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OFFICIAL MOTION PICTURE FILM AUTHENTICATION
A
AUTHENTIC
CROWN CERTIFIED
Film cell 000064920 Tap to enlarge
MOVIEPokémon: The First Movie Trailer
SCENEMew
FILM FORMAT35mm
YEAR1999
CERTIFICATE ID000064920

FILM NOTES

Pokémon: The First Movie arrived in 1999 as Warner Bros. and Nintendo's push to bring the franchise from television into theaters, riding the height of Pokémania in the West. The trailer that preceded it was engineered for maximum anticipation, teasing the clash between Mewtwo and Mew without giving away the full story. For a franchise built on collecting, a theatrical trailer on 35mm stands as an artifact of that era's marketing machine, when studios still cut physical prints to build word of mouth in cinemas.

This cell holds Mew alone, the rare and ancient Pokémon whose mythos anchors the entire first film. Mew's presence in early promotional material carried weight, since so much of the movie's tension hinges on Mew as the original template of life from which Mewtwo was cloned. A single-character trailer cell built around Mew appeals to collectors precisely because it isolates that mystique, a glimpse of the psychic original ahead of the story's central conflict.

Authentication Findings 8 checks

Consistent with a 35mm colour optical-track release print of Pokémon: The First Movie Trailer.

Gauge
35mm, confirmed by 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 look clean throughout the visible strip.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track is visible running as a dense waveform band beside the picture area on one edge, consistent with a dual bilateral or variable-area mono/stereo optical track; no discrete Dolby Digital inter-perforation data blocks, DTS timecode stripe, or SDDS outer-edge tracks are discernible in this capture.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture at sufficient resolution to read manufacturer codes, key numbers, or SAFETY FILM text.
Base & colour
The base appears with a slight cool-neutral tint; the dye image reads as a dark, dense positive with vivid colour saturation and no obvious red shift or fading.
Projection history
Light vertical scratch lines are visible running through the frame area, consistent with a print that has passed through a projector gate.
Picture
Positive colour image; the three frames appear to be consecutive frames from a single continuous shot, and the subject matter is consistent with animated content matching the Pokémon: The First Movie Trailer on record.
Era check
A variable-area optical track alongside a dense colour positive on what appears to be a cool-neutral safety base is consistent with a 35mm theatrical release or trailer 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 Capture As received
The film strip as photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size