The Fox and the Hound 25th Anniversary Coming - OAR? (1 Viewer)

[Robert Ringwald]

According to Davisdvd.com the set will be arriving this October. The DVD is set to be FULL-SCREEN.

From the reports I've read, the previous release was a MAR 1.33:1 DVD and there was hope that a future release would do the film justice with a widescreen transfer.

According to this website, it is supposed to be widescreen... why would Disney release almost all of their other animated movies OAR except this one on TWO different releases?


http://www.ultimatedisney.com/oar.htm


http://davisdvd.com/news/animation.html

 

[Jack Theakston]

No idea, but there's no reason, unless the film was made for TV, that a 1981 film (animated or not) would be meant to be seen full-frame.

 

[Jack Theakston]

double post

 

[Jack Theakston]

double post

 

[MarcoBiscotti]

Good news, it's one of the only Disney features of past that is not a part of my collection as I will never support MAR releases.

Hopefully this one provides the needed imporvement.

 

[Robert Ringwald]

Sorry, re-reading my post I realize now that I made the mistake of leaving off the POINT of my post.

Marco, this upcoming release is supposed to be Full-Screen as well... :frowning:

 

[Christian Preischl]

Bit of a puzzler, that one. I can't believe I'm saying it, but I'm inclined to give Disney the benefit of the doubt here since they're actually pretty good with the aspect ratios of their own animated releases, particularly on Special Editions.

 

[David Norman]

But from the next paragraph to add more confusion. I thought I had remembered that site claiming that F&H might be the exception to the rule one way of the other, but nobody knows for sure yet:

 

[Mike Frezon]

So I'm reading this thread wishing Ernest Rister was still around...and then I'm thinking that we've had this discussion a few times in the past:

Discussion #1

Discussion #2

Sadly, Ernest did not participate...but there is a lot of info there.

 

[Christian Preischl]

Hmm, reading David's quote above (damn, should have read the page to the end) and going through the threads Mike linked to I gotta say it doesn't sound good. :frowning: I've got to check my 4:3 VHS these days and see if I notice any obvious cropping myself. If there's still any doubt as to what the correct AR is by the time the DVD is released (and it looks like there will be), I'll pass.

 

[Stephanie B]

i wanna buy this movie but i refuse to buy it until they release it in its oar

 

[MatthewA]

And look at the so-called "extras" as listed on ultimatedisney.com. If I got this for my 25th anniversary I'd get a divorce.

If the fact that the Bluth walkout occurred during this film's production, and the fact that many key animators in Disney's animation "renaissance" cut their teeth on this film doesn't warrant more in-depth extras, then I don't know what to say.

 

[ChrisBEA]

If I remember correctly, Tim Burton was one of those young animators...

 

[RomanSohor]

Glen Keane's first big assignment was animating the bear in this one

 

[Keith Paynter]

I think it was Don Bluth's last Disney project before he defected...

 

[Lars Vermundsberget]

Unless we get documentation to the contrary, I'll agree with you. For a handful of titles, including F&H in particular, I tend to think that the question of "OAR" is somewhat irrelevant. If the release is "full frame", I suppose what we get is the full image, that may or may not have been matted to 1.75 or whatever in theaters at the time.

 

[narkspud]

This bit shakes my faith in that whole discussion on that website. I thought it was common knowledge that "Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day" was widescreen. The VHS editions of the original shorts even chopped off a big chunk of the titles.

At this point, I wouldn't believe any Disney statement about aspect ratios even if they swore they were lying. The most plausible explanation to me is that they didn't feel like remastering "The Fox and the Hound", because they had a perfectly good 80's era P&S 1" tape that still played.

 

[Stephanie B]

i agree with narkspud

why does disney insist on chopping thier movies all to pieces

 

[MatthewA]

I don't know what Disney's official policy is today on the OARs of 1960s and 1970s animation (anything after Sleeping Beauty and before The Black Cauldron, which were both shot in Technirama), but I can tell you that last year, when the Library of Congress's Mary Pickford Theater in Washington, D.C. screened a dye-transfer Technicolor copyright deposit print of "The Aristocats", the projectionist cropped it (badly) to about 2:1, and when I asked them, they insisted that the print was hard matted widescreen.

For this film, all I can say that it while the successive exposure negative may have been Academy Ratio, it is not likely to have been projected that way at any time. Witness the fact that "The Rescuers" is on DVD at 1.66:1

One of next year's platinums is "The Jungle Book," so we'll at least settle the OAR issue on that one...maybe.

Live action films of this period are another OAR debate altogether in and of itself.

 

[Carlo_M]

Oh boy, thank goodness I bothered to search HTF for this title before plunking down $18 on Tuesday.

While I know IMDB is hardly infallible, for F&tH they do say specifically:
1.66:1 (negative ratio)
1.75:1 (intended ratio)

That's a lot more specificity than is usually in their listings for tech specs of a given film.