Submarine Mobilization (original Chinese: 潜艇总动员) is a 2008 Chinese animated feature film created, rather uniquely, by editing together scenes from various Dive Olly Dive! episodes.
Olly and Beibei are two research submarines who have spent years in training under the eye of the watchful diver Daoge. Today, however, their training days are over- they’re finally going to graduate!
Olly and Beibei spend the day swimming around the harbor and reminiscing about the various adventures they had- such as the time sea scooter Shitou tried to take charge while they attempted to wrangle sea cucumbers and electric eels, rescuing Shitou and Daoge from a deep-sea trench, resolving an argument between Shitou and his hermit crab friend Buding, helping the docks crane Hercules find a way to set out to sea, the time Olly flunked the submarine’s examination, but redeemed himself by rescuing the examiner, the time Olly tried to save a stranded Suzy Seaplane in a dense fog, and when Olly and Beibei switched jobs with underwater maintenance robot UMA. After this, they arrive at the docks, where a party has been prepared for their graduation. And that’s the whole movie.
It was followed in 2012 by another Compilation Movie by the name of Submarine Mobilization 2, which featured the subs’ adventures with Dr. Su Hong, and in 2013 by Dive Olly Dive and the Pirate Treasure, an originally-produced film.
Tropes (mostly recycled from Dive Olly Dive) include:
- Artistic License – Marine Biology:
- The first flashback segment features electric eels thriving in saltwater- real electric eels are freshwater fish.
- It also has sea cucumbers repeatedly spraying greenish goo at Olly and Beibei. In reality, what they shoot out is their intestines; while they do grow back, it’s not fast enough for them to be able to shoot multiple times, and their intestines also don’t look much like the gunk Olly and Beibei got covered in.
- Chekhov's Gun: In the first segment, Olly and Beibei get covered in sticky gunk sprayed by sea cucumbers; much later, while dealing with some escaped electric eels, they bump into each other and the goo gets stuck together; when they try to pull apart, it stretches into a series of netlike filaments… which Olly and Beibei realize they can use as a net to catch the eels.
- Clip Show: The movie mostly consists of flashbacks to the plots of, in order, “Doug’s Apprentices”, “Pressure’s On”, “Friends 4-Ever”, “Shankley Ahoy”, “Sub D-Day”, “Fear Of Fog”, and “The Big Swap”.
- Compilation Movie: Compiles seven episodes of Dive Olly Dive! in a Clip Show style.
- Covered in Gunge:
- In the first segment, while trying to release sea cucumbers, Olly, Beibei, Buding, and Shitou all get covered in gunk squirted from the sea cucumbers (some of them even get hit multiple times); this goo proves rather hard to remove, but ends up coming in surprisingly useful later.
- In the third segment, this happens when Olly and Shitou fall into a mud hole.
- Creative Closing Credits: The credits text is seen in front of a backdrop of fish swimming through kelp.
- Crisis Makes Perfect: In the fifth flashback, Olly fails miserably at the part of his test that involves rescuing a submarine in distress (played by Beibei). Then, after De (who was monitoring the exam) leaves, his engines suddenly fail- and Olly is able to perform a test-standard rescue of him perfectly.
- Dub Name Change: Beth becomes “Beibei”, Skid is now “Shitou”, Diver Doug is “Daoge” (technically an attempt at adapting his name to Chinese phonology, but still different enough to qualify), Brandt becomes “Buding”, Shankley is “Hercules”, Ranger is now “Handsome”, and Sub D is inexplicably “Uncle De”.
- "Everybody Laughs" Ending: The first and fourth flashback segments both have these.
- Face Your Fears: In the fourth segment, Hercules the docks crane is revealed to be afraid of sailing, ironically enough; he ends up having to climb on a raft pulled by Olly and Beibei in order to save a Shipshape Shipwreck from plunging into a trench.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: In the sixth flashback, Uncle De can be seen at one point sailing through the fog in the background; in the next scene, he appears to talk to Olly and Suzy.
- Flashback Effects: The same ripple effect is used for the beginning and end of every single flashback. Every. Single. One.
- Flashback Within a Flashback: The sixth flashback has two of these- one when Olly tells of how Uncle De sailed into a fog and lead a fleet of sailboats to safety, and another when De says what really happened- he went into a fog and had to immediately turn and get out of the way of a large boat.
- Frankenslation: Simultaneously subverted and played straight- while multiple episodes are combined into one film, this is done Clip Show style, with each episode keeping its own story. Meanwhile, the Framing Device- Olly and Beibei going around and reminiscing about their past adventures- is also made of recycled footage, making it a straighter example.
- Good Morning, Crono: The movie begins with Beibei sleeping in her berth before Olly wakes her up.
- Graduation for Everyone: The end of the movie has Olly and Beibei graduating from their training and becoming full-fledged research submarines, although this doesn’t stick for Submarine Mobilization 2.
- Gratuitous English: The title card has, above the Chinese title, “Happy Little Submarines” in English written on it.
- Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress: In the fourth segment, Olly and Beibei surface underneath Shitou to lift him on their backs,context drag him around for a bit, and then drop him- leaving him floating in the air for a few moments before splashing back down.
- Hammerspace:
- In the third segment, Buding manages to pull a miniature spyglass out of nowhere after ducking into his shell.
- This is where UMA places the tablet with the list of specimens to collect in the seventh segment.
- Harmless Electrocution: In the first flashback, Shitou is repeatedly shocked by electric eels- the shocks are painful, but do no permanent damage.
- Help, I'm Stuck!: The second flashback has Diver Doug getting his foot lodged in a crack in a deep ocean trench, while Shitou is immobilized due to a broken propeller.
- Here We Go Again!: UMA spends most of the seventh flashback chasing after a sea turtle that stole a piece of red-and-yellow-striped seaweed; at the end of the flashback, after the substation is finally built, Olly places a red-and-yellow-striped flag on top of it, only for the sea turtle to pick it up in its mouth and swim off.
- Imagine Spot: In the sixth segment, Olly imagines a celebration for himself- complete with fireworks- after he rescues Suzy.
- Improvisational Ingenuity: In the first flashback, Olly and Beibei use filamentous, very sticky slime from a sea cucumber as a makeshift net to trap some electric eels.
- Invisible Anatomy: In the seventh flashback, UMA “holds” Beibei’s tablet without having any fingers; the tablet just sort of hovers next to the outflow hose on the end of her “arm”.
- Iris Out: The movie ends with Olly and Beibei jumping up in front of the dock, the frame freezing, and an iris closing on them.
- Losing Horns: These can be heard in the soundtrack of the third segment after Olly and Shitou fall into some mud.
- Metal Detector Puzzle: A rare non-video game example; part of Olly’s exam in the fifth flashback segment has him looking for a buried box using an attachment that beeps more often the closer he is to it.
- Offscreen Crash: This happens in the seventh segment, while the subs are trying to build the Substation.
- Riding into the Sunset: The sixth flashback ends with Olly, De, and Suzy sailing into the sunset.
- Pass Through the Rings: This is part of the exam Olly and Beibei undergo in the fifth flashback; while practicing, Olly does it with ease while Beibei bangs her periscope on the top of the ring; in the test, Beibei does it with ease while Olly bangs his periscope.
- Shipshape Shipwreck: The plot of the fourth segment has the subs bringing Hercules out to sea on a raft so he can use his strength to keep one of these from sliding into a trench.
- Swapped Roles: Upon seeing the substation, the subs have a flashback to the time they, while collecting specimens, encountered UMA building a substation; after UMA accidentally catches the creature they were after, they decide to switch jobs; Hilarity Ensues when the subs prove to not be very good at construction work, and UMA gets sent on a wild chase when a sea turtle sees the piece of seaweed she was after.
- Variable-Length Chain: Hercules’s crane cable suddenly extends to about five times its previous length in the fourth segment, when the subs need to attach it to a shipwreck on the seabed.
- Wronski Feint: In the first flashback, the subs need to catch some electric eels, which have taken to chasing Shitou around; they do this by having him swim straight for an improvised net and pull up at the last minute, causing the eels to hit the net.