Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: Diamond Edition

[narkspud]

A note regarding the "insert disc 2" thing. The real value of this only becomes apparently when you actually change the discs. It serves two purposes:

(1) When you insert the other disc, it goes straight to the feature you selected, without having to muck around with all the loading time and warnings and such.

(2) The mirror actually talks to you *while the disc is out of the machine.* Now that's disconcerting, especially if you aren't expecting it.

These things might require BD-Live or in-the-player memory. I don't know much about the technicals, only that it works on my player.

[Deco King]

Here is a message for UK Snow White fans : Catch Up TV on Demand users ( look for 4 on Demand ) will find last Wednesdays Paul O Grady Show ( Episode 83 I think ) had none other but Snow White animation model Marge Champion as a guest - she looks marvellous and is very lucid a very charming lady and she discusses Snow White with Paul. Well worth catching up with do it soon as it's only available for seven days after broadcast!!

[EricJ]

Mirror Mirror On The Wall puts some emphasis on Tiana, asking us if her film’s Down In New Orleans is a favorite song (I might know if we’d seen the actual movie yet!), but this is really just a Disney Princess activity, and a slow one at that.

Yeah, there's a LOT of attempt on the disk to push Tiana next to Snow for photo-ops, in Disney's continuing last-minute quest to convince us that P&tF is a "princess" movie, and not a grungy-Cajun-firefly movie.
Normally I wouldn't mind, except that when the list of Princesses squeezes out Jasmine for space, that's where us guy Disney fans take exception.

(The option for Tiana on "What do you want to do" is "Open a new restaurant", which, well, is one more thing we know about the mysterious new plot.)

[Ben]

You actually made me laugh there Eric...twice!

[Aaron_03]

My copy just arrived in the mail today. I thought it would never come. I decided to get original Blu-Ray release, which I don't regret.

I'll be watching it on Thursday, and I'll tell you what I think.

Once again, I watch my Blu-ray on a 480si. So, I want be able to see the huge difference that I want. Can't wait to buy that 1080p HDTV LCD Television.

[Ben]

Well, I gotta say that even watching the standard def DVD is a noticeable improvement over the last disc. Obviously you're not getting the full HD experience, but the restoration of the movie should be enough to knock your socks off.

[Deco King]

Ben , which copy did you end up buying? I bought the US copy of the Blu Ray with the small book. I was very pleased with the contents of the book , but much prefer the cover of the book with the deluxe collectors edition! Apart from the cover are there differences between contents of the two book editions?

[Ben]

We'll be posting a feature on all the different editions of Snow White, in time for the November 24 release of the regular DVD. That's all I can say for now, but the piece will attempt to clear up the differences between the editions, what's in what, and how they look.

[Dusterian]

Then I'll finally know what I missed out on!

Also Cinderella has more cinematic abstract mind/dream/own world efforts so, why the others that don't have that get the very same score is a question.

[GeorgeC]

Ben , which copy did you end up buying? I bought the US copy of the Blu Ray with the small book. I was very pleased with the contents of the book , but much prefer the cover of the book with the deluxe collectors edition! Apart from the cover are there differences between contents of the two book editions?

I think Ben already said he ended up picking up the barebones (3-disc) Blu ray edition (blue jacket) of Snow White.

I got the Blu ray "book edition" which has the same discs but ironically the exact same grey jacket art as the 2-disc "DVD + Blu ray" edition!

I honestly felt in this case that the DVD+Blu had the better jacket art -- at least it featured Snow White as the center attraction rather than the Witch/Queen like the Blu ray did.

Any way, you buy this film for the movie NOT the extras which are lacking. When they cut out one of the bits of deleted animation for this film you know something's wrong!

[Deco King]

Yes , I know that the reason for buying Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs on Blu Ray is for the movie which I'm really looking forward to seeing , thus far I've only seen the DVD from the American set as my Blu Ray player does not play US discs! However I really am [expletive deleted] regarding The Wich At The Cauldron being excised from the new Blu Ray , it's outrageous when we have the Tiffany Thornton cover version of Someday , but they miss out a genuinely important chacter defining sequence such as this one! Discraceful!!

[Ben]

Watch the language, Deco.

I also took out another minor word which would have normally passed, but given the clear anger in your post, it seemed appropriate to remove it. That you started misspelling words towards the end of your post indicates how upset you are with this, but there are other ways to express this.

The supplements in the package are unfortunate, yes, but this is only Disney marketing, and <I>all</I> their current reissues have been dropping important supplements from previous releases. As I say, they need a reason for people to buy them again on the next go around...one of the things I've worried about with Blu-ray is that if they put out the <I>perfect</I> edition in terms of image, sound and extras first time, then what's left to entice us next time?

Well, the answer is clear: while many films basically get one shot, perennials like Snow White and many of the Disneys, will always be prone to holding things back, or creating new documentaries and the like, to get us to add the next edition and the new edition after that. Unfortunately it's the way it goes. With BD's stunning quality, I can't see the films getting any more sharper, except for <I>maybe</I> when we jump to 4K or 8K, and that's still a long way off, so the only way to get us to buy what we already have is better extras.

And with the Snow White BD, that won't exactly be hard. While the added shorts in HD were very welcome, there was much left out (apart from the 20 seconds of the Cauldron scene, I actually missed the several other reconstructed scenes more), but these will probably be back in future editions.

But...basically, it's not like we don't have our LDs or DVDs with this material on it to view anyway, and it could well be that the Cauldron scene especially could not be mastered for HD for whatever reason at this time. But, with its inclusion likely in the next edition (probably for the 80th in 2017) then they already know that's at least one copy they've already sold to you.

[Rodney]

I have spent the day going over the bonus features on my new BD of Snow White. while I appreciate the museum quality structure of the Hyperion Studios feature, I'm frustrated by how long it takes you to get where you left off. Unless you're doing this all at once, it could take almost ten minutes before you get to the room you were in last. For example, I want to get to the Sweatbox, and it's taking me ten minutes to get there from the moment the disc is turned on until I finally get to the screen I want. I wish they had created a quicker way to get to where you want to go. Am I missing something? Is there an easier way? Is anyone else annoyed by some of this? The segments are great, but I'm a little frustrated is all.

[Ben]

Hey Rodney!

But while there is a ton of material to go through here, it can also come over as being a fairly fractured an experience, relying more on newly filmed interviews and retrospectives rather than allowing us to view original archival or promotional footage, and the removal of a linear narrative means a lack of chronology and, sometimes, appropriate context (an index, listing all the content, proves to be more than useful).

Without putting Disc 2 back in to check, from memory you get to the Hyperion front lawn image (you can skip Andrew Stanton) and then play around with the keys...I think pressing "down" brings up the Index option. This will display a "site map" bunch of pages that let you go directly to each room, video clip and the shorts.

[Randall]

That's one thing I still like about LaserDiscs. They're just so straightforward, one chapter of bonus material after another. Linear is sometimes a good thing.