Warner Bros. handled distribution for Pokémon: The First Movie in North America in 1999, bringing Team Rocket and company to the big screen at the height of Pokémania. The film arrived as the franchise crossed from television and trading cards into a genuine theatrical event, drawing enormous opening weekend audiences and cementing Pikachu and friends as a cultural fixture of the late nineties. A trailer reel like this one circulated in advance of release, built to stoke anticipation among fans already primed by the games and the animated series, and such promotional strips are prized today precisely because they predate the feature itself.
This cell draws its name from Meowth and Jessie, two figures inseparable from Team Rocket's comic relief and scheming charm within the Pokémon universe. Jessie's presence here places the cell within the trailer's broader work of reintroducing beloved characters to a theater audience, a marketing tool meant to signal personality and tone rather than plot. Collectors seek pieces tied to Jessie and Meowth for their enduring popularity among the show's antagonists turned fan favorites, and for the early promotional context that makes this fragment a marker of the franchise's theatrical debut.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm Dolby Digital release-print strip from the Pokémon: The First Movie trailer (1999).
Gauge
35mm layout: perforations run along both edges and the strip holds three complete frames, with two near-identical frames followed by one that differs.
Perforations
Four perforations per frame on both edges, evenly spaced, with rounded-rectangle holes that look cleanly punched.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track of two parallel waveform lines runs beside the picture, and speckled square Dolby Digital data blocks sit between the lower perforations.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture
Base & colour
The base shows a pale blue tint along the edges, and the dye image looks neutral and saturated with no obvious fading.
Projection history
No lines, scratches, cue marks or splices seen at this size.
Picture
Positive colour image. The frames run consecutively as one shot, and the cel-animated style and character design are consistent with the film on record.
Era check
The optical track with Dolby Digital blocks between the perforations is consistent with a late-1990s 35mm release print, so it fits a 1999 trailer.
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 000069829
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
