Pokémon: The First Movie arrived in 1999 as Warner Bros. and Nintendo's bid to carry the franchise's television and card-game dominance onto the big screen, backed by a theatrical trailer campaign that ran ahead of the feature to build anticipation. The trailer itself became a cultural marker of the era, previewing Mewtwo's origin story and the clone army concept to a generation of young fans before the film's wide release. As promotional ephemera, these trailer frames captured the franchise at its commercial peak.
This cell belongs to that trailer reel, framed around Mewtwo issuing orders to its assembled clones, with Gyarados, Scyther, and Nidoqueen standing among them. Mewtwo remains the movie's central figure, a lab-born Pokémon whose command over duplicated creatures drives the story's conflict, and its presence here is a draw for collectors tracing the character's earliest screen appearances. A trailer cell like this predates the finished film in circulation, making it a record of how the story was first pitched to audiences, built around assembly and authority rather than resolution.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm Kodak 2383 release print of the Pokémon: The Movie trailer (1999).
Gauge
35mm, with four perforations per frame along both edges; the strip holds four frames, the fourth cut off at the right end.
Perforations
Four per frame on both edges, evenly spaced, rounded-rectangle holes, cleanly punched with no tears or stretched holes visible.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track runs beside the picture, drawn as two bilateral white-on-black waveform tracks, with Dolby Digital data blocks in the gaps between the lower-edge perforations.
Edge print
Reads backwards along the top edge: "2383 187 341 1 30 KODAK 28 1999 L", with a small square mark at the right end; Kodak 2383 is a release print stock.
Base & colour
Pale blue-cyan tint on the edge margins, clear base otherwise; the dye image shows saturated blues and greens with no obvious fading or colour shift.
Projection history
No scratches, splices or cue marks seen at this size; the one ring-shaped mark across the third frame is a phone reflection and is ignored.
Picture
Positive image; the four frames run consecutively as one near-static shot, and the animated style is consistent with the Pokémon film on record.
Era check
Consistent with a 1999 release print: Kodak 2383 stock, a 1999 date code, and combined optical plus Dolby Digital sound all fit a trailer from that year.
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 000070180
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
