Actually, the Limited DVD went on moratorium forty days after it was released or something, so it will have been just under seven years once the new edition comes out.
Why restore a film from the late 80's? The archival IP hasn't faded much if any, and the Original SE will never fade. All this is a digital clean-up...which is nice, but it's not a restoration.
The last time I seen Little Mermaid DVD available in stores was when Snow White was released. It was a give away at Disney stores or by mail for purchasing.
Was this film shot in successive exposure? I imagine they stopped that with the end of Technicolor's dye-transfer printing line in 1974 (which means the last Disney animated feature to be printed this way would be Robin Hood, plus the featurette Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too).
This movie was and will remain my favorite Disney hand-animated film. It was the film that introduced me to Disney's canon of animated films... and I still love the film. I can't wait to see it fully restored and all the extras it deserves.
BTW ZackR, I think Disney has given The Little Mermaid the same restoration technique in order to prepare the film for an IMAX release (but the IMAX release was scrapped), like they did with The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin. Besides, with multiple viewings of The Little Mermaid, you can very briefly glimpse unfinished or hurried animation cels.
If Disney just fixed that problem, I wouldn't have a problem with it. Someone did a comparison between the VHS tape and the 2004 Platinum DVD release of Aladdin and didn't notice any difference in backgrounds and characters, in terms of having the animators redraw characters and backgrounds in order to 'enhance' the movie for DVD release.
I hope they re-do The Hunchback of Notre Dame from the digital CAPS files soon. The DVD release they did was HORRID (and from a grainy film print, not direct to digital), and the DTS LD smokes the DTS track on the DVD (there's a lot of good LFE bass and this DVD seems to have had it stripped out)!!!
Of course I'll buy The Little Mermaid, but I'm going to be silently grumbling that I'll be wasting my money as it will be out on Blu-Ray at some point.
Well, if it takes another 10 years to get onto Blu-ray, you might not end up grumbling too much!
With these high-profile titles that are just getting "showcased" on DVD in proper form after all these years, Disney might very well let them go into their usual 7-year moritorum before they re-surface on Blu-ray.
Hopefully not! But in any case, you can sell your DVD at that point to someone who's not interested in upgrading to HD.
does anyone have a photo of sherri stoner? I have no idea what she looks like. she was the body model for Ariel and worked as a writer or on Tiny Toons.