Pokémon: The First Movie arrived in 1999 courtesy of Warner Bros. and Nintendo's booming franchise machine, riding the crest of Pokémania as it swept American playgrounds and television schedules. The film introduced Mewtwo, a lab-born Pokémon with psychic power and an identity crisis, to audiences well beyond the core game and show fanbase. Its theatrical trailer played a key role in extending the brand into multiplex culture, promising kids and parents alike a cinematic scale rarely attempted for a video game property at the time.
This 35mm trailer cell captures the moment of confrontation at the heart of the film's premise: Mewtwo set against the Pokémon world that created and then rejected him. Trailer cells like this one circulated to theaters as promotional material, making them scarcer survivors than frames pulled from the feature print itself. Mewtwo remains one of the franchise's most sought-after characters, prized for his central role in the saga's first cinematic outing. A face-off framing here speaks directly to the film's core conflict, the tension between engineered power and the natural order it threatens to upend.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm release print of Pokémon: The First Movie (1999).
Gauge
35mm: four perforations per frame along both edges, and the strip holds four frames, three of them whole and one partly cut at the left end.
Perforations
Four perforations per frame on both edges, evenly spaced and cleanly punched with rounded-rectangle holes; the strip is bowed on the panel but spacing looks regular.
Soundtrack
Two white variable-area optical tracks run between the picture and the lower perforations, and the area between the lower perforations carries a speckled grey pattern, possibly Dolby Digital data blocks.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture
Base & colour
Blue-teal tint on the outer edges of the base; the dye image looks saturated with warm yellows and deep blacks, and no fading is seen.
Projection history
No scratches, cue marks or splices seen at this size; the only marks are camera reflections on the base.
Picture
Positive colour image; the four frames run consecutively as one shot and show animated Pokémon artwork, which fits the film on record.
Era check
The optical track plus the possible Dolby Digital blocks, on a colour positive print, is consistent with a late-1990s release print of the film on record.
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
