Pokémon: The Movie 2000 arrived during the height of Pokémania, when Warner Bros. and Nintendo capitalized on a cultural phenomenon sweeping American audiences. Following the surprise success of the first Pokémon film, this sequel, originally released in Japan as Revelation Lupin, pushed the franchise's theatrical ambitions further with an expanded mythology involving the legendary bird Pokémon and the Chosen One prophecy. Its promotional campaign, including trailers like this one, played a key role in sustaining the franchise's momentum into a second wave of merchandising and box office success, cementing Pokémon as a dominant force in children's entertainment at the turn of the millennium.
This cell preserves a piece of that promotional apparatus: a trailer title card, the kind of frame built specifically to announce the film's name and identity to audiences before the feature itself unspools. Such cards carry no characters or action, only text and design meant to brand the release in viewers' minds. For collectors, these pieces hold value precisely because they mark a threshold moment, the instant a film introduces itself to the public, separate from any scene within the story proper. It stands as a document of marketing history as much as cinema history.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm release print trailer for Pokémon: The Movie 2000.
Gauge
35mm: four perforations per frame along both edges, and the strip holds three complete frames, each carrying the same title card.
Perforations
Four per frame on both edges, evenly spaced, with rounded-rectangle holes that look cleanly punched and free of tears at this size.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track runs between the picture and the lower perforations, with two white waveform tracks and a dashed line above them. Dolby Digital blocks are visible between the lower perforations.
Edge print
Along the top edge, reading backwards: "2383 372 029 0 08 K-ODAK 16 2000 C", plus a small square mark.
Base & colour
Clear base with a light blue edge tint. The dye image is neutral, with a deep black field and saturated yellow and blue titling, and no visible fading.
Projection history
A few tiny pale specks show in the black field and a faint line runs along the optical track. No splices or cue marks are seen on this strip.
Picture
Positive image: three consecutive, near-identical frames of the "Pokémon The Movie 2000" title card on black, which matches the film on record.
Era check
Consistent with a 2000 release print: Kodak 2383 print stock, a year code of 2000, variable-area optical track and Dolby Digital data blocks all fit that period.
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 000071291
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
