Crown Grading
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FILM NOTES
Pokémon: The First Movie arrived in 1999 courtesy of Warner Bros. and Nintendo, riding the first great wave of Pokémania to hit American theaters. Adapted from the Japanese original with new footage for Western audiences, it introduced Mewtwo, a lab-born Pokémon wrestling with questions of identity and purpose, to a generation raised on the franchise's games and television series. The film became a cultural milestone, proving that a Saturday-morning phenomenon could command a true theatrical event, and its trailer campaign primed audiences for what was pitched as a darker, more mythic entry in the Pokémon story.
This cell comes from that trailer, built to tease the collision at the heart of the film: Ash Ketchum, the series' earnest young trainer, set directly against Mewtwo, the clone Pokémon whose power and anguish drive the plot. Pairing these two in a single promotional frame signals the stakes studios wanted audiences to feel before the lights even dimmed. For collectors, this is a foundational image, the hero and his formidable counterpart introduced together, marking the exact moment Pokémon's leap to the big screen was being sold to the world.
Consistent with a 35mm Kodak 2383 release-print strip from the 1999 Pokémon: The First Movie trailer.
- Gauge
- 35mm: four perforations per frame along both edges, and the strip holds about three and a half frames, with partial frames at each end.
- Perforations
- Four per frame on both edges, evenly spaced and cleanly punched, with rounded-rectangle holes of consistent shape and no visible tears or missing perforations.
- Soundtrack
- A variable-area optical track runs along the lower edge, with a dual-bilateral waveform, and a grey speckled pattern sits in the gaps between the lower perforations.
- Edge print
- Blue edge print reads, as seen, '2383 207 084 0 10 KODAK 17 1999', showing a Kodak 2383 print stock code and a 1999 date.
- Base & colour
- The clear base has a light cyan-blue tint, and the dye image looks saturated and neutral with no visible fading or colour shift.
- Projection history
- No scratches, cue marks or splices seen at this size; the frame-line gaps are clean, and the ring-shaped marks on one frame are camera reflection.
- Picture
- Positive image, with the frames running consecutively as one shot of the same figures, and the animated look is consistent with the film on record.
- Era check
- Kodak 2383 print stock coded 1999 with an optical track is consistent with a 35mm release print or trailer from that year.
