Sources: Wikidata · OpenAlex. The record of the motion picture, not an assessment of this cell.
FILM NOTES
Pokémon: The First Movie arrived in the fall of 1999, a Warner Bros. release that carried the Pokémon phenomenon from television and trading cards onto American theater screens for the first time. Produced with 4Kids' English adaptation and paired with the short Pikachu's Vacation, it capitalized on peak franchise mania, becoming one of the highest grossing anime films released domestically. For collectors of animation ephemera, it stands as a marker of the franchise's leap into mainstream cinema.
This cell reads THIS FALL, marking it as promotional material, almost certainly drawn from the theatrical teaser or trailer campaign announcing the film's release window. Such text cards were used to build anticipation ahead of a wide release, appearing before prints in theaters or spliced into promotional reels. Cells of this kind are prized less for character imagery and more as artifacts of the marketing machinery, tangible relics of how a studio announced the arrival of a cultural event to audiences waiting that season.
This original motion picture film element has been examined and authenticated by Crown Grading in partnership with National Film Vault, and encapsulated for archival preservation.
Why so little survivesRelease prints were leased to theaters, not sold. When the run ended they went back to the distributor to be destroyed, and most were. What collectors hold today came from the prints that escaped that order, and no new 35mm prints of these films are being struck.
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