Detective Pikachu looks like a good movie with horrifying Pokémon

So many choices have already been made in the creation of the Detective Pikachu movie, and while most are okay, there’s one that stands out: the Pokémon.

You can breathe: live-action Pikachu, as voiced by Ryan Reynolds, is still pretty cute in the first trailer for Detective Pikachu, deerstalker hat and all. However, there’s still a slight problem. Almost every other Pokémon in this trailer looks absolutely terrifying, like someone gave the CGI department too much of a budget, so the artists decided to blow it all on making Charizard look like Godzilla’s cousin and Psyduck the stuff of nightmares.

Who thought that keeping Psyduck’s small eyes, but scaling the creature up otherwise, was a good idea? Why does Charizard have dragon abs, but is also somehow furry? How do we reconcile the fact that we now have these questions with our ability to sleep at night, or do we have to sacrifice the latter because that’s just the world we’re in now?

(We will give three exceptions here: the Bulbasaur and Charmander are just as cute as they should be, and Mr. Mime somehow looks exactly like you would expect a live-action Mr. Mime to look, because Mr. Mime was always weird anyway.)

The worst part is that the writers of the film seemed to have found some really clever humor to deal with how Pokémon and humans communicate. Pikachu doesn’t get any special abilities to talk to Mr. Mime, for example, and when the woman says “Pika pika” back to him, that’s exactly what you’d expect to happen, which makes it funny.

In fact, the entire aesthetic of the movie seems to meet the challenge of translating brightly-colored video games and anime, with all the attending issues, to the big screen. The colors are still there, but now there are darker contrasts so that your eyes won’t be seared; the technology is still there, just without the mildly discomfiting idea of Pokéballs (at least not in this trailer). Finally, trainers do still exist, but with the idea that not everyone becomes one at absurdly young ages.

Seriously, look at the furry little Pikachu. He’s pretty cute! Shame that Jigglypuff and the rest all seem bent on making sure you remember them and not him.

Check out the trailer below:

Also, nice touch on retaining the classic voice actress for Pikachu, Ikue Ōtan, to voice what Pikachu sounds like to everyone else.

Pokémon: Detective Pikachu arrives May 11, 2019.