Crown Grading
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FILM NOTES
Pokémon: The First Movie arrived in 1999 courtesy of Warner Bros. and Nintendo's licensing machine, riding the crest of Pokémania's first great wave in America. It brought the franchise from television to the multiplex, pairing the Mewtwo origin story with a Pikachu short to pack theaters with a generation raised on the games and cards. For collectors of early franchise ephemera, trailer material from this release marks the moment Pokémon proved itself a theatrical force, not just a cartoon or a toy line, and such reels are scarce survivors of that promotional push.
This cell comes from the trailer itself, the advance reel built to stir anticipation before the feature ever screened. Mewtwo anchors it, the movie's central creation and one of the franchise's most sought figures among collectors, a being defined by power and menace rather than charm. "Mewtwo Attacks!" names the moment plainly: aggression, the character asserting dominance, the kind of beat trailers are built around to promise spectacle. Owning this piece means owning a sliver of the campaign that introduced Mewtwo to a wide audience before the film proper.
Consistent with a 35mm release print of the Pokémon: The First Movie trailer (1999).
- Gauge
- 35mm, four perforations per frame along both edges; the strip holds three full frames plus partial frames at each end, roughly five frames in view.
- Perforations
- Four per frame on both the top and bottom edges, evenly spaced, with cleanly punched rounded-rectangle holes and no visible tears or missing teeth.
- Soundtrack
- A variable-area optical track runs along the bottom edge, with Dolby Digital data blocks visible in the gaps between the lower perforations.
- Edge print
- Top edge reads (mirrored): "23383 207 084 0 10 KODAK 17 1999", with a small square mark at the right end.
- Base & colour
- Clear base with a light blue tint at the edges; the dye image looks saturated and neutral, with no obvious fading or red shift.
- Projection history
- Not visible in this capture
- Picture
- Positive image; the frames run consecutively as one shot of the same character with a growing blue energy sphere, matching the Pokémon film on record.
- Era check
- Edge print date of 1999 and an optical track combined with Dolby Digital blocks fit a 1999 Kodak release print of a Pokémon trailer.
