Pokemon: The First Movie arrived in theaters in November 1999, released by Warner Bros. after Nintendo and 4Kids brought the franchise's anime arm to American audiences at the height of Pokemon mania. Its trailer campaign ran through the summer of 1999, priming a generation of young viewers and collectors for the franchise's first cinematic outing, built around the mythic rivalry of Mew and Mewtwo. The film mattered less as cinema than as cultural event, marking Pokemon's transition from handheld game to mainstream media juggernaut.
This cell preserves a moment from that trailer campaign built around Mew, the rare and mythical Pokemon whose scarcity within the games made it a prized subject for collectors long before the movie gave it a starring role. As the emotional counterpart to Mewtwo's origin story, Mew carries symbolic weight, representing the natural, original form of Pokemon existence. A trailer cell like this one functions as a piece of promotional history, a fragment meant to entice audiences ahead of release, now preserved as a physical artifact of that marketing moment.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm theatrical release print of Pokémon: The First Movie Trailer (1999).
Gauge
35mm, confirmed by four perforations per frame on both edges; the strip holds one frame of picture.
Perforations
Four per frame on each edge, evenly spaced; punched cleanly with no torn or missing perfs visible.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track is visible below the picture area, appearing as a dual-bilateral (two-track) waveform stripe; a dotted timecode line consistent with DTS is also visible running alongside it.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture.
Base & colour
Base appears with a slight cool-neutral tint; the dye image shows strong, saturated colour with no visible fading or red shift.
Projection history
No scratches, splice marks, or cue marks are visible in this capture.
Picture
Positive colour image; a single frame is shown and the content matches the Pokémon: The First Movie Trailer (1999) as recorded.
Era check
The dual variable-area optical track combined with a DTS timecode stripe is consistent with a 1999 theatrical release print, when both analogue optical and DTS digital formats were standard.
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, 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.
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
