Sources: Wikidata. The record of the motion picture, not an assessment of this cell.
FILM NOTES
Digimon: The Movie arrived in 2000 as Fox Kids and Saban's attempt to bring the sprawling Japanese franchise to American theaters, stitching together three separate Toei-produced features into a single English-language release. It rode the tail end of the monster-collecting craze that Pokemon had ignited, giving Western audiences their first big-screen exposure to the DigiDestined and their partner creatures. The film became a snapshot of that early digital-monster boom, a period when Saban's dubbing and repackaging shaped how a generation encountered anime.
This cell preserves the picture's opening credit, the card that greets audiences before the story begins and sets the tone for everything that follows. Such cards are prized by collectors because they mark a film's threshold moment, the first frame of celluloid a paying audience would have seen in the theater. For a release built from three imported films stitched into one American cut, the title card carries extra weight: it is the single unifying element announcing this patchwork as one movie, one theatrical event.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm theatrical release print of Digimon: The Movie (2000).
Gauge
35mm, four perforations per frame on both edges; the strip holds three frames.
Perforations
Four per frame on both edges; spacing appears even and the punched edges appear clean throughout the strip.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track is visible running along the bottom edge beside the perforations, appearing as a dual-band waveform strip; a thin colored line consistent with a Dolby analog surround encode borders it.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture at sufficient resolution to read manufacturer codes or key numbers.
Base & colour
The base appears with a slight cyan-blue tint consistent with modern safety stock; the dye image reads as neutral with no visible red shift or fading.
Projection history
No visible splices, cue marks, or heavy scratching are apparent; the image surface appears consistent with a lightly projected print.
Picture
Positive image; all three frames appear to show the same title-card composition, consistent with a title sequence from Digimon: The Movie (2000).
Era check
The dual variable-area optical track with apparent Dolby encoding, cyan-tinted safety base, and overall stock character are consistent with a year-2000 theatrical release print.
Read from the original intake capture shown below. Observations only — film is authenticated, not graded.
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.
CROWN SERIAL 000063094
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
