this is my pokemon movies tier list as of now. check replies for more info on my rankings. https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/373e3d878ac4.png
that's fair! i have a lot of nostalgia bias for the jirachi movie, after my rewatch i think it's good but not incredible and it lacks a strong musical motif that all the other movies before it had. i already expressed my thoughts on darkrai in another reply, but i do understand why it's popular.
D --> How could you put the 100cario movie in C
it was pretty ok but had no main music motif at all and the plot was very basic compared to all the others, and its emotional core was kind of shallow. the quality gap in the movies begin there. it was also the first time they fully reused a leading pokemon, mew, who featured heavily in the first movie. they didn't even make use of mew's original musical motif for nostalgia points the way they did for celebi in the zoroark movie.
that makes sense!! maybe its just us enjoying different eras of pokemon, hehe.
that's entirely possible. my favorite main series pokemon games are emerald and platinum, and pokemon mystery dungeon explorers of sky is one of my favorite games of all time, but for me the movies specifically really hit around gen 2 and gen 3, not as much in gen 4 and onwards.
D --> What are you talking about there were several leitmotifs with the tree and Sir Aaron D --> I do not see what is especially shallow about the themes of loyalty and betrayal between what is essentially a knight and his squire D --> The difficulty of facing someone who reminds you of one from your past, someone who you loved and someone who hurt you D --> Sacrifice to save those you care about D --> Like it is obviously not the most deep, it is a pokemon movie, but I don't see how it is especially more shallow than the themes in the other movies
no strong *main* overarching musical motif across the movie, specifically; nothing musically impactful compared to most of what came before it. it was shallow in that the twist was really obvious from the beginning. the actual themes themselves were somewhat compelling, i just wish they did more with it. the stuff that was TRULY compelling and stood out above the rest was seeing lucario's reaction to the world having moved on without him, history having forgotten him. walking into his old room and seeing it replaced with artifact displays, devoid of what once made it his home... i really wanted more of that, emotions regarding pseudo time travel in ways that 4ever didn't touch on. the plot also got a little bit repetitive in general to me? i don't know. it nearly made it to B tier for me, but then i watched the mewtwo returns anime special and the quality of that compared to lucario and the mystery of mew just bumped it down to its own middle of the line category.
my favorites are sun and moon and xy, with platinum having a special place in my heart, so i can see where we differentiate!!
LOVE moon and x too, in particular. cosmog is my favorite pokemon up with clefable!
for me its sun and x!! absol is one of my favorites ever. and you *know* i have every lycanroc form!!