Released in 1999 by Warner Bros. in partnership with Nintendo and Pikachu Project 1998, Pokémon: The First Movie brought the phenomenon to American theaters at the height of its cultural reach. Built around Mewtwo, a genetically engineered Pokémon wrestling with questions of identity and purpose, the film pushed the franchise beyond its television roots into something more ambitious and darker in tone. Its trailer campaign was a major event in its own right, circulating widely in theaters and on home video as a teaser for the feature, introducing audiences to Mewtwo's story before the film's release.
This cell preserves a strip from that trailer, centered on Mewtwo and its laboratory-born Clone Pokémon. Mewtwo remains one of the franchise's most sought-after figures, prized for its central role in the film's conflict and its standing as the first Pokémon positioned as a tragic, thinking antagonist. The Clone Pokémon tie directly into the film's premise of duplication and purpose, grounding this piece in the promotional moment that first announced the story's stakes to a theatrical audience ahead of the feature itself.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm Dolby Digital release print of Pokémon: The First Movie (1999).
Gauge
35mm: four perforations per frame along both edges, with four frames showing, the outer two cropped by the strip's cut ends.
Perforations
Four per frame on both edges, evenly spaced, rounded-rectangle punches that look clean and uniform, with no tears or torn edges visible.
Soundtrack
A two-track variable-area optical track runs beside the picture, and speckled Dolby Digital data blocks sit between the perforations on the sound edge.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture
Base & colour
The base shows a light blue-cyan tint at the edges, and the dye image looks neutral and saturated with no obvious fading or colour shift.
Projection history
No scratches, cue marks or splices seen at this size; the only marks are the glossy-base reflections on one frame.
Picture
Positive colour image; the four frames run consecutively as one shot, and the cartoon characters are consistent with the Pokémon film on record.
Era check
A variable-area optical track plus Dolby Digital blocks fits a 35mm release print from 1999, when this hybrid sound layout was 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
