Detective Pikachu released in theatres last month and served as the first live-action film in the
Pokemon franchise's history. Those behind the film had to figure out how to bring many iconic Pokemon creatures to life. The Moving Picture Company (MPC) is the visual-effects studio that we have to thank for accomplishing this task.
Pete Dionne, the VFX supervisor who worked on
Detective Pikachu, recently spoke with
DigitalArtsOnline about how they went about realistically representing the titular Pokemon: Pikachu. Dionne explained that, as Pokemon are typically two-dimensional cartoon characters, they have unrealistic proportions which simply wouldn't look right on an actual living thing.
"The thing with Pokémon is they’re very simplistic 2D designs. They're really adorable with their big heads, small bodies and big eyes and all the things that in character design you can turn to to make an appealing character but in real life if you saw an animal with these same kind of features and proportions, it would look grotesque and unnatural."
The visual-effects supervisor continued, explaining that the team looked to real life animals to serve as inspiration for the live-action adaptations of Pokemon. For example, they would take into account how a creature like Pikachu would be able to flee from or stave off predators:
A term we threw around a lot at MPC was 'How would this Pokémon survive the night?' Could this animal make it through the night in the woods on its own? Would it be able to run away fast enough from whatever predators might pursue it? So we decided to follow the logic of nature's design.
Dionne then went onto reveal that Pikachu itself is actually based on a rabbit, with a bit of red panda in there for good measure, from the way he stands to the way he waddles around. This was all to avoid the animation coming off as too human.
For Pikachu, he spends so much of his time upright in the film and cartoons, with a range of motion that a human performer would have. But very quickly he turns into looking like a guy in a Pikachu suit. So I imagined him as an upright quadruped, like a rabbit. When you think of a rabbit up on its hind legs they really swing a lot of momentum into their steps. They’re not very well balanced. The moment that Pikachu would go down on all fours, that’s when we’d allow him to embrace the natural quadruped look. We referenced a lot of red pandas for those movements.
Ace detective Harry Goodman goes mysteriously missing, prompting his 21-year-old son, Tim, to find out what happened. Aiding in the investigation is Harry's former Pokémon partner, wise-cracking, adorable super-sleuth Detective Pikachu. Finding that they are uniquely equipped to work together, as Tim is the only human who can talk with Pikachu, they join forces to unravel the tangled mystery.