Yu-Gi-Oh! Capsule Monsters TV Series vs. The Movies: What Got Cut, and Which is Better? Part 1
As I mentioned in my 4Kids retrospective, 4Kids didn’t technically release Capsule Monsters on DVD. They never released the full series on a home video format, but they did recut the 12 episode long series into two movies – each an hour and a half long — and released those on DVD. As expected, a lot of cuts were required, but what exactly got cut, and how badly did it affect the series?
— They have a ‘special’ opener for the movie. Instead of fading to black and showing the normal theme song with Capsule Monsters clips, we zoom into the eye of the Millennium Puzzle and get some budget-y CGI work of… I think part of the Capsule Monsters map with some capsules on it. I’d say it’s the most budget-y CGI the show has ever had, and I feel confident saying that because they didn’t tend to use CGI often in classic YGO. There are barely any textures on anything, and the zoom-out shot looks like someone smushed a chocolate chip cookie.
Also, interestingly, they added the words “Shonen Jump’s” to the top of the YGO logo when I’ve never seen that before in the regular series. I wonder what prompted that addition. It’s not in the series version of Capsule Monsters.
The opening song is also not the YGO theme song. Instead, it’s a short instrumental from the series’ soundtrack.
— I’m only now realizing….why exactly was Yugi having recurring nightmares about Seven-Armed Fiend and the armor if Alexander didn’t influence anything to get them to the pyramid? The Puzzle can’t see the future. It’s also weird that, in the dream, SAF was talking as if he was the enemy when he didn’t talk when he was revealed and Alexander was the real enemy.
— Here’s something kinda funny. The audio between the two versions barring the theme song has been very consistent so far. However, in the movie version, when they cut to them at school, you can clearly hear some guy asking “So what score did you get?” and some girl telling another kid to look at the “weirdos” playing the board game, referring to Yugi and Téa playing Capsule Monsters. In the series version, all you hear is indiscernible chatter.
I’m….completely stumped as to why 4Kids would purposefully add that to the movie. All it does it give the audience a bad first impression of the game they seemingly made this entire series to promote. Or maybe they removed it for the series version because they realized that but then missed it when cutting the movies. Who knows?
— I also just now realized that they had Yugi point out that the object of the game is to capture your opponent’s symbol game piece….and that just never comes up again. Not even in the finale.
— Joey should really see a doctor if he can’t stand holding his breath for two seconds.
— Téa: “No magic…no pharaohs.” Huh, I should have questioned this line before too. Téa loves Yami – what was that comment about?
— The movie doesn’t include the shot of the plane landing.
— Are they allowed to just decide to go on vacation for six days? Does the school not care?….Actually, considering they never do schoolwork, homework, or tests, and seeing a teacher is about as rare as a dry Exodia card, I guess they probably don’t care.
— The series omits Joey prattling on with the stuff he brought like days-of-the-week underwear and a nail file. It creates a slightly awkward silence right before the pilot arrives. It also makes Téa’s comment a bit weird. She’s trying to say he’s worse than him with packing stuff, but he only listed two things.
— Tristan says “See if you can keep up this time.” to Joey in the movie. In the series, he says “Try to keep up, Wheeler.” I know, I’m providing groundbreaking content here.
— The movie removes Joey saying “Oh yeah!” and Téa saying she hoped for a bigger plane before they take off.
— They’re almost in India already? According to Google, it takes eight hours, minimum, to fly from Japan to India. That’s a super long flight in a tiny personal plane.
— The movie removes Yugi thinking to himself that Téa seems a lot more excited than before and that she might be even more excited than any of them. He then thinks the vacation’s going to be incredible before the engines fail.
— The movie removes the pilot reacting to the drop in altitude.
— Again, just the biggest coincidence that their plane had engine trouble for no discernible reason and crashed right by the pyramid. All because fate.
— The backpack Joey has on after the crash isn’t the one he was wearing when they left. And none of the others had backpacks when they left, but suddenly they do after the crash….
Also, look at Tristan’s dumb backpack.
….That is a dumb backpack. It’s like it’s backwards.
— The movie omits the closeup shot of Yugi saying “Grandpa’s missing?! We have to find him!”
— The movie omits Yugi saying “Let’s go!” and the group standing up.
— The movie removes an entire conversation between Yami and Yugi where Yami points out how suspiciously convenient all of this was for them to win a trip, crash right in the area where Solomon was last spotted, and stumble upon the only person who knows where Solomon went missing. He then says that this could be why their Puzzle has been acting oddly lately.
I want to believe they removed all that because they realized that 1) they were just going to lazily explain all those coincidences with ‘fate’ so they probably didn’t want to highlight them any more than they had to, and 2) The connection with the Puzzle and the dreams was almost completely unexplained in the end anyway.
All we learn is that they had a prophetic dream about fighting Seven-Armed Fiend and Yami was wearing the default armor. But SAF wasn’t the mastermind or final boss, and it still doesn’t make sense why Yami was just fighting without special duel armor. He had several by the end. The Puzzle was entirely unrelated because, while Alexander did have the Ring once upon a time, he doesn’t have it now, hasn’t had it in centuries, nor does any of this have anything to do with the Millennium Items.
— The movie also removes the shot of them seeing light at the edge of the forest.
— The movie omits Joey saying the fact that the pyramid isn’t in Egypt is even cooler. Téa responds saying it also makes it creepier. They also removed a shot of Yugi andYami with Dr. Brisbane saying he and Solomon were as confused as they are, but nothing could have prepared them for what they would discover.
— An establishing shot of the pyramid is then removed, likely because of the commercial break fadeout.
— For some reason, they add a blur effect to the images of Alexander as Dr. Brisbane explains who Alexander the Great is in the movie version.
Series:
Movie:
— The movie removes the group moving through a tunnel and Téa getting suspicious of Dr. Brisbane knowing a lot about the pyramid.
— The movie removes a shot of the group going down the stairs and Yugi yelling for his grandpa.
— Well, this is odd. The image on the tile Joey walked on looked like desert/forest area in the series. In the movie, they changed this to being a mountain or a cliff. I think they did this because the next shot has Yugi pointing out that the spot Joey stepped on looks like a mountain, but the animators apparently didn’t get that note at the time so they hastily changed it for the movie. It looks bad, and I don’t understand why they bothered if it was going to look that bad in the end, but oh well.
Series:
Movie:
— They remove Yugi saying it makes sense that Solomon would come to this pyramid if he heard there’s a game inside since he loves games. I’m going to assume this is Evil!Alexander BSing because, as far as I know, there’s no indication that there’s a game inside Alexander the Great’s tomb. Also, they randomly just found this pyramid, so I can’t figure out what research Alex would have done that would lead him to that conclusion.
— The hastily edited-in mountain tile is maintained through all the far shots in the movie.
— The movie removes Dr. Brisbane’s reaction to them vanishing in the floor. Maybe because it doesn’t make much sense for him to have that reaction if he’s Evil!Alexander?
— I still don’t get how they wound up in a forest area if they stepped on the same tile Joey did.
— The movie version removes voiceover of Yugi telling Yami that he wonders if something is inside the pods as he moves his hand toward one.
— The movie removes a brief scene of Yugi hiding behind a rock, stating he thinks he got away, and then saying he hopes Tristan and Téa are okay.
— The movie removes Téa saying “Cool, what’s next?” after she pops out of the sand.
— The movie removes Téa telling Thunder Kid that Tristan was kidding about his insulting comment. Tristan agrees, but is clearly lying, and Thunder Kid flails around. The movie also adds a bit of a high-pitched trumpet sound after Tristan’s insulting description as the scene shifts to Yugi.
— The movie removes a small part of Celtic Guardian’s summoning and Yami saying “What have I done?!”
— The movie removes two of Celtic Guardian’s strikes in the fight.
— The movie removes Yami saying “Hold on!” right before the flashback.
— And the movie couldn’t fix the layering issue on the flashback. Guess they had to save their budget for that awful mountain tile.
— The series had to add light censorship to Celtic Guardian’s attack on Kamakiriman probably because of FCC guidelines or 4Kids being paranoid. It’s unaltered in the movie.
Series:
Movie:
— The movie removes Celtic Guardian telling Yami that he’ll protect Yami for the duration of the game probably because this is confusing as hell in hindsight since no other monster they encounter in this game will talk.
— Obviously, they also remove the “To be continued” from the final shot and will be removed from every episode.
— Because the first scene of the second episode would probably seem jarring immediately following the last scene (since it’s a direct continuation of Yami/Yugi’s POV) we skip that for now and head on to Joey’s POV in the movie.
— For some reason, the movie removes most of Baby’s Dragon’s squawking when it’s first summoned as well as Joey saying “What?” before his “No way!” in the same shot.
— The series then shifts to Tristan and Téa’s POV, but the movie continues with Joey until after he and Baby Dragon escape the Kurama.
— Joey’s line upon seeing the massive flock of Kurama was “Is it me or did this flock get bigger?” in the series. In the movie, he says “Looks like Tweety had more friends than I thought.”
— After Joey says “Okay, plan B” in the series, we pause for a moment to have Joey tell Baby Dragon it’s time he schooled him in the Joey Wheeler Technique of Battle, which is “If you can’t beat ‘em, run for your life!” In the movie, he says “Okay, plan B. Run for your life!” with no pause, probably because it messed up the pacing of that scene a little.
— The series then shifts to Yami/Yugi’s POV. The movie continues to stick with Joey.
— The movie removes Joey saying “Our feathered friends are catching up.”
— The movie removes Joey saying “Alright, we’re gonna need a new plan. Uhhhhhh…..”
— Like half the chase in the ravine is removed in the movie version.
— A brief side shot of Joey is removed.
— At this point, the series was shifting back to Yami/Yugi fighting the Trents, but the movie now shifts to Tristan and Téa’s POV.
— They remove the sequence where Tristan reminds Téa of when they were running through the forest being chased by the Gokibore as well as the flashback showing that Téa stepped on a capsule while Tristan fell on his, releasing Happy Lover and Thunder Kid. This was probably because, when you’re watching this story in one straight shot, it’s more obvious and easier to remember that that didn’t happen. It’s still a little jarring because they clearly never touched the capsules from the forest, but it’s better than animating a scene that never happened to lie to the audience, I suppose.
— The following shot of Thunder Kid and Happy Lover as well as Téa asking if they’ll release monsters from those capsules every time they touch them are removed.
— After Root Water appears, Tristan asks Téa if she touched another egg. In the movie, he asks if she touched another rock.
— The BG music is also noticeably different in this scene between versions.
— A long stretch of dialogue where Tristan explains to Téa that their monsters likely knew this was Root Water’s territory is removed in the movie.
— At this point in the series we shift back to Joey and Baby Dragon. In the movie, we start Yami/Yugi’s storyline.
— Yami pausing, holstering his capsule and warning the being nearby that he’s not alone are removed.
— They remove Yami saying “It’s even worse than I thought. Even the trees are out to get us in this place.”
— I just realized that the Capsule Monsters arm shooter thing that never got a name does the same rainbow light and sound effect as a Duel Disk does when you play a card. The laziness knows no bounds.
— The movie removes a brief shot of Celtic Guardian after it’s summoned.
— They remove a far shot of Celtic Guardian and Trent after Yami commands him to attack, probably because the series shifts to Joey’s POV here while the battle continues in the movie.
— A shot of Celtic Guardian dodging a root is removed because it’d seem awkward following that.
— A big chunk of the battle against the Trent is removed where Celtic Guardian keeps trying to attack, but he can’t damage it. Yugi notes that Celtic Guardian is much stronger than Trent in Duel Monsters, but for some reason their attacks are having no effect.
— Okay, I have no idea why I didn’t discuss this in my review of episode two, but the movie removes a scene where Yugi says the fact that the Trent may be getting a field power bonus from being in the woods supports their theory that they’re in the world of the Capsule Monsters board game. Yami then says that he thinks this world existed first and then someone made the game based on this world, like how Pegasus made Duel Monsters based on the tablet game they played in Ancient Egypt.
So that begs the question….who DID make the Capsule Monsters board game?
We now know that Shadi made this world, and the only other people who played this game before Yugi and the others were Alexander the Great and his vassals, who never escaped the pyramid. The board game is new. So who knew about this game and made a board game based on it?…. Does Shadi have a side business as a board game designer?
I feel like I’m giving 4Kids too much credit, but I want to believe this was another instance where the editors in charge of cutting the series into a movie noticed that this question never got answered, created a major question mark in this series’ lore, so they removed this exchange to avoid the audience asking questions.
— When Yami says that this must be some sort of Shadow Game, the shot originally stayed on them and the Trent right before we shifted back to Joey’s POV where he’s, at this point in the series, being chased by the Kurama. When the series cuts back to Yami, we see him hiding behind Celtic Guardian, and they kinda just recap their situation.
In the movie, since they want to stay on Yami right now, they remove those shots and jump straight to when the other trees turn into Trents.
— A shot of Yami and Yugi up close and then further as they’re surrounded as Yugi says this is the Trent’s special ability is cut from the movie.
— The movie removes Yugi suggesting he get someone else to reach the capsule, Yami saying “Celtic Guardian!” and Celtic Guardian seemingly reacting to unspoken commands. The movie makes it look like Celtic Guardian knew to cut the root before Yami and Yugi figured it out.
— Now that I’m thinking back on it, it’s kinda funny that they walked by like two dozen capsules on their way into the forest, but once they realize what the capsules do they only find one or two every other episode.
— The Millennium Eye symbol is on the treasure chest Joey found.
That means…………nothing…..*shrug*
— The movie removes a part with Joey saying he’ll be richer than Kaiba, him doing that dumb dance, referencing The Mask, drooling, and then cheering that he gets to be a spoiled brat (his words, not mine.) I think that was for the best.
— They cut out the first reaction shot of Thunder Kid getting hit and Tristan feeling it. Tristan points out that the pain their monsters experience is mirrored in them. I guess this was removed to avoid redundancy since Yami just explained that fact a minute ago.
— The movie removes Téa thinking that their monsters are too weak to fight, but they have to do something.
— It’s funny how Tristan says he wishes he paid more attention to Yugi when he was dueling because then he might be able to come up with a strategy. That just tells me that 1) Tristan doesn’t pay attention to Yugi’s duels. After years of their lives hanging on those duels, he just doesn’t pay much attention. And 2) he also understands that this is just Duel Monsters.
— Flashback Yugi: “This game is just like Duel Monsters.” So we were never even really pretending from the start. Gotcha.
— This flashback gets a blur border in the movie.
— Téa calling on Happy Lover to use its power and one shot of Happy Lover going to Thunder Kid and Tristan is removed.
— A reaction shot from Téa and Tristan seeing Thunder Kid and Happy Lover cowering as well as Téa asking “Got a plan B?” were removed.
— Because the second episode ends with teasing the return of Solomon, they cut that out of the movie and move on to episode three.
— The movie removes Téa saying she hopes Joey is having more fun than they are and Tristan saying it’s his own fault they’re there in the first place. I’m fine with this because Tristan’s an asshole.
— They remove Yugi saying “Okay, now that’s just weird.” Another understandable edit because, really, Yugi, with all you’ve seen, Joey falling into your camp and being caught by Baby Dragon is weird to you?
— Tristan saying “Since this is all Joey’s fault, maybe he can lead the way” and a shot of Joey eating are removed. Again, Tristan’s an asshole. Joey stepped on a floor, first of all, and second of all, this is technically really all Solomon’s fault, even if it was still an accident with him too.
— The movie removes the very faint sound of the end of Yugi calling out “Yu-Gi-Oh!” when Yami taps in. I get this too because it’s odd that the only thing you hear is “Ohhhh!” very faintly in the background.
— They remove Yami saying they don’t know their way around here before him saying he thinks they’re in a game of Capsule Monsters. That was probably for time and preventing repetitiveness since Yami points out that this place is enormous and they will have difficulty navigating it a few lines later, but it makes Tristan’s change in expression look odd in the movie. Granted, it looks a little odd in the series, too.
— They remove Joey pointing at the map and asking what the deal is with the house.
— Well, well, well, look who edited out Solomon saying he can’t summon Summoned Skull because he thinks more powerful creatures have a cooldown on summoning, which is why his capsule turned silver. Wonder why they’d do that. It’s such an integral part of the game that comes back tons of times and totally doesn’t get completely ignored once Summoned Skull dies his stupid death.
Of course, that just leaves you wondering why Solomon doesn’t summon Summoned Skull for this battle in the movie or in the future before his death. It removes one problem and causes another.
— They remove Solomon picking up a torch and the group the looking scared.
— Light censorship added to the Flower Wolf’s bite on Baby Dragon in the series.
Series:
Movie:
— Light censorship on the Flower Wolf’s bite on Celtic Guardian’s shoulder is added to the series. The same censorship is added when a Flower Wolf bites Celtic Guardian’s neck.
Series:
Movie:
— Still bothers me that Yami is surrounded by flower-based creatures that are clearly deterred by fire and he completely forgets he has a Hinotama Soul and Joey has a Baby Dragon with fire breath. Just Solomon and his torch.
“We need to come up with a strategy!” You don’t need a strategy when you have two monsters with fire powers…. Apparently, using a flash from lightning hitting a sword to blind the wolves that are surrounding them with no way of protecting their own eyes comes to Yami easier than just using the monster that is living fire.
Also, I was going to give the benefit of the doubt and say they covered their eyes and just kinda felt their way out…. But no. Yami is looking up, like an idiot, and we see the flash come on screen while his eyes are wide open and completely uncovered. Enjoy your blindness, Yami.
— A shot of the Flower Wolves looking confused was removed. Not a loss because that shot makes them look kinda doofy.
— They remove the first part of Joey and Tristan’s can-can as well as them doubling over in hunger and explaining that they always do a can-can when they win a fight.
— The movie omits Yami flashing back to Tristan and Téa getting their monsters (Wait…how did he know what that looked like?) saying he thinks their friends don’t quite understand the danger they’re in and that the pain their monsters experience transfer to them. This edit makes perfect sense because, not only is the flashback nonsensical, but they do understand the pain part. They just experienced that, Yami.
— They remove Téa and Yugi rushing to Tristan and Joey as they collapse and the closeup shots of them on the ground due to the commercial break I think.
— I love how with all they cut out of the series so far they felt it was important to keep in the subplot of Tristan and Joey being annoying dumbasses because they’re hungry.
— Tristan yells out “Cannonball!” as he dives with his arms and legs spread…..
— The rest of the shot of the temple, Tristan pointing out the temple in dialogue, and a far shot of the group walking toward the temple are removed.
— They remove Solomon saying that their monsters aren’t powerful enough to defeat La Jinn, probably because they realized they didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that they DO have a monster more powerful than La Jinn. And now it’s even worse in the movie because they have no explanation for why Solomon wouldn’t use Summoned Skull.
— Joey and Tristan trying to convince Yami not to do this alone, Yugi asking Yami why he’s going alone, Yami saying he feels like it’s his responsibility to do this because he somehow feels like it’s his fault that they’re there in the first place (If this was some foreshadowing, they failed, because it wasn’t his fault at all. It was entirely unrelated to him.) and Solomon wondering if Yami can do this because La Jinn is really powerful are all removed. Again, this is repetitive, so I’m fine with this removal.
— La Jinn laughing and then a further shot of La Jinn, Celtic Guardian, and Yami are removed.
— Joey saying La Jinn fights dirty and Tristan saying “Yeah, but our guy’s got a sword!” were removed, probably because both of those lines were stupid.
— The movie removes Joey saying “I think we’re about to find out.” when Tristan asks who could have done something like this (Freezing Téa and Solomon.)
— They remove Joey and Tristan saying, “You know what time it is?!” “Go time!”
— Yami: “Please go! Leave these two to me!” Go where? The only exit is blocked by an ice dam that has two friendsicles and a giant ice monster in it.
— They remove Yami saying in inner monologue “Of course! Why didn’t I think of this before?” and then inner!Yugi telling Yami not to think about doing this alone because they work as a team, and Yami finally relenting. Removed because repetitive. Even me pointing out how repetitive it is is getting repetitive.
— They remove inner!Yugi saying “One for all and all for one!” and Yami saying “Well put.” Probably because that’s really cliché.
— They don’t remove the part of this shot where Yami shifts back to Yugi, so they add the typical “Yu-Gi-Oh!” music sting in the movie there.
— Yugi telling the others he searched everywhere and can’t find a boat as well as Joey recapping their situation were removed, probably because the latter was repetitive in the movie given that we learned that information literally a minute ago. I don’t know why they removed the first line, though.
— Huh, the ‘Yu-Gi-Oh!’ yell is in both versions when Yugi shifts in this episode. I’m surprised I didn’t notice that. I seriously thought they stopped doing that a long time ago. Am I nuts?
— A far shot of the group and Tristan and Joey saying a couple lines about the monsters surrounding them are removed from the movie.
— Smoke censorship is added to Celtic Guardian’s first attack in the series version.
Series:
Movie:
— I love how Happy Lover’s just running from the enemy.
— They remove Solomon pointing out that he’s still unable to call out Summoned Skull, some monsters trying to attack him, him being saved by Celtic Guardian, Yami calling for a retreat, Joey agreeing, and Tristan pointing out that they’re surrounded. The most I can justify is the first part for reasons I’ve already gone over.
— A reaction shot from Joey and Tristan after Dark Witch attacks is removed.
— They remove Yami saying “We did it, Yugi.” as they shift for some reason. No video footage gets cut, so it wasn’t for time.
— I guess it’s a good thing for the people who made this trap that the group stopped right outside of the temple. Otherwise, they could have avoided the walls altogether. Why even have the walls down when they arrive? Just to prank them?
— All the things the movie tries to fix from the series, and they don’t remove the scene where Joey and the others try to knock a massive stone wall down with their bare hands.
— They removed like half a second from Joey’s pause after he laments that they can’t fly over the fortress. Apparently, they really needed the extra time.
— The movie removes the group cheering on Joey as he and Baby Dragon fly over the walls.
— Oh my god. When Joey says in the series “Does someone want to tell me why we didn’t try the front door BEFORE I risked my life?” they completely change that in the movie to “Maybe we should give this door the ol’ heave ho again!” Likewise, when Téa responds with “We DID. It wouldn’t budge.” in the series, they completely remove her line in the movie and have Tristan say “Maybe we should give you the ol’ heave ho.”
That whole segment with that wall/door is one of the worst written parts of the spin-off, if not the worst, so I commend them for trying to fix it. But why didn’t they just remove the part with them trying to knock down the wall if they knew it didn’t make any sense and made the characters look like morons? They just removed a part of a short pause for the sake of time, and I’m fairly certain that wasn’t the first instance of that — I just didn’t fully catch it before, probably. You could have removed a good minute by taking out the wall pushing scene.
If you remove that part and keep this one, you could just have Joey say “Hey, this wall kinda looks like a door, doesn’t it?” and then someone responds “If it is, how do we open it?” I mean, there’s no indication on the wall that it’s a door, besides being the only wall with something on the front, but considering they still act as if they’re discovering a door in either version it wouldn’t be any worse than what they’re already doing.
You could also just change a part of Joey’s line from earlier to saying they should try to open this door not knock this wall down. Now in both versions it looks like the wall they were trying to knock down suddenly got changed to a door in the script and they thought the audience wouldn’t notice.
Even when 4Kids is trying to fix things, they still manage to screw it up. It’s not like this is a complicated plotline and I’m chastising the writers for getting details wrong – this is opening a door. Or just…acknowledging a door exists. It’s not complicated enough to excuse not getting completely right at least once in two tries when the second try has additional editing, alternate takes, and, seemingly, newly recorded dialogue on its side. It’s insane.
— Wow. They also couldn’t remove the part where Joey throttles Yugi for not explaining the riddle fast enough. Geez.
— Some of the music right as Yugi goes into the fortress is changed. This is due to the fact that there’s a commercial break right as Yugi enters the temple. When they return from the break, the music is changed to the track used in the movie. In order to avoid the sudden music jump cut they’d have by keeping it the same, they changed it to the second music track early.
— They remove Yami telling inner!Yugi that they’ve fallen into a trap, Yugi apologizing for not thinking, and Yami saying they need to hurry and get out of the trap to complete the trial.
— Another music change due to a commercial break. This time they kept the original track the whole time instead of using the second track.
— A shot of Yami hanging from the ledge is removed.
— A far shot of Magical Crossroads is removed.
— They remove Yugi thinking that he has to open the tomb before the sun sets.
— I love how Yugi fell into a trap because he ran into the fortress without thinking, and now that he narrowly escaped that trap he’s going to run into the fortress without thinking. At least have Dark Magician float you over so you don’t step on any triggers.
— Okay, the movie also didn’t feel like fixing Joey’s line about the “statue freak” blasting Summoned Skull when it was Summoned Skull’s attack that killed them.
— They also didn’t feel like fixing the line about no one being able to enter without wearing that armor, as if Yugi was the only one could go through.
— A side view of the group preparing to enter the portal and a close-up shot of Yugi as he has an inner pep talk that sets up the next episode are removed.
— HaHA! They completely removed Téa calling out Happy Lover and trying to heal Solomon with it, probably because it didn’t really work so they deemed it a pointless sequence. Wow. Just amazing.
— To be fully clear, they remove that as well as Joey asking if it worked, Solomon saying it took the edge off by didn’t help much, Happy Lover looking sad because it basically failed, and Yugi flashing back to Solomon getting affected by Summoned Skull dying, even though he wasn’t there for it, but not Yugi saying “Poor Grandpa. That battle really wiped him out.”
— Ah, here’s another inconsistency I didn’t realize until now. The little girl who explains the first trial says only one person has ever come through here before them. But we now know Alexander wasn’t alone when he went through the trials – he had the same size group with him as Yugi/Yami does. They really didn’t iron out much of the story before they just went for it, did they? This is a very short arc/spin-off/miniseries, and yet so many things had to be abandoned or retconned over time. It’s fascinating, quite frankly.
— The music for this part in the tent right before they leave is changed for the movie due to the commercial break in the series. The movie chooses to use the music the series uses after the break.
— They remove a shot of Solomon watching them summon their monsters.
— Light censorship on Flame Swordsman’s attack on the worm is added to the series. Also….the shot has a clear sky background in the series when there’s far more sand in the movie? I don’t get that one.
Series:
Movie:
— Solomon pointing out that the sandstorm is getting worse and they’ll never defeat the Sand Worm army is removed.
— An extremely long sequence is removed. Everything from when Yami points out that he can’t see Dark Magician to when he goads the voice is cut – 1:20 of footage.
— Yami yelling “Our friends are in trouble, Yugi!” and inner!Yugi responding that they have to put a stop to this now are removed.
— Oh okay, my bad about the monsters speaking thing. Dark Magician pointlessly talks when they get above the storm to point out the source of the storm, and the movie just left it alone. *shrug*
— They remove Yami going “UuuAGH!” before he calls for a Dark Magic Attack.
— They remove Yami having an internal conversation with inner!Yugi where they explain why they recalled Dark Magician and then resolving to just walk to the eye of the storm. Probably because 1) There isn’t any justification, really, for recalling Dark Magician. At the very least, there’s no justification for not having any monsters out. Yami acts as if they only have Dark Magician, and that’s not true – he has three other monsters now. And 2) they didn’t want to include the “Heart of the cards…err Heart of the capsule” line because that really made this arc/miniseries/whatever look bad.
— I never questioned this before, but is the armor called Duel Armor or Dual Armor? Because the former makes me question if Capsule Monsters games are called “Duels” (I doubt it. I never saw them called that when I was researching the games.) And, if they’re not….that’s just another thing they’re bumming from Duel Monsters. If it’s the latter, I guess that’s kinda clever because you’re merging with other monsters. But since we later find out that Yami can merge with multiple monsters, it kinda loses the cleverness a tad.
The Yu-Gi-Oh Wiki says it’s “Duel” but the regular Wikipedia page says “Dual.” I’m inclined to believe it’s “Duel” both because “Duel” is too iconic of a word in this series to not use it this way and because I trust the Yu-Gi-Oh Wiki to be more accurate with the small details more than the normal Wiki.
— Mystical Sand pointing out that he needs to face her worms before he can get to her and a few shots of Yami preparing to do so are removed.
— A cool shot of Yami, Yugi, and Dark Magician yelling as they enter the eye of the storm is removed.
— Solomon saying “They must have done it!” is removed.
— I just now realized that, when Yugi’s using the Dark Magician armor, it does include Dark Magician’s helmet. It’s directly behind his head, but you can hardly see it due to his massive hair.
— Something else I just realized – they’ve known for a while now that Yami and Yugi are two different people, and they can tell the difference when they’ve switched. Yet they still refer to Yami as Yugi all the time. Is that not weird, or is it mostly understandable because they don’t know his real name until the very end?
— Joey theorizing that the sandstorm blew the village away, Téa pointing out the shrine with small statues that looked like the elder and the little girl, the flashback to the scenes with the elder and the little girl giving them the riddle, and Téa saying that, since this is a game, maybe their purpose was to help them win the game are all removed.
I get removing the flashback since that was needless padding, but why everything else? I guess it’s fine either way because the show never really adequately explains what the people in the Capsule Monsters world are. If this is a world of Shadi’s creation, are they just like NPCs he made up?
— A short discussion between Yugi and Joey basically just reflecting on their progress and reminding us of the masked man is removed.
— There is a big crescendo at the end of the episode and the beginning of the next. In order to prevent this from sounding weird, they just tweaked the music track to continue on a little while longer with the softer melody before shifting to the crescendo used in the start of episode 6.
— Alright, this one’s confusing. In the original series, Tristan yells that Yugi needs a doctor, but Solomon argues that they have something better than a doctor. In the movie, Solomon yells that Yugi needs a doctor, and Tristan argues that they have something better than a doctor. No idea whatsoever why they swapped characters for those lines. Did they have to get the actors back in the recording studio to do this? What happened here?
— They cut out Téa saying “Good thinking Mr. Muto!” because Solomon didn’t come up with the idea to use Happy Lover in the movie (again, for some reason.)
— The flashback to Yami using the armor is removed.
— Aww, I didn’t realize Solomon took his vest off for Yugi to use as a blanket. What a sweetie.
— Ah, they didn’t remove Joey stupidly being confused by his echo. Great.
— They remove Joey saying “Come on, we don’t have much time to solve this.” probably because the commercial break happened immediately after that. Joey’s line from after the commercial asking what they do now that they’ve found the stone is shifted to the first shot of the stone.
— A different shot of the stone, as well as Joey asking what they do now, Solomon explaining that they need to try to break the unbreakable stone, Tristan trying to break the stone with Thunder Kid, and them hearing Prisman forming are removed.
— Solomon saying Joey was right and then thinking that Prisman doesn’t seem like as much of a threat as the other monsters they’ve faced is removed.
— Joey rushing to Tristan and saying “Hey, Tristan!” is removed.
— The pre-commercial-break stinger music is removed after Solomon says “Just one zap and he’s done!”
— A shot of Yugi, another nightmare where Yami is running from the shadowed Seven-Armed Fiend, fuses with Dark Magician only to have the armor shatter (I just realized, that never happens. Was that just a nightmare for nightmares’s sake instead of a premonition this time?) and Yugi waking up in a panic are removed.
— Yugi saying “I’m telling you, a few Z’s and I’m a new man!” was removed.
— A shot of Yami saying “Let’s find them!” is removed.
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And that is that for part one. I have….14 pages on this. That is so much more than I thought it’d be. I don’t find much purpose in reviewing just the first movie since it’s obviously just half of one very long movie, technically. I’m going to compare the second movie and then wrap up with my thoughts on the movies and their changes as a whole afterward.
See you in part two!
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