Pokémon: The First Movie arrived in 1999 courtesy of Warner Bros. and Nintendo's Pokémon USA, riding the first great wave of American Pokémania. Promotional trailers for the film circulated widely that summer, building anticipation for a feature that promised to bring the saga's deepest lore, Mewtwo's origin, to the big screen. The movie became a cultural landmark of the franchise's early expansion, and surviving trailer material from this release period is prized by collectors as a record of how the Pokémon phenomenon was first sold to a mainstream audience.
This cell preserves a moment from that promotional reel centered on Mewtwo, the genetically engineered Pokémon whose creation drives the film's central conflict, alongside its cloned companions Gyarados, Scyther, Nidoqueen, and Ninetales. These clones represent the villainous counterpart to the familiar cast, a detail that made the trailer especially compelling to early audiences anticipating a darker, more ambitious Pokémon story. For collectors, a trailer cell like this one captures the marketing history of the franchise itself, the brief window when the film's mythology was first teased to the public before release.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm release trailer print of Pokémon: The First Movie (1999).
Gauge
35mm: four perforations per frame along both edges, and the strip holds four frames, each cut off at the picture edge.
Perforations
Four per frame on both edges, evenly spaced, with rounded-rectangle holes that look cleanly punched and uniform in size.
Soundtrack
Two variable-area optical tracks run beside the picture, with a speckled band between the perforations on the sound edge; no Dolby Digital data blocks visible.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture
Base & colour
Light blue base tint at the edges; 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; one bright ring on a single frame is a camera reflection and is ignored.
Picture
Positive image; the four frames repeat the same composition, consistent with one held shot, and the Pokémon characters match the film on record.
Era check
Consistent with a late-1990s 35mm release print, since it carries a variable-area optical track and a positive dye image on a tinted base.
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
