Pokémon: The First Movie arrived in 1999 courtesy of Warner Bros. and Nintendo's licensing muscle, riding the crest of Pokémania as the franchise crossed from television and trading cards into a full theatrical event. The trailer that preceded it was essential marketing machinery, built to convert a television audience into ticket buyers by promising spectacle beyond the small screen. It introduced American moviegoers to Mewtwo's saga while leaning on familiar faces to anchor the unfamiliar stakes, making this preview reel a key artifact of how a Japanese media property was packaged for mass Western consumption.
This cell, titled Ash & Pokemon, gathers the franchise's central trainer alongside a roster that spans the earliest starter creatures and some of the series' more formidable battlers. Pikachu's presence alongside Squirtle and Bulbasaur speaks to the show's original core cast, while Scyther, Nidoqueen, Gyarados, and Nidoking suggest the trailer's effort to showcase scale and power beyond Ash's starting companions. As a trailer cell, it exists to entice rather than narrate, assembling characters to signal the breadth of the Pokémon world. Collectors prize this grouping for its density of recognizable names in a single frame.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm positive release trailer print of Pokémon: The First Movie (1999).
Gauge
35mm: four perforations per frame along both edges, and the strip holds four complete frames side by side.
Perforations
Four per frame on both edges, evenly spaced, with rounded-rectangle holes that look cleanly punched and uniform along the whole strip.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track of two bright wavy bands runs between the picture and the lower perforations; no Dolby Digital blocks, DTS line or SDDS tracks are seen.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture
Base & colour
Clear base with a pale blue-teal tint at the edges; the dye image looks neutral with strong colour and no obvious fading or red shift.
Projection history
A few small specks and fine hairs on the panel and strip; no clear scratches, cue marks or splices seen at this size.
Picture
Positive image; the four frames repeat essentially the same shot consecutively, and the animated style is consistent with the film on record, though no title card is visible.
Era check
A two-band optical track on a positive print fits a late-1990s 35mm release or trailer print, though digital tracks cannot be judged from this small strip.
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
