Pokémon: The First Movie arrived in 1999 courtesy of Warner Bros. and Nintendo, riding the crest of Pokémania as it swept through American youth culture. Adapted from the Japanese Mewtwo Strikes Back, the film introduced a generation to a darker, more philosophical corner of the franchise, one built around genetic experimentation and identity. The theatrical trailer that preceded it played a key role in building anticipation, teasing the film's central conflict without giving away its emotional core, and helped cement the movie's place as a defining crossover moment between television and cinema for the property.
This cell comes from that trailer, a promotional strip meant to stir curiosity ahead of release. Mewtwo anchors the frame as the film's engineered antagonist, a character collectors prize for his complexity and his role as the series' first major original villain. Alongside him are clone versions of Venusaur, Gyarados, and Charizard, duplicates born from Mewtwo's own experiments and central to the story's tension between nature and artificial creation. As a trailer cell, this piece represents the marketing moment when audiences first glimpsed the scale of Mewtwo's ambitions.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm release-print trailer strip of Pokémon: The First Movie (1999).
Gauge
Four perforations per frame along both edges, consistent with 35mm; the strip holds three full frames plus partial frames at each end.
Perforations
Four per frame on both edges, evenly spaced and cleanly punched with rounded-rectangle holes; no torn, missing or damaged perforations seen.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track appears as wavy white-on-black bands beside the picture, with Dolby Digital data blocks visible in the gaps between the lower-edge perforations.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture
Base & colour
The base shows a pale blue tint at the edges, while the image dyes look saturated and neutral with no obvious fading or red shift.
Projection history
No scratches, cue marks or splices seen at this size; the frames look clean on this backlit capture.
Picture
Positive colour image; the three full frames run consecutively as one shot, and the animated Pokémon characters fit the film on record.
Era check
The combined optical and Dolby Digital soundtrack matches a late-1990s 35mm release print, so it is consistent with a 1999 trailer.
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
