Big News for Disney DVD

[scarecroe]

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Check out this report from The Digital Bits....

How do you like this? A rare Saturday post! And it's good news for you Disney fans. In an online conference call with share holders regarding Q2 FY03 financial results, the studio revealed that it plans to accelerate its Platinum Edition DVD release plans. Part of the reason for this is that the company expects HD-DVD to be available by 2007, and they want to get all their catalog animated titles out on standard DVD by then (presumably so they can then do it all over again in HD). By accelerating these plans, we mean that the studio now intends to release their Platinum catalog at a rate of two films a year, one in March and one on October. Also, they now plan to leave them available for two years at a time, and then take them off the market for only five years (as opposed to the ten-year moratorium they'd previously announced). And they've added several more titles to their eventual 2-disc Platinum line-up, including Sleeping Beauty, Pinocchio, Fantasia and Peter Pan.

The specific release schedule is TBA, but here is the new list of Platinum titles on the way:

Snow White (released 2001)
Beauty and the Beast (released 2002)
The Lion King (coming 10/7)

TBA:

Aladdin
The Little Mermaid
Bambi
Cinderella
Lady and the Tramp
101 Dalmatians
The Jungle Book
Sleeping Beauty
Pinocchio
Fantasia
Peter Pan

Now, does this mean that the upcoming Sleeping Beauty Special Edition will be postponed, or will the Platinum Edition just be done on top of it? I certainly hope it's the former. After all, 7 of the movies on the list have already had barebones editions released, so yeah, I say bring on the September release.

Otherwise this is great news for the rest of the titles anyway. It only makes sense and, actually, I could have predicted this would happen at the time that they first made plans for the Platinum titles years ago. I love to see studios getting serious about DVD.

Now... how about Platinum versions of the Muppet movies?

 

[Boober_Gorg]

A Platinum Edition of Fantasia? Now there's a thought worth discussing ...

 

[Chilly Down]

Everyone keeps talking about Fantasia being edited on DVD. What's been edited?

 

[Boober_Gorg]

Read the Toon Zone thread more carefully .... you'll see something about black stereotypes ...

 

[Chilly Down]

Ahh. Sorry. I jumped ahead to the Ultimate Disney thread, didn't read the Termite Terrace thread all the way through for the first time.

That's irritating. I certainly don't wish to offend or degrade anyone, but since DVDs in particular are supposed to be preserved historical copies of the films...

I used to have a 50th-anniversary VHS copy from 1991. Would this have the original scenes on it?

 

[Boober_Gorg]

Originally posted by Chilly Down
I used to have a 50th-anniversary VHS copy from 1991. Would this have the original scenes on it?

I don't remember. I still have it, but it's been like 7-8 years since I've watched it (it used to put me to sleep).

 

[scarecroe]

There are scenes with the centaurs edited in the Pastoral. This can't be the black stereotypes thing though. There's more?

I'd like an unedited version of Fantasia. Leonard Maltin got away with releasing controversial (by today's standards) Mickey cartoons in the Walt Disney Treasures by providing an introduction as something of a disclaimer to put the times in perspective. That's all you really need to do with any of these edited Disney (or Warners) cartoons that have been edited for content or left to collect dust on account of the fact that people's minds are limited and can't grasp that times change as the decades pass.

 

[wolfy]

About the only real controversial movie with what are considered "black stereotypes" that I know of that Disney flat will NOT release is "Song of the South."

There may be some editing of other shows because of people stating they see things (phallic symbols being the most popular) in the background or some kind of "sexual overtones" being noted in the clip ("Little Mermaid," "Lion King" to speak of two right off the top of my head).

I believe that with the centuars and nymphs scene it is the fact that the nymphs are nubile young girls, and that the female centuars (although they aren't called "centuars" but something else entirely because they ARE female) and the nymphs didn't really have a lot of coverage over their breasts. Since they had little pink dots, and the males had little brown dots, for nipples, someone got on Disney's case about it...

But you know...I remember seeing these scenes until about the 1960s, then boom! No more...perhaps McCarthyism hit full stride? Or just plain prudishness?

I don't know...but I do know that a lot of scenes are cut in the current Disney movies that are out.

Hey...anyone else remember Jiminy Cricket whistling and going, "Mm-mm! As I live and breathe...a fairy! A BLUE fairy!" in Pinocchio? I do, and so does my mother. But Disney claims he never stated that at all...I even got an email saying that he never said it, which I just can't believe...
wolfy

 

[Ol' Buddy Bert]

Originally posted by Chilly Down
I used to have a 50th-anniversary VHS copy from 1991. Would this have the original scenes on it?

I just did an A/B comparison of the Video verses the DVD.

The video and the DVD are similar in all but two places (with some awkward zooms cutting off the questionable portion of the frame.

However, there is a place in the DVD around the 1:21:30 mark that the video completely edited out. In the DVD they get around the cut it with a digital zoom that is quite obvious and incredibly horrific as its camera movement is unnatural and the picture is grainy. It's entire out of place with the rest of the piece.

The only other point that I noticed where the video differed significantly with the DVD was as the Cherubims pave the way for the drunk fool on the donkey, the video contained a rather clumsy zoom that focuses on the drunk cutting out about 3/4s of the frame. As opposed to showing the servants unfolding the carpet up to the throne.

The DVD, however, reveals the entire frame but digitally edits the servants out completely and thus the carpet unrolls itself. An amazing feat!

I think that's fairly representation of what I saw...It wasn't the most comprehensive comparision.

 

[Chilly Down]

Ol' Buddy Bert: (Gosh, that's fun to write. I feel like I'm Ernie now!): Thanks for telling me WHERE the cuts were. What were the cuts specifically OF?

Wolfy: I thought I remembered seeing the film uncut in 1990. But I may just be hallucinating again. But I don't think McCarthyism was the problem--that was specifically a communism scare; it had nothing to do with nubile nymphs.

Speaking of hallucinating (not really), regarding your memory of the Jiminy Cricket thing: there'd be no reason, content-wise, why that would be edited out. It's possible the line was originally in the film, but was cut for time before its initial release, BUT the line still made it into picture storybooks, audio recordings, etc. You could have a memory of seeing the picture and even hearing Jiminy's voice (if it was on a record, and hence he'd need to explain that a fairy just showed up), without it ever being in the movie.

Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not trying to insult you. This kind of memory is a very common thing. People are constantly claiming they remember things from the original Star Wars movies that were later edited out, when in fact those scenes appeared in the novelizations, comic book adaptations, and radio dramatizations, but never in the actual film.

Scarecroe: I think you're right on the money. An authoratitive speaker would be good to put these things in context. Maltin did the same thing for the Warner Bros. (?) video releases "Cartoons for Big Kids" and "Wartime Cartoons." Whoopi Goldberg was even called in to introduce "Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarves." They should handle "Fantasia" (and, as Wolfy mentioned, "Song of the South") the same way.