Pokémon: The First Movie arrived in November 1999 as Warner Bros. and Nintendo's bid to carry the franchise's television and card-game momentum onto the big screen. Produced in Japan and adapted for American audiences, it introduced Mewtwo, a synthetic Pokémon born of genetic engineering, as a figure of considerable narrative weight for a series otherwise built on lighter adventure. The film's commercial success helped cement Pokémon as a lasting cross-media property rather than a passing fad, and the trailer campaign preceding it played a key role in building anticipation among both longtime fans and newcomers unfamiliar with the games.
This cell preserves a moment from that trailer, pairing Mewtwo with cloned versions of Gyarados, Scyther, Nidoqueen, and Ninetales. Mewtwo remains one of the franchise's most sought-after characters, prized for its central role in the film's conflict and its singular design among Pokémon of its generation. The clones represent the movie's premise of duplicated life, familiar species rendered unfamiliar by artificial origin. As a trailer cell, this frame belonged to the promotional reel meant to introduce audiences to the film's stakes before release, a piece of the marketing history surrounding Pokémon's theatrical debut.
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, one of them only partly in view at the left edge.
Perforations
Four per frame on both the top and bottom edges, evenly spaced, with clean rounded-rectangle punches and no torn or missing holes in this capture.
Soundtrack
Two white variable-area optical tracks run beside the picture, and a band of grainy speckled data blocks sits in the gaps between the lower perforations, consistent with Dolby Digital.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture
Base & colour
Clear base with a pale blue-cyan tint along the edges; the dye image looks saturated and neutral with no obvious fading or red shift.
Projection history
No scratches, splices or cue marks seen at this size; the single ring on the third frame is a camera reflection and is ignored.
Picture
Positive image, with four consecutive near-identical frames from one shot, and the animated artwork is consistent with the Pokémon film on record.
Era check
The optical track plus Dolby Digital data blocks on a 35mm positive print is consistent with a 1999 theatrical trailer, since both formats were in use then.
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
