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I decided to jump off of BW for a day and rewatch the second movie, because: 1. Life ain't great right now, so watching something I have fond memories of makes me happy, and 2. I was curious to see how much 4Kids changed of the second movie, since it is the main Pokeshipping one, and people claim that 4Kids invented Pokeshipping. More on the second part later, I'm still looking stuff up.
I'll say that I missed the original Lugia song, the clever wordplay about the world "turning to Ash," and I vaguely remember that the Mew card showed up much more often early in the movie than it did here. I'm assuming that was 4Kids being extra shill-y. It's been 20 years since I first saw it, so my memory's never gonna be 100% faithful. Maybe 4Kids schlocked things up more than I realize. I can definitely feel a lot more of Shudo's weirdly negative-optimism, and his emphasis on the balance of the world through the relationship of humans with Pokemon taking the main stage. Regardless, I still kind of miss the dub stuff.
One of the criticisms I heard in the discourse is that the main antagonist capturing the Legendary Birds isn't much different than being a Trainer. I think here the Japanese points it out a bit more clearly: He's not catching the Pokemon "correctly," i.e., by defeating or forming a bond with them, but rather, by using technology to oppress them. Also, he wants to show them off rather than work with them. It's similar to why what Pokemon Hunters do is bad, but Trainers. using Pokeballs is fine. You don't have to accept the logic, but it is the intention here.
I remember hating Tracey as a kid. Now I feel bad that he had no presence in this movie. It was either Ash running around getting the elemental balls, or Misty and Fleura navigating the minefield of how Misty feels about Ash. People miss the important moral in all that though: "Pokemon cards are really cool. Buy more."
