CINDERELLA DVD - digital restoration gone too far?

[Jules]

Gee! Thanks DisneyKid!

You know, since getting to know you on these forums, and finding out what an Alice in Wonderland fan you are, I don't think there will be one time that I will watch Alice, until my dying day, that I will not think of you!

[Wonderlicious]

To save you the hassle of searching, the two moments in question are during The Walrus and the Carpenter sequence and the jury room scene at the end. In the former, The Walrus's arm leaves a trail behind him for a second while he's underwater (I can't remember which specific shot at the moment).

It's the shot where the Walrus says "and whether pigs have wings", squeesing an oyster's cheek, thus making it blush. I've always noticed that, as well (it was noticeable even on the video), and I wonder how this actually happens.

[Disney Duster]

First of all, thank you Julian Carter for bringing the doubling of Cinderella's face up. I had thought of talking about that, but it was less important to me than my other issues.

The one from "So This is Love" is definitely a stylistic choice and not a restoration choice.

AU CONTRAIRE! I noticed what Julian Carter was talking about, too, and I beg to differ. Now I will certainly watch all of my Cinderellas (Black Diamond, Masterpiece, Platinum) to make sure, but there is a difference between the scene getting blurred and Cinderella's face doubling. I will return with evidence, but in the meantime take a look at your DVD. Watch carefully. The whole picture slowly fades, but only for one quick instant does Cinderella's face double. If you don't want to, that's fine, but I will return with image comparisons!

As for the Gus-to-horse thing...I'll check that too but I don't remember any doubling.

[Disneykid]

Well, now Julian and I are even. He misread my post thinking I never noticed the shot with Gus and Lucifer before, and I misread his thinking he was only questioning the blurring effect in "So This is Love." I didn't catch the part about her face doubling. This is something I'll leave to our resident Cinderella expert Disney Duster. I no longer have Cinderella on VHS (I donated it to the dental office my sister works at so they can play it in the lobby), so I can't compare for myself. I look forward to seeing the screencaps. If there was no ghosting effect on the VHS, then this is a different matter than with Alice.

It's the shot where the Walrus says "and whether pigs have wings", squeesing an oyster's cheek, thus making it blush. I've always noticed that, as well (it was noticeable even on the video), and I wonder how this actually happens.

Aha! Thank you! I couldn't remember if it was that shot or the one of him tapping the shells with his cane.

You know, since getting to know you on these forums, and finding out what an Alice in Wonderland fan you are, I don't think there will be one time that I will watch Alice, until my dying day, that I will not think of you!

My friends always tell me the same thing, especially since most of them either saw the film for the first time after meeting me, or revisited it for the first time since they were little kids.

[BambiFan87]

I suck at spelling, lol! and puncuation isnt my best thing either! but ill try to make it better for everyone haha

[Jules]

As for the Gus-to-horse thing...I'll check that too but I don't remember any doubling.

There actually is a bit of doubling, if you look closely.

At first the scene looks correct:




But now see what happens:







Then it goes back to normal:

[Lars Vermundsberget]

Those parts exist, of course. The problem is that the longer version of Fantasia ("original"/"roadshow") had longer versions of Deems Taylor's "speeches" than the late-40s re-release/early-90s VHS/LD version. The extra length has been lost, apparently - and to recreate the long versions they had to record the commentaries with a new voice actor.

I was going to say, why Disney couldn't do that lol.
But then what is added back into the film?
I am still lost lol.
I wish Disney would stop editing there films already and leave AS IS!

I'm not entirely sure whether we got this clear or not. I don't remember the exact differences, one would have to listen to both versions and compare. Fantasia was edited for a re-release - I think it was in the late 40s, and this version (except for the problem with the zooms in the Beethoven segment...) is quite comparable to the early-90s VHS/LD version as far as I've been told. This edit included shortening the speaking part of Deems Taylor. The "excessive" parts of the recording were lost. However, the original Deems Taylor commentaries survived in written form. This was used to "recreate" the speaking parts with a voice actor on the "Roadshow" DVD version.

[BATBfan1]

maybe that is the effect Disney was looking for no?
I mean it was a magic moment so why not make the film look blurry for that part? I don't know i am just guessing here lol.

[Disney Duster]

Thank you for those screencaps, Julian Carter! When the picture is correct, it looks gorgeous! Just look at all the Disney dust! And one of my favorite scenes...

Anyway, you were 100% right. I had previosuly only thought the scene was blurry, but it appears to be doubling if I look closely. I never viewed that scene on the computer before. I'll check that out, on my older versions of the movie.

This is something I'll leave to our resident Cinderella expert Disney Duster.

Aw, thanks! I'd say you were our only Alice in Wonderland expert, but you couldn't remember which scene that ghost happened, and Wonderlicious had to point it out to you... Tsk, tsk! Just kidding. It's awesome how there's a small group of die-hard fans to one specific film on these forums, like Alice and Bambi. I just wish there were more die-hard Cinderella fans.

[goofystitch]

Disney Duster wrote:

I had previosuly only thought the scene was blurry, but it appears to be doubling if I look closely.

I don't know what doubling is. I was wondering if someone could explain it to me. I don't know what the difference between blury and doubling are. I see one of every object and everything just looks blurry to me. Also, I was wondering, could all of these mishaps in these films simply be something that went wrong when the cells were being filmed in the original print? I was watching "The Reluctant Dragon" again the other day shortly after reading about all these restoration defects in films like Alice and Cinderella. In the film, the man photographing the cells uses an air tool to blast away all dust particles. Could it be that dust wasn't brushed away during these few seconds of film, or that maybe an external light source disturbed the camera making it photograph images blurry for an hour or so worth of filming? What I'm mainly asking is are these same scenes blurred on VHS and laser disc copies? I sold my VHS version and was never fortunate enough to have a laser disc player.

[Disney Duster]

I don't know what doubling is. I was wondering if someone could explain it to me. I don't know what the difference between blury and doubling are. I see one of every object and everything just looks blurry to me.

Actually, if you look closely, you will see that there is more than just one of each object. The image is doubled. I give you two of the best examples from the screencaps above with Lucifer, the horse, and all those stars:


Take a look at the stars.


Take a look at the outlines on the horse's legs.

Finally, this is a very good example, from page 5 of this thread, from a screencap Julian Carter posted:

Check out her face! Now that's what I call four eyes!

So either the Prince took some drugs and is seeing double, or something's screwy.

[BATBfan1]

So Disney didn't fix this on the DVD?

[Escapay]

So Disney didn't fix this on the DVD?

It's probably intentional.

Every time I see those screencaps I start blinking my eyes, thinking that my contact lens fell out and it's blurry...and of course, it is!

Escapay

[goofystitch]

Ahhhh. I see the double lines now. Thanks alot Disney Duster.

[Jules]

Wait...I'm getting new suspicions now.

If you look closely at the doubled Cinderella screencap that I posted (or the pic above), you will se that it is doubled, but the picture is still crisp and clean.

In the Gus-to-Horse segment, not only are the Disney Dust (and everything else on the cel) doubled, but there's also a lot of pixelation, noise and overall distortion. Now that is certainly some DVD technical fault. I don't know about the doubling, but pixelation is certainly something dreaded and damned on a DVD.

[Chrissy31886]

Wow, u guys are attentive. I need to go check out my DVDs now..I hadnt noticed any of this!

[BambiFan87]

Wheres the doubling in alice in wonderland?? I want to see a picture of that if anyone has it....

[Kyle]

this isnt resotoration gone too far, its not far enough. face it guys, its just a poor transfer/restoration. they took little care and attention to the source materal compaired to the other re releases such as lion king, aladdin, and bambi that were very well done.

[goofystitch]

I watched "Cinderella" this morning. I noticed the doubling when Gus turned into a horse, but only because Ultimate Disneyketeers pointed it out to me first. lol. I feel that the blurring effect that is scene during "So This Is Love" was intentional and lets the audience know that Cinderella and the Prince are in a dream like state because of how in love they are. Hence the backgrounds being unreal. I've seen the screen cap comparisons between the laser disc release and the DVD and I agree that Disney should have left the colors the way they were meant to be seen, but it actually only disturbed me twice during the film. For the most part I don't feel that they wen't to extremely far from how it used to be. And I like the fact that some scenes make backround artwork that was virtually invisible before stand out. The first part that bothers me is when Cinderella is in trouble for allegedly putting the mouse under Anastacia's tea cup. When she comes into Lady Tremain's room, I remember the scene being much darker. So dark that for a while you can pretty much see her eyes and teeth and the outline the rest of her body. It is so light on DVD that you can see everything. Almost like the scene on the "Beauty and the Beast" DVD where Belle says "Step into the light," yet you can already clearly see the Beast. The other scene that bothers me is when the clock strikes twelve. Cinderella's dress becomes an almost teal blue, and it's not just the lighting outside, because the color doesn't change indoors or on the well lit stairs in front of the castle. Other than that, the color changes weren't distracting to my overall enjoyment of the film, although I do wish they had left the color scheme as it was meant to be.

[drsd2kill]

I thought I'd dig out my 1995 CAV Laserdisc box set of CINDERELLA and post a scan from one page from the enclosed book. This is for the people insisting all previous releases of CINDERELLA were from poor quality prints and this DVD is the only version representing the image from the original restored negatives.

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