So you just watched Pokémon: Detective Pikachu. The first live-action movie set in the Pokémon world introduced a new city, new characters, and a whole new perspective on Pokémon. The twisty caper and Pokémon-filled romp only loosely follows the game that it’s based on, which means you may still have lingering questions even if you played the game — or if you came into the movie without playing the game, you might be wondering what the heck you just watched. Never fear though, Polygon’s passionate Pokémon fans are here to help you solve the mystery of Detective Pikachu. [Ed. note: This post contains major spoilers for Detective Pikachu] The “Detective Pikachu is actually Ryan Reynolds” twist makes sense how exactly? Let’s start with the big question. The very last sequence in Detective Pikachu finds the villain defeated, the city restored to its bustling self, and Tim Goodman (Justice Smith) reunited with his father, who until this moment, was incarcerated in the body of a Pikachu. Ryan Reynolds, who voices “Detective Pikachu,” appears in the final scene in the flesh, revealed as Tim’s estranged father. Thankfully, they’re cool now, having learned a lot on their adorable journey! But, for real, there was a middle-aged man living in Pikachu for 90 minutes. According to the writers, the twist was always intended to be the coda of the film, a button on the theme of evolution and a warm hug of a final beat to the human story. There also ties to the original Detective Pikachu video game, which the movie lifts more from than you might expect. Screenwriter Benji Samit says that, even though it’s not explicitly stated in the game, it’s heavily implied that, like in the movie, the talking Pikachu at the heart of the game is actually Tim’s dad. ”Where we wanted to take it a step further,” Samit tells Polygon, “was the way it connected it to the overall theme and Howard Clifford’s plan of wanting people to evolve into better versions of themselves, the way Pokemon do.” What’s the Detective Pikachu game like? The movie is loosely based on the Detective Pikachu game for Nintendo 3DS. The game also follows a boy named Tim, who is looking for his missing father Harry, and a talking Pikachu, who is a detective. They team up to solve the mystery of rampaging Pokémon, which they learn has been caused by a mysterious drug known as “R.” The bad guy in the game turns out to be Roger Clifford, owner of GNN, instead of Howard Clifford, his father in the movie. There are some other similarities: the Pokemon research lab where the formula is produced; the involvement of a reporter’s assistant named Emilia; Detective Pikachu’s love of coffee; and Mewtwo being used to generate the formula, for instance, but a key difference is that they never find Harry Goodman in the game. Where did Mewtwo come from? Within the movie, they mention that Mewtwo, a genetically altered version of the ancient Pokémon Mew, disappeared from the Kanto region 20 years ago (the original Pokémon Red and Blue games came out in the United States roughly 20 years ago). The implication, which the screenwriters confirm to Polygon, is that this is the same Mewtwo from the canon universe. Dr. Ann Laurent hires Detective Harry Goodman to track down Mewtwo. We’re not sure where Harry ends up finding Mewtwo, but there’s a whole big world of Pokémon to pluck from. And what did the bad guy want? Though his son appears to be behind the production of “R gas,” Howard Clifford (Bill Nighy) is not the Elon Musk utopia-builder he claims to be. Or maybe he’s extremely Elon Musk? And a little too narcissistic for his own good? To litigate later: the point is, Clifford’s big plan is to transfer his brain into Mewtwo so he’s both mobile and wielding the psychic powers that can meld human and Pokémon. He gets his flesh vehicle, but a fight with Detective Pikachu cuts the catastrophic plan short. What did the “R gas” do? The introduction of “R gas” makes perfect sense in the beginning: Pokémon don’t fight in the idyllic Ryme town, but if they sniff a whiff of the purple cloudy stuff, they turn rabid. Later on, when Howard Clifford’s master plan is revealed, the conceit of the gas becomes slightly more convoluted. The gas enables a classic battle moment in the underground arena. But what could have been a third act straight out of 1989’s Batman, turning all the Pokémon in Ryme City evil and ready to rumble using R gas, hinders on an even stranger twist. Apparently Clifford needs to use the gas to rile up the Pokémon and make them more vulnerable to Mewtwo’s melding powers. What the heck were those giant turtle Pokémon? The forest that Tim, Lucy, Detective Pikachu, and Psyduck run into ends up being the back of giant, genetically altered Torterra, who’s roughly the size of a mountain. Torterra is the final evolution of the fourth-generation grass starter Turtwig. In the games, they grow to about seven feet tall and 600 pounds. Torterra, however, is one of the starters that has not received a mega evolution or a Z move, so maybe we will see giant island-size Torterra in an upcoming game title. What is different about Ryme City? Founded by Howard Clifford ten years prior to the movie, Ryme City focuses on the partnership between people and Pokémon. Unlike other regions in the Pokémon world, Pokemon work alongside humans and battles are prohibited. Why is the Pokémon battle arena … like that? The trailers gave glimpses of a very hardcore looking Pokémon arena. Instead of the glamorous gyms we see in the games or the fancy stadiums of the anime, the battle stages in Detective Pikachu look like they take place in an underground warehouse. The reason for this lies in Ryme City’s attitude toward Pokémon, where battling and fighting is banned. Therefore, those wishing for the adrenaline rush of a Pokemon battle must turn to illegal options. Do people eat Pokémon? Many of Pokémon’s most existential questions go unanswered in Detective Pikachu, but considering we see Octillery dishing out raman, let’s just say it would be colossally effed if anyone in Ryme City decided to devour their cuddly friends out of curiosity.<doc-sep>Spoiler alert! We're discussing the ending of “Pokemon: Detective Pikachu.” If you don’t want to know what happens to the humans and creatures in the live-action adventure movie, stop reading now. Come back after you’ve seen it. If you're like us, you didn't see the ending of "Pokemon: Detective Pikachu" coming until it happened and you said, "What? No. YES?!" aloud in the theater. And then you asked the guy sitting next to you if that indeed just did happen. And he confirmed that, yes, it did. Fortunately for all of us, star Ryan Reynolds and director Rob Letterman agreed to decode that gonzo ending, which feels like a mix of “Get Out,” “Lilo & Stitch” and "Field of Dreams." In the words of Reynolds, though, the movie is more like a Turner Classic Movie with an old-school twist. “You have to sit and sort of go, ‘Wait, hold on. I've got to break this down in my head. How does this work?' ” Reynolds says. “I love that that happens. I love that the unexpected is possible in a movie like this.” We'll do the hard work for you. ** Seriously, this your last warning. Bail out now if you don't want to know. ** Let’s break it down. Quick recap. Tim (Justice Smith) comes to human/monster town Ryme City after learning that his estranged father, Harry, has died. On his way to uncovering what happened, Tim teams up with Pikachu, an adorable yellow creature who talks to him in Ryan Reynolds' voice. Pikachu, who has amnesia, shows up after finding Harry's name and address written inside his tiny detective hat. "He assumes (Harry is) his Pokemon partner," says Letterman. So Pikachu and Tim proceed to go on a dangerous quest to solve the mystery of Harry’s death, filled with Pikachu's Reynolds'-flavored witticisms; colorful, outrageous scenery; an explosive duck (Psyduck); and an eager reporter (Lucy Stevens). But this is where the craziness hits 11: As it turns out, Harry is not dead. Harry is inside of Pikachu. Wait, what? In the end, we learn that Tim’s dad Harry actually didn’t die in a fiery car accident, as it may have appeared. He was saved by a powerful man-made Pokemon, Mewtwo – who, by the way, Harry was initially tasked with taking down before realizing that Howard, the guy (Bill Nighy) who put him up to catching Mewtwo, is actually the baddie. "In Pokemon canon, Mewtwo has almost godlike power," Letterman explains. "He really is Frankenstein's monster. He has every right to be angry at his creators, but he ends up being more human than the humans that created him." Mewtwo saves Harry by putting Harry’s soul into a new vehicle: Pikachu’s body. "In doing so, Harry loses his memory, but his heart will know who he is," Letterman says. Which means ... Tim learns that he was bonding with his Pikachu-inhabiting dad throughout the movie, without either of them knowing it. (Pikachu sacrificed himself so that Harry could live on in his monster body.) It makes certain moments more poignant in retrospect, like when Pikachu says to Tim, "I can tell you that if your dad was here, he’d hug you so hard your bones would pop." (That is, if you're not too preoccupied with worrying about Harry's mental state when he learns that he was once a human father and then was turned into a tiny, naked monster without his knowledge and was riding around telling scatological jokes on his son's shoulder before returning to his human form. HARRY HAS BEEN THROUGH THINGS.) The real Ryan Reynolds does show up onscreen In the end, Harry (played by – surprise! – Reynolds) magically appears in his human form. And in a dramatic ticket-ripping moment, Tim decides to not to travel back home but instead to stay in Ryme City and get to know his dear old (young) dad. “To me, it’s wish fulfillment,” says Reynolds, a dad himself with a third baby on the way. Why end it that way? Letterman, who has kids of his own, says that the surprise finale was the main reason he decided to make “Pokemon: Detective Pikachu.” “The father he’s been working for has been with him all along was my pitch line,” he says. “It’s a script about Tim finding his dad.” To Letterman, the movie is reminiscent of “Field of Dreams,” when Kevin Costner gets to play catch with his deceased father, who has reappeared as a young man. “ ‘Field of Dreams,’ the ending, I shed man tears to this day,” Letterman says. “The whole thing is designed to hit that ending from the moment it started.” 'Detective Pikachu':Ryan Reynolds 'threw everything at the wall' for his bizarre/brilliant role Review:Ryan Reynolds' cute 'Pokemon' is the only draw of 'Detective Pikachu'<doc-sep>
The mystery at the center of Detective Pikachu takes protagonist Tim and his buddy Pikachu all through Ryme City as the pair try to find out what happened to Harry Goodman, Tim's detective father. Of course, things escalate as they get nearer to the truth, with sinister figures (and their Pokemon) trying to stop Tim and Pikachu from solving the case. Be warned: We're about to explain, as well as spoil, the ending of Detective Pikachu, so read on at your own risk! Things get a little confusing as the movie progresses, though. Tim and Pikachu, along with journalist Lucy and her partner Psyduck, discover a strange laboratory. It turns out that Howard Clifford, the founder of Ryme City, had the powerful psychic Pokemon Mewtwo captured and studied in that lab in order to discover the secrets of Pokemon evolution. Through their work on Mewtwo, the scientists discovered two things: the strange R chemical that's key to the mystery, and a Mewtwo power that nobody previously knew about. At the climax of the movie, Tim learns the truth about what's happening: Howard is obsessed with Pokemon evolution and wants to find a way for humans to evolve into better versions of themselves. He intends to beat his degenerative illness (and to become the ultimate Pokemon fan) by using the newly discovered Mewtwo power to transfer his spirit into a Pokemon's body. Yup, his plan is to take over the body of a cartoon animal with magic powers. Howard doesn't just plan to Pokemon himself, though. He also transfers everyone else's spirit into their Pokemon, too. Why would he want to do that? That's a very good question. Anyway, let's press on. As Howard explains it to Tim, there's an obstacle to transferring the humans into their Pokemon--it can only happen when the Pokemon are in a wild, crazed state. That's the real reason for the R chemical: R causes Pokemon to lose control of themselves, and in the process, to lose their sentience. When the R chemical freaks Pokemon out, it leaves them open for the spirit transfer. The thing is, Mewtwo doesn't really want to cooperate with this plan. It escaped from the lab at the start of the movie, with the help of Harry Goodman and his Pikachu. As the detective pair fled the lab, Howard sent his genetically modified Greninja Pokemon to attack Harry, causing his car to crash and leaving him for dead. Mewtwo, grateful for Harry and Pikachu's assistance in escaping, came to their aid, and Pikachu volunteered to let Harry's spirit take over his body, in order to save Harry's life after the crash. That's why Detective Pikachu can talk throughout the movie. (Why he can only talk to Tim is maybe some kind of father-son bond thing? Let's just go with it.) It also explains Detective Pikachu's amnesia and why he can't remember how to use his Pikachu powers. All through the movie, Detective Pikachu is actually Harry, who can't remember being human. When Tim and Detective Pikachu find Mewtwo in the middle of the movie, they accidentally lead Howard (and Howard's Ditto, posing as his son Roger) straight to the powerful psychic Pokemon. Howard recaptures Mewtwo and uses a special helmet on the Pokemon that allows him to take control of Mewtwo with his mind. Then, Howard dispenses the R chemical that he's hidden in the Pokemon parade balloons, zapping all the Pokemon in the city and making them wild. Finally, he uses Mewtwo's powers to transfer all the humans' spirits into their Pokemon. Luckily, the R chemical doesn't affect Detective Pikachu, because he already had Harry's spirit inside him. That allows Detective Pikachu to fight Howard-as-Mewtwo and win. That allows them to break Howard's control over Mewtwo. Once the plot is uncovered and Mewtwo is back to normal, it uses its powers to undo everything Howard did, separating all the human spirits from the Pokemon and restoring everyone to normal--including Harry. In the end, Howard Clifford is arrested for his plot to turn put an entire city of people into Pokemon bodies, Mewtwo gains his freedom, and Tim and Harry reconcile. Most everything is wrapped up, except for a few dangling threads, like what happened to those huge, genetically modified Torterra who could annihilate Ryme City with a fart, or those genetically modified Greninja who have repeatedly attempted to murder people on Howard's orders? And where's Mewtwo headed with the power to turn people into Pokemon?