The Great Mouse Detective

[Ben]

Shame about your LD (nice cover art, I sold mine when I got the first DVD), but under $10 is a good price for this reissue disc!

The new transfer is worth it if you don't have the 2002 disc or can't find a copy of that cheap, but other than that it's just a mystery as to what this disc was really trying to achieve.

Disney needs to stop putting out less-special editions of their catalog titles and start putting them out on Blu-ray with all previous edition supplements intact!

[EricJ]

The new transfer is worth it if you don't have the 2002 disc or can't find a copy of that cheap, but other than that it's just a mystery as to what this disc was really trying to achieve.

Basically the Gold Edition--that was supposed to be the Volkswagen "no-frills" sales model back when DVD was trying to go mainstream--is dead, and parents take buying colorfully-promoted kids' DVD's for granted now.
In fact, they're now considered more "common" than a Blu-ray promotion, so a title that's still in Gold status has practically dropped off the map. Now that Disney knows how to sell their titles at Target, they can create new marketing to make even their 1-disk redips with games, extras and Disney Channel promos look just like their 2-disk bells-and-whistle releases, with the same big splashy cover, 'n everything.
And as long as they're retooling their C-tier early-00's Gold editions for current mass-market shelves, maybe we might get some kind of "Hercules" upgrade on the horizon after all...It's one of the last few left except for the anthologies, and at least that one has nowhere to go but up.

(But seriously: Your fixation on their changing the title? It's getting scary.
I'd read the Eve Titus books when it came out--I didn't think anyone else still did--and even I didn't expect a five-yo. to know who Basil or what Baker Street was. Back then, we were were just literally surprised and grateful it wasn't Black Cauldron again.)

[Ben]

The changing of the title thing was more about how they couldn't make up their minds!

Changing from Basil Of Baker Street to The Great Mouse Detective...fine. But then releasing it as Basil: The Great Mouse Detective in Europe and then as The Adventures Of The Great Mouse Detective...? It wasn't going to make the movie any better or worse, was it?

[GeorgeC]

I wish Disney would also release more of their films on Blu ray.

As good as The Princess and the Frog is, why aren't Alice In Wonderland (1950), Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and other older films out on Blu ray???

The slow transition to Hi Def is maddening in some ways.

Studios are really being picky about which old films get the Hi Def nod.

There's more on The Digital Bits at http://www.thedigitalbits.com/#042110b about the situation...

Basically, sluggish sales are dictating releases on Blu ray.

(I blame this on the oversaturation of the DVD market with re-releases and horrible new product. It really has a lot less to do with Blu ray which is demonstrably better when done right... And NO, this isn't like the first two years of DVD when most of the DVDs were being mastered from the same tapes used for previous VHS/laserdisc releases. Hi Def masters have been around for years and many DVDs have been mastered from them... It's just that Blu ray is the first widespread format that can really show off the visual strength of Hi Def masters.

(Oversaturation is also part of what's driving the big 3-D push IMHO. It's a gimmick being tried to raise sales at both the movie theaters and home video. 3-D is just not going to take off for a variety of reasons besides the hardware costs. It's a horrible process, it costs too much to do films this way for so little benefit, and ultimately for a good percentage of consumers they're not going to jump on board for health reasons... Again, it's about content. If the stories and characters aren't there, people will stay away. Enough with the remakes already!!!)

The major home video studios just do NOT want to risk an already tepid market by doing a bunch of "old film" releases (anything over 5 minutes old) on Blu ray. We're already seeing a lot of films less than 1 year old on the format being heavily discounted. I've seen films out on Blu ray for maybe 8 months getting sold for under $10 now!

Anyhow, there's that and a lot of negative reviews on Blu rays that are just helping to depress things a bit.

I, for one, do not care for Disney's double-dipping on inventory on DVD, either.


And I agree 100% with Ben on the extras on the re-releases... They're just not very exciting at all.

You would think with the standards set by the early Platinum DVD releases and Toy Story Toy Box Set (DVD, a MUCH better release than the Toy Story Blu rays) that Disney Home Video would aim higher.

The current (re-)releases are really mediocre.

[LotsoA113]

Well, I got the DVD today. God it's bad. Agree with everything. And what's odd is my PS3 played the film a little disconfigured. The film looked very odd. Huh. Wonder what that whole things was about.

[GeorgeC]

I have the earlier Gold DVD release of The Great Mouse Detective so I was on the fence about this latest release...

The no frills re-releases on DVD followed by no Blu ray counterpart or a lame Blu ray release (Toy Story, Toy Story 2) does not build confidence in the people running the Mouse's Home Video division. It's sad because they've done much better releases in the recent past.

I wish Disney would get off its duff and release more on Blu ray with decent extras!

I was really surprised that they didn't do a Blu ray edition of the animated Alice in Wonderland in conjunction with the new live-action film... Are they waiting to do a Sixtieth Anniversary release of Alice?

[Ben]

You mean a 60th Un-Anniversary Edition, George?

Yeah, I was surprised with Alice - or at least not having a Blu ready to go with the home video release of Burton's film - but remember that Disney has a clogged line up of should-have-been-released-by-now titles: Dumbo (what the heck happened to that? It's out all over the place except the US), Fantasia (supposedly held up to revise a Roy Disney tribute), and a couple more that were announced for "spring" and "2010" that haven't yet shown.

I'm surprised people have bought TGMD or are on the fence about it, given the general reviews. The new transfer is one thing (though this will show up in HD at some point, but the lack of anything else just doesn't make this worth it, unless you find a copy for under $10 and don't mind losing $10). And the benefit over the Gold disc really isn't there...wait for the Blu.

[EricJ]

I'm surprised people have bought TGMD or are on the fence about it, given the general reviews. The new transfer is one thing (though this will show up in HD at some point, but the lack of anything else just doesn't make this worth it, unless you find a copy for under $10 and don't mind losing $10). And the benefit over the Gold disc really isn't there...wait for the Blu.

One reason is...some people didn't HAVE the Gold.
(Given that there was still only half DVD-player saturation when the '01-'02 Gold editions first came out, and by the time most people did, the first edition was out with zero fanfare for those who didn't remember the movie from pre-Mermaid days.)

In more ways than one, the new bells-and-whistles "Cute Title Edition" re-releases now have New Marketing Added!
(Especially in Alice's case, even if they couldn't master a last-minute decent level Blu-ray in time to soullessly cross-plug the Evil Movie...They clearly had enough problems mastering a last-minute Dumbo Blu in time to promote the Parks hype.)

[Ben]

I have the earlier Gold DVD release of The Great Mouse Detective so I was on the fence about this latest release...

Basically what I was referring to, Eric. And even if you don't have the Gold, if you have a BD player the main point is don't waste your cash on this unless you get it cheap, and wait for the inevitable Blu.