Warner Brothers has dropped a bombshell that shook both the ‘Pokémon’ fandom and the meme-sphere: ‘Detective Pikachu’ is finally coming.
In a trailer released for the film on Monday evening, it was revealed that Ryan Reynolds voices the yellow furball himself – an undoubtedly unconventional casting choice from the film-makers, and a bold move for Ryan.
And hearing Ryan’s voice coming out of a big, furry, CGI version of Pikachu, not to mention seeing the other Pokémon animated in such a weirdly realistic way, is creeping the internet out.
But what kind of mysteries is Pikachu going to solve? Twitter users started getting darkly creative with the potential hijinks and macabre crimes the mascot detective could find himself investigating.
A major controversy amongst fans was the depiction of Jigglypuff – a Pokémon that has thus far been cited to have “rubbery, balloon-like skin”, but in the new movie is shown to be furry.
But what would our hairless Jigglypuff look like when brought to life?
People also had a lot to say about Mr. Mime’s creepy CGI appearance – which we personally could have done without.
Perhaps the animators were so preoccupied with whether they could, that they didn’t stop to think if they should.
Pikachu’s babblings are usually limited to “Pika-Pika” – so the fact that he’ll be speaking fluent English in the movie is another thing putting people on edge.
But the fantasy creature has spoken English a couple of times before – the first time was in the 2017 movie, ‘Pokémon the Movie: I Choose You!’, and it had fans in cinemas shook.
The second was in a game – released in English in March this year, which was the inspiration for the movie
In 2016, before the English version had launched, a Change.org petition called “Get Danny DeVito To Voice The English Version Of Detective Pikachu” gained over 51,000 signatures.
In a throwback to that time of the internet, a Danny Devito-voiced version of the new trailer quickly emerged on Twitter and put the forces of the universe back in balance.
The trailer for the game, released in February, was the first time the general public were exposed to Pikachu being voiced in English by a grown man.
Jarring.
But it looks like the man-voiced Pikachu has become a part of the zeitgeist and is probably here to stay.
All in all, we’re conflicted. The internet wants to make fun of it, but as ‘Pokémon’ stans we’ve got to be honest and just admit we’re all still going to go see it.
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