HTF REIVEW: Mary Poppins 40th Anniversary SE - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!! (1 Viewer)

[Ernest Rister]

My favorite is The Revenge of Mary Poppins, in which she drinks some Rum Punch cough syrup gone bad, and hallucinates wildly. Taking a butcher knife, she stalks children at an orphange during a terrible thunder storm. Oooh, I get chills just thinking about it.

 

[Patrick H.]

First off...splendid review David! Your attention to the small details, even pointing out level discrepancies between the audio tracks, is exactly the sort of thing I like to read about in a review, but rarely find outside the HTF.

Now, however, I must make a general gripe...why are SO many big titles this season riddled with errors?! What the heck has happened to QC?! Star Wars has a laundry list of problems, of course, most minor but one or two (like the soundtrack on the first one) REALLY major. The third Harry Potter suffers from interference patterns in the transfer, not to mention odd and obvious watermarking. And now Mary Poppins has a botched remix and cropped image?! COME ON! (With my best Craig T. Nelson-in-Poltergiest voice...) WHY?! WHYYYYY?!?!?!

Thank goodness for New Line and Peter Jackson's crew, whose care and effort in assembling their final Rings set makes the above look especially poor. And Columbia delivered with Spider-Man 2 as well. These uphold my shaken faith in the format...

 

[Ernest Rister]

"The third Harry Potter suffers from interference patterns in the transfer, not to mention odd and obvious watermarking...Thank goodness for New Line and Peter Jackson's crew, whose care and effort in assembling their final Rings set makes the above look especially poor."

ROTK has a watermark, too, in other regions.

There are a host of great DVDs released every week. A couple of high-profile releases with some problems shouldn't "shake your faith".

 

[rich_d]

Yes Ernest, the unedited version made it to our e-mail .. Just having some fun with you.

I agree with Patrick's point. If they can't get the high profile DVDs correct why do we think they (on a DVD by DVD basis) can get anything right?

If they can't even get Cold Mountain to look (as we are told) any better than VHS and with the consumer having no (prior) knowledge of what technicians (that have a track record of success) worked on what projects - what faith should we have on any specific DVD? More importantly, reread the Robert Harris led thread on the Cold Mountain debacle. It seems clear to me that for some studios the process is to have no process thus no ability to ensure some reasonable level of success. And process should contain quality control checks as well.

With professional grade equipment at their beck and call, how in the world could any qualified group come up with the enhanced 5.1 track of Mary Poppins and consider it a success. It is not a matter of the process failing - clearly there is no process to begin with!!!!!!

What if anything was done to compare original audio elements with the audio results on the DVD? With millions of dollars at stake, what exactly does quality control or even simple cross-checking mean to these people?

As you may have read, I raised questions about even the original audio being correct. Doesn't mean I'm right but not one person has said yea or nea to my center speaker issue (perhaps people are just too busy with the holidays).

Earlier, this year some of us wrote quite negatively and strongly about the coming release of La Dolce Vita. Some posters contradicted our points saying (in essence) no big deal and they had their preorders in and were looking forward to getting this DVD. Well the company listened and made some changes. Then these same posters complimented the company for listening.

Where are the calls and inquiries to know who is responsible for this mess? Who is this someone? Let's put some pressure on him so that he finds a line of work that suits him better.

Bottom line, we can make a difference or we can be lambs being lead to the slaughter. It is up to us. My view is that it is one thing to mess up on a DVD back in 1998, it is absolutely another thing to mess up (significantly) in 2004.

If I'm right about the original 2.0 audio being wrong I hope the Disney Company does a recall (unfortunately the enhanced 5.1 mix is more a matter of taste/results then fraud). Otherwise, I hope some hungry lawyer starts a class action lawsuit against them for false advertising original audio (with triple damages)if it's proven that there was no original audio provided.

Then let's see how funny the lack of quality control is to them.

 

[RobertSiegel]

I havn't heard anyone mention any channels we all can use to convey to Buena Vista our feeling on the disc. From what I understand, many studio people read this forum, which is wonderful, though at times it seems they learn nothing from those seeking quality in transfers of classic movies.

I think we all need to do more. Letters to Buena Vista Home Entertainment. There is also their support website. I recently made a complaint on their GOLDEN GIRLS SEASON 1 dvd, which is entirely in MONO except for one episode, and that switches to stereo for only 30 seconds. The first season was all stereo, and that is what the back of the set says as well. Obviously a bad mistake on the entire sets transfer. When I made the report, they actually emailed me to call them and discuss this issue. The man I talked too was extremely friendly, and very interested in this issue. My feeling is that we all need to do the same for Mary Poppins. Lets let them know, hey nice job on the picture, but why the home theatre mix that is so awful, and why 2 versions of it....instead how about a 5.1 mix of the original, and could we possibly be lucky enough to get a 5.1 DTS mix of the original mix? Or perhaps the music and effects track that was on the laserdisc, much more worthy than the space taken for their HTmix. I don't know if complaining does anything at all, but perhaps they will do something by the time the HD version comes out. If we don't say anything, how will they know?

Here's the link to the DISNEY support site. Take the time to let them know how you feel anout the positives, as well as the negatives on this dvd set. They do respond, sometimes by phone. The man assured me that these comments are taken very seriously by the studio dvd department.

http://disney.go.com/disneyvideos/dvdsupport/home.html

 

[Ernest Rister]

I gave up any optimism of modern corporate Disney listening to their fan base many years ago. I suggest you all save yourselves the heartache and do the same.

Fans complaining to Disney are like ants complaining to a steamroller. The machine does what it does. The best you can do is comment on it, and inform other peple about the path it is taking, and tell them to get out if the way, because you sure aren't going to stop the machine. The best you can hope for is for it to slowly, slowly change direction.

And that's a faint hope at best.

 

[RobertSiegel]

Ernest, suggesting everyone just give up? I believe that there is always a possibility that when we write to tech support with complaints on dvds, that maybe, by some slim chance, someone is going to read it that cares. I guess I am not the type of person to give up but to keep hounding them.

I just listened to the Home Theatre Mix in full, the complete film. What a horrible track. My projectionist friend (who ran Mary Poppins on opening day here in Minneapolis) was over and I played it for him. He listened to exactly 30 seconds and told me to turn it off. He said that what they did basically was enhance the sound so it sounded like it was in the theatre, with the echo of an auditorium, something they used to do with soundtrack albums, plus added ambience which wasn't necessary anyway.. Everything then for film was recorded cold, or without echo and reverb because the theatre designs caused that anyway. He was saddened to see that even in 2004, they are remixing soundtracks and adding reverb and other effects, especially since the original stems sound soooooooo good for this movie. He was also disgusted that they added a home theatre mix 2 channel, which could have easily have been the music-only tracks, possibly even a DTS track. If you listen to some of the extras, especially the documentary, they use the music-only tracks in stereo, and they sound awesome, too bad we weren't given these in complete form to go along with the film!

He loved the picture transfer and when I showed him the extras he was very impressed. In fact, parts of the premiere footage he remembers showing before another movie, he can't remember which.

 

[Ernest Rister]

"Ernest, suggesting everyone just give up? I believe that there is always a possibility that when we write to tech support with complaints on dvds, that maybe, by some slim chance, someone is going to read it that cares. I guess I am not the type of person to give up but to keep hounding them."

Did they recall the last pressings of Lady and the Tramp on laserdisc and VHS, after it was discovered the film was full of audio glitches?

Nope.

Did they recall the single-disc Tarzan DVD when it was discovered it had been mastered incorrectly, putting one of the rear channels into a front channel?

Nope.

Have they issued any sort of public statements or offered to release uncensored versions of Make Mine Music, Saludos Amigos and Melody Time?

Nope.

The only time I've seen them do a recall was The Rescuers, when some media outlet got wind of a single frame of a naked woman appearing in a window during the albatross flight.

 

[Joe Caps]

After the first run of Lady and the Tramp lasers sold out,
Disneys seconed run had the audio problems corrected but it was still a remix - not the original 1955 stereo mix.
The dvds have the 1955 original stereo mix.
the Lasers of sleeping Beauty had a remix on the digital audio and the ac -3 4.0 has the original 1959 mix.
Nowhere on the dvds are the original 1959 mix to be found.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE - is there anywhere on this planet a ntsc region 1 dvd of Pinochio that has better color than the usa dvds? ( cleaed upbut offering various chades of brown it seems and nothing but) and with the original MONO sound? I love pinochio but the dvds and the laat laser are the same transfer.
a better way for me is to watch the very first laser which had better color,. but e3ven worse sound than the new stereo dvds!!

 

[Brian L]

Maybe I am confusing "recall" with "replace" but I did send that one back and got a new disc, supposedly with the correct tracks. They even sent us a handful of pins for our trouble.

Are you saying that this was never really fixed?

BGL

 

[Ernest Rister]

Disney did not publically "recall" the Tarzan single-edition disc, you were probably one of the informed individuals who read about it either here or at DVDFile or the other DVD sites that were reporting the error. Subsequent pressings of Tarzan were corrected (I assume), but the initial discs were faulty, and Disney did not issue a recall for them.

 

[RobertSiegel]

Ernest, please don't think I was saying that Disney listens or does the right thing under normal circumstances. I've mentioned earlier that I just purchased the Golden Girls season 1 and it's mono, when the first season/ forward were all stereo. I have heard nothing about a recall or replacements. I do agree with you that they make some real bad mistakes and do not attempt to correct them release after release. My only difference of opinion with yours is that I keep emailing and sending letters, hoping that my suggestions just might reach someone who does care, and who knows, maybe my comments might be taken into consideration for some future edition. I believe the more people that write, the better chance there is, after all it's better than sitting back and paying 20-30.00 a pop and saying nothing. At least it gives me some outlet for my frustrations.

I emailed Disney 15 times in the last year, hoping they would add the music-only tracks in stereo to the Mary Poppins dvd. I emailed and post-mailed them letters before its release to add that beautiful stereo video shot of Angela Lansbury singing Beauty and the Beast with the orchestra, on the dvd, alas not included (can't imagine them leaving that off the special features). Instead we got the rap versions by the Disney kids (PLEASE! they're awful). So yes I have plenty of complaints about content as far as quality with some of Disney's releases.

 

[RobertSiegel]

Ernest, I think they also recalled Roger Rabbit laserdisc for that x rated shot, and also the cover of the Little Mermaid laserdisc had a penis on it, and was recalled. Seems they only recall for things like that, sadly.

 

[Ernest Rister]

If you never try, you'll never win, so you have the right attitude.

I'm just jaded.

 

[Al (alweho)]

Nah. When a company makes a real point of selling itself as a paragon of quality and showmanship and then drops the ball - repeatedly - you have every right to be jaded about it.

Nothing, and I repeat, nothing turns customers off more. I think there are even recent surveys that have clearly documented how far the Disney brand has fallen with consumers.

http://www.brandchannel.com/features....asp?pr_id=175

 

[Carlo_M]

Yeah I'm all for optimistic activism (I signed the Star Wars OT Trilogy on DVD petition way back when no one thought Lucas would release it before 2006-7), but Disney really is above the likes and dislikes of those of us who are passionate about their films.

Like it or not, there are millions out there who just buy Disney whether or not the films are technically perfect or what not. They are just getting it for their kids. That probably counts for 99%+ of their sales. Those of us who are actually passionate about the films can complain, but basically they know they're getting paid no matter what.

 

[Tarkin The Ewok]

After a couple of Disney releases that were less than stellar, this DVD reminded me of just how good the studio can be when they put their minds to it. The movie itself is simply amazing, but the presentation and extras really blew me away. Each bonus feature gave new information and stories with barely a trace of overlap. I was also pleasantly surprised by the text commentary; it equalled the quality of those on the Star Trek movies.

After hearing about P.L. Travers on this DVD, I'm not quite sure what to think about her. At times she gave some valuable input, but other times it seemed like she was hindering Walt and his team. It is interesting to speculate about how the movie would have turned out if she had given the rights away immediately or if she had not participated in the production. However, I am extremely pleased with the final product that we did get.

What I demanded from this DVD were Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke, and penguins. I got those and plenty more. This is one for the whole family.

 

[Al (alweho)]

P.L. Travers knew her character well. But Walt Disney knew his audience better.

 

[ScottR]

I noticed on the Gold Edition that there is a red tinge to the right side of the frame for the entire film. For example, if a wall is white on the left side of the picture, it will be redish brown on the right side. This was very annoying

 

[ArthurMy]

So, I was told right here in this thread that the Australian SE of Mary Poppins had the original theatrical mix in 5.1 as well as 2.0. So, I order it. So, it comes. So, it doesn't. Thanks ever so much for the wonderful tip.