Detective Pikachu: Why fans are so upset about the new Pokémon film

No Hollywood adaptation of a childhood favourite ever quite lives up to expectations. But the trailer for the live action Pokémon: Detective Pikachu film has gone too far, causing controversy, shock and deep sorrow among longtime Pokémon fans like me. Did director Rob Letterman (he of Shark Tale and Monsters Vs Aliens) really need to reduce these previously magnificent characters to the status of common household pets?

The great Pikachu – the best friend of Pokémon’s main protagonist Ash; the only Pokémon to have starred in every episode, film and special version of the franchise; the Pokémon that brings Ash back from the dead with his tears in the first film – has been reimagined as something resembling a hamster. A hamster! The lesser of all rodents, with a lifespan of less than five years on average, that commonly meets its fate by being dropped from a height. Truly the worst kind of pet.

Another one of the Pokémon world’s creatures, Jigglypuff, known for its smooth pink flesh and quiff, is just wrong. Fans are arguing about whether it should have fur at all – but either way, it looks scrappy. Like a teddy bear that has been through the wash, or a stressed cat. The filmmakers have managed to take a Pokémon that is literally born from happiness (Jigglypuff evolves from Igglybuff when he becomes happy enough) and turn it into a cross between Pat Butcher and a tired Elvis tribute.

The wonder of Pokémon is that they are larger than life, magical and mysterious creatures with which our imaginations can run wild. It is why no one has complained about the big-screen version of fellow Pokémon creature Bulbasaur, who still looks pretty out-of-this-world in the trailer; and why Charizard – that could most closely be compared to a dinosaur or a dragon in the trailer, rather than any creature that currently walks the Earth – has caused considerably less outrage than the others. Maybe all reincarnations of our favourite childhood characters are doomed to fail because they never really meet our imaginations, but Pokémon usually escapes this fate – it has never tried too hard to be realistic in the first place.