Crown Grading
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FILM NOTES
Pokémon: The First Movie arrived in American theaters in November 1999 through Warner Bros., distributed on behalf of Nintendo, Pikachu Project '98, and Shogakukan, at the height of Pokémania's first wave. The trailer campaign preceding it was essential to the franchise's theatrical crossover, introducing American audiences to Mewtwo's origin story while leaning hard on the established charm of the Pikachu character to anchor the marketing. These early promotional reels circulated widely and were often discarded once the film's run ended, making surviving trailer stock a scarcer category than footage from the feature itself.
This cell preserves a moment from that trailer centered on Pikachu, the franchise's defining mascot and the character most responsible for Pokémon's crossover into mainstream pop culture. A moment named for crying speaks to the emotional register the marketing team chose to sell the film on, pairing the brand's most recognizable face with a note of sadness meant to signal stakes beyond simple creature battles. For collectors, a single-character trailer cell like this one captures the campaign's quieter pitch, the attempt to show depth alongside spectacle before the picture even reached theaters.
Consistent with a 35mm positive release print of the Pokémon: The First Movie trailer (1999).
- Gauge
- 35mm layout: four perforations per frame along both edges, and the strip holds four frames, the first and last partly cropped by the curve.
- Perforations
- Four per frame on both edges, rounded-rectangle holes, evenly spaced and cleanly punched, with no torn or missing holes seen.
- Soundtrack
- A variable-area optical track runs between the picture and the perforations on one edge, and a speckled, grainy band sits on the opposite edge; no Dolby Digital blocks between perforations are visible.
- Edge print
- Not visible in this capture
- Base & colour
- Clear base with a light blue tint at both edges; the dye image looks neutral and saturated, with no visible fading or colour shift.
- Projection history
- None seen at this size; the only mark is a ring-shaped reflection on one frame, which is the camera in the glossy base.
- Picture
- Positive colour image; the four frames run consecutively as one near-static shot, and the character shown is consistent with the Pokémon film on record.
- Era check
- The optical track and positive print on a blue-tinted base are consistent with a late-1990s 35mm release print, such as a 1999 trailer.
