Pokemon: The First Movie arrived in 1999 through Warner Bros. and Nintendo's partnership with Pikachu Project 4Kids, riding the crest of the franchise's American breakout. It brought the anime's central rivalry, Mewtwo's manufactured existence and Mew's ancient purity, to theaters at the height of Pokemania, when trailers themselves became collectible artifacts of a cultural moment.
This cell preserves a strip from that promotional reel, the kind of frame studios cut and circulated to build anticipation before the feature's release. Mew, the rare and mythical original from which Mewtwo was cloned, anchors the piece alongside its engineered counterpart, a pairing that sits at the emotional core of the film's mythology. Collectors prize Mew for its scarcity within the Pokemon canon and its symbolic weight as the origin point of the story's conflict. A trailer cell like this one captures the marketing history surrounding the franchise's theatrical debut, a physical remnant of how the film was sold to audiences before they ever saw it.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm theatrical release print of Pokemon: The First Movie Trailer (1999).
Gauge
35mm, four perforations per frame on both edges; the strip holds two frames.
Perforations
Four per frame on each edge, evenly spaced; punched edges appear clean with no torn or missing perforations visible.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track is visible running along the bottom edge beside the picture area, appearing as a dual-bilateral waveform pattern.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture.
Base & colour
Base appears with a slight cool-neutral tint; dye image shows deep blacks and saturated violet-purple hues with no visible fading or red shift.
Projection history
No visible scratches, splice marks, or cue marks are apparent in this capture.
Picture
Positive image; both frames appear to be from the same continuous shot and the animated character visible is consistent with the Pokemon: The First Movie Trailer (1999) on record.
Era check
The dual-bilateral variable-area optical soundtrack and the saturated dye image on a cool-neutral base are consistent with a 35mm theatrical release print from the late 1990s.
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
