After many rumors and speculation about the project, the first trailer for Warner Bros produced live-action movie by Pokémon: Detective Pikachu dropped on November 12, 2018. Pokémon: Detective Pikachu stars actor Ryan Reynolds has the series mascot Pikachu and a former Pokémon trainer Tim Goodman played by Justice Smith with the power to understand Pokémon, which causes the unlikely duo to team looks for his missing father in the Pokémon world.
We also get to see how the Pokémon look in the real world with fan reactions mixing between nightmare fuel to well animated. It’s pretty impressive how the trailer does make the world of humans & Pokémon feel real and where Pokemon would be. There are Pachirisu on street vendors roofs, Bulbasaur & Morelulls walking down a river, a Jigglypuff that sung a bar patron to sleep, and a Charizard in what seems like an underground cage match. Oh, of course, the disturbing menace of the humanoid Pokémon Mr. Mine being interrogated by the duo.
There are also some other little Easter eggs scattered across the film like Tim’s room being filled with Pokemon posters like the Sinnoh 24
th Championship, a sports club fight between Articuno and Steelix, the Cerulean Area hosting a championship, and the train ticket with Lavender Town abbreviated as “Laventown” as a departure gate on Tim’s ticket.
The movie is based on the Pokémon spin-off game called Detective Pikachu that released in Japan in 2016, but not for the western audience until 2018 on 3DS. The plot of the game and the movie seem similar to Tim’s father disappearing and the duo searching for him while investigating cases of rampaging Pokémon in Ryme City.
The film is slated for a Summer 2019 release date.