  "What are you?"
アイツー　「人間。でもあなたと同じみたいな存在」	Aitwo:  "A human. But it looks like I exist here, just like you."	Amber:  "What do you mean? I'm a girl, a person."

The "just like you" part of Ai's final line here is a pretty big part of this movie's overall message and is therefore shouldn't have been something that gets rewritten.

The two continue:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
ミュウツー　「人間？僕も人間？」	Mewtwo:  "Human? Am I a human too?"	Mewtwo:  "A person? Am I a person?"
アイツー　「お話できるんだから人間かもね。それとも私がポケモンだったりし て」	Aitwo:  "Well you can talk, so that might mean you're a human. Or, maybe I'm a Pokémon."	Amber:  "Well, you look like a Pokémon, but you talk. I didn't know a Pokémon could talk like a person."
ミュウツー　「人間？ポケモン？何それ？僕、どっちなの？」	Mewtwo:  "Human? Pokémon? What're those? Which one am I?"	Mewtwo:  "Pokémon? Person? What're those? Which one am I?"
アイツー　「どっちでもいい。あなたも私も同じみたいなもの」	Aitwo:  "It's up to you. It seems both you and I are the same either way."	Amber:  "Maybe it makes a difference to you if you're a Pokémon or a person, but not to me.

Mewtwo's dialogue here is perfectly fine but for some reason Ai's dialogue gets rewritten so that she's absolutely sure Mewtwo's a Pokémon. In the original she's a lot more open to other possibilities.

Soon after this exchange the scientists at the lab notice brainwave activity between Mewtwo, Amberwo, and the starter Pokémon. The dialogue in the English dub of this part is actually fairly accurate, but one thing I do want to bring up is the terminology used for the duplicates we'll see throughout the rest of this movie. In the Japanese version they're referred to as "Copies" (コピー) while in the 4Kids English dub they're consistently referred to as "clones."

Right before the flashback to the scene with Mr. and Mrs. Fuji:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
博士　「アイ…何を話しているのだ？私の大切な娘…アイ」	Doctor:  "Ai...what you're talking about right now? My precious daughter...Ai."	Dr. Fuji:  "Please...please let my theories be true.  I must see my little girl smile...again."

The dialogue here is actually quite different but at least the overall feeling is more or less left intact.

The scene where Dr. Fuji argues with his wife is mostly fine, dialogue-wise. The English dub is a lot more wordy than the Japanese original but the messages being conveyed all end up being the same so it's not worth bringing up here. The bigger issue with the scene is with the wife's voice and how over-the-top her voice actor plays her. Dr. Fuji's wife has a sad resignation to her performance in the Japanese version while in the English dub she sounds like she's auditioning for one of those poorly acted Disney Channel original movies. It's pretty dire.

After his wife leaves him, Dr. Fuji starts to awkwardly paw the chamber with his daughter inside:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
博士　「このホログラフをアイツーと名付けた」	Doctor:  "The name I gave this holograph...was 'Aitwo.'"	Dr. Fuji:  "I'll do anything...to see you again."

It's a very straightforward line that didn't need to be completely rewritten, and yet it was!

In the hallway:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
博士　「ミュウの化石？」	Doctor:  "A fossil of...a Mew?"	Dr. Fuji:  "So, how are they doing today?"
研究員　 「幻のポケモン ミュウ。永遠の生命力すらあると言われています。そのまつげの化石が手に入りました」	Researcher:  "The Mythical Pokémon, Mew. It's supposed to even have eternal life. And now we have a fossil of one of its eyelashes."	Assistant:  "You should be very pleased, doctor. The Pokémon clones are in stable condition and Mewtwo's getting stronger everyday. One of them is bound to survive. It looks like all our hard work is finally paying off."
博士　「ポケモンのコピーを作る。最強のポケモンを作る。その強靭な生命力の秘 密を手に入れればアイツーにも本当の命が与えられるかもしれない。アイ、戻ってきてくれ アイ」	Doctor:  "Create copies of Pokémon, and create the strongest Pokémon in the world. If we can crack the secrets of its life force we may be able to give even Aitwo a real life. Ai, please come back to me...my Ai..."	Dr. Fuji:  "Yes, Giovanni will be very happy, I'm sure. He may soon have the most powerful Pokémon in the world. But I'll get something much more precious...knowledge of how to recreate life. Then, I'll use it to bring her... back."

The English version makes it seem like the previous line -- "I'll do anything...to see you again" -- was the end of the flashback and that this hallway scene here takes place in modern times. But that's just not so! As you can see from the transcript above, this hallway scene is still a part of the flashback in the Japanese version and takes place before Mewtwo is even born.

The English dub also adds in a line about Giovanni, just to remind us who's running the things around here, that wasn't there in the original. In fact, no connection between Dr. Fuji and the Rocket-Dan is ever made in Japanese version of this adaptation at any point. The radio drama on which this is based on does, plenty of times, but the animated adaption doesn't even imply this, not even once. The dub, meanwhile, sprinkles references throughout the movie to make this connection as clear as possible.

Amber takes Mewtwo back in time:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
アイツー　「ここは私の記憶の中にあるアイが生まれて育った場所」	Aitwo:  "This here is my memory of the place where Ai was born and raised."	Ambertwo:  "I call this my Remember Place. This is where I used to live."

Aitwo doesn't give the memories of the place Ai was born and raised a special name in the Japanese version.

Also, Aitwo saying "where Ai was born and raised" instead of "where I was born and raised" implies that Aitwo does not see herself as being the same creature as Ai.

The scene where Ambertwo explains the world to Mewtwo -- the sun, the wind, the moon and the stars -- is all pretty accurate, script-wise.

Ambertwo starts to fade:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
ミュウツー　「僕の目から何かが…これは？」	Mewtwo:  "There's something coming from my eyes...what are these?"	Mewtwo:  "I feel... something...what're... these?"
アイツー　「涙」	Aitwo:  "Those are tears."	Ambertwo:  "They're tears. You're crying."
ミュウツー　「涙？」	Mewtwo:  "Tears?"
アイツー　「生き物は体が痛 い時以外は涙を流さないって。悲しみで涙を流すのは人間 だけだって	Aitwo:  "They say living things don't shed tears unless they're in physical pain. And that the only ones who cry when they're sad...are humans."	Mewtwo:  "Crying?"
		Ambertwo:  "My daddy used to tell me a bedtime story that when Pokémon are sad, and they cry, their tears are filled with life."

So this is part one of 4Kids' attempt to explain the climax of the movie proper where Ash is revived by the tears of the Pokémon around him. The whole "bedtime story" is completely made up for the dub.

Originally, Aitwo tells Mewtwo that Pokémon cry whenever they're hurt while adding that humans are the only creatures who cry when they're happy. Takeshi Shudo, the man who wrote this movie, explains in his blog that there are some people who believe that animals only cry when they're hurt and that they're not capable of shedding tears when they feel sad or happy. He sees Pokémon as being similar to animals and therefore believes that there would probably be some people in the Pokémon world who feel the same way about Pokémon as people in our world feel about animals.

All of this Amber stuff ended up getting cut out of the original theatrical release of Pokémon The First Movie, though, so this rewrite ended up not doing any good anyway. Whoops.

Ambertwo dies:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
ミュウツー　「…」	Mewtwo:  (no dialogue)	Mewtwo:  "I'm so...sad."
アイツー　「ありがとう」	Aitwo:  "Thank you."	Ambertwo:  "I have to go."
ミュウツー　「え？」	Mewtwo:  "Huh?"	Mewtwo:  "Why?"
アイツー　「ありがとう、あなたの涙。でも泣かないで。あなたは生きてるの。生 きているって…ねぇ…きっと楽しいことなんだから」	Aitwo:  "I appreciate your tears. But please don't cry. Because being alive is...y'know? It's sure to be a whole lot of fun."	Ambertwo:  "I don't know, but it's alright. Thank you for caring about me. And don't cry, Mewtwo. You should be happy. You're alive, and life is wonderful... life is wonderful... life is wonderful..."

There are lots of issues here, but the big one that sticks out to me is Ambertwo randomly knowing Mewtwo's name here. At no point does Mewtwo ever introduce itself to Ambertwo, and in fact Mewtwo wouldn't have even known of Mew's existence at this point in its life anyway and so it's not like it would know what its name is in the first place.

Mewtwo's left alone:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
ミュウツー　「アイ…止まらないよ、涙。どうしたらいいんだ？答えてよ、ア イ！」	Mewtwo:  "Ai...the tears won't stop. What do I do? Come on Ai, answer me!"	Mewtwo:  "These tears...what good are they? Please Amber, come back! Don't go...please! Amber!"

In the Japanese version Mewtwo is sad and desperate here, but in the English dub it seems quite a bit more angry...?

Also, in the English dub Mewtwo's voice starts to resemble Kermit the Frog's whenever it starts screaming out for Amber, which is both baffling and also completely hilarious all at the same time.

The scientists work to keep Mewtwo from getting too agitated:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
オペレーター　「ミュウツーの脳波が乱れています」	Operator:  "Mewtwo's brain waves are going haywire."	Operator:  "Doctor! Mewtwo's brain waves are out of control."
研究員　「かなり動揺しているようです」	Researcher:  "It seems quite upset."
博士　「今刺激を与えてはマズい。安定剤を入れろ。眠らせるんだ」	Doctor:  "It'll be bad if it receives any additional shocks now. Inject the stabilizer. We need to make it fall asleep."	Dr. Fuji:  "It's getting too upset. It mustn't remember this. Administer the serum...do it immediately!"
オペレーター　「安定剤、注入。10、20、30、40、50、60、70、 80、90、100。」	Operator:  "Injecting stabilizer now. 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100."	Operator:  "I'll try a hundred units. 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100."
研究員　「脳波正常に戻りつつあります」	Researcher:  "Its brain waves are returning to normal."	Dr. Fuji:  "What's happening? Is it working?"
オペレーター　「安定剤、注入完了」	Operator:  "Stabilizer injection, complete."	Operator:  "Its brain waves are going back to normal. Everything seems okay, Doctor."
研究員　 「脳波 正常。ミュウツー眠りに入りました」	Researcher:  "Its brain waves are back to normal. Mewtwo has fallen into a deep sleep."	Dr. Fuji:  "Nothing is OK. My Amber is gone forever! Only Mewtwo survives."

In the English dub Dr. Fuji implies that The Substance^TM they're about to give Mewtwo will make it forget everything that just happened, somehow, when no such line exists in the Japanese version.

There's also a lot of places where one character is talking in the Japanese version, but then a completely different character is speaking in the same moment in the English dub. This actually happens a lot in this movie; it seems like every time characters are speaking from just off-screen, or are so far away you can't see their mouths moving, 4Kids takes that opportunity to shuffle characters' lines around for seemingly no reason whatsoever.

Mewtwo sleeps:

Japanese (original)	Japanese (translated)	English Dub
ミュウツー　「長い…長い間眠っていた。アイのこともここで作られたポケモンの ことも何もかも眠りの向こうに消えていった。そして…」	Mewtwo:  "...so long...I've been asleep so long. Everything about Ai and the Pokémon who were made here have all disappeared into the depths of sleep. And now..."	Mewtwo:  "I have slept for so long. It seems like...forever. But I remember...something. Someone. 'Life is wonderful.' But...why?"

One of the big lies the English dub tells us (and there are quite a few!) is that Mewtwo still has some memories of Amber. This is actually the complete opposite of what happens in the Japanese version.

In the original, Mewtwo tells us that, as time marches on, it forgets all about Ai and the Copy Pokémon. No half memories, no quoting Aitwo's last words, none of that. It just...forgets. This happens in the original radio drama on which this short is based as well.

The dub makes it so that Mewtwo does remember, which is strange because just a few moments ago 4Kids went to the trouble of adding in that "It mustn't remember this!" line that wasn't even in the Japanese version in the first place. So Dr. Fuji says he doesn't want Mewtwo to remember, but it ends up remembering anyway? And this memory of Ambertwo doesn't ever come up again at any point in this movie, or in the sequel Mewtwo Returns? What?

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