Pokémon: The First Movie arrived in 1999 courtesy of Warner Bros. and Nintendo, riding the crest of Pokémania's first great wave in the West. The teaser trailer that preceded it was a cultural event in its own right, airing ahead of the film's release and stoking anticipation among a fanbase still new to the franchise's leap from handheld games to the big screen. This marketing push helped cement the film as a box office success and introduced American audiences to Mewtwo, clones, and the larger mythology Pokémon would build upon for decades.
This cell comes from that trailer and centers on the cloned Charizard and Blastoise, two of the series' most iconic and widely collected creatures. Their appearance here ties directly into the film's central premise: genetic duplication and the moral weight of artificial life, embodied first in these towering clone Pokémon before Mewtwo's own story takes center stage. As a trailer cell, this piece represents the promotional machinery that built the film's early buzz, a single surviving fragment of the footage used to sell a generation on Pokémon's arrival in theaters.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm release-print strip of the Pokémon: The First Movie trailer (1999).
Gauge
35mm: four perforations per frame along both edges, and the strip holds three full frames with a sliver of a fourth at the right.
Perforations
Four per frame on both edges, evenly spaced, with rounded-rectangle holes that look cleanly punched and uniform.
Soundtrack
Two variable-area optical tracks run beside the picture, with a dashed line above them; the speckled blocks between the lower perforations are consistent with Dolby Digital data.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture
Base & colour
Light blue-grey base at the edges; the dye image shows saturated blues, oranges and reds, with no fading or colour shift seen.
Projection history
None seen at this size; the round ring on the third frame is a phone reflection, not wear, and no splices or cue marks show.
Picture
Positive image; the three frames run consecutively as one near-static shot, and the artwork is animated, in keeping with the film on record.
Era check
Dual optical tracks plus Dolby Digital data blocks on a positive 35mm print are consistent with a 1999 release print.
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 in partnership with National Film Vault, 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.
CROWN SERIAL 000069757
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
