Re: HTF REVIEW: The Little Mermaid - Disappointingly NOT Recommended
In regards to the audio, David is right. All the voice tracks sound like they've been heavily denoised and EQ'd. They sound wooden, distant, like all the life has been squeezed out of them. There most definitely is a "spread" to them . . . not sure what exactly they did, but it's there. If you have a way to sum your system to mono, try doing it to this mix of Mermaid. If it had been mixed properly, the voices in the center track wouldn't be affected. On this mix, strange things happen to the few high frequencies that they have left.Reverb, echo and digital delay has been applied in excess and clumsily. When Ariel is singing "Part of Your World," there's this electronic reverb all over her voice that's supposed to make her sound like she's inside the underwater grotto. Not too difficult a trick to pull off for a competent audio guy, but here it just sounds like they've run her voice through a digital reverb unit set on one of its presets. Seems strange to say about a cartoon about a mermaid, but the illusion of reality is destroyed by the clumsy application of the technology.
By contrast, the music and effects are bright, busy, and way, way upfront. They, too, have had the snot no-noised out of them, causing them to sound cold and lifeless, but they've also been EQd much brighter. The result is that they just don't "hang' with the voice tracks. It sounds like you're listening to two different recordings played at the same time rather than a cohesive mix.
I was never crazy about the CD soundtrack of this flick -- don't care for the heavily reverb'd "broadway cast album" sound they went for -- but it is obvious from both the CD and the previous home video issues that the Mermaid soundtrack was recorded much better than this mess would indicate. The voices had punch, life, and high frequencies. The effects were subtle and complemented the mix rather than drawing attention to themselves. That's what I wanted, and expected, from this DVD.
There were a couple of points in the review I wasn't sure I agreed with in reference to the video -- specifically, I think some of the artifact criticisms may have been caused by artifacts of the cel animation process as it was practiced at the time (like the sketchy outlines from the Xerox process, or the flickering brush strokes in Ariel's hair). But you're right, it does look dark and fuzzy, and I notice the film grain has been heavily filtered as well. I was lucky enough to see the DLP digitally projected version a few weeks ago at the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood. Looked fabulous. Razor-sharp, great color, no artifacts anywhere, and that was from my seat way too close to the screen. Unless this is a completely different transfer, the blame lies in the encoding.
I'm always impressed with the way folks manage to express their (different) opinions in these review threads while maintaining respect for everyone else's point of view.
