Pokémon: The First Movie arrived in American theaters in November 1999, distributed by Warner Bros. after Nintendo and The Pokémon Company brought the Japanese anime phenomenon to Western audiences at the height of Pokémania. Promotional material, including trailer reels circulated to theaters, became part of the marketing blitz that helped cement the franchise's crossover success, making original trailer film a scarce artifact from the era before home video and streaming replaced physical distribution prints.
This cell preserves a moment from that trailer featuring Team Rocket, the trio of Jessie, James, and Meowth, the franchise's recurring comic antagonists whose schemes and banter were a fixture of the series and a draw for early collectors. Their inclusion in theatrical promotion signals the blend of humor and adventure the film promised audiences. A trailer cell like this one is a fragment of advertising history, a physical sliver of the reel that once ran before feature presentations, distinct from film stock drawn from the movie itself.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm release print of the Pokémon: The Movie (1999) trailer.
Gauge
35mm: four perforations per frame along both edges, and the strip holds three complete frames.
Perforations
Four per frame on both edges, rounded-rectangle holes, evenly spaced and cleanly punched, with no tears or missing perforations visible.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track runs as two parallel waveform tracks beside the picture, with the speckled Dolby Digital data blocks visible in the gaps between the lower-edge perforations.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture
Base & colour
Pale cyan-blue tint on the outer base margins; the dye image looks saturated and balanced, with no obvious fading or colour shift.
Projection history
No scratches, cue marks or splices seen at this size; the strip looks clean on the backlit panel.
Picture
Positive colour image; the three frames run consecutively as one near-identical shot and match the Pokémon animation of the film on record.
Era check
Consistent with a late-1990s release print: a two-track optical soundtrack with Dolby Digital data between the perforations fits a 1999 theatrical 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 000069935
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
