Disney's The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad / Fun and Fancy Free (Blu-ray) Preorder (1 Viewer)

[ahollis]

The sanitation at Disney continues. http://popwatch.ew.com/2014/06/18/sondheim-into-the-woods-movie-disney

 

[Stephen_J_H]

Apples and pomegranates, I say. Sondheim is involved and knows full well that Disney wouldn't adapt the play intact; besides, this is hardly after the fact "think of the children" hand-wringing.

 

[DanH1972]

Apples and pomegranates, I say. Sondheim is involved and knows full well that Disney wouldn't adapt the play intact; besides, this is hardly after the fact "think of the children" hand-wringing.

It's more like before the fact hand wringing. Disney is now totally risk averse and it's affecting PIXAR's output as well.

 

[Jason_V]

It's more like before the fact hand wringing. Disney is now totally risk averse and it's affecting PIXAR's output as well.

I think they have a right to be thinking about their brand (and the brand of everything they own). If this is a Disney movie proper, the audience has a certain expectation about what that means. Family friendly and child friendly.

I don't see how this is affecting Pixar output. Sure, they're doing more sequels than they should, but that makes a certain amount of sense after the less than ideal performance of Brave.

I'm not entirely familiar with Into the Woods. Do these potential changes make a film a radically different story?

 

[Stephen_J_H]

If Sondheim was truly concerned that Disney was eviscerating his musical, there are things he could do: he could have stipulated that the film be released through Touchstone, Disney's "adult" label; he could remove his name from the film, etc. The fact that he hasn't tells me that he's alive to what it means to sell the rights to your intellectual property to Disney, and what the brand represents.

Jason, you're totally right on the Pixar point. Feel free to disagree with me, but Pixar has never had a truly menacing villain; Pixar villains are always undercut by the humour in the film. I'd give examples, but they'd be spoilers. When you contrast that with early Disney villains (The Wicked Queen, Stromboli, Chernobog, the Hunter, Lady Tremaine, Maleficent), these are characters with no comic relief whatsoever. There are examples of comedic villains in the Disney Classic canon (Captain Hook is the first that comes to mind), but they are the exception rather than the rule. I remember being terrified of the Wicked Queen as a child because she was so well portrayed as pure evil, yet there was a nuance to the character that made her even more frightening.

 

[Jason_V]

Jason, you're totally right on the Pixar point. Feel free to disagree with me, but Pixar has never had a truly menacing villain; Pixar villains are always undercut by the humour in the film. I'd give examples, but they'd be spoilers. When you contrast that with early Disney villains (The Wicked Queen, Stromboli, Chernobog, the Hunter, Lady Tremaine, Maleficent), these are characters with no comic relief whatsoever. There are examples of comedic villains in the Disney Classic canon (Captain Hook is the first that comes to mind), but they are the exception rather than the rule. I remember being terrified of the Wicked Queen as a child because she was so well portrayed as pure evil, yet there was a nuance to the character that made her even more frightening.

I don't disagree at all with that. But, on the flip side, look at what Pixar is doing vs. early Disney. Early Disney took fairy tales (by and large) and adapted them. Those stories have the menacing villains. Pixar is taking, mostly, completely original material. It's their approach and I'm okay with that. I don't think this is a Disney mandate; it's the way Pixar has chosen to work.

 

[Brian Kidd]

If Sondheim was truly concerned that Disney was eviscerating his musical, there are things he could do:

I'm not so sure that Sondheim has as much ability to influence the film as some might think. Typically, when the film rights to a property are sold to a studio, the original creative team is lucky if they are asked to take part at all. Sondheim did fight for Rapunzel's death, apparently, but was overruled by the studio. (One word: TANGLED. The last thing Disney wants is for one of the cash cows to die, even if it isn't really the same character.) At that point, he could have withdrawn his support for the film but it wouldn't have changed anything. The film would still be made and released. Compromising on some things and sticking with the project at least means that he can still make some arguments that he might actually win. For me, I knew the play would be changed. There aren't many Musicals that have made their way to film 100% intact. Still, the more I read about the amount of changes makes me less-and-less interested in the final product.

 

[Konstantinos]

A couple of 720p screenshot comparisons between Bluray and DVD.
It seems that the Bluray isn't totally degrained (like Robin Hood, Aristocats, Jungle Book, Sword in the Stone etc.), but will have to wait for some 1080p comparisons to see better.
The backgrounds though look good as far as grain is concerned..

By the way, the Bluray does seem a bit zoomed in in comparison to DVD. It loses video information from all sides!

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/85922/picture:0

 

[JoHud]

They don't appear to have messed with the ink lines and there's actual film grain, which is a pretty good sign. However, the slight zoom is kinda strange and seemingly unnecessary.

Colors seem more muted this time around, though I'm thinking it's closer to the original look and that the DVD had boosted "brightness." Again, a good sign we're getting a quality release.

 

[Konstantinos]

Here is a comparison I just did to see how much information we lose:

 

[JoHud]

Yeah, not sure what happened there. Seems these days Disney animated feature releases always have to have something wrong with them. Though I still think it's a lesser issue overall.

 

[Konstantinos]

One more:
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/85924

 

[ThadK]

Not criminal, but still disappointing. I was hoping this one would slip through unnoticed by the suits, but no such luck.

 

[MatthewA]

Is there a point to zooming it in in this day and age, even just a little bit? Some of us have projectors and thus have the ability to turn off overscan.

 

[ThadK]

Colors seem more muted this time around, though I'm thinking it's closer to the original look and that the DVD had boosted "brightness." Again, a good sign we're getting a quality release.

Sorry, but this just isn't true. Take a look here. This is what Technicolor in the Golden Age of animation looks like, untampered. Skies and skin tones didn't have a shit brown tinge in any 1949 Technicolor film, cartoon or otherwise. Disney is awful and not a single Blu-Ray of their classic animated films is worth owning. I mean, the DVD of ICHABOD & MR. TOAD has more picture for crying out loud! At the steep price the Blu-Ray's going for, you'd be better off grabbing the ancient SD transfer.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Is there a point to zooming it in in this day and age, even just a little bit? Some of us have projectors and thus have the ability to turn off overscan.

Is it zooming in or are they simply taking a 2K master and cutting information off the sides and top/bottom to avoid scaling and the inherent risk of scaling artifacts that can happen, i know this happens to movies, they have a 2K master and simply cut some info top, bottom and sides, see Alien as one example but it happens a lot with live action films and no doubt with animated too.

 

[darkrock17]

From the cover, I thought there was a Wizard of Oz cartoon that I've never seen before. Ted Eshbaugh Oz looks great in 1080, was this restored version on the 75th anniversary from last year?

 

[ThadK]

From the cover, I thought there was a Wizard of Oz cartoon that I've never seen before. Ted Eshbaugh Oz looks great in 1080, was this restored version on the 75th anniversary from last year?

No. All of this stuff is making its debut in High-Definition on the Thunderbean release. I'll start its own thread.

 

[moviebuff75]

The first release had cue marks. Print? Cropping doesn't seem to be too bad...maybe it is more "correct" now.

 

[DanH1972]

On some of the titles the current Disney brass deem to be less robust sellers (like Ichabod and other classics such as SitS) you can tell they farmed the work out to their C Grade restoration departments.

On this release, it looks like they used the same master for the older DVD and maybe tweaked it a bit rather than do a complete frame-by-frame restoration of the original elements.