With the success of the Detective Pikachu movie this year, a door has been opened that can never be closed. Nintendo has just joined the likes of Sega and Disney with its own line of live-action movie adaptions. This is very exciting when you think of all the properties that Nintendo owns. If they can keep the level of quality to what we saw in Detective Pikachu—and don’t revert back to 1993’s Super Mario Bros.—then we’re in for quite a ride. Pokémon alone has a variety of games that could easily be made into movie adaptions. Here are a just few:
Pokémon Conquest
The Detective Pikachu game strayed from the typical Pokémon formula, and so did the excellent spin-off Pokémon Conquest. We hadn’t seen Pokémon in a war-like scenario before and it took us all by surprise. That and the ancient Japanese setting. The game definitely didn’t feel like a typical Pokémon RPG, but that may be for the best when it comes to a movie adaptation. Considering that Detective Pikachu seemed a lot of times to be directed at an older audience that grew up with the games, an action/war movie based in the Pokémon universe would definitely fit right in.
Mystery Dungeon Series
The Mystery Dungeon series hasn’t seen a lot of love in recent years, but this could be its triumphant return! The rogue-like series gives an interesting insight into the Pokémon world that we don’t often get to see: Pokémon as themselves. In these games, Pokémon have personality beyond saying their own names in a cute way, since you could actually have a conversation with them. If they were to take that idea and apply it to a movie, we could get a lot of perspective into how their interactions actually take place outside of battle. Detective Pikachu gave us a talking Pikachu, but a Mystery Dungeon movie could show us a Pokémon society without human interference. Mystery Dungeon generally has the protagonist as a human turned into a Pokémon. Nintendo could work it as a tie-in to Detective Pikachu if they chose to go this route. What could possibly be better than Jungle Book adaptions with Pokémon instead of animals?
Pokémon Snap
I know what you’re thinking: this is dumb. But IS IT?! Maybe. There hasn’t been a Pokémon Snap game in forever. However, the original game re-released only a few years ago, making it relevant for audiences who weren’t there for its initial release twenty years ago. Honestly, outside of main line games, Pokémon Snap is one of the more popular titles out there. Game Freak re-released it multiple times after all. The plot of the movie wouldn’t be that hard to imagine either: an island where Pokémon roam free turned into a Jurrasic Park-esque scenario that gives a young photographer the thrill of his life. Besides, our generation is on a nostalgia-train right now, so a Pokémon Snap movie fits right in.
Pokémon Colosseum
Another game that hasn’t seen the light of day in a while. Still, what excited us most in Pokémon as kids were the awesome fight scenes between these incredible creatures. A big budget Colosseum movie would bring out the excitement we felt when we were kids to the big screen. The Shadow Pokémon plot-line could also play with our heart-strings like the cloned Pokémon in the original Pokémon movie did. Nintendo hasn’t given Colosseum the love it deserves in years and it’s about time that changed.
Overall, I think we can all agree that Nintendo has a lot of material they can work with. Whatever the case, even if they choose to not go with any of the adaptions here, we still have the Detective Pikachu sequel to look forward to.
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