Pokémon: The First Movie arrived in 1999 as Warner Bros. and Nintendo's bid to carry the franchise's television and trading card momentum onto the big screen. Promoted heavily through Burger King tie-ins and a national marketing blitz, the film became a cultural flashpoint of the Pokémon craze, introducing American audiences to Mewtwo as a dark counterweight to the series' cheerful tone. Its theatrical trailer run was part of the broader campaign that made the movie one of the highest grossing anime releases in the United States at the time, cementing the franchise's crossover from screen to toy aisle to multiplex.
This cell preserves a strip from that trailer, built around Mewtwo, the genetically engineered Pokémon whose brooding presence set the first film apart from the lighter adventures audiences knew from television. Early teaser and trailer material from 1999 is scarce in physical form, since most prints were run through theaters and discarded once the feature's release window closed. A cell marked for Mewtwo's attack speaks to the character's central role as antagonist and philosophical centerpiece, the figure whose conflict drives the film's themes of identity and purpose. For collectors, it represents an early promotional glimpse of that storyline.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm release-print strip from the 1999 Pokémon: The Movie trailer.
Gauge
Four perforations per frame along both edges, which reads as 35mm; the strip holds three frames, with the middle one partly hidden by a reflection spot.
Perforations
Four per frame on each edge, rounded-rectangle, evenly spaced and cleanly punched, with no torn or missing holes visible along either side.
Soundtrack
A two-track variable-area optical track runs beside the picture, and speckled Dolby Digital data blocks sit in the gaps between the lower perforations.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture
Base & colour
The clear base has a light blue-cyan tint at the edges, and the dye image looks vivid and neutral with no obvious fading or red shift.
Projection history
A few small brown specks show in the background of the frames, and one fine hair-like line lies on the panel below the strip; no splices or cue marks seen.
Picture
Positive image; the three frames run consecutively as one near-static shot, and the character style is consistent with the Pokémon film on record.
Era check
The optical track combined with Dolby Digital blocks on a blue-tinted base is consistent with a late-1990s 35mm release print, matching 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 000070115
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
