Pokémon: The Movie Trailer arrived in 1999 as the promotional vanguard for Warner Bros.' theatrical release of Pokémon: The First Movie, timed to the franchise's explosive crossover from Japanese card game and television phenomenon to American multiplex staple. The trailer format itself is a historical artifact of that moment, when distributors still struck dedicated 35mm promotional reels to seed theaters ahead of a wide release, introducing American audiences to a mythology built around Mewtwo, the series' genetically engineered antagonist at the center of its origin story.
This cell preserves a title card moment from that reel, the kind of frame built to anchor a name to an image before the feature proper begins. Mewtwo's presence here speaks to his stature as the movie's central figure, a character whose introduction carried the weight of launching Pokémon into theatrical consciousness. For collectors, title card cells hold particular value as the threshold pieces of promotional cinema, the moment a studio chose to let the character's name do the work.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm positive release trailer print of Pokémon: The Movie (1999).
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 torn or missing perforations visible.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track runs as two parallel waveform lines beside the picture, with a dashed line above it; no Dolby Digital blocks or DTS timecode are seen between the perforations.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture
Base & colour
Clear base with a faint blue-cyan tint along both edges; the picture dye looks saturated and neutral, with no fading or red shift.
Projection history
No lines, scratches, cue marks or splices seen at this size; a few tiny dark specks sit on the middle frame.
Picture
Positive colour image; the three frames run consecutively as one near-identical shot, and the 'MEWTWO' title text is consistent with a Pokémon: The Movie trailer.
Era check
Consistent: a 35mm positive print with an optical track and the dotted Dolby-style gap pattern matches a 1999 theatrical trailer 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 000070008
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
