Pokémon: The First Movie arrived in 1999 as Warner Bros. and Nintendo's bid to translate a television and trading-card phenomenon into a theatrical event, and the teaser campaign that preceded it became part of that cultural moment in its own right. Promotional trailers circulated widely ahead of release, building anticipation for a story centered on Mewtwo, the lab-engineered Pokémon whose existence questioned the series' usual innocence. For a franchise built on friendship and discovery, the choice to foreground a brooding, artificial being signaled a darker register, and that gamble helped make the film a box office success and a fixture of millennium-era kid culture.
This cell preserves a single frame of early promotional material, a 35mm trailer strip rather than a finished feature print, making it a document of how the film was sold before audiences ever saw it whole. Mewtwo anchors the frame, the character whose mystery and power drove the marketing hook for the entire release. Collectors prize Mewtwo material for the character's enduring status as the franchise's most psychologically complex creation, and a trailer cell tied to that image captures the anticipation machinery of 1999 rather than the story itself.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm release trailer print of Pokémon: The Movie (1999).
Gauge
35mm: four perforations per frame along both edges, and the strip holds three full frames plus a sliver of a fourth at the right edge.
Perforations
Four per frame on both edges, evenly spaced, rounded-rectangle shape, cleanly punched with no visible tearing or distortion along either edge.
Soundtrack
Two variable-area optical tracks run beside the picture, with a dashed line above them, and Dolby Digital data blocks sit in the gaps between the lower-edge perforations.
Edge print
Not visible in this capture
Base & colour
Clear base with a light blue tint at the outer edge bands; the dye image looks neutral and fully saturated, with no visible fading or colour shift.
Projection history
Not visible in this capture
Picture
Positive image; the three frames show one continuous shot with near-identical content, and the animated style fits a Pokémon trailer, though nothing in these frames confirms the title.
Era check
Optical track plus Dolby Digital blocks on a clear tinted base is consistent with a late-1990s 35mm release print, though a dashed cyan-track-style line is also seen on later prints.
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 000070152
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
