Im now confident that at some point the majority will follow.
Where its good, its amazing, but its not perfect throughout.
The lack of involvement with her is quite striking.
Its much more about the Good Fairies, and their attempts to keep the nasty Maleficent in check.
Another strong aspect toSleeping Beautyis the storytelling, which is simple but direct.
Its one that Ive seen pre-school children become entirely engrossed in within minutes of it starting.
Continuity causes them to borrow somewhat from other Disney productions.
Theres also more than a hint of rotoscoping in a movement of the prince at times, anotherSnow Whiteelement.
Each character has their exacting colour motifs based on complimentary chromatic set.
The colours are great, and inherently form part of the iconic symbolism of the piece.
The way that colour is also manipulated to express the enchantment of the castle occupants is also highly impressive.
Colour use was never as clever at Disney as it was here again.
They also have variable thickness, as if added with a brush, not a pen.
In contrast,Jungle Bookwas entirely cell-xeroxed, for a radically different and less opulent feel.
The answer to that is absolutely!
The Platinum 50th Anniversary edition comes with 2 Blu-ray discs, and a DVD.
The movie occupies most of one Blu-ray, with the second disc handling the overflow of extras.
So whats the extra DVD for?
The first disc has the movie, which is something special at almost every possible level.
Technically it was shot in Super-Technorama 70mm, which is 2.55:1 the widest widescreen ever!
Thats exactly how its presented, not cropped, as intended.
This disc also has some lightweight extras, mostly the sort of thing that kids will love.
There is a trailer on here for some abysmal direct-to-bargain-bin garbage calledSpace Buddies, about dogs flying a spaceship!
What are your marketing people smoking, Disney?
Disc 2 is thankfully dog and Disney Channel promo free, containing a very nice selection of extras.
At the top level menu these are divided into adult interest and more child friendly content.
Games & Activities is where the kids will have fun while Backstage Disney has more cerebral content.
Theyre not amazing, but when youre five you might enjoy them.
The more adult content has some unusual stuff, most of which I wasnt expecting.
They build on this with a 10 minute documentary about the attraction, and what ultimately happened to it.
There is also an alternative start presented as a storyboard, and three deleted songs.
Final thoughtsThe term reference disc is massively overused, so Im not going to brand this with that description.
TheSleeping BeautyBlu-ray goes beyond what Id expect from even a reference title, its that special.
The bar might have been set just too high!
Movie:
Disneys Sleeping Beauty isout on Blu-ray now.
Rating:
3 out of 5
