Sleeping Beauty (Special Edition)

Customer reviews:

Perhaps the greatest of Walt's films, fatally marred by Blu-ray technical problems, 2009-01-05
Woe is me!

I've been looking forward to this most recent release of Sleeping Beauty for a long time - my VHS tape was wearing out, and when my young son discovered the film, it was getting significantly higher playing time. It is, in my opinion, the best of the classic Disneys (herein defined as those that Walt personally supervised). Thus, it was was with great relish that I made this my first-ever Blu-ray purchase.

The film itself is as good as ever, obviously. The sound has been cleaned up some, but is still not fantastic. That's okay, because there's something charming about the thin-ness of these old films. The video looks better than ever. The extras are numerous and range from ho-hum to fascinating. The audio commentary by Pixar guru John Lassiter, film critic Leonard Maltin, and others is informative but unspectacular - it tends to cheerleading at times. There is a Wonderful World of Disney fictionalised account of Tchaikovsky's life, most interesting as a period example of what was being shown on the WWD TV show.

In fact, Disney really dug around in its vault for this disc! Also included is a short film on the Grand Canyon (apparently the preview short shown in the theatrical run) and another WWD episode on the making of the film. The best extra, though, is a short film (15 minutes) on four Disney animators playing artist for the day. They all take the same subject (a particular tree) and make a "picture" of it. The four pictures are as diverse as the personalities of the artists, and makes for an interesting case study, as well as showing art in progress. There are also a number of original songs that were written before the decision was made to blend in the Tchaikovsky ballet score, so they sound more like traditional Disney pop songs.

So why the 3-star rating? Well, this Blu-ray disc was so incredibly annoying that I wish I'd bought the DVD instead. The menus are not easily navigated and worst of all, if you stop the playback, there is no memory, it simply re-starts from the very beginning (including the FBI copyright warning and the ads - and WHY MUST I WATCH ADS WHEN I'VE PAID GOOD MONEY FOR A DISC! ARGH!). This is not a problem with my Blu-ray player (a PS3-80GB) as all the other DVDs and Blu-rays I've tried retain memory of location and will not restart cold, even when ejected from the machine.

My recommendation: buy the DVD instead. You don't get the same number of extras, but there are lots on the Platinum edition, including the commentary and the alternate songs.

Very Pleased, 2009-01-05
I ordered for my grandaughter for Christmas. They offered free shipping and I was surprised how quickly it still arrived. My grandaughter just loves the movie. The price was below the store price. WOW. Every Christmas gift should be so easy and make the recipient so happy.