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A Few Words About A few words about...™ Pinocchio -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

rich_d

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What I expect is excellence, nothing short. Why should I expect less?

You can Google 'continuous process improvement' for your process-related questions.

I'm a film fan (from the word fanatic). As a fanatic, I comment (or hold comment) as I deem appropriate and in observance of forum rules. I have high expectations and passion for the films that are meaningful to me.

Admittedly it's not a level playing field. Films you loved as a child and as an adult and as an adult watching a film with your own child or grandchild bear more scrutiny than other video releases. Since you are a NYC guy, it's like comparing the scrutiny that a starting pitcher for the New York Yankees gets to that of a starting pitcher for the Kansas City Royals.

Having said that, excellent results of big time, impactful films transferred to video get excellent comments and praise. For example, Dr. No (both in its last DVD release and subsequent Blu-Ray release is NOT being nitpicked here or any other place on the Internet. Instead it has received glowing comments all around the net, including from yours truly. Proof that excellence is rewarded.

Perfection is not expected, excellence is. Both good Quaker values. ;)
 

DaViD Boulet

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I'd consider the Pinocchio excellent though not perfect.

Many other discs have flaws that never get noticed. Disney animated titles are practically scoured with a microscope and reviewed in reverse frame by frame by the adoring fan-base. That doesn't make such critical analysis wrong (far from it, Disney should have done a bit better), but it does mean that we notice problems in Disney titles that would otherwise have slipped under radar of most other releases out there branded as "perfect" by lack of similar scrutiny.
 

ScottR

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I think another reason people get a little upset with mistakes in Disney titles is that they know it will be years and years before a new edition comes out.
 

Bubble

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I don't want to sound rude, but...
... how long more will we have to wait to have Disney cartoons properly restored.

I took the Gold Edition screencap of the Blue-Fairy scene, and started manipulating it... After removing a bit of the red layer, adding a bit to the blue layer and increasing brightness it seemed perfect. You know what I did to do to make it look like on Blu-Ray?
I've had to add an unnatural ammount of blue, then select the whole Blue Fairy area - darken the light arround her, then select the shadow behind Pinocchio, and make it more bright. It is then the colors seemed to match perfectly the BR version. Now, I don't know how these movies are being restored, but this makes me really think hard...

I hate the new restoration, think it could look much better. It looks now totally like a digital movie, and the whole depth and warmth of the hand-drawn animation is gone.
And I think that there is so much talk about it with every Disney release, not because of some people's exageration, but because of a real problem. It is hard for me to hear opinions that maybe it was intended, that eyes in Cinderella look green and not white.

Hope Beauty and The Beast will not look like in emacs when it comes in 2010.
 

Brian Borst

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Well, when they're restored the people who are doing it aren't taking a decade old dvd (and I believe it was even from a laserdisc) as reference. You can't compare the two.
 

Bubble

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1. I am not an expert, but I prefer the old pumped transfer (even though it is a bit aged), as the light looks more natural.
2. I thimk cells and "hand-painted originals" shouldn't be used as a precise reference, (it was written some posts ago), because they appear with different coloring on film, and the authors of drawings knew that.
3. I happened to see something sold as a copy of the original cell for this scene - it is even at some other forum, and it did look brighter and didn't have this much of blue. I don't think after photographing it would do.
 

rich_d

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Understood and your opinion can stand on its own. However, as you said you manipulated screen caps, please post them to demonstrate your points.
 

Bubble

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1. the cell (I don't know about it's authenticy though)
2. the dvd screenshot
3. my favourite.
7 the blu-ray shot.


One more thing - I've heard the people at Disney are keeping their original films in salt so they don't get damaged, and that a film gets damaged most when being projected, and the original negatives haven't been.
 

RobertR

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That's not an original cel (I've seen it discussed elsewhere). It's a reproduction of a cel. It's on Ebay. And the old DVD is certainly no reference (what IS it with people determining Blu Ray quality by comparing it to DVD, anyway??). As David point out, you (and everyone else on here) do not have an objective reference. It's obvious that the ONLY people who do have good reference materials work for Disney.
 

rich_d

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Agreeing that 'sunshine is the best disinfectant', all Disney need do is share with us. Original cel art and negative used as an "objective reference?" No problem. Show us untouched digital images of both and the final result and if the final result appears to accurately represent source materials ... this issue goes away.

I'd love to see how the Indians around the song "What Makes the Red Man Red?" in Peter Pan were meant to be brown. But my guess is that the song is more likely to be changed before that is forthcoming. Disney, you can always prove me wrong.
 

Bubble

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OK, so it is a reproduction of a cell. Why would they change colors on a reproduction of a cell?
And the old dvd still was made by Disney. And I think at the time it came out it was said to be true to the original, too. The colors seems more interesting on it for me, and more realistic.
I would love to see the reference material, because all we have is talk, talk, talk, and I don't think technology in the 40's would make it possible to achieve such an intense blue anyway...

It's like on sleeping beauty. I compare the forest scene. On the old dvd the color of the forest seems to be constant, on the new it changes with every background change (so is the color of Aurora's cloth once). (I am talking about the part where Aurora sings "Once upon a dream".). I think the Sleeping Beauty Blu-Ray still looks incredible, and is a great improvement over the dvd, but there are these little distracting things, that couldn't be there. And this is the most beautifull scene of the movie after all...
In case of Pinocchio it seems to be more than the "little things". It is an older movie, and I don't remember it being so digital.
 

Bubble

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I wrote "would make" and not "did make", which means I understand I can be wrong.
I still can't imagine how this kind of blue could be the result of photographing a cell like the one above, and the warm wood-like brown-orangeness of Gepetto's workshop could be the result of film degradation, and should turn into bright-pastel yellow instead to make the film more accurate and like it's original presentation.
Thank you - that would be all.

I think the creative process that led to the making of such an outstanding animated masterpiece as Pinocchio was so complex, that it is impossible to recreate what happened and was intended at it's time, that is why the less this movie is touched, the better for it. And by extensive grain and scratch removal, or color alteration one only risks removing some beautifull detail of the film.
I also think that the computer graphics, although giving other great possibilities, can't do any good to a work made by people, where the hand could have cared about every point of the draving. I enjoy computer animation, but when it comes to old cartoons, I think altering them changes so much, and simplifies such a rich complexity of the frame, that it is almost like another movie to me.
 

Mike Frezon

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Art, I'm not sure if you don't want me to follow up here, but I'm a bit lost with your assertions.

I understand your sentiment about the new "look" that Disney is giving to its animated classics. That is a debate that has been going on ever since Lowry got it's hands on Sleeping Beauty for its last DVD release (or maybe since any of these films started getting prepared for ANY generation of home video release).

I still don't understand the basis of your belief that such a blue couldn't have existed in the 1940s.

Assuming you have read this entire thread, the subject of true colors has been discussed quite a bit...including this post by the OP, Robert Harris, back on page 2.
 

Bubble

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I know it has been [discussed]. And still I didn't see any final statements. Just some talk that the colors always vary...

It was said in the posts that a dye print can be no reference, if so there is really no reference, because drawing the cells is just the beginning.
In the gold version we see clearly that lots of photographic efects has been added to the cells. The scenes with Pinocchio in a cage are so dark, we almost don't see anything, next the Blue Fairy comes and everything shines beautifully. (And it is a white kind of light).
The best thing that can prove that is for example the efect of water in final scenes - do you believe someone has drawn this and that it's on the cells, I don't.
Other - the continuous transformation of the background color when the blue-fairy disappears. This couldn't have been drawn too, I think.
Every print of the negative looks different - ok, but there are similar things certainly. Like for example the contours looks like they've been drawn, and we see the diferent shades of paint. It's little things, but can't be compared to the digital look of the movie, where the picture just looks plain and boring.
To me with every digital release these movies are becoming worse. The resolution is better, but there are less details and everything looks like plastic.
The gold edition for example didn't look that faded - it didn't look like it should be redrawn definitively, so why change so much, and not let it be.
That is something I won't understand. And if this is done, why can't Disney at least also include the original damaged, dyed, and aged version of the film as a bonus or something, for enthusiasts. This forum has shown that there are some of them - It may even increase the sales of their Blu-Rays...
(I for example did not buy the new Pinocchio, only one of my friends did, and we definitively would with the old version included - like in Blade Runner for example).
 

Bubble

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Oh - about the blue.
Maybe it could have existed, but I don't really think it did.
It would have shown itself on the gold edition, just like the blue of
Pinocchio's tie, or the Blue-Fairy's dress.
 

Bubble

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I don't understand why not releasing the old dyed, faded, scanned originals along with new restored versions, just like with the Blade Runner, and give the viewer an option.
After all - there is so much talk about it.
 

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