Quote:
Originally Posted by
Brian Borst 
What reckless work are you referring to? Sure, every studio has made some mistakes, but Disney seems to be the only one that is delibaretely altering the colors to prevent them look dated. However, Disney has no problem advertising Dumbo with the "70th Anniversary" banner, so it seems a bit odd to not want them to seem dated, but do advertise its anniversary.
Also, if we're just focusing on the colors, the average consumers (and their children) don't really care about the colors, I think. If it's sharp, and devoid of grain, then it's more or less all right with them. The movie fans want the original colors, so why wouldn't Disney cater to us? Replacing the logos is also a really moronic movie, since only we would care about the logos in the first place.
After reading through this thread I bought the new Blu-ray of Bambi, despite already having a VHS and DVD version and not originally intending to do so. The main reason was because all this talk about Disney "changing" the colors from the original colors. I have a 16mm Technicolor IB print of Bambi that I've had since the early 60's and has perfect color that hasn't faded over the years. I'm not sure whether it was from the initial release or whether it was made 10 or 15 years after. The sound track is a variable density track and while the sound is "okay" for a print of that vintage, it's obviously nowhere near the quality of the sound on this new Blu-ray. However, RAH is correct when he says it doesn't really matter when the quality of the original elements are taken into consideration. If they were going to do lossless audio now, it would require the film's whole audio track to be completely re-equalized, rolling off most of the higher and lower frequencies, since most of the very high and low frequencies would probably be carrying nothing but noise, even on the original elements. When you consider that until the 70's the optical tracks on release prints were still using the "academy curve", which rolled off anything above 8kz, we're lucky the tracks can be sweetened as good they are on the Blu-ray.
As for the color, the Bambi Blu-ray colors look nearly identical to my print. Maybe there might be very slightly more contrast on the Blu-ray. The color saturation is nearly identical (and that is dependant on the proper calibration of your projector or monitor). The ONLY way you can compare color (other than using a spectroradiometer) is either side by side or A/B. Nobody, no matter what they believe, can "recall" what colors looked like, even from yesterday.
What I find more interesting is that NOBODY, not even the "purists" have complained about the titles on ALL these Disney films. For some reason they've found it necessary to reduce the title screen size, despite the fact that if it was "normal", none of the titles would be cropped. That's how everyone knows I'm projecting a Blu-ray and not running film (although in the case of Bambi, the film also starts with RKO Radio Pictures logo).
Before anyone questions me or my motives, I have no connection to, nor am I an apologist for Disney, but, I believe that other than the title problem, they have done an excellent job, so far, of transferring their animated classics to Blu-ray. When evaluating a transfer to DVD or Blu-ray, what the original film looked like in the theatre must also be taken into consideration. I've run thousands of films over the years and can tell you that some films are just naturally soft and some are razor sharp and then there's everything in between. So these things, in addition to color, sound, etc. have to be considered when evaluating the quality of a transfer.
