Digimon: The Movie Part 3: Digimon Hurricane Landing

In this movie, something happens to some kid's Digimon and somehow they end up as kids or something. Your guess is as good as mine.


How do you begin to describe a movie that makes absolutely no sense?

Considering the proper response to the beginning of the third segment is “wait, it's not over yet?” it's at an immediate disadvantage. The animation's different, the director's different and the cast is different. Willis has been on the screen for maybe ten seconds, but thanks to him dropping into the first two parts, he's already worn out his welcome. This third part needs to be damn well worth it. Instead, it brings the whole house down.

The original source material is the longest of the three, but because of time constraints, about half of it had to be cut out. This includes an entire subplot involving the season one gang and everything that happened to TK and Kari after the funky train sequence. Even pretending that never existed, what we're left with has a million holes itself.

First off, the premise is that this Willis kid has been basically alone with nothing but his two Digimon his entire life. Or rather, one Digimon after the second, Kokomon (more accurately Wendigomon, but whatever), catches a virus and spends the next four years stalking Willis and making anyone who gets close to him disappear. So you figure he'd be a complete outcast with no social skills, right? Nope! He doesn't let anyone other than Terriermon close to him, but when our heroes force the issue, he's polite, charming and flirts with both Yolei and Kari. You'd think he'd be a grizzled hermit or something.

He's even nice enough to call his mommy to tell her his camp group was heading to Colorado. Because that's what summer camps in New York City do. They make unscheduled trips to Colorado. In reality, Willis is returning to Colorado because Kokomon tells him to “go back.” And apparently, he plans to walk there. After witnessing the whole thing, TK and Kari decide to help him, cancel their entire New York itinerary and hop on a train. They'll certainly find Willis in Colorado. It's not like the state's all that big.

They even tell Davis, Yolei and Cody to drop what they're doing and fly across the ocean to meet them at The Only Place In, Colorado. After Yolei's many uncles get them close, they end up in the back of a truck and happen to find Willis there too. They leave the truck for whatever reason, opting to have a “pizza delivery guy” take them the rest of the way. They're totally not hitchhiking; we've already seen the perils of that. Whatever they do, they do it poorly as Davis and Willis miss the boat and end up fending off Kokomon before magically rejoining everybody.

The digidestined convince Willis to accept their help fighting Kokomon and together they are able to eliminate the virus so Kokomon (more accurately Cherubimon, but whatever) can die in peace. That's the comprehensible description of the final part of the movie. What actually happens defies comprehension. We've got random scenery changes, teleportations, TK and Kari showing up out of nowhere, everybody turning into kids, Angemon and Angewomon going Mega for the only time ever... for about five seconds, and something called a golden digiegg that brings forth Magnamon and Rapidmon who win. Even typing this I have no idea what happened.

Along the way, the shot selection is strange, dominated by uncomfortable closeups of characters saying really uninteresting things. The spot-on writing in part two has been replaced by awkward lines and poor deliveries. And the whole thing ends arbitrarily with a Smashmouth song. What the hell is this, Shrek?

My Grade: F

Loose Data:
  • Joe is so completely inconsequential that he isn't even mentioned in this part of the movie. Mimi doesn't actually appear, but at least she's the reason TK and Kari are in America.
  • I have nothing clever to say about Yolei's moo-cow swimsuit, but I include this bullet point to make fun of it anyway. Also, Upamon volleyball may be the single most enjoyable thing about this movie.
  • There is a nice attention to detail as TK and Kari's train is clearly identified as Amtrak.
  • At one point in the final battle, Veemon, Terriermon, Hawkmon and Armadillomon all attack Cherubimon at the same time. That's four Rookies against a Mega... and the Rookies knock him over.
  • The digidestined go back to New York with Willis in order to say goodbye. It's not like it's out of the way or anything. Willis, being the anti-social reclusive genius that he is, gives Kari and Yolei innocent pecks on the cheek. If he were truly an anti-social recluse, he should either be too scared to even talk to them or do something that would get him arrested.
  • Let's make this clear: this part of the movie is not canon. I know there's a subsequent audio drama featuring Willis, but that's not canon either. While most audio dramas are considered part of the timeline, this particular one isn't. You know how I know? It states that Cody has a girlfriend and that's almost as far-fetched as anything in this movie.

15 comments:

  1. Fun to see how this part was interpreted. Since I've never seen any of the original episodes, I suspect this one would be fun to see in its original form. Does it make any more sense that way?

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    1. I just watched it in the original form for the first time tonight. It doesn't make a whole lot more sense. The continuity is slightly better, but doesn't fix the massive plot problems or the insane ending. It also reveals a scene to be in South Dakota... because that's where everybody traveling from Japan/New York to Colorado ends up.

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  2. I don't typically pay much attention to this but the MUSIC! The Japanese movie had the weirdest and worst music ever. Since it takes place in the far-off mystical land of America we get lots of old-west music which is totally out of place. But even worse is during the final battle! When you would want a fast-pace and maybe even scary song playing you instead get really dull elevator music. I really felt like falling asleep as Cherubimon tortured the heroic digimon.

    The dub is infamous for all the stuff they do wrong but using generic rock music for that fight was an upgrade to the sinking ship that is this movie.

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  3. Where can you find the original edit of this movie?

    I hate this because it's out of continuity, makes no sense, and once again, robs T.K./Kari/Angemon/Angewomon of their rightful prominence in the series. Instead of letting two experienced, powerful digimon who are the ONLY ONES TO BE ABLE TO DIGIVOLVE TO MEGA NATURALLY defeat Cherubimon, they have to release some more digieggs to let the weaker, less experienced digimon beat him. That makes NO sense.

    DUMB.

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  4. It's.....one of the strangest things I've seen, but some of it was pretty funny. The 'juggling Digimons' part, 'Oh, that would so make Davis jealous' part (Only in the original), the Willis flirting with Yolei bits and some others I forgot to mention. But other than that, it didn't quite make sense.............

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  5. Am I the only one to think that this part of the movie made a lot more sense when you're 10

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    1. Yep I'm 11 and I more-or-less got it, or maybe I'm just not bothered to think about problems. :3

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  6. Wow, you're being a little harsh. Specifically because you're going by the dub which was hacked to BITS. Wallace is not an anti-social recluse. He knows Japanese from one of his girlfriends and his flirtation with Miyako, Hikari and Mimi reflect his flirtatious nature. He's a kind hearted boy who doesn't like to concern others with his problems, but he's also very friendly with women and seems to enjoy messing with Daisuke. The movie was so horribly forced in with Our War Games they had to completely destroy Wallace's character to shoe horn him in.

    Chocomon fell into a pocket of the Digital World, a seperate dimension, where he remained for several years and took a bad evolutionary route because of his loneliness. Years later, he became able to control the dimension and uses it to go back and find Wallace, but Wallace had grown up. The world they all got taken to in the flower field is that dimension, that's why he's able to de-age them and such because he has control of that dimension and he's more powerful there.

    While it doesn't really explain why Patamon and Tailmon were able to reach their Ultimate forms, it can easily be written away as a miracle or fate which were the Digimentals that got released.

    I also don't know why everyone disregards this as non-canon. It fits in perfectly after the defeat of Ken, it was their summer vacation still, it explains why Ken isn't around and why they aren't dealing with him (he's depressed at home). I don't know how every single movie and drama CD is canon except the ones featuring Wallace because the fanbase writes it off so easily. Wallace appears in the D1 Tamer game which shows how Ryo vanished from the Adventure Universe, so he exists. As for why Tailmon evolved into Holydramon? Ophanimon didn't exist yet and it can easily be explained by the fact she didn't have her holy ring and was sufficiently weakened.

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    1. While I'd admit the music an acquired taste the plot is definitely one of the strongest and the relationship between Wallace and his Gumimon is one of the most heart-warming... An F?? Wow. =[

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    2. And yet, the ironic thing is that they still with Holydramon for tri's final movie for Tailmon's Ultimate form.

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  7. So, if I average the 3 grades you gave each individual part of Digimon:The Movie, the overall GPA would be a 2.13, which is just above a C.

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  8. Welp if its ok with everybody here im going to pretend the movie was canon. Mmmm....*Gulp Deep breathes*. The virus that was originally Diabormon somehow and managed to the real world by complete accident. While on his computer Wills happens to open an email. It turns out this virus escaped through the email and landed in Wills' digimon. Now infected Wedgemon has his (or its) sight set on Wills. Mmmm anyway. Maybe I can make a more elaborate fanfic some other day but heres my ending piece.
    Wegdemon has now evolved and decides to plunge the world (or the state) into pure chaos!! All sorts of weird shit happenes. Our human heroes beome children. Hmmmm (how bout this) because of the Heart of the Cards our digimon managed to somehow gain abilities theyve never have. Palmon digivolves to his mega form. Magnamom appears and saves the day.

    Maybe I'll try something different later on. *Looks around the room* *ANFRY MOB*

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  9. thank you so much I've always hated this third act of the movie, and you put it into words the reasons.I mean, let's go there. The movie starts out cool with the zero episode. And then we have
    the wonderful and unforgettable arc with Tai, Izzy and Infermon, to then arrive at this third really boring and wtf act. Whenever I watch the movie, I pretend that third act doesnt exist!!

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  10. Fun fact: One of the people in charge of the dub wanted the movie to just be the first two movies, with less cut out. With the 3rd movie possibly being a TV special at some point. But Fox executives decided for some reason that it had to be all 3, wither it be because of time, or wanting the 02 crew to be involved. Either way, I just like to point out that who ever is really in charge didn't WANT to include this one.

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    1. Turns out its becuese they traped themselves into doing it that way via a legelese mistake, even the execs realized how much of a bad idea it was eventually, but couldn't back out with out tanking the whole thing(on a side note, the idea that huricane touchdown isn't canon has got to be one the baffeling bits of fanon in this fandom.)

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