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OFFICIAL MOTION PICTURE FILM AUTHENTICATION
A
AUTHENTIC
CROWN CERTIFIED
Film cell 000068826 Tap to enlarge
MOVIEPokémon: The First Movie Trailer
SCENEMewtwo Commands Clone Pokémon
FILM FORMAT35mm
YEAR1999
CERTIFICATE ID000068826

FILM NOTES

Pokémon: The First Movie arrived in 1999 as Warner Bros. and Nintendo's bid to prove that the franchise could command the big screen, not just Saturday mornings. Built around Mewtwo, a genetically engineered Pokémon wrestling with questions of purpose and origin, the film leaned into darker, more philosophical territory than the television series dared, while still delivering the merchandising juggernaut fans expected. The theatrical trailer played a key role in building anticipation, teasing the film's central conflict to audiences who had only known Pokémon through its lighter episodic adventures.

This cell preserves a moment of command, with Mewtwo positioned as the authority over its assembled clones: Gyarados, Nidoqueen, Ninetales, and Scyther. Each of these Pokémon represents a distinct cloned counterpart deployed in the narrative's central showdown, making this grouping a touchstone for collectors tracing the film's clone army imagery. As a trailer cell, it belongs to the promotional material meant to establish stakes and scale before the feature's release, a reminder of how Mewtwo's authority was marketed from the very first glimpse audiences received.

Authentication Findings 8 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, with the image running across the full width between the perforation rows.
Perforations
Four per frame on both edges, evenly spaced and cleanly punched with rounded-rectangle holes and no tears or missing perforations seen.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track runs beside the picture as stacked white waveform lines, with a speckled data band of blocks in the gaps between the lower perforations.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture
Base & colour
Light blue-tinted base at the edges, with a saturated dye image showing strong purples, greens and blues and no obvious fading or red shift.
Projection history
No lines, scratches, cue marks or splices seen at this size, apart from a faint vertical smudge on the last frame.
Picture
Positive colour image, four consecutive frames of one shot, with a green creature, a blue shelled creature and a small pink flyer, matching Pokémon: The First Movie animation.
Era check
Optical track plus Dolby Digital-style data blocks between perforations suits a late-1990s theatrical release print, consistent with a 1999 trailer for this film.
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 Capture As received
The film strip as photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size