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Description
Watch out, guys. I'm about to actually be genuinely serious for once. No making fun of anything, not even myself. If you can stand it, I'd appreciate it if you read the whole ramble. Thanks in advance.

Most people will know I'm a big fan of Pokemon. Well, not so much Pokemon now as Pokemon when it first came out in 1999. When it started becoming what every kid talked about in the playground, I had every intention of staying as far away from it as possible. Then I gave a single episode of the animated series a casual glance.
And got hooked.
I'll never forget that year of my life. I know Pokemon isn't the best kids' show to ever grace the earth, but it meant so much to me. I was so involved in the world, with the characters and with the story.

Inevitably, they made a movie. "Pokemon: The First Movie". Also known as "Mewtwo Strikes Back" or "Mewtwo vs Mew". Come on, if a movie can't even decide what its title is, surely it can't be good?
Oh, it was, it was, it was!
These days I know and acknowledge it's not all that great and only appeals to a cult following. If you didn't watch Pokemon, you had absolutely NO IDEA what was going on. Added to that, Pokemon has produced much better movies. The second one was much more structured and had a much better story.

But it never meant as much to me as "The First Movie".

I don't remember very much about the movie itself because I haven't seen it all the way through since 1999, but I do remember the experience like it was yesterday.
I was seven years old. I didn't see it in the cinema; I saw it on video with my two step-cousins, Tom and Gemma. We sat down in their spare bedroom, turned all the lights off and had it on a small-screen television. Tom and I sat on the floor on cushions; Gemma sat on the bed. I remember my heart in my mouth for the entire movie. I remember the emotions as clearly as if I was still feeling them now. Excitement. Apprehension. Joy. Exhilaration. Fear. Grief. Love.

The fear stemmed largely from the story's villain, Mewtwo. He was a character I loved to hate: a complete badass who exhibited cruelty, power and strength and yet somehow you could vaguely understand why he did the terrible things he did. He was the beginning of my lifelong fascination with fictional Frankenstein monsters (Shadow the Hedgehog and Stitch are two other examples). For what should they do with their lives, especially if they're created for destruction? Should they follow their creators' original intentions for them or should they find their own path? Where do they belong? Who can they trust? Who will try to help them and who will try to use them?

In the beginning I hated Mewtwo, he scared me - but over time my thoughts about him have changed and developed and he is now my favourite Pokemon and one of my favourite characters from the show.

Of course, all of this came from looking back at the film and analysing the character as I grew older. I remember very little about his portrayal when I first saw the movie, except that 1: he was completely unstoppable, and 2: he had this cool, menacing, commanding badass of a voice. Phillip Bartlett, the actor, gave this character a massive chill factor that makes me shiver even now.

Years later, I finally saw the TV special: "Mewtwo Returns". It was nice to see a continuation of Mewtwo's story, especially as I loved the character so damn much by now.
I enjoyed "Mewtwo Returns", but when I watched it, something was wrong. Very wrong. Mewtwo's voice was different. It was still deep and commanding, but it wasn't the same.
It was Dan Green doing the voice, not Phillip Bartlett. What happened?
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Dan Green, but to me, he wasn't Mewtwo. Mewtwo shouldn't share his voice with Yami Yugi - he was a completely separate character in a completely separate series.
To be fair, Green tried really hard with the role, but Mewtwo simply didn't seem the same without his original badass voice. I couldn't believe he was the same character who had grown and changed in the couple of years since I'd seen him.

Bartlett himself didn't appear to have done anything else after "The First Movie". I tried to track down what happened to him, just out of curiosity, but because he shared several psyudonames with other actors, it wasn't easy. So I gave up and just let it be one of those unsolved mysteries of my childhood. I assumed it might have been a legal thing and maybe he'd left the company. Given 4Kids' recent history, that wouldn't have surprised me...

Until, this month, I happened to look him up on Behind the Voice Actor - and I discovered his fate.
It turned out that in 2001, Phillip Bartlett went into surgery to repair a rip in his heart. But there were complications and he died on the operating table. He was 42 years old.

I don't know why this information shocked me so badly. I also don't really know why I immediately switched off the computer, went up to my bedroom and cried and cried and cried. I suppose it's because I felt so attached to Mewtwo that to discover that his actor was dead almost felt like a part of me had died with him. And it happened ten years ago. Funny, huh?

And why didn't I have this reaction with other voice actors? Maddie Blaustein, who voiced Meowth, and who to be fair has done many more roles that I loved, also died fairly recently. I was terribly sad to hear of her death, but somehow it didn't affect me in the same way. Sure, I was upset, but I wasn't as upset.

I don't know why I feel this way now. I just know that ten years ago, a very promising actor was lost to the world - and I lost my Mewtwo, and I didn't even know it.

"Pokemon: The First Movie" is not the greatest movie of all time, nor is it the best Pokemon movie. But it is to me what the 1986 Transformers movie is to the 80s generation - we don't care how bad it is, we just remember how we felt as innocent little children watching it for the first time.
That experience, Mewtwo, and Bartlett's awesome performance, will linger within me till the day I die.

So, ten years late, here's to a great voice actor who died way before his time and who gave one of the greatest Pokemon his soul.

Rest In Peace, Phillip Bartlett.

Done to "Paradise Awaits" by Killer Tracks [link]

Description
Watch out, guys. I'm about to actually be genuinely serious for once. No making fun of anything, not even myself. If you can stand it, I'd appreciate it if you read the whole ramble. Thanks in advance.

Most people will know I'm a big fan of Pokemon. Well, not so much Pokemon now as Pokemon when it first came out in 1999. When it started becoming what every kid talked about in the playground, I had every intention of staying as far away from it as possible. Then I gave a single episode of the animated series a casual glance.
And got hooked.
I'll never forget that year of my life. I know Pokemon isn't the best kids' show to ever grace the earth, but it meant so much to me. I was so involved in the world, with the characters and with the story.

Inevitably, they made a movie. "Pokemon: The First Movie". Also known as "Mewtwo Strikes Back" or "Mewtwo vs Mew". Come on, if a movie can't even decide what its title is, surely it can't be good?
Oh, it was, it was, it was!
These days I know and acknowledge it's not all that great and only appeals to a cult following. If you didn't watch Pokemon, you had absolutely NO IDEA what was going on. Added to that, Pokemon has produced much better movies. The second one was much more structured and had a much better story.

But it never meant as much to me as "The First Movie".

I don't remember very much about the movie itself because I haven't seen it all the way through since 1999, but I do remember the experience like it was yesterday.
I was seven years old. I didn't see it in the cinema; I saw it on video with my two step-cousins, Tom and Gemma. We sat down in their spare bedroom, turned all the lights off and had it on a small-screen television. Tom and I sat on the floor on cushions; Gemma sat on the bed. I remember my heart in my mouth for the entire movie. I remember the emotions as clearly as if I was still feeling them now. Excitement. Apprehension. Joy. Exhilaration. Fear. Grief. Love.

The fear stemmed largely from the story's villain, Mewtwo. He was a character I loved to hate: a complete badass who exhibited cruelty, power and strength and yet somehow you could vaguely understand why he did the terrible things he did. He was the beginning of my lifelong fascination with fictional Frankenstein monsters (Shadow the Hedgehog and Stitch are two other examples). For what should they do with their lives, especially if they're created for destruction? Should they follow their creators' original intentions for them or should they find their own path? Where do they belong? Who can they trust? Who will try to help them and who will try to use them?

In the beginning I hated Mewtwo, he scared me - but over time my thoughts about him have changed and developed and he is now my favourite Pokemon and one of my favourite characters from the show.

Of course, all of this came from looking back at the film and analysing the character as I grew older. I remember very little about his portrayal when I first saw the movie, except that 1: he was completely unstoppable, and 2: he had this cool, menacing, commanding badass of a voice. Phillip Bartlett, the actor, gave this character a massive chill factor that makes me shiver even now.

Years later, I finally saw the TV special: "Mewtwo Returns". It was nice to see a continuation of Mewtwo's story, especially as I loved the character so damn much by now.
I enjoyed "Mewtwo Returns", but when I watched it, something was wrong. Very wrong. Mewtwo's voice was different. It was still deep and commanding, but it wasn't the same.
It was Dan Green doing the voice, not Phillip Bartlett. What happened?
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Dan Green, but to me, he wasn't Mewtwo. Mewtwo shouldn't share his voice with Yami Yugi - he was a completely separate character in a completely separate series.
To be fair, Green tried really hard with the role, but Mewtwo simply didn't seem the same without his original badass voice. I couldn't believe he was the same character who had grown and changed in the couple of years since I'd seen him.

Bartlett himself didn't appear to have done anything else after "The First Movie". I tried to track down what happened to him, just out of curiosity, but because he shared several psyudonames with other actors, it wasn't easy. So I gave up and just let it be one of those unsolved mysteries of my childhood. I assumed it might have been a legal thing and maybe he'd left the company. Given 4Kids' recent history, that wouldn't have surprised me...

Until, this month, I happened to look him up on Behind the Voice Actor - and I discovered his fate.
It turned out that in 2001, Phillip Bartlett went into surgery to repair a rip in his heart. But there were complications and he died on the operating table. He was 42 years old.

I don't know why this information shocked me so badly. I also don't really know why I immediately switched off the computer, went up to my bedroom and cried and cried and cried. I suppose it's because I felt so attached to Mewtwo that to discover that his actor was dead almost felt like a part of me had died with him. And it happened ten years ago. Funny, huh?

And why didn't I have this reaction with other voice actors? Maddie Blaustein, who voiced Meowth, and who to be fair has done many more roles that I loved, also died fairly recently. I was terribly sad to hear of her death, but somehow it didn't affect me in the same way. Sure, I was upset, but I wasn't as upset.

I don't know why I feel this way now. I just know that ten years ago, a very promising actor was lost to the world - and I lost my Mewtwo, and I didn't even know it.

"Pokemon: The First Movie" is not the greatest movie of all time, nor is it the best Pokemon movie. But it is to me what the 1986 Transformers movie is to the 80s generation - we don't care how bad it is, we just remember how we felt as innocent little children watching it for the first time.
That experience, Mewtwo, and Bartlett's awesome performance, will linger within me till the day I die.

So, ten years late, here's to a great voice actor who died way before his time and who gave one of the greatest Pokemon his soul.

Rest In Peace, Phillip Bartlett.

Done to "Paradise Awaits" by Killer Tracks [link]