Maybe I've never seen the wires because I have never looked for them.
There has to be an Ernest Rister TM fortune cookie bit of wisdom in there somewhere..."He who looks for wires on flying nanny will surely find them. But in the end, he will not be happier for his discovery."
Of course there's wires. What to you think "fly by wire" means?
The film looks pretty supercalifragilisticexpialidocious to me. This is really the first time I've watched the whole thing since I saw it at a special screening in New York City for music industry types back before it opened in 1964. I do remember that there was an Overture and Intermission at the screening I saw.
The more I read about this, the more I start changing my tune about owning this version. It is definitely worth it for the supplements, but, like any documentary material, is it worth watching more than once?
In the end, it's the movie that matters. 1.66:1 "family-friendly" widescreen passing for (as described on the box) original aspect ratio (according to IMDB correct ratio is 1.78:1), a poorly balanced home-theater mix, and poor color correction are strikes against a presentation that looks more correct on the Archive Edition laserdisc.
This weekend I finished converting my 1998 Masterpiece LD to DVD in anamorphic widescreen with Premiere Pro (and zoomed out to just fit within the "safe area" limit without showing any black edges) and Encore with 2 audio tracks (the Dolby Stereo mix and mono music tracks), and while it's a bit soft and slightly off in color, it still looks darn good on a 30" 16x9 TV, and offers the most picture area than any regular version.
I think if this title shows up in a rental outlet, I'll check it out. But I'm starting to have doubts on parting with the money for a skewed presentation on a studio release.
All this hand-wringing. The film looks and sounds fine. You have several mixes of the soundtrack to choose from. In the end, to see this film properly one needs to see it in a movie theatre on a large screen with a crowd of people enjoying the film. Anything else, is to mind, a compromise. Angst run rampant I'm afraid. :frowning:
I got the disc today. the picture is very good. thank god, disney also included the original mix because the new mix is even fouler than David Boulet could convey. bTW- the extras are great !!
Well, I was just able to spend some time with the Mary Poppins disc tonight. First of all, it's the first time Disney really put some effort into any special features on this movie, the laserdisc had a few, but this was great, I really like them. The premiere night special was so nostalgic, and the extra cartoon with Julie jumping into the picture was also very nostalgic, though I wish she had her Poppins costume on. The Sherman/Van-Dyke/Andrews reunion was fun, and all the trailers are great to finally have. Did you notice on some of the special features they used the music-only tracks? That's the only missing thing I wish would have been included as an extra. I have not yet watched the documentary on the Making of the film but scanned it a bit and it looks very good. Finally some info on the making of this movie!
As for the quality, much much better than any previous edition. I was impressed with the picture, to an extent. While it's not negative quality (to me anyway) it's the best we have had. Some scenes still look fuzzy, especially in the animated sequence around the faces. The home theatre sound mix is absolutely awful. It sounds like they played the soundtrack in a big hall over 2 cheap speakers and recorded it with mikes, and left the echo in. I don't understand why they did this, as the theatre mix on Lion King isn't bad at all, I prefer it. The original theatrical mix is the best. This is not the same mix as was on the previous dvd. The horns seem cleaner as is the bass. It's the best soundtrack on the disc, too bad that they didn't divide it into l/c/r instead of leaving it dolby surround.
All-in-all, I am happy. I would have been really p.o.'d had they not included the original sound mix. As for the picture stats, that black bar on the right does seem strange. Good job on the extras, Disney, finally a special edition of this movie. As for the film presentation, sad to see you took out the Buena Vista logo, which you actually use in the special features showing how the film actually started. If you felt that nostalgic about it, you should have left it in the film.
Did anyone notice in a few of the trailers that the picture looks better than the film?
Glad you guys also agree. Yes, a real shame that we get a 2.0 mix-down of this discrete multi-channel original mix. a 5.1 or 5.1 configuration would have allowed for a perfect L/C/R encoding and it's exactly what the PAL market will be getting on *their* Mary Poppins Disc. I'll be curious to see if the NTSC-encoded Japanese version has the full 5.1 for the 'original' mix as well. That may end up being the disc to get if it's R0 as they sometimes are.
One more thing:
Aspect Ratio Mystery partially solved:
I've recently learned that the film elements for Mary Poppins were hard-composed at 1.66:1 to allow for projection from 1.66:1 to 1.85:1...similar to many of Disney's animated features today. Under advisement, it seems that the movie mastering folks opted for the 1.66:1 "original" aspect ratio...which would have been a good thing had they struck a new film-tape transfer utilizing the entire 1.66:1 film frame. But apparently it seems that they utilized an existing film-tape transfer to save cost and (misguidedly) in an effort to "fake" the original framing just cropped the image down to make the numbers match the 1.66:1 aspect ratio....resulting in a 1.66:1 image that's more-or-less cropped rather than a 1.66:1 image that's opened-up more picture information.
If any of you have more detailed information on what's happened with the image framing please let us/me know!
Kudos... that is simply one of the finest DVD reviews I've ever had the pleasure of reading. Well done!!!!
The new foley effects disturb me. I actually didn't TERRIBLY mind the new foley-fx/mix on Superman (blasphemy, I know), nor the DEHTs from Lion King or Alladin, but based on the various comments here, this just sounds terrible. I think we'll be enjoying "option 3".
I've already purchased a copy, but it's a Christmas gift for my wife...so I hafta wait to watch! Damn!
Diappointing to hear about Disney screwing the pooch on their "enhanced" mix. But at least the mix from the first DVD (which I thought sounded fine) is on there.
Well...sortof. the previous DVD offered the "original" mix in 5.1. Here we get a low-bit-rate 2.0 DD matrixed version rather than the higher-bit-rate 5.1 discrete...
That's only for R1 viewers however...overseas you get the real 5.1 *original* mix...
I have to disagree, if you listen to the theatrical mix closely on the old dvd and the new one, the new one sounds cleaner. It still should have been 5.1, they already had a good mix! The horns during the overture are definately richer sounding, that's of course my opinion. Maybe it was processing of the transfer. It also seems to me the orchestra sounds just "cleaner." I spent the last hour scanning the film with the Home Theatre mix on, and I sat there wondering just who in their right minds would take music masters and make them sound like that? They did things like this in the days of record albums, mixed the masters to sound awful (supposedly better for lp sound- NOT). But to do this today to such a quality music track is really sad, they actually took something beautiful and made it awful. The voices singing Chim Chim sound so much better on the theatrical. One spot where I was a bit impressed with the HTmix is Supercaligragilistic....it sounds pretty nice, but one also has to realize that the bass is really blown up and the proportions of the instruments have been fiddled with to much. The other scene, Step in Time, with the rockets, is quite the experience. Too bad you get one good thing on one, and a bad thing on the other soundtrack. And way too bad that the Japanese version gets the 5.1 theatrical mix. That's really sad, for Americans anyway.
The low-end eq for the new "Disney Enhanced Home Theater Mix" is horribly wonky. I also cannot figure out who would listen to this side by side with the original mix and think that they actually improved anything. I haven't A/B'd it with the previous release's 5.1 mix, but the 2.0 original mix sounds very good to my ears. When I do get around to it, I only have the original DVD release from around 1998. Did they use the same 5.1 mix for the intermediate release a few years later?
I'll take it a step further. The "original theatrical" mix sounded bad to my ears as well. So much so that I really wonder how "original" that audio really is.
I was checking out the "enhanced 5.1" mix to see what all the fuss was about and I went back and forth between the different audio options and was disappointed in the "original theatrical mix" as well. I'll be more specific - if you go to "step in time" approximately 1:47:55 into the DVD, the dancers on the outer walls jump down to the main flat roof singing the words "step in time." Well, others are correct, on the enhanced mix these words from the chorus sound like they were recorded through the reverb off of a tin gutter. The additional problem is ... the "original theatrical" mix has that same awful sound! and the English Enhanced Mix does not have this same problem (it might have others). So, how does that happen?
I do not have any other digital versions to check against only my VHS copy (which doesn't have the same problem). I played the new DVD on my computer with its truly mediocre speakers and the impact of the problem was significantly less apparent. So, (as one would suspect) the better your HT audio,the more likely you;ll be quite disappointed in the audio. Although, I enjoyed some of the French mix.
But, this audio was THX Certified Optimally created video and audio ... so I have that going for me .... which is nice.
All who posted here are correct. The new mix is, in the words of Mary P, "dreadful".
The supplements are exciting ("practically perfect in every way"). But the transfer of the film itself? Odd color("a little more light perhaps"), Odd framing ("the reference here is very obscure"), odd formating of the menus ("It is rather like a bear pit, isn't it?")
Still, they could not kill one of my favorite movies...i still enjoyed it.
I watched it last night, and I have to agree with everyone else that the new audio track seems muted compared to the other releases. During the scene of Spoonful of Sugar, the noise of Mary and the children snapping their fingers sounds different. It sounds like the orchestra was trying to combine the finger snapping with some of the instruments. Even though I do not like this new track, I do find the video has a richer quality than ever before.
The only real complaint about the the new 5.1 mix is that it takes up valuable real estate on the DVD. Without this abomination more bits could have been used to get an even better picture. It's not really possible to complain to loudly about the enhanced mix since Disney did the decent thing and included the original mix on the disc. How did that slip through the cracks? If only it were possible to get the original mixes to Thunderball, The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, Jaws, Superman - The Movie and Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. Because they included the original mix I can actually watch Mary Poppins. Some of the titles I listed above are unwatchable for me on DVD.