The Disney Vault: Announcements, Discussion, & Questions

[goofystitch]

I agree that Aladdin should be going into the vault along with these films. Disney is allegedly upset about it's poor sales and that is their excuse for keeping it out, but if they had originally said that it would only be available x-ammount of time like they did with Snow White and other top sellers, that probably would have earned them an extra million copies sold from people in fear that they would never own them. I keep the stickers on my slipcovers and upon looking at the Platinums, Aladdin is the only one without a "Limited time only" sticker. Even Bambi, which has been out longer than your average limited time engagement, has that sticker on it. Same with Cinderella and LATT. I'm assuming TLM will also. So maybe that is another reason Aladdin has undersold expectations. They never hyped up the "limited time" selling angle. I know it's gotten me to impulsively buy things I feared I would miss out on.

[slave2moonlight]

You didn't look at that e-mail carefully enough. While <i>Bambi II</i> had a "return" date, for the others (April 18), it simply said that they were going back to the vault in the future. Of course, it was shrewdly designed to make you think that all were disappearing. I remember discussing the matter in some thread around the time that people got them.

Ah. Sneaky sneaky.

[slave2moonlight]

why would anyone Want something to go into the vault?
I mean, they should just leave it on shelves for as long as they sell.

I'm with you on that one. At least, in the case of consumers, unless they are reselling their DVDs, I don't know why they would want to see things disappear off the shelves. I understand not caring if you have already bought something, but otherwise... Personally, I only have so much money that I can spend on DVDs, and sometimes I have to put some off, even ones I desperately want. I'm pretty behind with Disney right now, particularly the direct to video stuff. Fell behind back when Atlantis: Milo's Return came out. Didn't get that one and several releases since. Just got a few here and there, when I could find a good (non-used) deal. There are so many I still need and I hate it when they announce that one is going back into the vault!

[2099net]

What happened to Platinums being available for two years?

Oh well, Disney changed the rules again!

[Jake Lipson]

I think we've all already established that Aladdin significantly undersold relative to Disney's expectations. They were thinking it would sell comparable to Lion King, and the fact that it didn't is cause for it to remain in print indefinately so that they can sell those copies.

Due to their shoddy marketing it has sort of fallen behind in terms of the public perception -- keeping it out of print UNTIL 2004, which was an unusually long time, allowed people to forget about it in favor of the other Fab Four movies. Mermaid was the one that got things started again, Beauty and the Beast was the Oscar nominee, The Lion King was their biggest success and Aladdin, if people remember it, is "the one with Robin Williams in it."

I personally think it should have definately been re-released on VHS in the late '90s (say, 1999ish), because the franchise had bee abandoned and without a distinction like the other three, it just fell by the wayside.

So it stays in print perminantely, I think -- although I don't see that as a bad thing. (And no, its sequels are NOT in the vault yet either.)

Oh yeah, and Narnia -- from what I gather, it is ONLY the four-disc extended version that has the limited availability window. The 1-disc and 2-disc theatrical cut releases from April? Those will stay in print. At least that's what I got from the 4-disc press release, which announced the discontinuation immidately right off the bat. And as for Cinderella, I think it's pretty obvious that the reason it is staying in print is because they want it around to help promote the third one and (obviously upcoming) re-release of the second one. I expect they will all go out of print on Jan 31, 2008.

[Ting Ting]

Personally, I hate the stupid vault. But if Disney insists on putting these movies back, I think Aladdin is long overdue.

[MickeyMousePal]

Maybe the fact that Aladdin hasn't sold well compare to Lady and the Tramp and Bambi..but how can that be?

Has Return of Jafar and Aladdin and the King of Thieves gone in the vault?

I already have 5 DVD's of both Bambi and LATT so I don't have to worry that they are returning to the vault.

[Timon/Pumbaa fan]

why would anyone Want something to go into the vault?
I mean, they should just leave it on shelves for as long as they sell.

For one, it would actually sell better if it's out-of-print, because people will know it's not going to be out forever, and will rush to get it, if it were out forever, people would just say, "Oh, well I can always get it next week."

Second, it makes both their films and shorts feel more special if they do this, or at least that's what Roy E. Disney thought when VHS was being made and I think it's true too. If Walt came back to life, I doubt his reaction would be overjoyed if he were told that every single person who even just enjoyed his films owned every single one of his films(Song of the South excluded ) thanks to new tecnhology and can watch them as many times they can whenvever they wanted with quality better than when they were first seen in theaters. He didn't even want to show his movies on television and thought the theaters were the way to see a film. If he were alive today, I wouldn't be surprised if he released none of his films on any type of a format as he could've thought they were too special for people just watch over and over whenever they wanted, and release projects specifically for VHS and DVD, not too much unlike Disney does with direct-to-videos sequels today.

Everyone makes the Disney company today as a group of money-hungry executives doing nothing but stuff that "Walt would roll in his grave for". If you really look at it though, most, if not all, of them really do appreciate Walt and the company's legacy on some level, even when they do stuff like release direct-to-videos and put films in the vault.

[slave2moonlight]

Well, I don't really get the feeling that "most" people running Disney are THAT interested in what Walt would have done, sadly.

As for how he would feel about home video, though no one can know for sure of course, I think he would love that people could own copies of his films and watch them whenever. I think he would love getting that much exposure for them. I think he would love all the merchandising too, of course. But, I think the quality would be much better. But, with the home video thing, maybe he wouldn't LOVE it with VHS, but now, with the quality of DVD and the sort of "home theaters" people have now, that's why I don't think he would mind people having his films and would actually probably love it.

As for the whole issue of him not wanting to do sequels for his animated features, I believe this was mainly due to the difficulty he had at the time in producing an animated film. He wanted to get to the point where they could release one every year, and since that really isn't A LOT for the Disney Studios nowadays (well, when they had a bunch of animation houses anyway), he didn't want to just retread old material. But Disney was releasing direct to video sequels when they had several animation houses. I don't think Walt would have approved of the quality of many of those DTV sequels, but I think he probably would have turned out a few high quality ones. Probably would never have done Bambi 2 or the princess films, but I could see him doing sequels to films that were really open for some. I think he would have loved Rescuers Down Under (if he liked the Rescuers at all).

[goofystitch]

Walt always embraced the new technology. He did want his films on TV. In fact, the second episode of Disneyland was "Alice in Wonderland." He didn't want to sell the rights to his movies to networks and loose control. That's probably where Timon/Pumbaa Fan got confused. But pretty much as soon as Walt was on TV, so were his movies. Granted, he kept some of the big ones special, such as "Snow White," and it was never broadcast on TV during his lifetime, but was re-released theatrically every 10 years. When home video came out, the Disney company began with the idea of keeping that film sacred and decided to never release it on video. However, in 1993, it did so well theatrically that it was released on VHS for a limited engagement. Same thing when it came to DVD in 2001. It was available from October to January. I think that because Walt tended to embrace technology(first cartoon in technicolor, second film in cinemascope, first cartoon in cinemascope, weekly TV broadcasts when TV was new and no other studio would touch it, creation of animatronics, etc...) that he would have been in favor of home video release. Now, some of his films were never re-released theatrically and only saw the light of day on TV until VHS. I feel that Walt would have left those films as open editions. But I do think that he would have released his big films, like "Snow White," "Cinderella," and "Pinocchio" in limited engagements and stoped producing them after a while. He probably would have done this with intent of getting another theatrical release out of them, which is why they did this at first. "Pinocchio" had been released on VHS prior to it's successful 1991 theatrical re-issue, but was released for such a short time that not enough people owned it and it caused people to see it in theaters. I really don't think Walt would have held out on the home video market. In fact, he probably would have been one of the first studios to embrace it.

[Lars Vermundsberget]

goofystitch, that makes a lot of sense. Walt was always very "forward" oriented, so to speak. For several years after Walt's death, though, there were people in charge whose main focus may rather have been to avoid doing something wrong... They probably had to overcome that to realize that home video could be good business, to say the least.

[Wonderlicious]

http://www.ultimatedisney.com/disappear ... -2007.html

I haven't seen a forum topic on this, so I'm going to start one. It looks like Disney are finally putting some stuff back in the vault, and hyping it all up as well. This has become a time-old question, but why isn't Aladdin going back, though?

[nickbabs]

Wasn't Aladdin the least-selling Platinum Edition? Maybe they just wanna get the rest out of stores, I dunno.

[disneystarsfan]

is there any stores here in the u.s that would still sell out-of-print disney movies like the lion king or beauty and the beast?

[Dottie]

you can get used copys at Gamestop.
Or ebay, but you gotta be careful if you don't want to end up with a bootleg.

[goofystitch]

Actually, there was already a topic about this. I started it. lol. Maybe some merging can happen, Luke?

http://www.ultimatedisney.com/forum/vie ... hp?t=16521

[AishaStar]

I understand why Disney puts movies in "The Vault", but it doesn't mean I agree with it. My son will be Disney movie ready in a couple years and most of my old VHS movies are no longer good quality. To get new DVD copies, it's too late. I have to wait until my son is passed the Disney movie stage before they'll come out again.

Thanks a lot for thinking about ALL generations Disney!!! Now I must go cry somewhere. . .

[goofystitch]

AishaStar wrote:

I understand why Disney puts movies in "The Vault", but it doesn't mean I agree with it. My son will be Disney movie ready in a couple years and most of my old VHS movies are no longer good quality. To get new DVD copies, it's too late. I have to wait until my son is passed the Disney movie stage before they'll come out again.

Thanks a lot for thinking about ALL generations Disney!!! Now I must go cry somewhere. . .

It's not too late. Your son will be ready for Disney movies in a couple years? That's at least a 2 year period. Start now. I would first get "Lady and the Tramp" and "Bambi" because they are going into the vault in January. Any movies already in the vault, if you find them at a store, buy them. Otherwise, just wait. They are on a 7-year release cycle. I'm going out on a limb and assuming your kid isn't a full year old, seeing as I was Disney movie ready by age 3 and you said a couple years. So that means by the time your son is 7, he will have had the opportunity to see all of the Disney classics, and 7 is still within the age frame. Heck! I'm 21 and considder myself to be in the age frame. lol. I wouldn't worry about it too much if I were you.

[Ting Ting]

Anybody find it odd that Lady and the Tramp is going into the Vault before Cinderella? I guess they want to keep it out since Cinderella III is on the way.

[AishaStar]

It's not too late. Your son will be ready for Disney movies in a couple years? That's at least a 2 year period. Start now. I would first get "Lady and the Tramp" and "Bambi" because they are going into the vault in January. Any movies already in the vault, if you find them at a store, buy them. Otherwise, just wait. They are on a 7-year release cycle. I'm going out on a limb and assuming your kid isn't a full year old, seeing as I was Disney movie ready by age 3 and you said a couple years. So that means by the time your son is 7, he will have had the opportunity to see all of the Disney classics, and 7 is still within the age frame. Heck! I'm 21 and considder myself to be in the age frame. lol. I wouldn't worry about it too much if I were you.

He just turned one year and I understand not to worry, but sometimes I can't help it. It's the waiting I can't stand.

My husband and family won't let my son watch Bambi because they are hunters and feel he won't be able to hunt if he associates himself with the animals. I think they're all crazy, but that's me.

I'm 28 and also consider myself in the age frame, but my sons begining to look like a "boys boy" meaning he's very outgoing, fearless and chipper (class clownish). I don't see him wanting to sit down and watch movies much passed 3 years old. You never know, I may be totally off.