So Dear to my Heart & Fables 3
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Tony
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So Dear to my Heart & Fables 3
Could someone who has purchased the above DVD's tell me if they are any good or not ?... What are the extras if any ?
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Anders M Olsson
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"So Dear to my Heart" is a great little film. It's supposed to have been Walt Disney's personal favourite, reminding him of his own childhood.
Somewhat like "Song of the South", it even has the same child actors. Unlike Song of the South, the emphasis is more on live action than on animation. The animation adds up to about 12 minutes in all, and there are some catchy tunes to go with it.
Not much extras, though:
- A TV-introduction by Walt Disney (one or two minutes)
- Some outtakes, for example Beulah Bondi trying to run a plough with limited success.
- Galleries of production stills and film facts.
The DVD looks fine and the film looks its age (in a positive sense), just like it should be.
About Disney Fables vol 3:
This DVD contains two shorts that aren't available on any other DVD. The third short, "Modern Inventions" will be on the Chronological Donald Duck set coming on region 1 in December: Donald strolls around an otherwise deserted science museum. From time to time he's harassed by various robotic devices. A somewhat funny cartoon, but not one of the best.
As for the other shorts:
- "Donald in Mathmagic Land" is edutainment at its finest. Some aspects of mathematics in music, arts, and gaming are explained. Highly recommended.
- "Ben and Me" is a fictional story about a tiny mouse that was the real brains behind Benjamin Franklin's discoveries. Cute, but not one of the truly great cartoons.
The picture quality on this DVD doesn't quite live up to expectations. It's certainly better than VHS, but not something you would use to demo your home entertainment system. The only extra feature is a really stupid trivia game.
Somewhat like "Song of the South", it even has the same child actors. Unlike Song of the South, the emphasis is more on live action than on animation. The animation adds up to about 12 minutes in all, and there are some catchy tunes to go with it.
Not much extras, though:
- A TV-introduction by Walt Disney (one or two minutes)
- Some outtakes, for example Beulah Bondi trying to run a plough with limited success.
- Galleries of production stills and film facts.
The DVD looks fine and the film looks its age (in a positive sense), just like it should be.
About Disney Fables vol 3:
This DVD contains two shorts that aren't available on any other DVD. The third short, "Modern Inventions" will be on the Chronological Donald Duck set coming on region 1 in December: Donald strolls around an otherwise deserted science museum. From time to time he's harassed by various robotic devices. A somewhat funny cartoon, but not one of the best.
As for the other shorts:
- "Donald in Mathmagic Land" is edutainment at its finest. Some aspects of mathematics in music, arts, and gaming are explained. Highly recommended.
- "Ben and Me" is a fictional story about a tiny mouse that was the real brains behind Benjamin Franklin's discoveries. Cute, but not one of the truly great cartoons.
The picture quality on this DVD doesn't quite live up to expectations. It's certainly better than VHS, but not something you would use to demo your home entertainment system. The only extra feature is a really stupid trivia game.
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Anders M Olsson
- Gold Classic Collection
- Posts: 309
- Joined: Mon Jul 28, 2003 12:47 am
- Location: Lund, Sweden
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I just went back for a look at the extras on "So Dear to my Heart", and they are really much more extensive than I first remembered them. Perhaps not material for a super special edition, but still pretty impressive.
So I can really recommend that disc, both for the quality of the feature, and for the background material on the disc.
So I can really recommend that disc, both for the quality of the feature, and for the background material on the disc.
So Dear To My Heart is a cracking little film. It may be be what everyone expects; in some respects it's more of a drama (using the proper sense of the word meaning character interaction - not the generally accepted modern meaning of the word which just seems to mean conflict). The animated sequences are, as noted, limited. And in some respects they don't really fit in the film's structure.
I must confess, I haven't looked at the supplements apart from scanning through some of the 'outtakes'. So I may be wrong on this, either through misunderstanding or poor memories.
The outtakes are introduced and commented through by Scott McQueen (ex-head of restoration at Walt Disney Pictures) so I'm sure that over the running time (20 odd minutes I think) there will be a lot of useful information.
It should be noted that the R1 release (which is apparently mastered and simply awaits pressing) is supposed to contain 3 bonus shorts missing from the R2 releases.
Disney Fables 3 is the only Fables disc I have bought - and simply for Mathmagic, and I'm unlikely to purchase any of the others unless something special is put on a future release.
Picture quality on all three presentations (Mathmagic, Inventions and Ben) is poor - I don't know for sure, but I would guess no attempt has been made to restore, or even clean up the picture. Which is rather shocking when you consider the effort made by other smaller distributers on niche titles. Surley given all the money Disney has they could do something to ensure the DVD release shows some of the benefits of the format? If you want some sort of guide, I would say the picture problems are the same as the Rescurers release.
I'm not sure how I feel about this disc. Donald in Mathmagic Land is very weird and I have to question exactly how much of it could be classed as educational. Considering it's called Mathmagic Land there's very little maths going on! Still it's an entertaining animation and worth having as a curiosity.
As for Ben and Me, well I didn't think much to it. No doubt it has stronger emotional attachment to Americans. It's not one of Disney's best, but even average Disney is better than most other cartoons.
Modern Inventions is classic vintage Donald, but likely to be included on the Donald Duck treasure release this year (the contents of the set have not been confirmed yet, but it looks more than 95% certain based on the information that has been released). I'm sure the treasures release will have much better audio/visual presentation than this release.
If/when the other two shorts are released on DVD in America, I'm sure these too will have better presentation. So really the question is how badly do you want Mathmagic Land and/or Ben and Me?
I must confess, I haven't looked at the supplements apart from scanning through some of the 'outtakes'. So I may be wrong on this, either through misunderstanding or poor memories.
The outtakes are introduced and commented through by Scott McQueen (ex-head of restoration at Walt Disney Pictures) so I'm sure that over the running time (20 odd minutes I think) there will be a lot of useful information.
It should be noted that the R1 release (which is apparently mastered and simply awaits pressing) is supposed to contain 3 bonus shorts missing from the R2 releases.
Disney Fables 3 is the only Fables disc I have bought - and simply for Mathmagic, and I'm unlikely to purchase any of the others unless something special is put on a future release.
Picture quality on all three presentations (Mathmagic, Inventions and Ben) is poor - I don't know for sure, but I would guess no attempt has been made to restore, or even clean up the picture. Which is rather shocking when you consider the effort made by other smaller distributers on niche titles. Surley given all the money Disney has they could do something to ensure the DVD release shows some of the benefits of the format? If you want some sort of guide, I would say the picture problems are the same as the Rescurers release.
I'm not sure how I feel about this disc. Donald in Mathmagic Land is very weird and I have to question exactly how much of it could be classed as educational. Considering it's called Mathmagic Land there's very little maths going on! Still it's an entertaining animation and worth having as a curiosity.
As for Ben and Me, well I didn't think much to it. No doubt it has stronger emotional attachment to Americans. It's not one of Disney's best, but even average Disney is better than most other cartoons.
Modern Inventions is classic vintage Donald, but likely to be included on the Donald Duck treasure release this year (the contents of the set have not been confirmed yet, but it looks more than 95% certain based on the information that has been released). I'm sure the treasures release will have much better audio/visual presentation than this release.
If/when the other two shorts are released on DVD in America, I'm sure these too will have better presentation. So really the question is how badly do you want Mathmagic Land and/or Ben and Me?
Most of my Blu-ray collection some of my UK discs aren't on their database
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Tony
- Gold Classic Collection
- Posts: 351
- Joined: Mon Sep 01, 2003 4:09 pm
- Location: Gold Coast, Australia
Many thanks for your comments everyone. I think I might be best to just wait for the Region 1 release of So Dear to my Heart and Ben and Me. I would like to see them now, but would rather have the additional extras and "hopefully" better pictures on the R1 releases. I would 'hope' these would both be released in 2004.