The same could be said about most of the other movies. He's that extraneous and bland.
We say that but I went through the movies and its only the 16th movie (Genesect & Mewtwo) where I don't think anything would change. I think the better thing to say would be for most of the movies you can replace Ash with some other character and it wouldn't change the plot. Ash's "uniqueness" is able to find unorthodox battling styles and thinking outside the box (and also traveling in a group of friends, all who have their own unique traits). However not many of the recent movies uses that about Ash, and most time Ash's friends don't do anything themselves except occasionally help Ash do something. They're just there to be the "human" element, like if this movie was made into a plot in the main games you're character will be put in the position of Ash.
My problem was more that a completely different group of scientists in a completely different region just happened to also get a hold of Mew's DNA, and just happened to create the exact same thing with it.
I could think of a few explanations though honestly the devil are in the details. It doesn't matter really, there's just now a second Mewtwo (as far as we know). Though if you want to hear how I would justify it:
1. Though Mewtwo killed all the scientists and destroyed the lab that doesn't mean a recovery team wasn't able to find some undamaged equipment at least able to recover some data from damaged equipment. Also who's to say the scientists weren't sending back research notes to HQ just to have a backup of the data as well as Team Rocket scientists to read and work on (I think that while Dr. Fuji was being funded by Team Rocket he wasn't working for them, so if you were a criminal boss wouldn't you want a copy of all research sent back to you incase Dr. Fuji decides to leave with the research notes he has)? And now that we have the data of the project somewhere (and we can presume since it takes so much money that Giovanni decides it's not worth sinking a few millions if not billions into again and rather search for the escape Mewtwo... until his memory got erased thus no longer has any interest or knowledge of Mewtwo) all it'll take for someone inside the HQ selling a copy of the data under the table or a spy to get their hands on a copy. Of course they'll still need a piece of Mew's DNA but if Team Rocket can stumble across one its not hard to think someone else can too.
2. What if they have the piece of Mew DNA already? Maybe they decided to clone Mew themselves and the clone just turned into a Mewtwo (thus a Mewtwo isn't an advanced clone of a Mew but rather a failed clone of a Mew). I have a theory Mewtwo is just a "species evolution" of Mew which triggered where it had no outside factors affecting it (like how Mew would "evolve" into other species in primordial times to adapt to their environment) and so turns into a Mewtwo, an "adaption" built upon itself. Though when a scientist is working on cloning a Mew its very easy to activate this trigger resulting in a Mewtwo instead of a Mew. As a bonus this idea can also work for multiple Mewtwo in the games.
Though note this only applies to the anime Mewtwo (and the games to an extent), the Mewtwo in the Special/Adventure Manga is a result of a fusion of Mew and human DNA.
pika pal:
Mega Limitation: Well one of my problems with Mega Evolutions has always been that some Pokemon that got a Mega Evolution probably could have gotten a normal evolution (mainly for those without a full 3 stage evolution). Then later on that normal evolution could have gotten a Mega Evolution (thus having higher stats).
Stat Redistribution: Many of the early gen Pokemon (I'd say from Gen I to Gen III) could use a stat redistribution (and maybe some points added in certain places). Gen I Pokemon were made when the Special stats were one stat, Gen I & II Pokemon didn't have Abilities, and all three gens didn't have the Physical/Special split. Surely those advancements (among others and of course the dreaded power creep) would require a re-examination.
And I wouldn't say it's only Flareon that needs its stats redone, I'd say almost all the Eeveelutions needs to have a redo. I actually a while back did that (as well as made up an Eeveelution for the other type, but who didn't do that?) and I think the changes I did have them coming out better. Not going to post them here due to being on the edge of wishlisting but the point is if I can do that following certain rules (I followed the Eeveelution stat distribution of 130/110/95/65/65/60 and the only stat I couldn't change was their HP stat) then GF can easily do the same (BTW I made Flareon a fast Special Attacker (with a good Attack stat as well)).
Grass and Bug are already bad attacking types (= a lot of types already resist it) ! Don't say that !
I always thought Ice should resist Water, somehow. It just made sense in my mind.
Just in general I think the type chart could use some more changes. Though if they make Ice resist Water they'd have to have Scald pull a Freeze-Dry and be super effective against Ice-types. That way we'll have Water and Ice resisting each other BUT they both have a move that can do super effective damage against each other (maybe an idea Fighting and Bug can do too).