Blu-ray Review HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Pinocchio: 70th Anniversary Platinum Edition (1 Viewer)

[Patrick H.]

95% of the time, I don't notice such audio alterations right off the bat (or at least can't pinpoint what's "off" until I compare it with an older version). This is one of the 5% that jumped right out at me, and I hadn't seen the film in years, either.

Looking at Mike's video post, that "Right" does sound like an overlay that wasn't recorded with the rest of the song...it's dropped in there pretty quickly while Jiminy's off-camera for a second. Maybe it was added later as a revision, or maybe the audio restoration somehow dropped it. The fact that it's absent from BOTH the audio tracks is pretty interesting, though. I too am curious to see what info turns up.

 

[MatS]

more missing?

Land of Whimsy

 

[DaViD Boulet]

It will be helpful for someone with historical or "inside" knowledge to enlighten us to the real "original". The older DVD and laserdisc may or may not represent what the original sound mix sounded like in 1940 when theater-going audiences heard the optical track that Walt and his team delivered.

or... it very well may have been that these familiar voice snippets we're all missing from having grown familiar with the prior home-video releases were on the original and are sadly absent here. But let's reserve judgment until we some feedback from someone with an authoritative understanding of the matter.

Sort of like everyone who grows familiar the skewed colors of a old LD or DVD struck from an aging print suddenly cries foul when Disney color-corrects to the original painted cel art and does a proper restoration for a new DVD or BD. We may be really missing what should have been there, or maybe we're hearing the track properly restored to the original intent.

I wish I could remember the email of my old Disney contact to try to get a direct answer!

dave

 

[Patrick H.]

D'oh! That bit is indeed missing as well...part of that other category of omissions that didn't jump right out at me, though.

It's worth noting that both those lines are present on the foreign dub tracks. It's a pretty good sounding song in French.

Seriously, though...doesn't anybody sit down and compare these things to the versions which have been out there for decades before they send them to press?

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Ok... I dug through a bunch emails in a dusty folder from a few years ago and found my usually-knows-stuff Disney guy. I hope his email address hasn't changed! If I hear back anything I'll let you guys know...

 

[ScottR]

I just wish we had a contact at Disney so we can let them know and maybe get some answers. They are good at correcting mistakes, if they know about them.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Well, I went to my Disney contact with the questions and while I don't have a definitive answer, he has taken what I would suspect to be a pretty good guess: that the restoration team turned to some different audio sources in an effort to get the best sounding elements possible and used some tracks which had some of the dialogue excised for early audio releases. It might be (although hard to fathom) that they just didn't notice.

Randy Thornton is one of the Executive Producers at Walt Disney Records.

He has been involved in numerous restorations of the musical elements for the early Disney animated classics. At a different forum (of which he is an active member) I posted questions about the missing dialogue. This is his response:


So, his best guess is that it might be that the restoration team turned to a different audio source for the audio restoration of the film and didn't realize those bits had been excised. If true, if would make for an interesting tale, but unfortunate.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

I'd prefer to have the missing word and to have the song restored from the best possible and earliest-generation elements if I had to choose.

Thanks Mike for that incredible information. Wow. Still haven't heard back from my contact and not sure if he had any better information.

 

[Ethan Riley]

He pretty much echoed my best theory. I had the Tutti Camarata recording; that "Right" was missing from it too. I believe it was an intentional omission to make the LP record experience sound a little smoother. I didn't even know about that "Right" until I got the vhs in 1985.

There are other vocal omissions from that soundtrack LP; I should compare more of them, but I don't think I still have that record (received it at age 6 as an Easter gift circa 1972).

So it seems that the new dvd engineers may have used some of the tracks made for the Disneyland Record soundtrack in the '50s; that's understandable, considering it's probably the cleanest soundtrack available for this film. I do forgive them for the boo-boo, but...

 

[Mike Frezon]

Thornton's the man at WDR. Almost any Disney music disc you might stumble upon usually has his name upon it somewhere. He's a true advocate for getting good product to the fans. And he's a real good guy, too!

 

[MatS]

it has been noted elsewhere and I can now confirm (missed this on first viewing) that when running the DisneyView feature the artwork does not load on the right side of the screen during the following time period 55min50sec to 56min36sec

watching on PS3 with latest firmware

I really hope Disney has an answer/fix regarding this and at minimum an answer about the missing sound bits

 

[Brian Borst]

I think the audio problem has become stranger: the missing bits of dialog aren't missing on the Region B blu-ray. They're there.

 

[Mike Frezon]

That IS strange.

Since they have a proper BD transfer at the ready, Disney should be able to do a recall, then, for those people who care enough about this to want it done right.

 

[Arild]

Uh, you sure? They're missing on my copy.

 

[Brian Borst]

Yes, I just checked after some people on UltimateDisney said it was there on the UK version as well. Mine's the Dutch version, by the way. Which one is yours?

 

[Arild]

Got the Scandinavian version. So it seems not only is there inconsistencies between the American release and the European - there are differences between the discs released within Europe as well. Sigh.

 

[TravisR]

Like Mike said, that's good news because it should be easy to issue a corrected disc.

 

[Ethan Riley]

Are you saying that the words are not missing on the Dutch soundtrack? Or is there an English soundtrack on that Region's version. The mystery thickens...

 

[Brian Borst]

No, I'm talking about the English DTS-HD 7.1 audio track on the Dutch Blu-Ray. It's also confirmed that on the UK disc the missing words are there.

 

[Douglas R]

I can confirm that as well. I have the UK Blue-ray disc and the words are there.