Pokémon: The First Movie arrived in American theaters in November 1999, riding the crest of Pokémania as Warner Bros. distributed the Japanese-made feature stateside. Adapted and expanded for Western audiences with additional footage, it introduced Mewtwo's origin story to a generation raised on the television series and trading cards. The film's commercial success, paired with its ambitious tie-in short "Pikachu's Vacation," cemented the franchise's theatrical ambitions and marked one of the earliest instances of anime achieving mainstream wide release in North America, making it a touchstone for collectors of early Pokémon media.
This cell preserves a logo title card from the movie's trailer, the kind of frame used to anchor a preview reel and announce the feature by name before any footage unspools. Trailer and title material from this release carries particular weight for collectors, representing the promotional machinery that introduced Pokémon to theatrical audiences for the first time. As a title card rather than a character or story frame, it documents the branding moment itself, the instant the Pokémon name was presented to moviegoers as a theatrical event rather than a television phenomenon.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm release trailer print of Pokémon: The First Movie (1999).
Gauge
35mm: four perforations span each frame on both edges, and the strip holds four frames, the outer two cropped by the strip's curve.
Perforations
Four per frame on both edges, evenly spaced and cleanly punched with rounded-rectangle holes; none torn, missing or stretched.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track of two bilaterally mirrored white waveforms runs between the picture and the lower perforations, with Dolby Digital data blocks in the gaps between those perforations.
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 fading or colour shift evident.
Projection history
None seen at this size; no scratches, cue marks or splices, and the surface looks clean and even.
Picture
Positive image; all four frames repeat the same Pokémon: The First Movie logo on a blue starburst, so the picture matches the film on record.
Era check
Dolby Digital blocks beside an optical track fit a late-1990s 35mm release print, consistent with a 1999 trailer, though the clean, graphic frames look unusually uniform.
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
