A Lot of Pokemon Are Making Their Way into DETECTIVE PIKACHU

Every time I see a trailer for Detective Pikachu, my reaction is that the film looks better than it has any right to be. Let’s not kid ourselves, the Pokémon look amazing. Some look a little weird at first, but then you realize that’s just how they would look in the real world. Well, in a recent interview with Pokémon.com, Ali Mendes talked about bringing the Pokémon to life and we learned that “more than 60 Pokémon” were brought to life for the film.

“From the beginning, our idea is this has to be the highest-quality animation possible. These creatures really need to feel like they’re standing next to you in the real world, and that’s going to be the success of this movie.

If we’re going to do this movie, we want these creatures to feel real … these creatures are as photorealistic as they can possibly be. We’re working with the best visual effects team in the world.

It’s been a real challenge, and I think our visual effects team has really risen to that, and people are going to be very excited about what they see.”

During the interviewer, we learned a bit more about the process as Greg Baxter, the Visual Effects Producer, talked about how they made photorealistic Pokémon.

“It’s supposed to feel like all these creatures that you’ve seen mostly in very bright colors and in anime style are sitting in the room with you. [From one Pokémon to the next], they have different textures—some are furry, and some are kind of leathery or snakey. For every creature, we took real-world animals and drew from that. We put all these pieces together to form what that Pokémon would look like. Even though they’re a creature that doesn’t exist in our world, all of the elements of what makes them up in this movie are taken from animals that do.”

I’m surprisingly excited for Detective Pikachu which is set to appear in theaters on May 10, 2019. Are you excited?