Sources: Wikidata · OpenAlex. The record of the motion picture, not an assessment of this cell.
FILM NOTES
Pokémon: The First Movie arrived in 1999 as Warner Bros. and Nintendo's bid to prove that the television phenomenon could command the big screen, pairing the Mewtwo Strikes Back feature with the Pikachu's Vacation short. It became a genuine box office event, introducing American audiences to the franchise's first cinematic mythology and cementing Pokémon as a dominant cultural force of the late nineties. For collectors of animation and franchise history, this release marks a hinge point where a card game and cartoon crossed into mainstream theatrical distribution.
This cell carries the name Zapdos, one of the three Legendary Birds central to Pokémon lore and a figure long sought by collectors for its rarity within the games and its stature within the animated canon. As a 35mm frame from the feature, it preserves a fragment of the movie's larger battle sequences involving the Legendary birds, a moment prized for tying the film directly to the mythology fans already knew from the trading card and game universe.
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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