Blu-ray Review The Aristocats: Special Edition Blu-ray Review (1 Viewer)

[Martino]

The "Xerox style" is an integral part of the movie, and "cleaning up" the animation would be vandalism on a par with DNRing all of the grain and detail out of (say) Casablanca.

I'm not saying they should go in and clean it up, and I agree that would be vandalism. It should be presented the way it was made - I just find the way it was made to look sloppy and be distracting...

 

[MatthewA]

". Suffice to say, I have had a very dim view of Media Studies tutors ever since.

Oob Earwax?

I have seen the film in a Technicolor print (the same copyright deposit print Disney gave the Library of Congress; saw it in Washington, DC when the LoC had screenings at the Mary Pickford Theater), and after watching the film last night, I was pretty satisfied with how it looked. Plus, they finally restored the Buena Vista logo, which has never been in any video version. I found it pretty enjoyable, though derivative. The appeal to me is not so much as a story, which is probably the least interesting part of the film, but as a lightweight romantic comedy, much like the kind Hollywood was making all the time in the early-to-mid-1960s. And the songs and character personalities are delightful, though I think the film might have had more emotional pull had it included "She Never Felt Alone" in its entirety.

With the virtual demise of 2-D animation, I've grown fond of the storybook-like qualities of the Xerographic process in the 1960s/1970s films. I'm glad Disney didn't try to go back and fix the clean-up errors; I think they kind of add to the film's charms.

 

[Powell&Pressburger]

Very cool that this is the first time The Aristocats has been released with the Buena Vista logo.

It would have been nice to include the Full Frame version along with the WS version on the same disc. Maybe on the next release.

 

[Mark-P]

1.66:1? Didn't expect that. I guess they are going for a compromise between the academy aperture of the ONEG (1.37:1) and the theatrical aspect ratio (1.75:1). I can live with that. What is the date of the files on the DVD? If it's 2008 then the included DVD would just be a repressing of the last DVD release which would explain the 1.75:1 aspect ratio.

Now that I actually have the discs, I'll answer my own question. The DVD included in the combo pack is not a repressing. The files are from 2012, however for some odd reason in creating this new DVD they used the old transfer which is why the aspect ratio is different. The DVD has all the original film grain intact while the Blu-ray is completely grain-free. It's very odd that they didn't use the new transfer for the DVD on The Aristocats, but did use the new transfers on the DVDs for The Rescuers, The Rescuers Down Under, and Pocahontas.