• Check out the relaunch of our general collection, with classic designs and new ones by our very own Pissog!

(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

Considering the timelines of both game development and movie development, I do think that it's feasible that what became Latias/Latios & Elhawk (which further became Blaziken) was something being designed so that the movie had some legends to show off from the upcoming game, followed by then spinning those pokemon out.

Like it seems like development really kicked off in earnest in 2001 and then oh hey by October they've already trademarked Latias & Latios, November 2001 minimum we already have near finalized sprites of them, and then they tease them with the 5th movie teaser that december. They were in the game before they finalized Kyogre & Groudon even, and it'd be a while before the regi even had something beyond their typings planned. It just kinda points that even if they weren't designed by the movie, they were probably designed with it in mind if that tracks
 
It would make a lot of sense(total guesswork here) that:
The movie division said "hey, what are some legendaries in the upcoming games we can use"
The game division had Lati@s reasonably worked out and sent the info over
The movie finished things up and released movie 5
The games took the movie additions/changes and worked them in
The games simultaneously, either through shifting focus or not wanting to retread the movies, minimized the role of Lati@s in the games, adding other legendaries instead

I think it's relevant that Gens 1&2 both had just 2 sets of legends(MewTwo+Birds, Tower Duo+Beasts), while RSE had Weather Trio, Regis, AND Lati@s. It just feels like somewhere along the line, they got a bit off from what they were intending.
 
Also worth mentioning that Elhawk coexisted with Latias & Latios for a long time, not just at the start. It took a while for it to fully turn into Blaziken. & the similarities don't seem to have been lore related or anything. We do have a remnant of a design feedback note that just said it kind of looked... like a Delibird evolution
So despite our general accepted conceit "oh this concept bird thing got turned into these three Pokemon" it kind of seems...entirely coincidental that it happens to look like Latias & Latios. Guess Sugimori just had weird bird creatures in mind?
 
Back
Top