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OFFICIAL MOTION PICTURE FILM AUTHENTICATION
A
AUTHENTIC
CROWN CERTIFIED
Film cell 000069028 Tap to enlarge
MOVIEPokémon: The First Movie Trailer
SCENEPikachu Falling
FILM FORMAT35mm
YEAR1999
CERTIFICATE ID000069028

FILM NOTES

Pokemon: The First Movie arrived in 1999 as Warner Bros. and Nintendo's bid to carry the franchise's television and card-game momentum onto the big screen. Backed by a promotional campaign that saturated American youth culture, the film became a cultural marker for a generation discovering Pokemon through Saturday morning broadcasts and playground trading. Its trailer run was part of that machinery, built to stoke anticipation months ahead of release, and surviving 35mm fragments from that campaign now serve as physical relics of a marketing blitz that is otherwise remembered only through television memory and VHS copies.

This cell comes from that trailer reel and centers on Pikachu, the character most responsible for Pokemon's crossover appeal and still its most recognizable ambassador. "Pikachu Falling" names a moment of descent, a beat the trailer used to stir emotion or tension ahead of the feature's release. For collectors, a single trailer frame of Pikachu carries weight precisely because it predates the film itself, a sliver of the promotional apparatus that introduced millions to a story now inseparable from the character's legacy.

Authentication Findings 8 checks

Consistent with a 35mm release-print trailer for Pokémon: The First Movie (1999).

Gauge
35mm layout: four perforations per frame along both edges, and the strip holds about four frames, with partial frames cut off at each end.
Perforations
Four per frame on both edges, evenly spaced and cleanly punched with rounded-rectangle holes, with no tears or missing perforations visible.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track, apparently two parallel white waveform tracks, runs beside the picture, and speckled Dolby Digital data blocks sit in the gaps between the lower perforations.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture
Base & colour
Clear to slightly blue-tinted base with a neutral, saturated dye image; the purples and yellow look unfaded and show no red shift.
Projection history
None seen at this size; the round spot on the third frame is a camera reflection and is ignored.
Picture
Positive image; the four frames run consecutively as one shot, and a small yellow Pikachu-like figure matches the Pokémon film on record.
Era check
Optical track plus Dolby Digital blocks between the perforations is consistent with a 1999 release print, since this combination was standard for late-1990s theatrical trailers.
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