A Few Words About A few words about...™ Mary Poppins -- in Blu-ray (2 Viewers)

[Cinescott]

Bring on 20,000 Leagues.

 

[Paul Penna]

Bring on 20,000 Leagues.

And the sooner the better! I've been waiting since 1954!

 

[Matt Hough]

Bring on 20,000 Leagues.

And Old Yeller and Swiss Family Robinson and Pollyanna and The Parent Trap and on and on.

 

[lukejosephchung]

Bring on 20,000 Leagues.

This will happen when Disney announces the release window for the new remake...the restoration work in 4k has already been completed and is sitting in the vaults waiting for the film division's theatrical rollout...

 

[KPmusmag]

This review made my day. Thank you!

 

[Peter McM]

And Old Yeller and Swiss Family Robinson and Pollyanna and The Parent Trap and on and on.

...and Song of the South

(Sorry--but someone had to bring it up )

 

[Matt Hough]

...and Song of the South

(Sorry--but someone had to bring it up )

Glad you did, and I quite agree!

 

[FoxyMulder]

...and Song of the South

(Sorry--but someone had to bring it up )

If it ever happens i can see it being released in Europe first.

 

[bigshot]

Do the lines on the animation still have the feathery xerox look, or have they "restored" it to look like ham handed fine tip marker pen?

 

[davidmatychuk]

Do the lines on the animation still have the feathery xerox look, or have they "restored" it to look like ham handed fine tip marker pen?

It's a very good question to ask, I really want to know the answer, and I know exactly what you mean, despite a total lack of context for "feathery xerox look" and "ham handed fine tip marker pen". You, Sir or Madam, are a Poet.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Audio is equally as exciting. I viewed with the new 7.1 DTS-HD MA. The original monaural mix is also included for those who seek the original experience, although many prints in 1964 were magnetic stereo

Do you mean the Dolby Digital 2.0 track on the BD? I didn't test it to see if it was stereo or mono. The package's case just says "theatrical mix" but doesn't claim to be mono or stereo. IIRC, the 45th Anniversary DVD had 5.1 and stereo but no mono...

 

[johnmcmasters]

I received the UK bluray edition last week -- and watched it with friends on Thanksgiving. At one point, when the live action/animated sequence is ending after "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious", when the rain starts to pour and the adventure ends -- there is a shot seen from a distance like across the street of the rain obliterating the lovely pastel drawings on the sidewalk -- mist -- Mr. Van Dyke agile and wet, dancing through the raindrops and making splashes on the drawings -- color slowly spreading beneath his feet -- and I started, unexpectedly, to cry -- the image quality was so beautiful -- the pastel colors so lovely -- the park behind the dancing figure so darkly immersible and wet and inviting with a tinge of sadness as the rainy day envelopes the fantasy. Thank you Disney!

 

[Mike Frezon]

Bring on 20,000 Leagues.

And Old Yeller and Swiss Family Robinson and Pollyanna and The Parent Trap and on and on.

...and Song of the South

(Sorry--but someone had to bring it up )

And I would just like to add my personal favorite: The Happiest Millionaire.

I am so looking forward to receiving this (Mary Poppins) in my mailbox next week...

 

[moviebuff75]

Does anyone know if the premiere at Grauman's contained an Intermission? I wonder if the intentions were for no intermission but some theaters insisted on one.

 

[cb1]

awesome! I can't wait to get this... Mary Poppins is one of my favorite "cheer me up movies"

 

[rich_d]

That's the good news I've been waiting for!

Hopefully Rich D or Charles Smith will bring over their copy, so I won't need to spend my tuppence.After all the projector upgrades I did this year, I don't think I'd be able to scrape up a brass farthing anyway.

Fear not, I ordered it from Amazon ... so the drone should be touching down early next week. As I put my tuppence into the S&P 500, I think I can also afford some birdseed as well.

 

[bigshot]

Screen grab from blu-ray https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152020101732348&set=pcb.10152020105662348&type=1&relevant_count=2
Detail of screen grab from blu-ray https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152020101712348&set=pcb.10152020105662348&type=1&relevant_count=1
What xerox lines actually looked like https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152020128107348&set=a.120005487347.99796.561602347&type=1&relevant_count=1

 

[JoHud]

Screen grab from blu-ray https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152020101732348&set=pcb.10152020105662348&type=1&relevant_count=2
Detail of screen grab from blu-ray https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152020101712348&set=pcb.10152020105662348&type=1&relevant_count=1
What xerox lines actually looked like https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152020128107348&set=a.120005487347.99796.561602347&type=1&relevant_count=1

Awww, I was hoping this would be an exception that escaped Disney's recent desire "fix" the xeroxing process by attempting to redraw every line into a like thickness and boldness. Seeing those and Netflix and other streaming sources did well enough to convince me not to get the blu-rays. I assume they do this to make sure the DNR process they use doesn't erase any lines, but it's almost just as bad. Surely there's a better way to restore and remaster these in HD.

I'm still getting Mary Poppins since, thankfully, this error will only be present in the animated portions and not the more frequent live-action portions. Also, I haven't seen it in a jillion years. And Dick Van Dyke is in it.

 

[warnerbro]

I heard they went back to the original animation and live-action stems and remixed them for this new edition. That was for the animated sequences. Anyone know anything about that?

 

[bigshot]

I have a theory on what is causing this...

Disney has a very intrusive process for restoring their animated films. They rotoscope the character off of the backgrounds frame by frame. Then they combine all the backgrounds into a single image and clean that up digitally. The characters are cleaned up and recolored frame by frame. Then the characters are recomposited over the still frame of the background. This eliminates all gate weave in the backgrounds and allows them to totally rework every aspect of the scene.

With hand inking, you have a sharp clean line to use for cutting the character out and removing it from the background. But xerox lines are feathery and vague at times, just like the pencil lines of the animator. When they cut the characters out of the frame, they probably lose most of the edge of the xerox in the process. If they comped it back in like that, it would look like there was no line around the outside perimeter of the character. So they probably do a selection of a tiny sliver of the outer edges and darken it to beef up what's left of the line.

However, when they do this, I bet the result looks like a funky matte line. The beefed up edges are darker and more opaque than the interior xerox lines. To make it match, the select ALL of the black lines and beef them all up equally. This gives a nice, neat thick black line with no vagueness or inconsistency, but it also totally destroys the line weight and shapes of the lines.

The average person may think that "a line is a line". But to an animator, a line is all he has to create the illusion of volume and weight. Animators vary line thickness to define shapes and carefully point the ends of their lines to create the illusion of the volume turning. When you monkey around with this, you are totally compromising the thing that set Disney apart from its competitors- The quality of the finish- really nice cleanup that preserved the animator's volumes.

The technicians massacring this stuff probably think, "no big deal- a line is a line". But I can guarantee you that the animators I know are up in arms about this. They see it as the absolute worst thing you can do to a film. Edit it, make it B&W instead of color, change the soundtrack, recolor it... But don't mess up the lines.