Fanboys Anonymous

The Daniel Craig era of the James Bond franchise has finished. After taking some time to fully digest how No Time to Die fits in the overall picture of his films as well as the series as a whole, I find myself echoing opinions I've had from the start.

Largely, my opinion about Craig's Bond films is a mixed bag. Some showcase the best elements of the 007 franchise, while others have unforgivable flaws. For every Casino Royale in the top 5, there's Quantum of Solace toward the bottom. The best Bond girl of all time may be Vesper Lynd, but Elvis may be the worst henchmen of the series. It's very hit or miss.

As such, and as another follow-up to our A Review to a Kill series, I'd like to tackle another edition of FANBOYS FIX IT—a segment where I like to not just talk about the issues I had with something, but propose ideas of how to improve it.

With that being said, how would I fix Daniel Craig's run of the Bond films?

Fundamental Flaw #001: Timing

Craig was Bond for 15 years and only has 5 movies to his name. In comparison, Roger Moore was Bond for 12 years and did 7. Sean Connery was Bond for 9 years and filmed 6 (and there was also On Her Majesty's Secret Service with George Lazenby in that time frame). Pierce Brosnan squeezed 4 in 7 years.

Realistically, over 15 years, Craig should have done between 6 and 8 movies, if not 9. It just so happened that every single movie appeared to be riddled with issues from production problems, injuries, legal stuff, a writer's strike and a pandemic.

Assuming in this fantasy world that I could prevent that from happening with the benefit of hindsight, I'd like to make it so Craig doesn't feel like this is taking away his best years of acting and resents the role (from public perception) and that he doesn't reach a point quicker where he's too old for the part. Granted, he looks better in his final appearance than any other Bond does save for Timothy Dalton by default, but that's just a testament to Craig's workout routine.

I also think more films overall would have allowed him to experiment more with the character in ways he didn't get a chance to. We never really got to see some tropes of the franchise given his own twist to it.

Fundamental Flaw #002: The Age Gap Storyline

One of my absolute biggest issues with his films is how they felt they couldn't tell a story unless there was a hook to it and fell into a trap of bookending it with his age.

The first film is "young Bond before he became the man we know." Then, they had no other idea for the second film, so they said "...well, okay, he's not 100% there yet, so this is the remaining bit of the previous one. NOW, he's James Bond, full in form."

Then, instead of getting a true 007 film per normal, they went straight into "old dog, new tricks" and saying that Bond has aged out of being useful for his job. Immediately, he's a rookie and then he should retire. What??!

That's like saying Batman went from training, having his first couple nights in Gotham, and then hanging up his boots without ever having Robin and whatnot.

Oh...you mean to tell me Christopher Nolan did that with his Dark Knight franchise? And then, Zack Snyder decided to start his Batman as a grizzled 40+ year old who had already had Robin die (and not even the right Robin) and wanted to retire? I'm sensing a trend. Hopefully, Tom Holland doesn't just give up being Spider-Man with No Way Home.

With the increase in number of films, that makes it so we can actually live with this Bond. The first movie can be his origin, the second can follow up on that, and we can have a few other films where he's fully realized before we start getting into aging him out of the role.

This means Skyfall, which I think should be the mid-point of this collection of movies just the same as it was here, shouldn't be about Bond being the Old Yeller, but about him being the "new toy" for M, in a lot of ways, while Raoul Silva was the old dog upset about being replaced.

Fundamental Flaw #003: A Reverence for the Old Tropes

This era of the series pats itself back on saying "We know the previous films loved tropes, but we're too good for that and we want you to know that." It's a problem that plagued the sequel Star Wars trilogy where a character who is the son of legacy heroes literally complains in plain dialogue that if you need to kill off the past in order to replace it with your own ideas, you should.

Look at how that left the series. People went nuts for the return of Luke Skywalker in The Mandalorian and I bet you can't even tell me who Lando's daughter is. Go ahead. Try to name her without looking her up. Oh wait, you didn't even know that that character in The Rise of Skywalker was supposed to be his daughter? Awful movies.

But two of the ways the Daniel Craig era tries to push this agenda is by ignoring the gadgets and the lines from before.

We have smart blood three times out of these five films because they couldn't think of anything else to do. Those other gadgets they have are a tracking radio that is bigger than nearly all other tracking software or "call for help" gadgets he's had since even Goldfinger, a gun that only works if Bond's hand is using it (which we already saw in Licence to Kill), two watches and a couple cars that thankfully had some bells and whistles toward the end.

They flat out denounce the exploding pen from GoldenEye as if it was some ridiculous gadget. It's a pen with a grenade in it. That's much more believable than your alligator submarine. Make fun of that if you want to poke fun at how ridiculous some of this used to be.

They also try their best to avoid saying "shaken, not stirred" and "Bond, James Bond" and some of the other lines of normal dialogue, if not just to subvert expectations and play with the audience.

So in my fixes, I say give him more gadgets and just make sure you don't go too over the top with it. Put in the lines of dialogue that you'd normally do, but just find new ways of delivering them.

And for God's sake, do a traditional gun barrel in front of every movie. If you want to play around with it the first time with Casino Royale, that's something, but every film past that point should have had it. No excuses.

Fundamental Flaw #004: Moneypenny and Q and Felix

Part of the old era that should have carried over sooner is for three of the primary allies to be factored into the series more.

Felix Leiter shows up temporarily in three of the films and doesn't do much at all. I'd simply like to see him have more to do and to get more into the brotherly bond between them.

Q should have been there from the start.

Moneypenny should have maybe been there from the start, too. If not, maybe she's M's new secretary in the second film, but it shouldn't have played out the way it did. For my tastes, I don't think "Eve Moneypenny" should have been a typical Bond girl who is in the field and shoots Bond and then goes behind a desk.

There's nothing wrong with "Jane Moneypenny" either, for that matter.

Fundamental Flaw #005: Oberhauser and Blofeld / Quantum and Spectre

I get that legal issues stopped them from being able to use SPECTRE, but they didn't need to call the organization Quantum. That's a dumb name. Quantum of Solace is one of my favorite titles (despite how some people are too dumb to understand the words; that's their fault for being morons) but it makes zero proper sense when you find out that's the name of the secret organization.

Instead, it should have remained a mystery until they could have said SPECTRE. We could have been seeing hints about an octopus ring and all and been led to the conclusions ourselves without flat out stating that to be the case. Someone could have referred to themselves as a number, implying a No. 1 is out there. So on and so forth.

It obviously should have been SPECTRE all along, but it never should have been Franz Oberhauser. The idea of making Bond and Blofeld brothers, no matter what the connection point, is beyond ridiculous. They shouldn't know each other for anything other than work having had them cross paths.

So here's my rewrite where you get to have your cake and eat it, too.

Around film #3 or 4 (ideally #4) you have Skyfall. Most of the film plays out the way it does, where M is the focal point as a motherly figure, she's killed by Silva, it all goes down at Skyfall and we dive into Bond's past, etc. There's no "Bond is too old" subplot. You end with Mallory taking over as M, like in the movie, and since he's stuffy, he doesn't want Bond to go on a revenge mission.

But Bond is Bond, so he does. He's out to seek answers, to find this mysterious No. 1 and to kill him to get back at Olivia Mansfield's death. They love doing rogue Bond and we get to see that here in its own way, but with Moneypenny and Q trying to circumvent the new M's ideas of "nope, I have to prove myself to not be a pushover and I can't let Bond do this to undermine my authority."

Blah blah blah. Bond's lost everything from his childhood home and even Kincaid dies, his motherly M is dead, and he really has nothing left. Or so he thinks. That's when he gets a message from Franz Oberhauser, his foster brother for a short time frame. After Bond's parents died, he was taken in by the Oberhauser family. Bond has his issues, as we know, so he didn't really get along with them as he put up emotional barriers and the like. Once he reached 15 or so, he went into military service and went down this career path and never really bothered with them again.

Now, though, Oberhauser is being targeted to get revenge on Bond and he feels responsible, obviously.

Eventually, Bond meets Blofeld. He's just Blofeld. It's not some twist about it being Oberhauser, who is ultimately killed in the movie as the sacrificial lamb. Blofeld can even keep the "author of all your pain" line and say that he has no political motives for having gone after Oberhauser and all. He did it for fun. Just to fuck with Bond. Bond's messed with his plans too many times and now, any time he gets in his way, he's not only going to stop him, but he'll be looking for ways to perpetually target anyone he loves and to just ruin his life as much as possible.

Bond doesn't kill Blofeld, as Blofeld escapes. We know he'll be back at any random time. Nobody gets their wheelchair picked up by a helicopter and tossed into a giant exhaust pipe. No one is offered a delicatessen in stainless steel. But Bond does manage to fuck up Blofeld's eyeball and leave him with the iconic scar.

Fundamental Flaw #006: Madeleine Swann

For the most part, Madeleine Swann and the Mr. White saga was a retelling of On Her Majesty's Secret Service with some twists. The music cues in No Time to Die flat out call attention to this. But if you replace Swann with Tracy and Mr. White with Draco, that's basically what you get.

So why not just call them that?

"Mr. White" is his codename. Bond finds out he's actually Marc-Ange Draco. Instead of the name Madeleine Swann, his daughter is Teresa Draco, who is estranged from her father because of his crimes. She's married to someone named Count Giulio di Vicenzo (so she goes by Tracy di Vicenzo). Unbeknownst to her, her husband is a plant, essentially. He works for her father and his job is basically to always be in contact with him so he knows what his daughter is up to. He's never really been a husband, which is why he became so awful after they got married, because he's been keeping up the facade and he doesn't actually love her.

Bond can save her from di Vicenzo, who can be even the heavy/henchman of the film. You can maybe even keep the babyface turn for Mr. White where he wants to leave SPECTRE and he wants Bond to take care of his daughter. Naturally, White has to die, too. We end with Tracy and Bond as a couple. But of course, Blofeld is lingering.

I wouldn't have cast Lea Seydoux in this part, either. She's much better as a femme fatale like a Miranda Frost type character.

Fundamental Flaw #007: The Finale

I have two opinions about how No Time to Die ends. In one way, I think Bond is a tragic character and he kind of has to die to really drive home that point to the audience. However, in another way that I feel even stronger about, I think there are more ways to tell a tragedy than for the protagonist to die.

I had been saying leading up to the movie that I thought they would have the ending be that Madeleine dies and Bond is left to retire because he's going to take care of his daughter, who is the true "Bond girl" in a sense. We got something similar, but with Bond biting the bullet and leaving Madeleine alive with Mathilde.

Therefore, just switch it up. Tracy/Madeleine is killed, because Bond's love life is awful, and since he has a daughter now, he knows he can't go globetrotting as a super spy. He kills Blofeld, SPECTRE dissolves, and he's aged to the point where he can realistically retire anyway, so he's going to just raise his daughter instead.

So what do you think? What flaws from the Daniel Craig era of James Bond would you fix and how would you propose to fix them? Drop your thoughts in the comments below!

I haven't been using Pokemon Home for too long, but after getting back into Pokemon Go a few months ago and realizing I was getting rid of Pokemon I would like to trade to actual games in the future, but having no space for them, I eventually opted to pay for the annual premium plan subscription. Since then, I've been heavily sending Pokemon from Go and trying to make use of the GTS and Wonder Trade systems to get as close to a full Pokedex as I possibly can.

In the process, I've noticed some things that I really wish were on the app, but aren't. Some of them are for convenience while others are just tools and sorting options I think would be incredibly useful and should have been the standard to begin with.

Without further ado, here are 10 improvements I think should be made to Pokemon Home.

#1. Multi-Trade for the GTS

More than anything on this list, this is what I'd want (even though the rest aren't in any ranked order). The way it is now, you can select 3 Pokemon to specifically request a trade for (ie, I will trade this Rotom for this particular type of Rayquaza). My idea would be that you can toss out more of a grab bag type of thing like Wonder Trade, but that you have specifics you're looking for in return.

The best way to explain it is to just spell it out with an example of the mathematical formula it would operate on, in a sense.

"I will deposit these x# Pokemon. Anyone can take them if they're looking for them, so long as they offer me any of the following in exchange."

For example, I could put 50 Pidgey in there of varying levels and such, and I can say that I'm requesting all the legendaries. I doubt anyone would want to take any of those offers, but if anyone does decide that they will upload, say, "one of the Pokemon in my deposit box is a Zapdos and one of the Pokemon I'm looking for in return is a Pidgey", then Pokemon Home would send an alert to both of us saying an eligible trade has been found and ask if we would like to confirm it. Only one of us needs to confirm, ideally, so you're not stuck with someone who is playing around and locking up trades by not confirming it. Maybe it just automatically does the trade for you like Wonder Trade because hey pal, you set up those parameters and they were met.

For all I know, someone out there has the Guzzlord that I need and they're willing to trade for 10 different Pokemon that I have, including the Duraludon that I have sitting in GTS right now, but I happen to have that listed as "I'll trade Duraludon for Buzzwole". I'd take the Guzzlord trade, since I need that, too, but I happen to have "I'll trade Dusknoir for Guzzlord" instead, so it's just never going to happen. But if I could say "I'll trade any of these for any of these," it might.

#2. Don't Have the Form? GTS Says You Don't Have the Pokemon

Ever since I got a Furfou and a Vivillon in Pokemon Home, I've had this issue where I'm searching for a Pokemon I need in the GTS with the "include people searching for Pokemon you don't have" function off, but I'll see tons of examples of people requesting Heart Trim form Furfrou or a particular Vivillon pattern.

If I had them, they should obviously show up. But just because I have a Furfrou of any form, it shows all the form options. There aren't any mechanics within Pokemon Home to change the forms, so it's just flat out wrong that I "have the Pokemon" available.

This means when I search for a Pokemon in the GTS, I inevitably have to scroll past the Furfrou and Vivillon requests. Even if I had that specific one, I wouldn't know they were looking for it, because I'd have to click on each individual one to check to see what form they were looking for.

That's maddening. If you don't have the form, it should be treated as if you don't have that particular Pokemon at all and not show up as a trade option.

#3. Stop Allowing Impossible Requests

If it doesn't really exist, people shouldn't have the option to request it. I don't understand this idea some people have where they'll put a shiny legendary or something in the GTS and request something impossible like a level 1 shiny Cinderace. All that does is clog up the system.

Apparently, people do it to "flex" that they have that Pokemon. If you're one of those people, you're a jackass. Nobody's looking up your trainer ID so they can send you praise and be jealous. You're not getting laid because of it or a pay raise at work. If that's really a means for you to feel better about yourself, it's very sad and you should reassess some of your life choices. This is a silly children's game of collecting fake cartoon monsters. It's supposed to be fun, not something you attach your self-esteem to.

#4. Trading Mythical Pokemon Should Be Allowed

Simply put, if someone wants to trade me their Mew for my Caterpie, they should be able to.

I wouldn't, but there are people out there who would. More importantly, there are people who might have a million Meltan and want to give that to someone else in exchange for a Jirachi. Like me. I've got enough Meltan and I can always get more with Pokemon Go, so how about I give one of those to some kid somewhere who has a Victini they want to get rid of so I'm not just missing that one?

#5. Sort Pokemon by Quantity

Why are you not able to sort by the number of each particular Pokemon you have? That would make it infinitely easier to toss Pokemon into the Wonder Trade or GTS.

If I have 30 Drowzee, I want to get rid of them in the Wonder Trade before I'd put my last Hypno. As it stands, I have to sort by dex number and scroll down and manually look to see which ones look like they have more than a few. That takes a longer time than I'd like, as I'd love to be able to just sort by quantity ascending and descending. That way, the top of the list shows I have 20 Spearow? I'll toss some in there. It shows I only have 1 Jynx? Now I know not to click on that one.

#6. More Than 10 on Wonder Trade

This one is pretty self-explanatory. I'd love to be able to toss more than 10 Pokemon into the Wonder Trade system to speed up the process.

Make it practically infinite. At least make it 20 or 50, or 100.

Imagine the rush some people would feel if they wanted to gamble, take all their Pokemon in one shot and Wonder Trade them to see what they get. That could make for some fun YouTube video content where people do that.

#7. Free Trade Room Classes and Groups

There should be different groups of the free trade room that give you rules you have to follow.

Obviously, there should be a "completely random and anything goes" room like there is now. But there should also be rooms like "only legendary" where you literally can't participate in the trade process unless you select a legendary Pokemon.

Only mythical. Only Kanto (as well as any other generation, or game). Only shiny. Only level 100. Only for each type. So on and so forth.

That way, you know that if you go into the room that is Only Water Type, you toss out your Magikarp and you might get a Kyogre, but you're definitely not getting a Spinarak.

#8. Web Browser / Desktop Functionality

Using the app or the Nintendo Switch is nowhere near as convenient as a desktop client version would be. I'd love to be able to just log in via Firefox or a downloadable computer program and do this all with my keyboard and mouse. I'm one of those people who uses their computer pretty much 24/7 and is much more adept at that style of organization than to be using my phone and having to look at that smaller screen for a while. It wears my fingers out more to swipe on my screen than it does to use a mouse, too. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like to be able to use Pokemon Home on their laptop or whatever.

#9. A Chat Function

Self-explanatory.

#10. Set a Locked Pokemon in Your Room Instead of Randomized

Every time you swipe away from the Your Room screen, a new Pokemon generates as the little character that will pop up. While I don't personally care, I'm sure some people would like to be able to choose a permanent "buddy" or something that will always be there.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THESE IDEAS?
DROP YOUR THOUGHTS IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!

I've been watching SilphSpectre's True Power tournament on YouTube and after checking out the most recent episode, Janine vs. Brock, something dawned on me: Janine as a character shouldn't even exist.

Indulge me as I go down this rabbit hole with another edition of FANBOYS FIX IT where I'll address why that problem is an issue and how to remedy the situation with a few tweaks that change as little as possible, while making what I think are the best alterations.

Koga Graduates

As it stands with Generation II, the return to Kanto was one of the biggest selling points. Not only was it interesting to see that the Indigo League was actually on the Johto side, too, but that when you step into the Elite 4 challenge, you're not actually fighting the same group.

It wouldn't have made much sense for you to fight Lorelei, Bruno, Agatha, Lance and then Blue, anyway, as Red had beaten Blue. Theoretically, you could have set it up so you beat those 4 and then Red, while Blue goes off and does his Viridian City Gym business, but I think they had a decent idea with Will and Karen and so forth. It still doesn't help that Bruno is a Fighting specialist with his Rock types and all, nor does it make much sense Lance is the champion, but whatever. We're in the interest of changing as little as possible, remember?

So let's say we keep everything the same as far as Koga moving up to the Elite 4 and making the Poison/Psychic/Dark/Fighting quartet happen. I'm cool with that. It's kind of neat to see Koga move up the ranks and fill in the void left by Agatha, especially as she was supposed to be a Ghost-type specialist who actually had all Poison types on her team, anyway.

But with Koga moving up to the Elite 4, who takes his place in running the Fuchsia City gym? It would be too hard to create a whole new area for Gen 2 just to give another location a different gym (unless you went with Pallet Town having a gym now with Red as the leader, but that stops you from having Mount Silver's epic showdown).

Janine is Koga's Clone

Game Freak's response was to have Koga's daughter Janine replace him in what amounted to one of the least interesting scenarios imaginable.

Everything stayed basically the same. Fuchsia City went from having a Poison-type ninja-themed gym to having a Poison-type ninja-themed gym.

Even the Pokemon weren't different. Take a look at their teams:

Koga in Red and Blue:

• Koffing (x2)
  
• Weezing
• Muk
  

Koga in Yellow:

• Venonat (x3)
  
• Venomoth

Koga in Gold and Silver as Elite 4 Member:

• Ariados
• Venomoth
• Forretress (Bug and Steel??)
• Muk
• Crobat

Now look at Janine's team:

• Ariados
• Venomoth
• Weezing (x2)
• Crobat

Every single Pokemon she has is something Koga has had, and it didn't even need to be that way! She could have had Arbok, Beedrill, Nidoqueen, Nidoking, Tentacruel, and Qwilfish. That's a full team of six Poison types that aren't used elsewhere at that point in time.

I think this pretty much means Game Freak didn't have plans to put Koga in the Elite 4 spot. It probably would have been Agatha again, with Koga still operating out of Fuchsia City, and they just decided to put him in there on a whim. Then, out of laziness and not wanting to redo the Fuchsia City gym layout, they just said "eh, it's his daughter, so she inherited everything."

At the very least, giving her different Pokemon should have been done. But it's also a missed opportunity to do something else and that's what I'm suggesting should have happened instead.

Where's the Ground-Type Gym?

Outside of some tweaks to their teams, most Gym Leaders in Kanto didn't change. Brock is still in Pewter, Misty is still in Cerulean, etc. Cinnabar Island was messed up with the volcano, so that gym shifted, but it's still Blaine and he's still a Fire-type specialist. The only ones who really changed were Janine replacing Koga and Blue replacing Giovanni.

By doing so and getting rid of Giovanni, the Earth Badge for the Viridian Gym no longer makes any sense. Of course, it never made sense to begin with, as it's a green leaf or feather, but whatever. Blue isn't a Ground trainer by any means and shouldn't give out that badge. Likewise, without Giovanni in the mix, Ground is the only type that we don't have a Gym Leader or an Elite 4 member representing.

What should happen instead is that Blue should give out a different badge instead of the Earth Badge and a Ground-type Gym Leader should take Koga's place in Fuchsia City.

In regards to Blue, let's give him something that isn't type-specific. My three main suggestions are the Pride Badge (I know, it's in Pokemon Masters), the Honor Badge or the Glory Badge. The idea behind the name is that he's a former champion who used to have a big ego, but learned how to carry himself with the right sense of honor after his defeat as champion. He should instill that knowledge to you as a teacher and you should have pride in defeating a former champion in him.

The design could be something simple. It has no real theme, so you just make it look classy, as if it's something a champion would want to pin on his or her lapel. But you make it green in color, as it's Viridian City, after all, and Blue is technically named Green in the original Japanese games.

In regards to this new Ground-type Gym Leader for Fuchsia City, though, how do we go about that?

I say since the Safari Zone is decommissioned in this game, let's tear it down and have the Ground specialists as the ones responsible for closing it off. They're doing construction in rebuilding that whole place or possibly tearing it down entirely and won't let anyone in there, as it's hazardous.

To make things less confusing, I'd get rid of the Earth Badge entirely. The design just doesn't work as "earth" in any fashion. This also means the Soul Badge has to go, too, since that wouldn't make any sense. Again, it never made sense why Sabrina's Psychic gym has the Marsh Badge while the Poison gym has the Soul Badge, so this at least gets another one of those issues out of the way.

Instead, let's go with the Quake Badge (the next logical step that they would take as evidenced by future games). If not that, maybe the Hazard Badge where it has a hard hat or a construction tape vibe to it. Or maybe the Terra Badge or even the Dust Badge. Hell, you can even still call it the Earth Badge but just change the way it looks so it is brown and looks remotely ground-related.

The character who is the Gym Leader almost doesn't matter. Go with whatever you want. He/she should have Hikers and such in his gym and he/she should look like a construction worker of sorts. Want to go super punny? Make it a woman named Tera.

As far as her team, our options at this point in the series are:

• Sandshrew / Sandslash
• Nidoqueen
• Nidoking
  
• Diglett / Dugtrio
• Geodude / Graveler / Golem
• Onix / Steelix
  
• Cubone / Marowak
• Rhyhorn / Rhydon
• Wooper / Quagsire
• Gligar
  
• Phanpy / Donphan
  
• Swinub / Piloswine
• Larvitar / Pupitar
  

Onix is a staple for Brock and Bruno, while Steelix is Jasmine's ace, so that line shouldn't show up here again. Blue has a Rhydon on his team, so let's take that out of the equation, too. The same goes for Swinub and Piloswine since Pryce has that covered for his Ice gym. I'd also say since you can't go with Tyranitar, you should skip Larvitar and Pupitar. That still leaves us with plenty of options to pick from.

• Sandshrew / Sandslash
• Nidoqueen
• Nidoking
  
• Diglett / Dugtrio
• Geodude / Graveler / Golem
• Cubone / Marowak
• Wooper / Quagsire
• Gligar
  
• Phanpy / Donphan
  

My ideal situation is to get rid of Forretress on Koga's team and replace that with Nidoking. Then, we can have this Tera character have Nidoqueen along with Sandslash, Dugtrio, Golem and either Quagsire or Donphan.

Why not Gligar or Marowak? Well, Gligar being Ground/Flying and a base-form with no evolutions at that point seems contradictory and less amazing. Marowak also has the Lavender Town stuff on its own and doesn't need more of a focus. I'd certainly have trainers in the gym have those Pokemon, though, so they're still featured as part of this theme.

So that's it. You close off the Safari Zone by having the new Ground Gym Leader doing construction, you feature some of those Pokemon and make sure all the types have a character that represents them, fix the Soul Badge and Earth Badge issue and prevent Koga from being copied and pasted with this Janine character.

What do you think? Is this a good change in retrospect, or do you still prefer the way Game Freak set things up with Janine? Drop a comment below and let me know!

Welcome to part 3 of my Fanboys Fix It of Pokemon Generation I.

As mentioned before, this was sponsored by Guest Five's donation on Patreon via the Pick Your Poison tier (donate today if you want to request a special feature of your own)

Part 1 was the general setup and information about items, HMs, how Pokemon can evolve and more. Part 2 was the new Pokedex. To wrap things up here in part 3, I'll be talking about all the story elements including how I would reformat the trainers you battle throughout the game.

This part is a bit of a mess. My apologies.

Move Changes

I didn't really have another spot to put this, but for battling purposes, some moves that I didn't mention in part 1 are changed, as they don't make a lot of sense in the context of this rewrite.

- There aren't any Dark or Steel moves in Gen 1, nor any real Ghost or Dragon moves, so we need to add more. Just take some from later games and insert them.

- We don't need Absorb, Mega Drain and Leech Life (especially not with Giga Drain coming later).

- Splash is renamed Flop. It's Hop in Japanese and that's why Pokemon without the Water type can learn it. Splash makes no sense. Nor does Hop, cause fish don't do that, but they do flop, and non-fish can flop.

- Confuse Ray is Psychic now because logic.

- Dragon Rage shouldn't do 40 all the time. Obviously, as mentioned, there should be more Dragon moves, but even still, that doesn't make sense to me. Dragon Rage should be something like Drill Peck, Wing Attack, Egg Bomb...just something that's strong when it hits. Maybe, it can have a secondary effect, but I'm not sure what.

- Why do we have both Self-Destruct and Explosion? They're exactly the same. Explosion should be a Fire move that has a chance to burn the opponent along with the damage and instead of fully fainting the user, it takes out half their HP.

- Fury Attack and Fury Swipes are way too similar. Get rid of Fury Swipes.

- Glare is Dark, maybe.

- Why is Mirror Move a Flying attack? It should be Normal.

- Why is Razor Wind a Normal attack? It should be Flying.

- Night Shade shouldn't be based on the level.

- Rest should be Normal instead of Psychic.

- We don't need Spore and Sleep Powder, especially with both being Grass.

Basic Story Progression Changes

- You have 2 rivals. One of them (hereby called Blue) picks the starter that is better than you and the other (hereby called Green) picks the worse one because they arrive later than the other two and are perpetually running behind. What a loser. The characters are a girl and a boy by default no matter what you pick for your own gender.

- There aren't 8 gyms. Instead, you need a badge for EVERY TYPE in order to get into the Indigo Plateau to challenge for the champion's spot.

- These badges are obtained through Gym Leaders as well as Ace Trainers found throughout the region that all specialize in a type.

- The Elite 3 (not Elite 4) specialize in "themes" of Pokemon, but not specific types. The champion is random.

- Each Ace Trainer or Gym Leader uses a team based on your level as a trainer. The higher you are, the tougher they are. You can revisit them once you've become champion and they'll have their strongest teams, which I'll break down below.

- You have to beat your weaker rival before facing the Elite 3, and your stronger rival is the champion. However, they aren't the last fight in the game.

- Once you become the champion, you get access to the area where Mewtwo is. Maybe it's Cerulean Cave, or maybe I've created a new spot. I don't know. But now, you can catch the strongest Pokemon in the game.

- Once you catch all 200 Pokemon and completed the Pokedex, your final battle is Professor Oak, who uses all level 100 Pokemon. If you beat him, you prove to him that you're worthy of having Mew, which he had all along, as he had saved Mew from the cloning experiments.

Smaller Miscellaneous Story Changes

- Bill doesn't give you the S.S. Anne ticket. Instead, he gives you an Eevee. I'm not sure how I'd change it so you get to the S.S. Anne, but...

- Why isn't the S.S. Anne where you learn the ability to surf, rather than the cut one? It seems like that's a better spot to come across someone who knows how to navigate water.

- Voodoll is in the Lavendar Town story in the tower, rather than Cubone. You have to free it from its curse.

- Pokemon Mansion isn't a mansion. Why is it a mansion? That makes no sense. Instead, it's a laboratory that is inside a volcano on Cinnabar, which is why they were able to get away with these experiments, much like the lair in a James Bond movie (You Only Live Twice, for the record).

- Marsh and Soul are swapped. Marsh is what you get from beating the Grass leader and Soul is from the Psychic leader.

- Switch up those repetitive trainers. How many people do you need to fight that just have a Caterpie or something? Instead, let's have more themes or variety. Someone should have a double battle of a Miltank and a Taurox, for instance. Someone has all the Eevee variations. So on and so forth.

Event Pokemon

Aerodactyl = one of the fossils you can pick from

Articuno = Seafoam Island

Eevee = given to you by Bill

Hitmontyke = gifted to you in the Fighting Dojo

Mew = gifted to you by Professor Oak when you beat him

Mewtwo = Unknown Dungeon (not sure where I'd place that in the game)

Moltres = Cinnabar Volcano

Scorpsean = one of the fossils you can pick from

Snorlax = blocking your way to one of the towns; it doesn't matter which

Tangulb = a blockade growth that you have to cut down, like Sudowoodo, maybe

Zapdos = Power Plant

I'd love to make some exclusive to regions like Safari Zone, Viridian Forest and S.S. Anne, but I'm not sure what.

I'd also like to make Porygon, Emimime, Yukiona, Jynx, Voodoll and Ditto events, but they don't have to be. Ditto could just be found in the lab, Voodoll could be found in Lavendar and so forth. Porygon, above all, I would like to see as an event, but I don't know where.

The Gym Leader / Ace Trainer Team Breakdown

I haven't fully figured out this concept, but the idea would be that you need a badge for every type, so you need to come across some sort of specialist (or Ace Trainer) that can certify you as being able to beat them.

This changes the structure of the gyms, and I wouldn't want to get rid of those entirely, but I do think it's a little strange for there to just be multiple gyms in every town. Instead, some of these would be random encounters to pass to another location and such.

I don't have all of the ideas set in stone, and you can definitely tell that I don't have all the Pokemon picked for what their original teams would be, or what their final teams would be. However, the concept is that the game isn't as linear as it originally was, and that you can battle them once with a weaker team (depending on the # of badges you have) and then another time with their strongest team, which you can rebattle over and over like the Indigo Plateau.

For the ones that have more than 6 options, I'd have a committee of people working on the game help me pick and choose what would make the best variety, but I try to have my own suggestions for each.

This isn't in order of when you'd come across them in the game. It's in alphabetical order for the types.

Ace Bug Catcher's Team: Bug

- Battled in Viridian Forest.

1. Caterpie → Kakuna → Butterfree (Bug / Flying)
2. Combee → Waspod → Thornet (Bug / Poison)
3. Parasect → Parazytik → Parazombi (Bug / Grass, Poison, Ghost)
4. Seaxor → Scizor → Scyther (Bug / Steel)
5. Weetle → Scarabeat → Heraclash (Bug / Fighting)
6. Porygon (Bug) = computer virus

Giovanni's Team: Dark

- Battle is at Cinnabar Laboratory.

1. Spearow → Drearow → Fearkrow (Flying / Dark)
2. Rattata → Ratched → Raticate (Normal / Dark)
3. Rabbid → Rabbeast → Rabbutcher (Dark / *)
4. Kongbatt → Guorilla → Primeape (Fighting / Dark)
5. Jynx (Fairy / Dark)
6. Gengar (Ghost / Dark)

 Other options:

1. Slahknir (Poison / Dark)
2. Zubat → Golbat → Crobat (Poison / Dark)
3. Gloom → Vileplume (Grass / Dark)
4. Blindig→ Shrewlunk → ??? (Ground / Dark)
5. Yukiona (Ice / Dark)
6. or maybe a bunch of versions of Rabbutcher

Lance's Team: Dragon

- To be honest, I don't know where I'd put Lance in the game for his location and what his purpose would be. Most likely Victory Road.

1. Charizard (Fire / Dragon)
2. Rabbutcher (Dark / Dragon)
3. Slahknir (Poison / Dragon)
4. Onix line (Ground / Dragon)
5. Rhydon (Rock / Dragon)
6. Seadra (Water / Dragon)
7. Searpent → Skullkraken (Water / Dragon)
8. Nessio → Lokness →   Loknessaur (Ice / Dragon)
9. Aerodactyl (Rock / Dragon or Dragon / Flying)
10. Dratini → Dragonair → Dragonite (Dragon / Flying)

Lt. Surge's Team: Electric

- Let's not call him "The Lightning American" as that makes no sense in the context of this world.

1. Pichu → Pikachu → Raicho (Electric)
2. Magnemite → Magnemate → Magneton (Electric / Steel)
3. Elekid → Electabuzz → Electiger (Electric / Fighting)
4. Laampeep → Baattery → Acedesheep (Electric / Fairy)
5. Porygon (Electric)
6. Jolteon (Electric) 

Ace Beauty's Team: Fairy

- Battled at the Celadon department store.

1. Cleffa → Clefairy → Clefable (Fairy)
2. Foxtot → Vulpix → Ninetales (Fire / Fairy)
3. Bellsprout → Bellossum (Grass / Fairy)
4. Ponyta → Unequurn → Pegasteed (Fairy / Flying)
5. Togepi → Togetic → Chansey (Normal / Fairy)
6. Golppy line (Water / Fairy)
7. Jynx (Fairy / Dark)
8. Laampeep → Baattery → Acedesheep (Electric / Fairy)

Other options:

1. Yukiona (if it's Ice / Fairy)

Ace Black Belt's Team: Fighting

- Battled at Fighting Dojo. I loved that in the original game as some defunct gym that Sabrina had booted out. That's kind of how I wanted to expand on this in my reboot.

1. Bigglybuff (Normal / Fighting)
2. Kongbatt → Guorilla → Primeape (Fighting / Normal or Fighting / Dark) * possibly both variants
3. Machump → Machop → Machamp (Fighting)
4. Cubone → Marowak → Kangaskhan (Fighting / Ground)
5. Hitmontyke → Hitmonlee (Fighting)
6. Hitmontyke → Hitmonchan (Fighting)
7. Weetle → Scarabeat → Heraclash (Bug / Fighting)

Other options:

1. Rabbutcher (Normal or Dark / Fighting)
2. Geodude → Graveler → Golum
3. Krabrawler (Water / Fighting)
4. Elekid → Electabuzz → Electiger (Electric / Fighting)

Blaine's Team: Fire

1. Foxtot → Vulpix → Ninetales (Fire / Fairy)
2. Puppyre → Growlava/Growlcano → Volcanine (Fire)
3. Coalt → Torchorse → Charriot (Fire / Steel)
4. Magby → Magmar → Magmortar (Fire)
5. Flareon (Fire)
6. Porygon (Fire)

Faulkner's Team: Flying

- This guy is either free-roam with no set location that you come across randomly as he's flying around, or, more likely, he's the person you have to battle to get access to the Power Planet, which would have a windmill on it.

- He's the one who tells you about the legendary birds.

1. Butterfree (Bug / Flying)
2. Pidgey  → Pidgeotto  → Pidgeot (Flying)
3. Spearow  → Drearow  → Fearkrow (Flying / Dark)
4. Zubat  → Golbat  → Crobat (Poison / Dark)
5. Pegasteed (Fairy / Flying)
6. Fowlott (Flying / Grass)
7. Dodumbo (Normal / Flying) if that item is a thing
8. Koffing  → Weezing  → Choaking (Poison / Flying)
9. Searpent  → Skullkraken (Water / Flying) if that item is a thing
10. Aerodactyl (Rock / Flying)
11. Dragonite (Dragon / Flying)

Mr. Fuji's Team: Ghost

1. Parazombi (Bug / Ghost)
2. Gastly → Haunter → Gengar (Ghost / Dark)
3. Phantorb or whtaever I'm calling the Pokeball thing (Ghost / Steel)
4. Voodoll (Ghost / Psychic)
5. Baansheep line (Ghost)
6. Porygon (Ghost) = reference to "ghost in the machine"
7. Yukiona (Ice / Ghost) = if that typing, it replaces Parazombi most likely

Erika's Team: Grass

1. Oddish → Gloom → Vileplume (Grass / Dark)
2. Oddish → Bellsprout → Bellossum (Grass / Fairy)
3. Parasect (Bug / Grass) -- she tosses it when it stops being Grass and replaces it with Leafeon for her final team
4. Fowlott (Flying / Grass)
5. Exeggutor line (Grass / Psychic)
6. Tangulb → Tangulbush → Tangulweed (Grass)
7. Leafeon (Grass)

Ace Ground Team: Ground

- Battled at Rock Tunnel.

1. Armadig → Pangarmy → Armordrillo (Ground / Steel)
2. Blindig → Shrewlunk → ??? (Ground or Ground / Dark)
3. Dodumbo (Normal / Ground)
4. Mukrud (Poison / Ground)
5. Onix line (Ground / *)
6. Cubone → Marowak → Kangaskhan (Fighting / Ground)
7. Tangulweed (Grass / Ground)
8. Scorpsean (Water / Ground) 

Ace Sherpa's Team: Ice

- This is someone you have to battle to get access to Seafoam Island.

1. Armordrillo (Ice / Steel)
2. Narwhale (Water / Ice)
3. Shellder → Clamperl → Cloyster (Water / Ice)
4. Onix line (Ice / Ground)
5. Yukiona (Ice / *)
6. Nessio → Lokness → Loknessaur (Ice / Dragon)

Other options:

1. Geodude → Graveler → Golum (Ice or Ice / Fighting)
2. Rabbutcher (Dark / Ice)
3. Aerodactyl (Ice / Flying) if that's in the game 

Bill's Team: Normal

- He's another professor, of sorts, who has worked with Oak. He specializes in Normal type because it's the most foundational category to judge everything off from.

- You get Eevee from him, or maybe his assistant and that person has all the variations.

- I considered giving him the Voltorb remake, as he's the one who created the storage system and you'd think he'd be into the Pokeball Pokemon, but Ghost / Steel is already covered in other trainers.

1. Lickitung (Normal)
2. Ditto (Normal)
3. Eevee (Normal)
4. Porygon (Normal)
5. Snorlax (Normal)
6. ???

Other options:

1. Luckitty → Meowth → Purrsian (Normal)
2. Miltank (Normal)
3. Taurox (Normal)
4. Rattata → Ratched → Raticate (Normal / Dark)
5. Jigglypuff → Wigglytuff → Bigglybuff (Normal / Fighting)
6. Emimime (Normal / Psychic)
7. Dodumbo (Normal / Ground or Flying)
8. Kongbatt → Guorilla → Primeape (Fighting / Normal)
9. Togepi → Togetic → Chansey (Normal / Fairy)

Koga's Team: Poison

- I dig the poison ninja vibe.

1. Rabbutcher (Dark / Poison)
2. Ekans → Arbok → Slahknir (Poison / *)
3. Zubat → Golbat → Crobat (Poison / Dark)
4. Parazytik (Bug / Poison)
5. Grimer → Slimess → Mukrud (Poison / Ground)
6. Koffing → Weezing → Choaking (Poison / Flying) 

 Other options:

1. Combee → Waspod → Thornet (Bug / Poison)
2. Tentacool → Tentacull → Tentacruel (Water / Poison)
3. Porygon (Poison)

Sabrina's Team: Psychic

1. Abra → Kadabra → Alakazam (Psychic)
2. Drowzee → Sleepir → Hypno (Psychic)
3. Emimime (Normal / Psychic)
4. Voodoll (Ghost / Psychic)
5. Porygon (Psychic)
6. ???

Other options:

1. Golduck → Heduacke → Psyquack (Water / Psychic)
2. Exeggutor line (Grass / Psychic)
3. Staryu → Starmie → Starwei (Water / Psychic)

Brock's Team: Rock

1. Rabbutcher (Rock / Dark)
2. Geodude → Graveler → Golum (Rock / Fighting)
3. Shellder → Clamperl → Cloyster (Water / Rock)
4. Onix line (Rock / Ground)
5. Rhynorn → Rhyhorn → Rhydon (Rock / Dragon)
6. Aerodactyl (Rock / Flying or Rock / Dragon)

Silph Co Engineer's Team: Steel

- Someone you save from Team Rocket that you can battle afterward in Silph Co.

- I considered making this person a steelworker and putting them at the Power Plant, but I changed that thing's direction. Plus, it's good to give Silph Co a purpose in the post-game.

- I wanted to make this tech-based, but there aren't that many technological Pokemon and even less that fit that bill and are Steel type.

1. Magneton line (Electric / Steel)
2. Porygon (Steel)
3. Phantorb (Ghost / Steel)
4. Armordrillo line (Ground / Steel)
5. Rabbutcher (Dark / Steel)
6. ???

Other options:

1. Golum line (Steel / Fighting maybe)
2. Cloyster line (Water / Steel)
3. Scyther line (Bug / Steel)

Misty's Team: Water

1. Poliwag → Poliwhirl → Poliwave (Water)
2. Vaporeon (Water)
3. Tentacool → Tentacull → Tentacruel (Water / Poison)
4. Krabby → Kingler → Krabrawler (Water / Fighting)
5. Golduck → Heduacke → Psyquack (Water / Psychic)
6. ???

Other options:

1. Narwhale line (Water / Ice)
2. Shellder → Clamperl → Cloyster (Water / Rock, Ice or Steel)
3. Horsea → Seaddle → Seadra (Water / Dragon)
4. Golppy line (Water / Fairy)
5. Staryu → Starmie → Starwei (Water / Psychic)
6. Magikarp → Searpent → Skullkraken (Water / Dragon)
7. Scorpsean (Water / Ground) 

The Elite 3 / Champion / Rivals / Final Boss

Again, it's the Elite 3, not Elite 4, because I want to have these trainers be representational of the other "types" of Pokemon in that some people view them as cute, some are freaky and some are warriors.

The Elite 3 have no set type they use, just themes based on appearance.

The Elite Three are as follows:

Lorelei's Team: Cute or Pretty Pokemon (to symbolize collecting friends)

Options:

- Butterfree
- Clefable
- Ninetails
- Bellossum
- Purrsian
- Pegasteed
- Narwhale
- Chansey
- third evo of the goldfish
- Miltank
- Acedesheep

Agatha's Team: Scary or Creepy Pokemon (maybe even ugly, monstrous to symbolize how they're monsters)

Options:

- Fearkrow
- Raticate
- Slahknir
- Crobat
- Vileplume
- Parazombi
- Tentacruel
- Mukrud
- Gengar
- Hypno
- Choaking/Suffokating
- Emimime
- Jynx

Bruno's Team: Tough or Warrior Pokemon (to symbolize battling)

Options:

- Rabbutcher
- Armordrillo
- Primeape
- Machamp
- Golum
- Cloyster
- Onix's 3rd evo
- Krabrawler
- Hitmonlee
- Hitmonchan
- Rhydon
- Scyther
- Heraclash
- Electiger
- Taurox

Champion / Rivals

I love the idea of Red, Green and Blue from Let's Go having their own set teams. Originally, I wanted to set up a team layout like that, but I couldn't wrap my mind around it.

Instead, for now, I'll just say that in general, your rivals have this basic kind of layout:

1. Grass = Venusaur or alternative
2. Fire = Charizard or alternative
3. Water = Blastoise or alternative
4. Psychic / Fighting / Dark / Ghost / Fairy
5. Electric / Ground / Flying
6. Normal

For instance, Blue always has either Blastoise or Gyarados, Venusaur or Exeggutor, and so on. In Let's Go, they took this a step further by having Red have Machamp, Blue has Alakazam and Green has Gengar so they form another trio. So on and so forth. I don't know exactly what these picks should be, though. But maybe something like the following....

Blue (male rival)

1. Venusaur (Grass / Poison) or Exeggution (Grass / Psychic)
2. Charizard (Fire / Dragon or Flying) or Charriot (Fire / Steel) or Volcanine (Fire) or Magmortar (Fire)
3. Blastoise (Water / Steel) or Skullkraken (Water / Dragon) or Cloyster (Water / Rock)
4. Onix third evo (Ground / *)
5. Electiger (Electric / Fighting)
6. Lickitung (Normal)

Green (female rival)

1. Venusaur (Grass / Poison) or Tangulweed (Grass / Ground)
2. Charizard (Fire / Dragon) or Ninetails (Fire / Fairy)
3. Blastoise (Water / Steel) or Psyquack (Water / Psychic)
4. Jynx (Fairy / Dark)
5. Rushawk (Flying)
6. Purrsian (Normal)

Final Boss Professor Oak

Reminder, once you've become the champion and you've caught all Pokemon, you can challenge the final boss, which is Professor Oak. If you beat him, he gives you Mew.

Oak's Team:

- I kind of wanted to give him Pokemon that were either things I could see old people using, or science themed.

- I also figured he could be a good "well-rounded" trainer.

- I considered that he could be more on the "legendary" side of things.

Options include:

1. Mew = After he gives it to you, he replaces it with Alakazam (or maybe Hypno or Emimime)
2. Raichu or Magneton
3. Clefable or Dragonite 
4. Bigglybuff
5. Primeape or Machamp or Heraclash
6. Volcanine
7. Poliwave 
8. Phantorb or Porygon
9. Kangaskhan or Rhydon (reference to how Rhydon was the first Pokemon) 
10. Taurox or Snorlax

My philosophy is that Mew is his big secret all along. He didn't want to give it to anyone he couldn't trust to fulfill all the aspects of being a Pokemon trainer, from being the champion to completing the Pokedex and treating everything with compassion and whatnot. Since you've proven that by also beating him, he gives it to you and replaces it with Alakazam, which is one of Blue's trademarks.

Raichu is a reference to how he's your mentor and he has the mascot's final form. On a similar note, Rhydon would make sense for a reference to being the first Pokemon, but since my Rhydon is a third form and not the true Rhydon, I think Poliwave is better for that spot, as Poliwag was Red's starter in some media. Plus, that gives him Water type coverage.

Tauros has been a go-to for Blue and Red in the past, as well as one that Oak used on his original Gen 1 team. It's a generic Pokemon that is bulky and well-rounded.

Phantorb and Porygon are references to how he's a scientist. Since he's more of a Pokemon expert, Phantorb makes the most sense as the Pokeball gimmick.

Finally, Dragonite is mostly just a power play to show Oak's been around long enough to have come across, caught and trained powerful dragons. If you wanted to, you could replace that with Clefable for being somewhat mythical and it isn't used as much. That way, Dragonite is more of Lance's ace.

That's it! That's the insanity of notes that I have down for how I would be approaching a full-on reboot of the first generation of Pokemon games, if I had the benefit of hindsight and no other people working on this game to keep me from flying off the handle and going into too crazy directions.

Obviously, this is a bit of a mess, but this is an insight into how detailed my notes for such random topics can be. Just imagine what I have for my "superhero blueprint" concepts for The Complete Batman Story and so on!

If you'd like to see more of this, be it the rejected ideas of other Pokemon that I had (like a water buffalo named Buffloat), let me know and consider donating to the Patreon to specifically request something like that!

Welcome to part 2 of my Fanboys Fix It of Pokemon Generation I.

As mentioned before, this was sponsored by Guest Five's donation on Patreon via the Pick Your Poison tier (donate today if you want to request a special feature of your own)

For the general setup and information on items, difficulty levels, HM/TMs and more generic stuff, go to part 1. Part 3 will be the story elements.

But this is part 2, which is the most complicated section and the biggest undertaking: the Pokedex.

• Venonat + Venomoth = I subscribe to the theory that these two and Butterfree had a crossover, and I just don't see the point. They can be repurposed for the next generation and not look like Butterfree variants.
• The Victreebel Trio = There's enough variation in the grass lines as it is, down below, and I wanted to expand on something like Tangela instead. Ultimately, knowing that there will be other games, I'd rather take this line of pitcher plant inspired Pokemon and make this trio part of the next generation's early catch ones, along with Hoppip, Jumpluff and Skiploom, for instance. I REALLY wanted to put those little cotton balls in here, too, by the way.
• Slowpoke + Slowbro + Slowking = You're going to hate me for this, but I thought it was necessary. The gimmick of a dumb Water-type Pokemon getting smarter and being part Psychic is already covered with Psyduck. Nobody knows what the hell Slowpoke really is. Is it half salamander, half hermit crab? It's at least partially inspired by sazae, which is a shellfish snail type thing, but it's got way too much going on. I'd rather revisit it another generation when we can play into the Shellder gimmick for an evolution. I even thought about having it be Water/Normal just for something different, and then I realized I would rather free up those 3 spots for more Pokemon.
• Dodrio = You'll see.
• Electrode = You'll see.
• Kabuto or Kabutops, or Omanyte or Omastar = You'll see.