Pokémon: The Movie Trailer arrived in 1999 as the promotional vanguard for Warner Bros.' theatrical release of Pokémon: The First Movie, the franchise's leap from television phenomenon to the American box office. Built from Japan's Toho production, the trailer and its accompanying theatrical ephemera introduced mainstream audiences to the Mewtwo saga, stoking anticipation at the height of Pokémania. These 35mm trailer materials are scarce survivors from a pivotal marketing campaign, predating home video and digital distribution entirely.
This cell preserves a card bearing Mew, the rare and mythical Pokémon whose genetic material forms the basis of the film's central conflict. Mew's scarcity in both game lore and screen presence makes any dedicated card or marketing frame a point of collector interest. As a card drawn from a trailer reel, this piece represents the film's promotional apparatus itself, the brief on-screen text and imagery crafted to introduce Mew's mystique to audiences before the feature's release, a tangible fragment of the campaign that launched Pokémon into cinemas.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm release-print trailer strip of Pokémon: The Movie (1999).
Gauge
Four perforations per frame along both edges, which reads as 35mm; the strip holds three frames, each showing a full frame width and part of the neighbouring frame lines.
Perforations
Four per frame on both edges, evenly spaced, with rounded-rectangle holes that look cleanly punched and uniform along the whole strip.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track (two tracks) runs beside the picture, and Dolby Digital data blocks sit in the speckled gaps between the lower perforations.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture
Base & colour
Light blue-cyan tint on the outer edges of the base; the dye image looks saturated and neutral, with no visible fading or red shift.
Projection history
None seen at this size; no scratches, cue marks or splices are visible across the three frames.
Picture
Positive image; the three frames run consecutively as one shot of the same character, and the on-screen 'MEW' text fits a Pokémon film such as the one on record.
Era check
Consistent with a late-1990s release print: a dual optical track plus Dolby Digital data blocks on a colour positive stock suits 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 000069990
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
