Raya and the Last Dragon (2021) [No 3D Blu-ray] [Digital only - AVP]

[randomfellow]

Originally Posted by thestrangestick

For now my money’s on clarifying that this will not have a 3D disc unlike past Disney DE art cards releases. I’d love to be wrong.

Totally agree, I definitely didn't mean to imply otherwise. I think the "2D" reference on the package is simply dumb rather than being an indication of some imminent 3D release.

[philsfan]

Just watched this. How glorious it would have been in even moderate 3D. Very sad...

[trialobite]

Feels like a minor miracle that I got to watch this in 3D at home tonight, what an amazing weekend surprise.

While the quality is not great, it’s not bad either. With an uprez from Topaz, I got similar results to the Bumblebee release (and the person [hero] who did Bumblebee has indicated that maybe they can work the same magic for Raya!)

The 3D imho is much better than average compared to recent Disney animated movies. The movie itself is an “adventure” similar to Strange World, rather than a musical. Personally, I’m a musical guy, but this is definitely my favorite of their non-musical movies from the last 20 years. Much better than Strange World, both in terms of 3D and as a movie.

On my first watch, I’d say it lives in medium territory, with quite a bit of strong-medium and even some strong shots mixed in. There’s a really good balance of depth. Even some of the establishing shots that looked like hyperstereo. When the strong 3D hits, it‘s usually for a shot that really deserves it. One warning though: the first 15-20 minutes are the weakest 3D of the movie. I was starting to feel disappointed and already planning a negative review before it really kicked into gear. Luckily the 3D really picks up as soon as we meet adult Raya.

Not only is the 3D fairly strong, you can clearly see lots of shots that were (likely) planned for 3D. When we meet adult Raya, her hat has nearly as much volume as Rose’s famous purple number at the beginning of Titanic. There’s also some behind-the-bsck shots of her riding the “tuk tuk” that looked amazing on my projector. Soon after, there’s a shot of a ring laying on the ground in the desert that has amazing depth. By that point, my disappointment had fully turned into anticipation.

Throughout the tour of the different kingdoms, the 3D is consistently medium/strong-medium. Tons of fun 3D moments, like the chase in the water-town and the fight in the snow-village. Side note: I don’t usually pay attention to pop-outs personally, I don’t care where the depth is as long as the framing is good, but I didn’t notice many emphasized “pop-out” moments.

Another highlight was the frequent use of volumetric effects - lots of beams of light, fog, smoke, sand, magic, water bubbles… even the little fart beetles looked great in 3D!

Before tonight, if I had had my choice of unreleased 3D animated movies to see at home, I probably would have picked Encanto - it’s a personal favorite. But, having seen that in theatrical 3D and now finally seeing Raya… this is almost certainly the better movie as far as 3D goes. There are just so many shots that emphasize the depth (especially lots of low angle shots that include the ground or other plansr objects going off into the distsnce) that I have to think this movie was intentionally planned for 3D.

It’s funny, I had expected that Strange World, with it’s roots in fifties sci-fi, would have gone all in on 3D fun and framing. But truly it is Raya, which I’m guessing many of us only saw on Disney Plus due to Covid, which is an absolute standout 3D gem.

I never thought we’d see this at home. I’m still a bit in shock that it suddenly popped up! While I’d much prefer a Bluray, this is such a 3D treat that I really can’t complain about bitrates or resolution. Feeling super grateful tonight.

[3dblurayofsunshine]

Good review! It's always fun to find out where these random unreleased 3D movies pop up. For this title, it was on a Russian platform called Okko, which while a licensed/legit streaming site, only streams in 720p side by side, which is pretty much 400p per eye and atrocious quality. From what I gather, work is being done to restore the quality like trialobite said. I think a more watchable version will pop up in the next day or so. I'm looking forward to watching it!

I did do a sample view of a few scenes of the 720p version, and I was also pleasantly surprised by the strength of the 3D. I love this movie, even in 2D, to the point I bought the 4K bluray (which I usually never do on principle for an unreleased 3D movie) but now I have a nice case to slip my 3D disc into when it is ready

I hope this platform gets the other unreleased Disney movies like we've seen on Pico VR (Soul, Mulan, Spies in Disguise) but it's a shame the quality is so bad. And really quite ludicrous to think the only place Disney is showing the 3D version of this movie, after spending money making a stereo version, is a VR streaming service in China and a very low quality streaming site in Russia, where presumably it'll be seen by a literal handful of people and make them pennies compared to what they could have made on a 3D disc. Madness.

[3dblurayofsunshine]

Well the 'remastered' version of the Raya Russian streaming version is finally out, if anyone is interested. It's not at native bluray quality, but with the upscale and a hybrid left eye made partially overlaying the 2D bluray, the quality is very watchable I think. I obviously cannot discuss where to get it here, but I'm a friendly person and always open to receiving private messages

I've been watching bits from it over the past few days while making adjustments, and the 3D in this movie is quite good as trialobite said. One of the standout shots for me is where we first meet the 'last dragon' - while the movie overall doesn't have much popout, the strong depth on this scene with the dragon in the background, and gorgeously animated water bubbles shimmering in the air in the foreground looks breathtaking, and is a testament to the flawless 3D layering of a native stereo 3D rendered CGI movie like this one. That shot stood out to me every single time I was test driving this release.

I haven't watched this in full yet, but there's lots of 3D eye candy here!

[xootoo]

Watched the first 20 minutes. Wow this is a wonderful "painkiller" to live with the "no 3D blu-ray" status of this movie. For me, because of 3D, this is the best version out now. Of course if there is a real 3D Blu-ray option by RSM or simular company in the future, this is an instant buy! I like the 3D and Raya and her little rolling friend so much. Someone did a wonderful job. Does not feel, like a downgrade bad resolution version, like the Fallout 3D version i know. Absolutely had not that "emergency solution version" feeling in my head and ejoyed it.

[3dblurayofsunshine]

Originally Posted by xootoo

Watched the first 20 minutes. Wow this is a wonderful "painkiller" to live with the "no 3D blu-ray" status of this movie. For me, because of 3D, this is the best version out now. Of course if there is a real 3D Blu-ray option by RSM or simular company in the future, this is an instant buy! I like the 3D and Raya and her little rolling friend so much. Someone did a wonderful job. Does not feel, like a downgrade bad resolution version, like the Fallout 3D version i know. Absolutely had not that "emergency solution version" feeling in my head and ejoyed it.

Glad to hear it! I think the quality is really solid given the awful 720p source. Modern AI upscaling tech is impressive

[sevenlilies1937]

Originally Posted by xootoo

Someone did a wonderful job. Does not feel, like a downgrade bad resolution version, like the Fallout 3D version i know. Absolutely had not that "emergency solution version" feeling in my head and ejoyed it.

FYI same person also did a new more recent Fallout version

[WaverBoy]

Originally Posted by 3dblurayofsunshine

Well the 'remastered' version of the Raya Russian streaming version is finally out, if anyone is interested. It's not at native bluray quality, but with the upscale and a hybrid left eye made partially overlaying the 2D bluray, the quality is very watchable I think. I obviously cannot discuss where to get it here, but I'm a friendly person and always open to receiving private messages

I've been watching bits from it over the past few days while making adjustments, and the 3D in this movie is quite good as trialobite said. One of the standout shots for me is where we first meet the 'last dragon' - while the movie overall doesn't have much popout, the strong depth on this scene with the dragon in the background, and gorgeously animated water bubbles shimmering in the air in the foreground looks breathtaking, and is a testament to the flawless 3D layering of a native stereo 3D rendered CGI movie like this one. That shot stood out to me every single time I was test driving this release.

I haven't watched this in full yet, but there's lots of 3D eye candy here!

Holy shit, the visual quality is way better than I expected, amazing results! And the 3D is excellent for a Disney release, quite strong depth! And the animated visuals are gorgeous! Brilliant rescue work, sir.

Ironically, the term 3D isn’t mentioned once in the film’s Wikipedia article.

[GenPion]

Disney needs to release the unreleased 3D titles on 3D Blu-ray as Disney Movie Club exclusives. Disney has no good excuse to not do this with these titles: simply print smaller quantities on the 3D titles.

[WaverBoy]

I’d buy every one.

[panman40]

Originally Posted by WaverBoy

I’d buy every one.

And myself.

[3dblurayofsunshine]

Originally Posted by GenPion

Disney needs to release the unreleased 3D titles on 3D Blu-ray as Disney Movie Club exclusives. Disney has no good excuse to not do this with these titles: simply print smaller quantities on the 3D titles.

Sadly the person running the Disney Movie Club socials is actively antagonistic towards 3D. I’ve seen multiple incidences of people saying something like ‘will this movie get a 3D Blu-ray release?’ and the DMC person replying ‘much better, 4K!’

Which is literally just mocking customers. Amazing they have a job.

[WaverBoy]

This film has a lot of good stuff in it, but I gotta say, making the dragon character a super-annoying comedy sidekick was a huge mistake IMO, at least artistically. Doesn’t mesh with the rest of the film at all and kinda cheapens it. And is it always absolutely necessary to include fart jokes? This isn’t Shrek, fer chrissakes. Thanks SO awfully much, you lazy screenwriters. A shame, because otherwise it has a lot going for it. Still glad to have it though, warts and all. Some incredible 3D eye candy. And I love Tuk-Tuk.

[3dblurayofsunshine]

I love Sisu’s character in Raya personally. We’ve had endless depictions of dragons as bellowing, feral monsters, having them be a clumsy light hearted character (especially in a Disney movie) is just fine with me. I feel like it’s less lazy scriptwriting and more a matter of taste. I get Awkwafina is not everyone’s cup of tea but I think she’s great

And tuk-tuk is Disney gold as far as cute, merchandisable character creation

[WaverBoy]

Originally Posted by 3dblurayofsunshine

I love Sisu’s character in Raya personally. We’ve had endless depictions of dragons as bellowing, feral monsters, having them be a clumsy light hearted character (especially in a Disney movie) is just fine with me. I feel like it’s less lazy scriptwriting and more a matter of taste. I get Awkwafina is not everyone’s cup of tea but I think she’s great

And tuk-tuk is Disney gold as far as cute, merchandisable character creation

I think Awkwafina is great in Shang-Chi; I love her character in that. But her character in Raya is annoyingly one-linery-comediany sidekicky, and doesn’t fit at all IMO, and like I said, the scatological humour…FFS already. They really need to just stop with that. The story deserves better than that silly nonsense.

[Just_Discovered_3D]

Originally Posted by 3dblurayofsunshine

I love Sisu’s character in Raya personally. We’ve had endless depictions of dragons as bellowing, feral monsters, having them be a clumsy light hearted character (especially in a Disney movie) is just fine with me. I feel like it’s less lazy scriptwriting and more a matter of taste. I get Awkwafina is not everyone’s cup of tea but I think she’s great

And tuk-tuk is Disney gold as far as cute, merchandisable character creation

My theory is that when Disney strikes gold with a merchandisable character it become so widespread in the culcha that even I hear about it under my rock. Unfortunately the only tuk-tuk I know of is that kitschy car, the next "Baby Yoda" (Grogu) this ain't.

Awkwafina was surprisingly not terrible to me in Shang-Chi, she was pretty much the main character of it even, the only character to have an arc. However, Raya is the film that led to the expectation that she would be terrible in Shang-Chi.

[the13thman]

Originally Posted by GenPion

Disney needs to release the unreleased 3D titles on 3D Blu-ray as Disney Movie Club exclusives. Disney has no good excuse to not do this with these titles: simply print smaller quantities on the 3D titles.

There is a good reason not to do this - exclusivity.

DMC exclusives are great for Americans (and American scalpers) but an expensive nuisance for everyone else in the world. I despair when I see people calling for titles to be made available on such a restricted basis.

[WaverBoy]

Originally Posted by the13thman

There is a good reason not to do this - exclusivity.

DMC exclusives are great for Americans (and American scalpers) but an expensive nuisance for everyone else in the world. I despair when I see people calling for titles to be made available on such a restricted basis.

Yes, but it’s better than zero 3D releases, which is what we currently have.

[3dblurayofsunshine]

Originally Posted by the13thman

There is a good reason not to do this - exclusivity.

DMC exclusives are great for Americans (and American scalpers) but an expensive nuisance for everyone else in the world. I despair when I see people calling for titles to be made available on such a restricted basis.

Do DMC resellers charge more than the $70 Japanese releases cost? I’ve seen people say that they’d rather they didn’t release them in Japan at all or anywhere because they can’t afford them, and I understand where they’re coming from but I definitely think any release is better than no release, especially when it opens up other grey area ‘options’ that don’t even exist right now.