Pokemon: Detective Pikachu concept artist RJ Palmer has given plenty of inside looks at early designs and concepts for the Pokemon that appeared throughout film. But one of his latest tweets took things a step further, showing that the film nearly had an epic fight scene between a Gyarados and a Charizard.
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On Wednesday Palmer posted a photo from an early version fo the Charizard vs. Pikachu fight that took place at Sebastian’s fighting arena. Palmer said the script originally called for the confrontation to become a chase scene rather than a fight between his Charizard and Pikachu.
I had the pleasure of working on an earlier version of the Charizard fight scene from Detective Pikachu. It would have been more of a chase through the underground culminating in a clash with Gyarados at the waterfront. I always had a lot of fun populating the scenes with Pokemon pic.twitter.com/YApQdz1Z1X
— RJ Palmer 🔜 Anime Expo H3 (@arvalis) June 12, 2019
“I had the pleasure of working on an earlier version of the Charizard fight scene from Detective Pikachu. It would have been more of a chase through the underground culminating in a clash with Gyarados at the waterfront. I always had a lot of fun populating the scenes with Pokemon,” Palmer wrote.
Later in the day he returned to Twitter with a image of the battle between Gyarados and Charizard.
Here’s the Gyarados confrontation I mentioned. This was a collaboration with Christian Scheurer. He did most of the environment and then I did the Pokémon. A common task on Detective Pikachu was populating other artists’s enviros with Pokémon since I knew the most about them 😎 pic.twitter.com/tKGondklLz
— RJ Palmer 🔜 Anime Expo H3 (@arvalis) June 12, 2019
A Gyrados does appear at the arena after Pikachu throws a Magikarp at Charizard, causing it to evolve.
According to Box Office Mojo, Detective Pikachu has made $412 million at the worldwide box office. The film is currently in theaters, and the official synopsis for the film reads as such, “The story begins when 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, Detective Pikachu: a hilariously wise-cracking, adorable super-sleuth who is a puzzlement even to himself. Finding that they are uniquely equipped to communicate with one another, Tim and Pikachu join forces on a thrilling adventure to unravel the tangled mystery.”
