Pinocchio 70th Anniversary Platinum Edition - March 10, 2009

[JadedRaverLA]

This is great news. I never picked up Pinocchio on DVD. I still have the LaserDisc boxed set, though I don't think I've watched it in 3 or 4 years.

[iaacp]

Damn. 2009? I'll be a freaking parent, and some other format will have taken over by the time they release the Lion King.... oh, how I love that movie...

[Knight-Errant]

Originally Posted by Sith

I can almost hear W. Disney rolling over in his grave.....

This should never, and will never happen.....computer animation is not the
be all and end all....

Agreed I don't see the point of this. Snow White and Pinnochio were made to be shown on giant screens and stand up to close scrutiny, I think both will be gorgeous on Blu-ray. The colours will be more accurate than the DVD, the fine detail will be more apparent, the sound will be uncompressed.

[Sylin]

Originally Posted by Sith

I can almost hear W. Disney rolling over in his grave.....

This would've been funnier if you said: "I can almost hear Walt Disney's disembodied head rolling over in its cryogenic storage cylinder."

[Balian]

Originally Posted by Sith

I can almost hear W. Disney rolling over in his grave.....

This should never, and will never happen.....computer animation is not the
be all and end all....

Originally Posted by Knight-Errant

Agreed I don't see the point of this. Snow White and Pinnochio were made to be shown on giant screens and stand up to close scrutiny, I think both will be gorgeous on Blu-ray. The colours will be more accurate than the DVD, the fine detail will be more apparent, the sound will be uncompressed.

Come on ...you guys are old farts. These old animations, although well done, do not age gracefully. On a purely technical and graphical level, they are one step above The Simpsons and Family Guy. There are no details to be had or could be brought out by a HD presentation.

I am not advocating changing the stories or themes of these movies. They are classics for these reasons. Pixar could do wonders for classics like Pinocchio. Imagine the whale and sea scenes if the wizards of Pixar recreate them.

[Banjo]

Originally Posted by Balian

Come on ...you guys are old farts. These old animations, although well done, do not age gracefully. On a purely technical and graphical level, they are one step above The Simpsons and Family Guy. There are no details to be had or could be brought out by a HD presentation.

I am not advocating changing the stories or themes of these movies. They are classics for these reasons. Pixar could do wonders for classics like Pinocchio. Imagine the whale and sea scenes if the wizards of Pixar recreate them.

Have you ever seen Bambi? Snow White? Lady and the Tramp?

The details shown in these movies are beyond gorgeous and many animated movies in the 80s, 90s and 2000s don't come anywhere close to any of these classics. Not even Beauty and the Beast or The Lion King.

You have to be crazy to say they are just a "step above" TV shows like The Simpsons and Family Guy.

Heck, even the Donald Duck short cartoons are beautiful and kick the living daylight out of any of these animated TV series you mentioned.

[Balian]

Originally Posted by Banjo

Have you ever seen Bambi? Snow White? Lady and the Tramp?

The details shown in these movies are beyond gorgeous and many animated movies in the 80s, 90s and 2000s don't come anywhere close to any of these classics. Not even Beauty and the Beast or The Lion King.

You have to be crazy to say they are just a "step above" TV shows like The Simpsons and Family Guy.

Heck, even the Donald Duck short cartoons are beautiful and kick the living daylight out of any of these animated TV series you mentioned.

Yes, I have seen most of them and they do look outdated. You are kidding right? Beauty and the Beast was the most beautifully rendered 2D Disney animation ever. The Lion King was no slouch. But ultra old animations like Pinocchio(1940) and Snow White(1937) needs a remake. Frankly, they need to make it look contemporary to be relevant with today's audience.

[nomad2010]

Originally Posted by MrEggMan

Are you insane?

1) The words "remake" and "classics" NEVER go together well. It's a two-edged sword. If it's shot-for-shot, people will carp because they'll have seen it before (even those who have never seen it...ref. King Kong). If the script is "rethought", everyone will hate it because it's tampering with a classic.

2) HD treatment on ultra old classics will add a great deal. It's already been well-established on this forum that 1080p transfers of old film stock will almost always look better than DVD, unless the film looks like it's been dragged behind a Buick to begin with.

I'm sure that if Disney is going to go through the trouble of releasing these films of Blu-Ray, they'll take great pains to make sure that the transfer is a revelation.

there is also a difference between "remake" and "Remimagining" look at Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. But Disney should not let Pixar touch them. Disney needs big name directors, Guillermo Del Toro and Tim Burton to do a handful. Snow White, The Black Cauldron, Beauty & the Beast even and maybe Aladdin. But they already said they are working on a live-action Aladdin so who knows...

[NockNock]

I WANT FANTASIA

[hayzink]

Originally Posted by nomad2010

there is also a difference between "remake" and "Remimagining" look at Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. But Disney should not let Pixar touch them. Disney needs big name directors, Guillermo Del Toro and Tim Burton to do a handful. Snow White, The Black Cauldron, Beauty & the Beast even and maybe Aladdin. But they already said they are working on a live-action Aladdin so who knows...

NO!!!!!!

dont mess with classics especialy disney man, we have all grown up with disney and our kids will grow up with disney as these classic storys NEVER age, by all means clean up the footage but DONT add anything and dont remake them.

if you want to watch a pixar movie buy cars or ratatouille these classics are what they are and there great leave them alone

[dgator783]

all the disney classics are a guranteed buy for me....love em all!

[Chaka]

There is absolutely no reason why any of these need to be remade especially by Burton.

Just open the gawd damn vault, clean, remaster, press and gimme!

What disney doesn't understand is that many of these classics are being sold overseas as bootlegs since they are not releasing at a faster pace.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by Balian

Yes, I have seen most of them and they do look outdated. You are kidding right? Beauty and the Beast was the most beautifully rendered 2D Disney animation ever.

Actually, I was watching it only recently (for the first time since I'd seen it in theaters fifteen years before), and jawdropped at how much the "comic-relief" scenes between Gaston and his lil' flunky looked EXACTLY as if they'd stepped out of some cheesy 90's third-party Richard Rich "Swan Princess" wannabe.
I had to fast-forward to some of the Belle scenes to make sure Netflix had sent the right disk on the label, and not one of those Goodtimes look-alikes by mistake.

(Aladdin, OTOH, rules....And I argue that there is as much entertainment value to be found in the directors' "Treasure Planet" as there is in the other directors' subtlety-free "Beauty", and that's not insulting Planet.)

But ultra old animations like Pinocchio(1940) and Snow White(1937) needs a remake. Frankly, they need to make it look contemporary to be relevant with today's audience.

Snow and Pinocchio can be spotted for Pre-War Disney right away by the way every piece of the art direction looks hand-carved out of wood. And you want "dark" animation, sit down with "Dumbo" for what's probably the first time in your life.
Yes, we know they're Disney disks, but you can learn a lot from the grownups, Junior.

(Which circles us neatly back to the main topic:
WOOHOO! Disney beats Warner to the punch, months before Oz and GWTW--Vintage 4:3 is BACK on Blu, baby! )

[Banjo]

Originally Posted by Ernest Rister

Beauty and the Beast is actually a pretty sloppy piece of work. The poor character designs and rushed animation in the opening 15 minutes alone are enough to make Pinocchio look as exquisitely refined as the Sistine Chapel.

I'm a graphic designer and I could spot the flaws right away in Beauty and the Beast. Even the title sequence looked awful. I never really got why people went ga-ga over the movie to start with. Sure, it is decent but it's definitely not one of my favourites.

Pinocchio, now that is a work of art.

[Balian]

Originally Posted by Ernest Rister

Beauty and the Beast is actually a pretty sloppy piece of work. The poor character designs and rushed animation in the opening 15 minutes alone are enough to make Pinocchio look as exquisitely refined as the Sistine Chapel.

I am not talking about the animation per se, but the graphics. Yes, animation wise, Pinocchio is top notch. Try comparing Ratatouille and Pinocchio side by side and you will see how crude and outdated Pinocchio is. Lines are not very well define and the images are blurry. In other words, its not a limitation of creativity but of technology(1940). In these regards, Beauty and the Beast and the Lion King look dramatically better than Pinocchio. This is specifically about the look of the film, not the animation, custom design, character design or how it was put together ...all these things made Pinocchio a classic film.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by Banjo

I'm a graphic designer and I could spot the flaws right away in Beauty and the Beast. Even the title sequence looked awful. I never really got why people went ga-ga over the movie to start with. Sure, it is decent but it's definitely not one of my favourites.

There was a lot of praise of Everything BUT The Movie when it came out in theaters--
With the lack of stage musicals, critics fell over themselves to praise the second example of post-Mermaid Disney as "The new Broadway!" (and we know what happened with that, don't we kiddies? )

As for "Wow, it got a Best Picture nomination!", I was there in '91, and remember that starting out as a sour joke about the "lack" of nominatable movies (before JFK and Bugsy came out), along with cynicism that the Committee would "never remember" that Anthony Hopkins/Jodie Foster thing from long-ago February. (And yes, they cribbed off the cheap Golden Globe nominations for ideas back then, too.)
The Academy wasn't happy about it--nor about being pestered by West Coast voters almost every single year to repeat the stunt for stunt's sake with "Aladdin", "Lion King" or "Toy Story 2"--and as long as there was now a new Best Animated category, they knew they could safely lock the door against crazed "Ratatouille" and "Incredibles" nuts.

Me (coming from someone who likes dwarves with names, champions Disney's Alice, and has often defended the Disney Cinderella to the death against PC "avengers"), I always liked the Beauty/Beast tale, and thought Disney's "Arguing lovebirds" version was an insulting assassination of the Beast's character--
Rent the 40's Jean Cocteau on Criterion, if you don't know what I'm talking about.

[blackhawktraffic]

Awesome

[ryoohki]

The more the better. can't wait to see the full restauration on this one. The 10 sec of OLD/NEW comparison of Sleeping Beauty Teaser Trailer had me dream!

[Balian]

Originally Posted by Ernest Rister

In all of my 37 years on planet Earth, I have never heard anyone call Pinocchio "crude". I'm starting to understand the phrase, "Well, now I've heard everything."

Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston once commented that in terms of hand-drawn craftsmanship, Pinocchio was so refined it was likely to never be surpassed, and they were right. Where you see "blurry images", I see astonishing hand-painted backgrounds. There is so much detail crammed into every frame of Walt's 1940 masterwork, it is no surprise that animation buffs frequently compare Ratatouille to Pinocchio (i.e. "Ratatouille" is the "Pinocchio" of computer-animated films). That comparison makes sense, and it is accurate from where I sit.

And while we're on the subject of "blurry images" versus literal CGI sets, I wonder what your opinion of Ty Wong's expressionist watercolor backgrounds in Bambi, where the idea wasn't to recreate every blade and leaf of a forest, but to give one a feeling of a forest. CGI animated features have been around since the mid-90's, and not one of them has come anywhere close to pulling off a feat like that, to say nothing of the raw artistic bravery of Fantasia.

Pinocchio, Fantasia and Bambi should be visual feasts on Blu-Ray, the closest many of us will ever get to seeing the actual artwork in 1st person. When thinking of the backgrounds in more modern animated films, I don't get the same thrill of excitement over the prospect of seeing them in Blu-Ray, mainly because I don't think they compare favorably to the 1st Golden Age features, but also because titles like Pinocchio and Fantasia have not received the level of digital restoration that made Bambi such an amazing experience to see on DVD. The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast and all other Disney features since 1990 already have digital negatives. Pinocchio should be a knock-out when Disney gets around to preserving it and presenting it on Blu-Ray disc.

The ONLY films I mentioned were Pinocchio and Snow White ...the two oldest Disney films if I am not mistaken. I do not question the artistic merits of the film but the outdated look of it. This has EVERYTHING to do with capturing the handcrafted frames onto film at the time.

Yes, I saw Bambi and immensely admire the watercolored backgrounds. This sets it apart from Pinocchio, a finely crafted film but nothing else of note image wise. As for Fantasia, its as old as Pinocchio but I am not sure Pixar could duplicate the magic of it.

[Banjo]

Originally Posted by Ernest Rister

That echoes my sentiments pretty succinctly. When people were calling it one of the best - or in some cases, *the* best animated film ever made - I was mystified and confused. I could only chalk it up to the general ignorance of the art form and the tendency towards hyperbole in film reviews.

I agreed with pretty much everything you said in this thread so far. It's mind-boggling how ignorant people can be regarding animated movies and shorts. I am a fan of several types of animation including stop-motion, hand-drawn and computer animation. Pixar is made up of a great team of people with real talents in both techniques and storytelling. Now some of these people are in charge of the animation dept at Disney. I wouldn't be surprised if they indeed do bring out traditional animated movies back to the big screen somewhere in the future.

Disney really screwed themselves big time by trying to pump out a bunch of mediocre animated movies until the last one a few years ago, "Home on the Range." They were focused on quantity instead of quality.

I know they recently released an animated short featuring the character, Goofy. I hope to see a lot more animated shorts making their way to the theatres in the future. It's a great way to train the animators rather than letting them work on full-length movies like Disney did with the direct-to-video sequels.