DVD Review HTF REVIEW: "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) (with screenshots) (1 Viewer)

[budrichard]

As a small child I saw the original theatrical release in all its wide screen glory. I recently viewed the Disney DVD and I can say the transfer looked great and the sound very good. What bothered me is that i believe that there is material missing from the original theatrical realease. When Ned is carried off by the Police he is put in jail i believe and his release from that jail is because he is supposed to be the harpoonist for the US vessel. Granted that this is based on my memory but if you watch the film, there is no reason for Ned to show up on the vessel. I suspect that the orignal was edited in the course of showings to reduce the run time and this and probably other portions of the film are lost or not restorable to compliment the rest of the film. Anyone agree or have any other information? -Dick

 

[Paul Penna]

When Ned is carried off by the Police he is put in jail i believe and his release from that jail is because he is supposed to be the harpoonist for the US vessel.

I also saw it in original release, but I was only 8 at the time, so my memories are hazy, to say the least. But I can say, at any rate, that a segment like this was never in any of the various video releases over the years, nor on any TV showings. The DVD supplements I've watched so far don't make any mention of it, either.

 

[budrichard]

I agree, Paul. All my research shows that the running time has always been 127 minutes. I guess my next step is to contact Disney Archives. -Dick

 

[Chad A Wright]

I picked this up on Ron's recommendation. I'd seen bits of it on TV through the years, but never the whole thing, and certainly never in widescreen. This is a fantastic film.

 

[Lawrence B]

Hi everyone,

My name is Larry Brooks, and I was the historical consultant on the 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA DVD. re missing scenes.... There was never any scene written into the script (or shot) showing Kirk Douglas in jail, or being bailed out of jail. I looked through 3 different versions of the script by screenwriter Earl Felton. The way the script handled Kirk's being arrested by the police (after causing the fight at the San Franciso wharf) was as follows:

A scene takes place right after the sequence in Professor Arronax's hotel room (where he meets US government representative John Howard); this scene has Howard leading Arronax downstairs into the hotel's lobby, where he is invited to dine with Captain Farragunt, commander of the US frigate, Abraham Lincoln, and his First Mate. At one point in this scene, Farragut lists all the assets the Lincoln has in hunting the sea monster (number of cannons, etc.) and also says the crew includes a "...Master Harpooner, who's pretty handy with an iron." To this, the First Mate adds: "And he's pretty handy with his fists, too. We had to bail him out of jail last night to get him aboard the ship before we sail."

Re was anything trimed from the movie in the DVD release? Nothing was removed - what you are looking at is the full, uncut 1954 release of the film. Are there missing scenes? You bet - a whole slew of them. I spoke personally to the film's art director, Harper Goff some years before he passed away. He told me that the original workprint of Leagues came to about 2 hours and 49 minutes. It included every scene in the script. Among the now missing scenes: the South Pole montage sequence; a longer version of the 'Lincoln ramming' (where the Nautilus actually 'plays' with the frigate and at one point, dives under the ship & surfaces on the other side!); a fight in the Pump Room between Douglas & members of the crew (I believe a shot of this was in the DVD documentary); a longer underwater harvesting sequence (plus one shot that would have shown the Nautilus resting on the sand, far behind several divers); shots of Douglas & Lorre (as divers) carrying away the treasure chest before the shark attack, plus a longer squidfight.

I can tell you that the DVD producer was searching all over the Disney studio for quite some time, convassing many film vaults for the missing LEAGUES footage and also the legendary workprint. Sadly, no 35mm outtakes or workprint were ever located. That doesn't mean they don't exist - they could still be somewhere at the studio, perhaps in a mislabled film can. That is where other 'missing footage' was found at Warners for the picture 'A STAR IS BORN' with Judy Garland. Regarding 20,000 LEAGUES, we'll just have to be content with the current version, which still remains the definitive work of Verne's finest novel.

Larry Brooks

 

[Alex S]

Thanks Larry !

 

[Brian L]

For anyone interested in riding the 20,000 Leagues ride, all you need is a ticket to Japan.

http://www.tokyodisneyresort.co.jp/t...trc_20000.html

BGL

 

[Paul Penna]

Larry Brooks:

Many thanks for your contribution!

 

[budrichard]

Larry Brooks, many thanks for your detailed reply. As a child growing up in the 50's when a movie from Disney such as 20,000 Leagues was a big event and theaters had huge screens, viewing these movies made a big impression on me. So far, the DVD coupled to a large direct view television with 5.1 surround is the closest I can come to reliveing those moments. Again thanks. -Dick

 

[Ernest Rister]

Am I alone in thinking that this DVD is one of the most underrated, underappreciated DVDs in recent memory? I grew up in the 80's, didn't own a VCR. My best friend in High School remains my best friend to this day. I went with him to help him purchase his home theater equipment two years ago (53" HD TV, surround amp, surround speakers, sub, etc.) Last June, I had the great pleasure of popping in the 20,000 Leagues disc on his home setup. I told him:

"What we're about to watch justifies every penny you spent last year -- DVDs like this are the reason why we got into home theater in the first place."

We were like kids in a candy store. While I had seen 20,000 Leagues *twice* on the big screen thanks to Wide-Screen Festivals at the El Capitan in Hollywood, and while I had also owned the wide-screen "Exclusive Archive" laserdisc, my best friend had only seen the VHS tape in his youth. What a revelation this disc is to such unknowing eyes --

As far as I'm concerned, if you are a true fan of wide-screen filmmaking, your collection is incomplete without this title. And just to jab a finger in the eye of certain DVD review sites who neglected to review this title (Digital Bits, DVDFile, IGN)...failing to champion this disc was a disservice to your readership, one you should correct with all due haste.

 

[Roy Batty]

Am I alone in thinking that this DVD is one of the most underrated, underappreciated DVDs in recent memory?

Well, I guess part of the blame should go to Disney themself for taking it out first from the planned schedule and then failing to give it a full fledged promotion campaign when it finally came out...

But yes, I agree with you, this is a perfect example of the very best virtues and capabilities of the DVD format.

I was specially amazed at the long making of docu. This being a 50's production, I doubted there would be much in the behind the scenes department, and I was expecting a lot of talking heads and past reflections... but boy, was I wrong!

All in all, a great, great vintage Disney release. Kuddos to everyone involved.

 

[Todd_Brown]

But yes, I agree with you, this is a perfect example of the very best virtues and capabilities of the DVD format.

I think all of the "Vault" titles show what a proper treatment of a classic should look like. Warner's 2 discs releases are another example.

 

[Jeffrey Nelson]

"Had the laserdisc (WS) and this transfer seems to be worlds ahead. the LD was a truly *horrible* 4x3 lbxed transfer that you had to "suffer" through, IMO."

Aw, come on...when that laserdisc came out, it looked spectacular compared to all incarnations of the film before it. It was a godsend for fans of the film. Uncut, widescreen for the first time, and tons of supplements. TONS. Sure, you can look back now and call it horrible, you DVD snob you, but really, it wasn't bad at all. And if you're calling it horrible just because it's not anamorphic, you must hate all laserdisc transfers. Just my two cents...

Question: does the laserdisc have any supplements that aren't included on the new DVD? And does the 5.1 remix do justice to the soundtrack? I've got the LD, and if the DVD remix is effed up, I'll probably pass.

 

[Jim Barg]

The Operation Undersea Disneyland episode is not on the DVD. Everything else was ported over.

However, the new stuff is more than worth your time - the documentary and featurettes are fantastic, and the original squid sequence's badness needs to be seen to be believed.

Can't comment on the 5.1 remix, but I've seen the price drop to about $15 at various stores. At that price, it's an easy recommendation.

 

[Patrick McCart]

I don't know how badly the film negatives had deteriorated, but IMHO it was not one of the best restorations I've ever seen. There were a few shots that were quite clear with accurate color balance, but others that looked pretty bad.

Couldn't they have scanned a duplicate of the restored negatives and washed it through a theatrical quality 4K telecine computer program to further clean up the image and further tweak the color timing?

I give the supplements an A- and the A/V restoration quality a C.

Could you point out some of these bad shots? I recall Nemo's "farewell" scene having some pulsing contrast, but that's it. Also, the opticals and rotoscope shots have some contrast issues, but that's all normal. And you can't forget that 1954 Eastmancolor is going to look different. One great thing about Disney's remaster is that it lacks the excessive filtering seen on nearly every DVD they release now. In most scenes, you can make out plenty of fine detail and fine grain (especially during the scene on the cannibal island).

If this is a "C" restoration, what is an example of an "A" quality one? What's an "F" quality restoration? Digital isn't a savior for everything.

Here's some screenshots for reference...

Regular shots:
[url=http://img110.exs.cx/img110/8578/20leagues47cl.th.jpg] [/url][url=http://img110.exs.cx/img110/5640/20leagues53ha.th.jpg] [/url]
[url=http://img110.exs.cx/img110/4605/20leagues62ml.th.jpg] [/url][url=http://img110.exs.cx/img110/1338/20leagues34cm.th.jpg] [/url]
[url=http://img110.exs.cx/img110/6010/20leagues14ii.th.jpg] [/url]

Dissolve shots:
[url=http://img111.exs.cx/img111/2255/20leaguesdissolve19gz.th.jpg] [/url][url=http://img142.exs.cx/img142/2175/20leaguesdissolve29qw.th.jpg] [/url]
(FYI: That's not edge enhancement in the 2nd capture)

Effects shot:
[url=http://img142.exs.cx/img142/3193/20leaguesrotoscope0us.th.jpg] [/url]

I feel that the 5 normal shots are an accurate representation of what the bulk of the film looks like, minus the opticals. As for the DVD as a whole, this is Disney's best DVD after Snow White.

 

[Ernest Rister]

It's certainly in the top 5, Patrick. Most days I can't make up my mind as to what is actually the "best" DVD production of a Disney title. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Fantasia Anthology, 20,000 Leagues: SE, The Ultimate Toy Box, and Walt Disney on the Front Lines would be my picks.

By the way, I recently had the great pleasure of using the Swiss Family Robinson: SE to help break in a new HDTV set purchased by brother-in-law. Absolutely beautiful disc -- if anyone out there liked 20,000 Leagues, you could do worse than Swiss Family Robinson as a follow-up. The photography in that film is first-rate.

And does the 5.1 remix do justice to the soundtrack?

I'll give you my opinion, for what it's worth. I grew up in the 80's, and first purchased the film in 1992, a year after I received my first "Dolby Surround" amp as a christmas present. I watched the film many many times until the laserdisc set was released. After owning the film on VHS and LD, I had the great pleasure of seeing 20,000 Leagues in theaters on two different occasions (in fact, the LD showed more left/right image than the first time I saw the film projected in theaters).

The laserdisc audio, for the most part, represents an accurate portrayal of what you would have heard if you saw the film in a theater anytime in the 90's prior to the restoration.

The new 5.1 audio "opens up" the soundtrack, but it is very respectful of it. There are occasional use of discrete l/r stereo effects that I noticed immediately, but I did not find these objectionable in the slightest (these are mostly instances of off-screen sound f/x inside the Nautilus, like bells and hisses and mechanical noises). The score is also presented with much greater fidelity and clarity than the LD, and has nice surround support. The surrounds are used shrewdly, mostly to give support to the musical score, but occasionally they're used to good effect (like Nemo's obsessed performance of "Toccata and Fugue" on his pipe organ). The only real addition to the soundtrack is the wall-shaking LFE channel, which gives new impact to the Nautlius' engines, the underwater explosions, the "nuclear" reactor, the thunderclaps during the squid fight, etc. Compared to the LD and the VHS and even the last time I saw the film at the El Capitan, I think the disc sounds absolutely marvelous...especially considering that the film is over 50 years old.

 

[JackKay]

Jeffrey Nelson, I jumped on that Laser Disc when it first came out. It was definitely on my must have movie list. My only complant with it was (and some one correct me if I am wrong) it was slightly speed-ed up to fit into the hour per side Laser. It runs 127 min on the DVD.

 

[Joe Caps]

What is the aspect ratio of the dvd. AS its early scope, it should be 2:55

 

[Heinz W]

Joe, it is 2.55:1 according to the back cover. I haven't watched it since it was released but I agree it is one of Disney's best live-action releases to date. A wonderful film.

 

[Jeffrey Nelson]

"Jeffrey Nelson, I jumped on that Laser Disc when it first came out. It was definitely on my must have movie list. My only complant with it was (and some one correct me if I am wrong) it was slightly speed-ed up to fit into the hour per side Laser. It runs 127 min on the DVD."

The ancient LD may have been time-compressed and/or cut (the old CED version I had was missing some bits, including the organ-playing sequence), but the film as represented in the Exclusive Archive Collection gatefold LD is not time-compressed, and runs the full 127 minutes, spread over two discs.

Ernest, thanks for the soundtrack info...doesn't sound nearly as bad as I feared, but I'm still 100% anti-extra new foley effects on remixes. I'll probably pick up the DVD for the extra extras, and hold on to my LD for those times when I want to be the original audio ultra-purist, and because of the Operation Undersea Disneyland episode which didn't make it to the DVD. Too bad they didn't include the original track, then it would have been an even more perfect perfect release.