Official HTF "Peter Pan - Platinum Edition" review? (1 Viewer)

[Stephen Brooks]

As sensitive as Disney is about racism in Song of the South, I'm surprised this new release of Peter Pan doesn't include a new, correct, PC-for-2007 song "What Makes the Native American Native?".

 

[ScottR]

Shhh, don't tell them.

 

[Patrick McCart]

It's still too saturated. Wendy's lips shouldn't stand out like a neon sign (or like Tinkerbell's glow). I watched the entire film and it looked natural. After seeing that featurete, the clips from the old versions often look too bright. There's some shots inside the nursery that make it seem like the lamps are on, while the 2007 shows that it's still dark. Wendy's lips glow almost as much as Tinkerbell. Skin tones look way too hot. I don't think Michael's pajamas are supposed to be bright pink, either. The cropping is really shocking, too. If they didn't get the framing right, I don't see why the color would be reference, either.

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[Chuck Pennington]

My CAV 1990 Laserdisc doesn't look like the image you posted. My new player arrives tomorrow, and I'll post the same frame from my Laserdisc then to compare.

I'm also not saying that the Laserdisc is the optimal way to view this film, but I would think people would see it and the clips available elsewhere before that transfer (in TV specials, parts of trailers, etc.) and see that these "restorations" we're getting (1998, 2002, and now 2007) are not exactly what we're led to believe.

Sometimes I think the trailers show the films looking more like they are supposed to than any of the feature presentations. The 1940 and 1984 trailers for PINOCCHIO from the 1993 Laserdisc set look better than the restored version of the feature film!

 

[Daryl L]

Well I got my DVD today. I'm using a Sony KDL-V32XBR2 LCD HDTV and a Toshiba RDXS52 DVR (output set at 480p just to deinterlace letting the TV scale natively) connected using a HDMI cable. I use 3 sources to calibrate my tv's contrast/brightness/color/tint/sharpness with a Blue Filter, the HD SMPTE Color Bars test pattern off HBOHD, DVE and GetGray's calibration DVD's.

I fastforwarded to each scene that had a screencap on this thread and the colors and brightness levels look much better on my tv than any of the screencaps on here and actually the brightness level on my tv is closer to the brightness level on the 1991 LD's screencaps than on the 1998/2002 DVD screencaps. I also noticed the RKO logo and Peter Pan title screencaps on this thread have a noticable greenish tint that my tv doesn't exhibit (but all that difference could be due to my laptop screen). I'm very happy with what I'm seeing on this dvd release (aside from the ecessive Pastel usage).

 

[baracine]

I'm a new member here and am not yet allowed to post URLs but I posted this about the official state of the debate on another forum (dvdtalk.com - DVD Talk):

 

[baracine]

The Technicolor process reproduces all colours of the spectrum with a negative that incorporates cyan, magenta and yellow elements, cyan for red, magenta for green, and yellow for blue in the positive. Disney's digital technicians have found a way to increase the yellow and reduce the blue and the green in the positive image without increasing the red (which would give a "magentized" image typical of Technicolor films that have lost their yellow negative layer). This couldn't have been done with traditional chemical processes and they seem to be very proud of their discovery because it gives effects that have never been seen before and look "new", "different" and "warmly luminous" compared to traditional Technicolor. Whatever you call it, it's still colour revisionism and not the film as it was filmed... But all the reviewers have been fooled so far into thinking there was no manipulation and that this is perfectly fine.

I can only hope that the original chemical restoration of the film hasn't been trashed and that it will still be available for future generations when this current "goldification" lunacy ends...

In the new version, the jungle scenes lack green, the Darling nursery wallpaper is a mushy brown (instead of red with a blue ribbon), Hook's harpsichord is solid gold, Peter's tunic is almost goldenrod and Mermaid Lagoon has taken on a rather obscene pink colour complete with blond tendrils...

Despite its colour flaws, the new PE has great sound:

The whole soundtrack (dialog, singing voices, orchestra, sound effects) has been completely rethought, refurbished and rechannelled creatively for 5.1 (in French and Spanish too). There is a lot of work evident also in the original mono track. But in the Enhanced home theatre mix (the word "enhanced" appears three times on the cover), very interesting things happen. The dialog is mostly in the center speaker but the music comes regularly through the other four speakers. At some points, individual instuments are made to come through all the surround speakers (like the harp, when Peter appears on the rooftop, instead of the flute, like you might guess). The sound of instruments and voices has been given more resonance. It is less harsh, dry or abrupt. The children voices are almost bearable in this version. There is nothing grating in the brass or in any other part of the orchestra. Everything sounds modern, natural and free-flowing. Of course, the sound effects have been amplified with bass and the mix makes good use of directional effects (Tinker Bell's glockenspiel and céleste, the crocodile's ticking clock, Peter's ghostly voice in Skull Rock). The whole film becomes a symphony where the music takes center stage without overshadowing the character voices, which are now disentangled from the surrounding music. This is another element that adds to the dream-like quality of the whole and one that I like very much. By comparison, the 5.1 mix of the SE and the 4.0 mix of the LE was only fat, untreated mono with lots of harshness in the loud passages and instability in the soft ones.

 

[Daryl L]

I'm not going to deny that colors have been altered in this new release. To me it's most apparent in clothing. Wendy and Mrs Darlings dress, the pirates shirts and Pan's clothes colors looks softened and watered down from what I think they should be (I think their called Pastels). Back then Disney used bolder, more vibrant colors in the foreround objects leaving the softer/lighter colors (pastels) for distant non-focused objects/areas. Now-a-days Disney uses softer/lighter colors (pastels "Ugh") for most of their artwork and it looks like they tried to make Peter Pan PE match up to more recent animation coloring and I think this was an intentional decision. I for one am not a fan of this more recent watered down colors look. Give me the bold, vibrant colors of the past Mickey, Donald, Goofy toons. Like Peter Pan supposedly originaly looked like. I felt the same way about the softer colors used when "Return to Neverland" came out and commented similar remarks about it then on this forum. I wonder if they had a color register to reference to.

As for the 5.1 mix. While watching the dvd lastnight I kept thinking they did a really good job creating this mix.

 

[MatthewA]

The best way to recreate the way the film originally looked is by using the Technicolor timing cards from the original release as a guide. An IB Tech print may look nice and will never fade but there is no guarantee it is accurately timed.

 

[baracine]

I'm sure all those precautions were taken when the chemical restoration of the film was made. The present transfer was colour-corrected entirely in the digital domain and bears no relation whatsoever to what a fine-quality Technicolor print is supposed to look like. The bias of the latest transfer seems to have been to get as far away as possible from the too-blue slant of Technicolor films into a gentler, kinder, wishy-washy, earth-toned palette.

 

[Dick]

Well, for better or worse, I now own this 2-DVD set. I am disappointed. The image is soft, and there is STILL no theatrical trailer. I am a big fan of trailers, and it isn't as if Disney no longer had it in their archives to include here... they kept EVERYTHING. What huge effort would it have required to add the trailer to this set? Plus, this movie simply isn't sharp. The previous release was better in that regard.

 

[baracine]

Well, to be fair, the skin tones in the "Your Mother and Mine" scene have been corrected to look less chalky.

But they should have changed the lyrics of "What Makes the Red Man Red?" to "What Makes the Red Man Pink?"

With the defoliation evident in the jungle scenes, maybe they should have called this edition the "Global Warming Edition"...


(PE on the left; SE on the right.)

 

[baracine]

Another digital-realm manipulation of the original picture I noticed...

In the flying off to Neverland scene, just after the camera starts panning up from Peter Pan to the London streets below, on to the Thames River and the Channel and to Neverland in the sky, there always used to be a shimmering effect in the city lights below, whether from improper evening out of the cellophane layer, trouble with the multiplane camera or a fault in the film stock, I don't know.

Well, this shimmering effect has now been removed from the new version. I don't know whether to call this revisionism or just a bit of repair to an old film...

 

[Mike Frezon]

Benoit: I am finding your posts very interesting/helpful.

When you say PE...are you referring to the "previous edition" DVD? You used it in both posts #47 & #52. But, in #47, you refer to the "new PE"...so I am confused...which is a common state for me!

Thanks for your insights.

 

[baracine]

PE is Platinum Edition - the one that just came out. SE is Special Edition (2002) and LE usually refers to the 1999 Limited Issue.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Sorry to have misunderstood. I should know better.

Now, though, I have straight in my head that the captures in post #52 are 2007 (left) and 2002 (right). That seems disheartening in terms of color. I have my copy of the new release and am going to have to give it my full attention soon.

Thanks again.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

All,

I took great care to compare the 2002 image along side the 2007 when I did my review. TRUST ME, on a high-resolution display, when viewed *wide angle* (1.5 screen-widths away), the new version is absolutely, undeniably BETTER.

The 2002 DVD is over-sharpened with edge-ringing which makes the image look sharper on a small display that hides the edge-halos. But on a large high-resolution screen, the edge-halos are pretty obvious and the image looks like "video".

The softness in the new image is natural because no artificial/electronic edge-sharpning has been added. We'll have to go to 1080p to get more detail without edge-halos.


Patrick is absolutely correct. DVNR was a big problem on that 2002 DVD. had never noticed it until I got my projector.



BTW, regarding color of the new release, Lowry really takes care when they do their color research. They dig the original artwork out of the vault and do their color-corrections to exactly match the original painted cells and backgrounds. You can trust the new DVD as the reference. Ignore the oversaturated hues on the earlier NTSC LD. They were pumped up like virtually all of those Disney laserdiscs.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

I think that was actually due to poor digital/electronic capture of the film detail in those former home-video versions. It resembled aliasing and the same "shimmer" could be seen applied to things that definitely should not shimmer like the edge of the curtain in the window and the wooden window pane frames as the camera zoomed in. Shimmer like that is also a very common result of bad DVNR... though I understand how in the case of the city lights it could be artistically pleasing even if an artifact of processing. I'll place my bet that the new image looks more faithful to the original film print in terms of the lack of "shimmer" in these scenes.

 

[baracine]

I'm afraid I must question that. It is becoming more and more evident to me that all the colours of the original Technicolor print have been digitally shifted to the yellow end of the spectrum and that this was done as a radical gesture to make the film look "modern", "contemporary" and "fashionable" and to distance it as much as possible from the glistening and vivid animation of the Technicolor era, which must now be considered "old-fashioned" in some animation circles.

With this much gold and yellow in the picture, lamplight looks much warmer and the film takes on the look of a live film like the recent live version of Peter Pan, for instance. Everything else follows: Big, yellow patches in the middle of Neverland, a Mermaid Lagoon that looks like a close-up of female reproductive organs with blonde pubic hair, toned-down, politically-correct pinkish Indians, Mr. Smee dressed in baby blue, zebra-skin cushions that have gone from bluish-black to middle brown, a goldenrod-tunic Peter Pan in the final confrontation, a yellow-skinned but oh-so-much-brighter Tinker Bell, etc.

With all that, you will forgive me if I say the restorers didn't give a hoot about the original artwork or such subtleties as dye-transfer colour timing samples. They just pushed the bright shiny button that said "More Yellow" on their console and let the chips fall where they may.

 

[Patrick McCart]

The Indians were not PC-ized into pink:

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Three shades of red on the face.

And here's one of Peter with 4 shades of green:

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