Sources: Wikidata. The record of the motion picture, not an assessment of this cell.
FILM NOTES
Pokémon: The Movie 2000 arrived as Warner Bros. and Nintendo's second theatrical push for the franchise at the height of its late-90s American boom, following the surprise success of the first Pokémon film. Built around the legendary birds and the guardian Lugia, it broadened the series' mythology beyond Pikachu-and-friends adventures into something closer to elemental fantasy, aimed squarely at the young audience still riding the Pokémon craze through toys, cards, and Saturday morning television.
This cell isolates Ash Ketchum and Pikachu together with Lugia, the film's central legendary and one of the most recognizable Pokémon designs of that era among collectors. Ash and Pikachu are the franchise's enduring pair, the emotional anchor of every adventure, while Lugia represents the movie's mythic scale, a figure meant to carry the boy and his partner beyond ordinary circumstances. A cell naming this trio together points to one of the story's pivotal passages, the kind of frame studios and collectors prize for placing the human, the companion, and the legend in shared frame.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm theatrical release print of Pokémon: The Movie 2000.
Gauge
35mm, confirmed by four perforations per frame on both edges; the strip holds four frames.
Perforations
Four per frame on both edges; spacing appears even and the punched edges look clean throughout the strip.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track is visible running along one edge below the picture area, with what appears to be a second track line beside it, consistent with a stereo optical print; Dolby Digital data blocks are visible in the inter-perforation gaps on the lower edge.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture at sufficient resolution to quote any text or key numbers.
Base & colour
Base appears with a slight blue-cyan tint; dye image reads as cool to neutral with strong blue saturation in the image area, no visible fading or red shift.
Projection history
No visible scratches, splice marks, or cue marks seen in this capture.
Picture
Positive colour image; all four frames appear to be consecutive frames from a single continuous shot, and the animated content is consistent with the film on record.
Era check
The combination of a Dolby Digital inter-perforation data track alongside a variable-area optical track, on a blue-tinted polyester base, is consistent with a theatrical release print from the late 1990s to early 2000s.
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
