Pokémon: The First Movie arrived in US theaters in November 1999 through Warner Bros., distributing the Japanese-produced feature from Nintendo, Game Freak, and OLM at the height of Pokémania in the West. Paired with a Pikachu short, it introduced American audiences to Mewtwo's origin story on the big screen and became a cultural landmark of the franchise's early years, grossing well beyond expectations and cementing Pokémon as a theatrical property rather than just a card game and television phenomenon. Promotional 35mm trailer material from this release is sought after as some of the earliest physical theatrical ephemera tied to the franchise's American debut.
This cell preserves a moment from that early promotional reel, built around Mewtwo and its cloned Pokémon, Gyarados and Blastoise. Mewtwo stands as the film's central creation, a genetically engineered Pokémon whose rivalry with its creators and with Pikachu drives the feature's plot, making any trailer appearance highly desired by collectors tracing the character's earliest marketing presence. The pairing with cloned Gyarados and Blastoise reflects the film's premise of manufactured duplicates, a plot device central to the story's tension and one of the more distinctive visual concepts introduced to mainstream audiences that year.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm release-print trailer strip of Pokémon: The First Movie (1999).
Gauge
35mm: four perforations per frame along both edges, and the strip holds four frames, of which the first and last are cut off.
Perforations
Four per frame on both edges, evenly spaced, with rounded-rectangle holes that look cleanly punched and uniform.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track runs between the picture and the lower perforations, and a speckled band of Dolby Digital data blocks sits in the gaps between those perforations.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture
Base & colour
Clear to slightly cool bluish base on the light panel, with saturated dye colours in the image and no fading or warm shift seen.
Projection history
None seen at this size; one round ring on a single frame is camera reflection and is ignored.
Picture
Positive colour image; the four frames run consecutively as one shot and the artwork is consistent with the Pokémon film on record.
Era check
An optical track with Dolby Digital blocks between the perforations on a clear positive 35mm strip fits a late-1990s theatrical release print.
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
