Pokémon: The Movie Trailer arrived in 1999 as part of the marketing push surrounding Pokémon: The First Movie, released stateside by Warner Bros. in partnership with Nintendo and Pikachu Project. The Pokémon phenomenon was at its commercial peak in North America, with the trading card game, television series, and merchandise driving a cultural wave among young audiences. A theatrical trailer on 35mm from this moment captures the franchise's early push into American cinemas, marking its transition from television curiosity to box office event.
This cell preserves a title card moment, the kind of frame used to announce the film's name before audiences in darkened theaters, setting expectation and tone ahead of the feature presentation. As a piece of promotional film rather than narrative footage, it represents the advertising apparatus built around Pokémon's debut, a physical artifact of how the brand introduced itself theatrically. For collectors, such cells hold interest as tangible fragments of a franchise's earliest cinematic push, preserved on film stock from a period when trailers themselves were cut and distributed on reels.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm Dolby Digital release print trailer for Pokémon: The First Movie (1999).
Gauge
35mm: four perforations per frame along both edges; the strip holds three complete frames, each showing the same title card.
Perforations
Four per frame on both edges, evenly spaced and cleanly punched with rounded-rectangle holes and no tears or distortion visible.
Soundtrack
A two-track variable-area optical track runs beside the picture; Dolby Digital data blocks sit in the gaps between the lower perforations. No DTS or SDDS visible.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture
Base & colour
Light blue-tinted clear base at the edges; the dye image looks vivid and neutral, with no fading or colour shift seen.
Projection history
None seen at this size; no scratches, splices or cue marks are visible on the three frames.
Picture
Positive image; the three frames run consecutively as one static shot, reading 'Pokémon The First Movie', which matches the film on record.
Era check
Consistent: a 35mm print with a variable-area optical track plus Dolby Digital blocks fits a late-1990s release print, and the title card matches the 1999 film.
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 000070142
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
