Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: Diamond Edition

[Aaron_03]

It says that they''ll be 13 films in the Diamond series.

Beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on October 6, the Diamond Collection comprises an additional 13 of Disney’s most treasured titles, including: Beauty and the Beast; Fantasia and Fantasia 2000; The Lion King; Bambi; Cinderella; Lady and the Tramp; The Little Mermaid; Peter Pan; The Jungle Book; 101 Dalmatians; Sleeping Beauty; and Pinocchio.

[Randall]

Actually, 14 including Snow White.

[Rodney]

At this point although I'm sure I'll upgrade to BD as they come out, I'm mostly looking forward to Fantasia and Fantasia 2000. I have everything else on DVD and can wacht it at any time. I just never got around to buying those two when they came out last time.

[Randall]

The Fantasia Anthology DVD set is AWESOME. But, I'll likely get the Blu-rays too, as those films have such grand visuals, not to mention music.

[Ben]

I committed myself long ago to going Blu on all the Disney's. Well, HD, actually, in whatever format would win out.

Even back as far as the LaserDisc days, it was clear that format would be superseded by another and that eventually we would all go hi-def. That being the case, I held off going to DVD for a few of the Disney Classics, figuring that my HD Disney collection would be the full list.

So I'm good and ready to start going Blu from Snow White to The Princess And The Frog and Rapunzel et al. The only thing is, they've done what they did with the Platinums and gone and retroactively included one title - Pinocchio - that they just put out!

[Randall]

Yes, Disney certainly could have planned their Blu-ray branding strategy better. They've messed up yet again. Not that it matters, but it just looks so sloppy. They should have gone Diamond from the start, preferably beginning with Snow White and then going chronologically.

[EricJ]

So I'm good and ready to start going Blu from Snow White to The Princess And The Frog and Rapunzel et al. The only thing is, they've done what they did with the Platinums and gone and retroactively included one title - Pinocchio - that they just put out!

No, Pinocchio was always included in the then-Platinum list as far back as shortly after the list was created, and when the Limited-upgrade title was pulled off shelves in...'01, was it?

Just that that now put it and the Fantasias at the back of a ten-year line--
Which, considering they sped the release schedule up to two a year because they "weren't sure if a new hi-def format would be in place by the time we got to the end of the list", seems to have worked out as planned.

[Aaron_03]

Yes, Disney certainly could have planned their Blu-ray branding strategy better. They've messed up yet again. Not that it matters, but it just looks so sloppy. They should have gone Diamond from the start, preferably beginning with Snow White and then going chronologically.

6-7 years down the road I'll probably end up re-buying Pinnochio and Sleeping Beauty because it would bother me that I have the Platinum and not the Diamond.

[Randall]

No, Pinocchio was always included in the then-Platinum list as far back as shortly after the list was created, and when the Limited-upgrade title was pulled off shelves in...'01, was it?

No, Pinocchio was not on the original list, which had only ten titles. (You did say that it came as far back as "after" the 2001 list was created, contradicting your statement that it was "always" on the list.) Pinocchio was with the group of four that was added 1.5 years later. Of those, we never did get Fantasia, though it already had a great DVD release anyway. Hard to see how a Diamond Edition will improve on the Anthology box set, as far as special features go. But it just goes to show how meaningless these brandings are.

http://www.ultimatedisney.com/releasetypes.htm

And I think what Ben meant was that Pinocchio (along with Sleeping Beauty) was really a Diamond title, it just didn't know it yet!

[EricJ]

No, Pinocchio was not on the original list, which had only ten titles. (You did say that it came as far back as "after" the 2001 list was created, contradicting your statement that it was "always" on the list.)

(But also correcting Ben's "Hey, they just put it on five minutes ago!")

Pinocchio was with the group of four that was added 1.5 years later. Of those, we never did get Fantasia, though it already had a great DVD release anyway.

AIR, Fantasia/s and the Toy Story/s were the first "real" DVD releases after Disney changed its DVD policies and the Limited Edition guy had gotten the ol' pink-slipperoo...
Meaning, they came out between the brandings, as the concept of Platinums and Golds hadn't even been press-released yet.

Had such a thing existed before the Limiteds had to be rebranded as Golds (and only Pinocchio was one of the few to survive the branding), Fantasia/s would've been on the Platinum list, but--like Sleeping Beauty working out all their Blu-ray kinks before the Diamond Edition label--what's in a retroactive name?

[Ben]

I wasn't talking about Pinocchio being part of the Platinum line, which it never was originally. They added that to the list when the Limited Issue edition sold so many.

Anyway, what I was saying was that they have now introduced the Diamond line. Sleeping Beauty isn't part of that line up, from what I have read, but Pinocchio is. So really they should have started the Diamond line with Pinocchio earlier this year, rather than retroactively include it in their new branding.

I agree that it would be awesome to go chronologically, but titles will always be tied to whatever new product is coming along as well, or which other re-issue titles are on the horizon.

Pinocchio didn't survive any branding...technically it can now be called everything from the Limited Issue, Gold Classic Collection, Platinum and now the Diamond, in name if not packaging (yet). So, no Eric, they didn't work out all the Blu-ray kinks...they just put out a title five minutes ago (Pinocchio, in the spring) and are now including it in a new branded line, the Diamonds, when it states Platinum Edition on its cover.

So will they re-issue Pinocchio as a Diamond in ten years time? That seems to be the message, meaning that the point of putting it out as a Platinum five minutes ago is lost...they may as well have ironed out the BD kinks and put it out as the first of the Diamonds.

And proving that the brands are just a load of made up crud to make the BDs sound better than the DVDs, if you check the Blu-ray promo on a few current Disney DVDs, Snow White's logo - promoting the Blu-ray, remember - clearly states "Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs: Platinum Edition", which just goes to show that the Diamond idea is a very late in the game decision to differentiate the BDs from the DVDs, and little more.

[droosan]

I'm just bummed that it seems like it will be literally years before we'll see Tarzan on Blu-ray -- and that's assuming there won't be a different HD format by the time they'd get to it.

[Ben]

Droo...it doesn't mean Disney is <I>only</I> concentrating on these titles for Blu-ray.

Remember that, even with the Platinum DVDs, other titles came out in very respectable editions as well. I'm not really a fan of what they're doing at the moment, which seems to be special editions of catalog that they're trying to get out in standard def just one more time, but this can only mean that future versions will come in hi-def. They know the demand is there (I understand there were many consumer inquiries as to where the BD editions of Oliver & Company and Lilo & Stitch were), and I'd bet that after Snow White converts a few more households this Christmas, we'll start to see other Disney animation reach BD even if it's not plastered with a Diamond-like brand on the packaging.

Well, here's hoping, at least...

[Dusterian]

Sleeping Beauty is included as a Diamond with Pinocchio in the press release about the Diamond Collection. Yup, to happen many years down the road.

Beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on October 6, the Diamond Collection comprises an additional 13 of Disney’s most treasured titles, including: Beauty and the Beast; Fantasia and Fantasia 2000; The Lion King; Bambi; Cinderella; Lady and the Tramp; The Little Mermaid; Peter Pan; The Jungle Book; 101 Dalmatians; Sleeping Beauty; and Pinocchio.

I think it is great that Pinocchio and Sleeping Beauty got to be Platinums once in their lives, see? I had been waiting for Sleeping Beauty as a Platinum ever since the Special Edition was so Platinum-like and they said Sleping Beauty was added to the Platinum line like a week before they released the Special Edition! We didn't know if the Special Edition would change it's name by the time it was released, and it didn't, so they could get people like me to double-dip! And I gladly did, hey, I love getting all the bonus features (and transfers, and cover art) that I possibly can for a favorite film of mine! And it makes more sense, and gives some honor, to have Snow White, the first film, be the first Diamond, like it was also the first Platinum.

I am looking forward to getting to see covers with the main characters centred, some magical or villainous characters floating over the title on the top, and including other characters memorable or important to the story with iconic scenery. I just wish they could be drawn as well as Sleeping Beauty's cover was (well actually Aurora had terrible lips but oh well). Snow White's cover is deserving of looking a lot better!

[Randall]

There has been word that Dumbo will hit Blu-ray next year, but not as a Diamond title. We'll see. I'd love to see Tarzan on Blu, too.