Pokémon the Movie 2000: The Power of One — Lugia, the three birds and Christmas 2000 in French theaters

A year after the shock of Mewtwo, the Pokémon saga shifts into a completely different register: the second movie swaps the lab for the ocean, and drama for myth. Released in Japan on July 17, 1999, and in French theaters on December 20, 2000, Pokémon the Movie 2000: The Power of One pits Lugia, guardian of the sea, against a collector ready to throw the planet's climate out of balance just to complete his display case. It's also the only film in the saga where Ash travels with Tracey rather than Brock. Here's everything you need to know about this second feature film.

Contents

• The Film That Established the Yearly Formula
• The Plot, Without Spoiling the Ending
• Lugia and the Legendary Quartet
• The Only Film Where Ash Travels with Tracey
• What This Film Brings to the Saga
• Production and Music
• Reception and Results
• The French Release: December 20, 2000
• The Legacy of the Second Film
• Pokémon the Movie 2000: The Power of One at a Glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

The Film That Established the Yearly Formula

When Pokémon the Movie 2000: The Power of One came out in Japan on July 17, 1999, the landscape was nothing like the year before. The first film had been a triumph, the series was a phenomenon once again, and the July release had become an institution. This second feature locked in the one-film-a-year rhythm for good that the saga would keep up until 2020, as traced in our overview of the 23 feature films.

The crew stayed the same: Kunihiko Yuyama directed, studio OLM animated, Toho distributed and Shinji Miyazaki composed the score. Takeshi Shudō wrote the screenplay once again, but this time he left behind the existential tone of the first film for a story of prophecy, natural balance and sacred islands. The shift in tone is sharp and deliberate.

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The budget, for its part, was comfortable. It came to around $30 million, a figure on which Box Office Mojo and JP Box-Office agree — whereas the first film's budget has never been established, with sources variously citing 5, 10 or 30 million without any of them pointing to a production document. And the ambition shows: the film runs 82 minutes, the longest of the first four, and packs in spectacular sequences at sea, in the air and on volcanoes. It's the most visually ambitious of the first four films.

Like its predecessor, it was screened with a short film before the main feature, Pikachu's Rescue Adventure. Japanese audiences got an extra bonus, Slowking's Day, which was never released in France. These shorts are not part of the film saga and are not included in the tally of 23 feature films.

The Plot, Without Spoiling the Ending

The film opens on Lawrence III, a fabulously wealthy collector who roams the skies aboard a flying fortress. His obsession has a name: Lugia, the guardian of the sea, whom no one has ever seen. A legend says it will only appear if the three legendary birds clash — which is why each of them lives alone on its own island.

So Lawrence III decides to trigger that clash himself. He freezes the entire island of Moltres to force the fire bird out and capture it, then sets course for the island of Zapdos. Each capture throws the global climate further out of balance, and freak storms start battering the entire planet.

🧊 Lawrence III freezes Moltres's entire island and brings out a flying fortress just to add one piece to his collection; yours will mostly need a bare patch of wall in your bedroom and our Pokémon decorations.

Meanwhile, Ash and his friends are sailing toward Shamouti Island. Blown off course by the storm, they wash up on a tourist island in the middle of a traditional ceremony. They learn that a Trainer must bring back three elemental spheres from the birds' three islands to restore harmony — and since Ash is the only Trainer there, the task falls to him. He sets off without a second thought, with Maren, the boat's pilot.

From there, the film cuts between the expeditions to the three islands, Lawrence III's interventions and Lugia's gradual awakening. Articuno eventually joins the fray, and the clash of the three birds becomes impossible to stop. Lugia tries to step in and is defeated: it's the film's turning point. What follows hinges on a musical instrument, a melody and a race against the frozen sea, which we'll let you discover for yourself.

Lugia and the Legendary Quartet

Lugia is the real novelty of this film. When it came out in Japan in July 1999, the species had never appeared in the video games: it would only arrive with Pokémon Gold and Silver, released in Japan in November 1999, four months later. So the general public discovered it at the movies before they could catch it.

The film treats it as a protective deity rather than a creature to be caught. Lugia speaks through telepathy, knows the prophecy and seeks to avoid the fight rather than win it. Its signature move, Aeroblast, is staged like a weather event. It's exactly the register of the great founding tales we explore in our feature on regional legends and mythologies.

Opposite it, the trio of Kanto birds — Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres — is treated as a force of nature, not as three characters. They are neither good nor evil: they are reacting to an intrusion, and their territorial feud alone is enough to throw the planet's climate into chaos. How they work as a group is detailed in our feature on legendary trios and duos.

A fun detail that's still famous among collectors: at the very end of the film, Lawrence III picks up an Ancient Mew card from the wreckage of his airship and decides to restart his collection on a more modest scale. In the United States, that very card was handed out to moviegoers at the theater entrance, which gave the scene a very tangible resonance for the audience.

This scene also hides a small localization mystery. The exact role of this card in Lawrence III's collection is never explained in the Japanese film itself: the information appeared in a promotional booklet handed out in Japanese theaters, and it was this booklet that was replaced by the card itself for the American release. The Western adaptation, on which the French version is based, did however add a line of dialogue in which Lawrence III explains that he started his collection with this Mew card — a textbook case of the shifts in meaning that happen when a film designed around a local promotional setup is exported.

The Only Film Where Ash Travels with Tracey

This is the key point to remember so you don't confuse this film with the ones around it. Pokémon the Movie 2000 takes place during the Orange Islands period, and Ash's traveling companion is not Brock but Tracey, the sketchbook-carrying Pokémon Watcher. Brock makes only a very brief appearance and shows up in a photo; he doesn't travel with the group. Misty, on the other hand, is there from start to finish.

📓 Ash's traveling companion in this film is Tracey, who spends the whole movie with a sketchbook in hand; yours will fill up faster with our Pokémon stickers.

This interlude is unique among the first four films: the first, third and fourth films all bring together Ash, Misty and Brock, and only this one swaps Brock for Tracey. The different lineups that have traveled with the hero are covered in detail in our feature on Ash and the Pokémon anime.

Ash's team also reflects this specific period. It includes a Lapras, which he would release at the end of the Orange Islands, and a Snorlax he would later leave at Professor Oak's lab, as well as a Charizard that has finally become obedient, which places the story in a very narrow window of the second season.

Two female characters carry the film. Melody, the ceremony's messenger, is the key to the resolution — she's the one who plays the melody that can restore Lugia's strength. Maren, the pilot, ferries Ash from island to island. The film thus hands the two decisive levers of its climax to brand-new characters, which is fairly rare in the saga.

As for Team Rocket, they get their first big heroic moment on the big screen here. Jessie, James and Meowth drop their usual role to help Ash, and even recite a completely rewritten version of their motto in which they declare that, for once, they're on the good guys' side. Their overall story arc is traced in our feature on Team Rocket.

What This Film Brings to the Saga

The second film set the narrative template that almost every later one would follow: a threatened Legendary Pokémon, a greedy human, a natural imbalance and a child who restores order. The first film told a laboratory tragedy; this one tells a legend. It's this second pattern that the franchise would reuse year after year.

It also kicked off a marketing practice that became standard: using the film to introduce audiences to a creature the games haven't delivered yet. Lugia in theaters in July 1999, Lugia on game cartridges in November: the teaser machine was perfectly tuned and would serve as a model for the entire decade that followed.

In substance, the film introduced an idea that would become a pillar of Pokémon mythology: regional guardians whose balance governs climate and geography. The same logic would later resurface in the Hoenn showdown and in most of the legendary trios that followed, as detailed in our guide to Legendary and Mythical Pokémon.

Finally, this is the film that completed the transformation of the feature films into musical events. The international end credits line up Donna Summer, Westlife and a parody by "Weird Al" Yankovic: the soundtrack was sold as a product in its own right, separate from the film.

Production and Music

The credits carry straight on from the first film. Kunihiko Yuyama directing, Takeshi Shudō writing, Shinji Miyazaki on the original score, OLM on animation and Toho handling Japanese distribution, with a runtime of 82 minutes. To this day, it remains one of the longest films of the saga's classic era.

As with the first film, the international release got a largely rewritten score, this time under the direction of Ralph Schuckett and John Loeffler. So the version French moviegoers heard in theaters was not the Japanese soundtrack, but a reorchestration made for the Western market.

The film leans heavily on its settings: volcanic archipelagos, an ice-locked sea, a flying fortress looming overhead. It's the most visually lavish of the first four feature films, and its budget of around $30 million largely explains the difference.

A treat for fans of fourth-wall breaks: the French version contains two moments where the characters speak directly to the audience. Team Rocket announces that they're now pulling "giant dirty tricks" since they're in a movie, and a Slowking waves at the camera in the final scene — a gag unique to the Western adaptation and absent from the Japanese version.

Reception and Results

In Japan, the film confirmed the franchise's standing. It grossed a total of 6.4 billion yen at the box office — at the time, Eiren only published distribution revenue, which came to 3.5 billion yen for this film — and in 2015 it still ranked 88th on Japan's all-time chart, all countries of origin combined; on the chart limited to Japanese films alone, as of August 30, 2026, it sits in 57th place. The annual July release was now firmly established.

In North America, the film was released on July 21, 2000, and opened in third place at the box office with $19.6 million over its first weekend. The drop that followed was steep — down 68% the next week — a typical pattern for event films driven by young audiences who rush out on opening weekend.

In total, the film earned $133.9 million worldwide. That's an excellent result in absolute terms, but it was also the first sign of a slowdown: the first film had reached $163.6 million by Box Office Mojo's count, a total that Wikipedia's infobox raises to $172.7 million by following JP Box-Office, which puts the rest-of-world figure higher. The downward curve that would mark the rest of the saga starts here.

Critics, for their part, were lukewarm overall, just as with the first film. The main criticism targeted a very predictable prophecy plot, whereas the first film at least had the merit of surprising viewers. Audiences, however, didn't mind.

Still, these figures need to be put in perspective. Box Office Mojo and JP Box-Office both credit this second film with a $30 million budget, against $133.9 million in worldwide earnings: about four and a half times the outlay. A comparison with Pokémon: The First Movie remains impossible to draw cleanly, however: the first film's budget isn't established by any production source, and depending on whether you go with $5, $10 or $30 million, the multiple attributed to it ranges from thirty-three times to sixteen times, then five and a half times. What's certain is that its worldwide earnings exceed the second film's by nearly $30 million, and that Western distributors gradually pulled back from the saga.

The French Release: December 20, 2000

In France, the film hit theaters on December 20, 2000, right in the middle of the Christmas holidays — the best possible slot for a family film. It was the second of only three Pokémon feature films to get a genuine theatrical run in French cinemas, between the first film on April 5, 2000, and the third on June 13, 2001; after that, the saga only returned to the big screen for the limited run of I Choose You! in November 2017, then for two days of special event screenings in November 2025.

This schedule had an amusing consequence: French audiences saw the saga's first two films just eight months apart, whereas a year separated them in Japan. The release gap partly closed, before turning chaotic from the fourth film onward, as explained in our guide to all the movies.

The French home video release, on DVD and VHS, arrived in 2001. It came with a promotional Surfing Pikachu card, following the Mewtwo card given away with the first film. These bonus cards, highly sought after today, are typical of an era when the trading card game and the movies supported each other.

🃏 The Surfing Pikachu card bundled with the 2001 DVD and VHS has become a highly sought-after piece; yours will age better in one of our Pokémon card storage solutions.

The Legacy of the Second Film

The main legacy of Pokémon the Movie 2000 comes down to one name: Lugia. The film turned this species into one of the most popular Legendary Pokémon in the entire franchise, long before players could battle it in the games. It would become the mascot of Pokémon Silver, then return regularly in the remakes, spin-off games and successive re-releases of the second generation, where it invariably keeps the guardian-of-the-sea status the film tailor-made for it.

The film also permanently cemented the image of Kanto's three birds as an inseparable set. Before this film, Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres were just three rare creatures scattered across the map of Kanto; after it, they form a trio whose balance carries narrative meaning. This is the film that gave them a mythology.

Finally, in terms of structure, it was this second film that convinced the franchise it had a repeatable recipe. Yet the third feature film would take the opposite approach by returning to an intimate story, before the saga settled for good into the mythological register introduced here.

Lastly, for French audiences, it remains tied to a very specific memory: packed theaters in December 2000, at a time when Pokémon was still a playground phenomenon fueled by the cards, the first generation of games and two films in less than a year. That combination would never happen again in France.

Pokémon the Movie 2000: The Power of One at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• What is the exact French title of the second Pokémon movie?
  Its official French title is Pokémon 2: Le pouvoir est en toi (literally "Pokémon 2: The Power Is in You"). It shouldn't be confused with the American title, Pokémon the Movie 2000: The Power of One, or with the Japanese title, which translates as The Phantom Pokémon: Lugia's Explosive Birth.
• When was the second Pokémon movie released in France?
  It hit French theaters on December 20, 2000, during the Christmas holidays, a year and a half after its Japanese release on July 17, 1999. It's the second of only three Pokémon films to get a genuine theatrical run in France; I Choose You! returned to screens there from November 5 to 17, 2017, and Volcanion on November 22 and 23, 2025, as special event screenings.
• Is Brock in the second Pokémon movie?
  No, not as a traveling companion. The film takes place during the Orange Islands period, when Ash is traveling with Misty and Tracey. Brock makes only a very brief appearance and shows up in a photo, but he doesn't take part in the adventure. It's the only one of the first four films where that's the case.
• Was Lugia already in the games when the film came out?
  No. The film came out in Japan in July 1999, while Lugia only appeared in the video games with Pokémon Gold and Silver, released in Japan in November 1999. So audiences discovered Lugia at the movies before they could encounter it in a game.
• Who is the villain of the second Pokémon movie?
  It's Lawrence III, a wealthy collector who travels in a flying fortress. He captures the three legendary birds for the sole purpose of drawing out Lugia and completing his collection, without realizing that each capture throws the planet's climate out of balance.
• Which short film accompanied the second movie?
  Pikachu's Rescue Adventure was shown before the main feature. Japanese audiences also got a second short, Slowking's Day, which was never released in France. These shorts aren't counted among the saga's 23 feature films.

In short