Your thoughts on.... Aladdin: Special Edition

[MickeyMouseboy]

I wasn't pleased with the lack of bonus stuff on Disc 2. I know they have more trailers and TV spots. How about the original 1992 making of, how about a work in progress cut of the film since all Disney movies have them not just beauty and the Beast. I refuse to believe a movie like Snow White that was made in 1937 has more stuff on the DVD than more recent Disney fair.

[Disneykid]

Two hours' worth of feaurettes that can be viewed as a massive documentary, galleries, an art review, a featurette on Alan Menken, and some games and you consider Disc Two to lack bonus features? I agree that the publicity gallery could've been expanded (only with TV spots, though. As far as I know, Aladdin didn't have a teaser trailer because those didn't start becoming commonplace until The Lion King onward) and the galleries could've have a bit more, but that's picking nits. This is the best DVD Disney's come out with in years. As for a Work-in-Progress version, where do you suggest they get one from? Unlike Beauty and the Beast, Disney didn't release an unfinished version of Aladdin to the public so in order for their to be a work in progress version, they'd basically have to create it from scratch using the storyboards and pencil tests they have left.

[deathie mouse]

Mystique, thanks for the info

Did anyone else notice that nearly all the flesh characters had lighter skin? Like, rather than the tanned skin they had back in 1992, it looked almost like they were...untanned?

Or maybe it's just my eyes, and my brain remembering things darker.

No you're not the only one, i remember it too. I even wondered about that on the Were you always a fan of Aladdin before the dvd? topic a few days ago. This is actually not a new thing done for the dvd

[sCArs]

I just got it today! It was released in Australia today It also came with another free DVD, "On Holidays With Timon And Pumba" or something like that It's a great DVD! Jessica Simpson scares me

[Sh00tingstar]

man:(
my SE gift set still hasnt arrived yet-
im seriously annoyed.
Amazon has changed its dates on me- they said the expected arrival would be the 11th and now they are telling me the 28th!!! i mean, come on guys!!

im dying here!

[Sideburn]

My gift set just arrived from amazon, but it didn't have the coupon booklet that was mentioned in the review, it only has the 16 page insert... did you guys get the coupon booklet?

[Tony]

My gift set just arrived from amazon, but it didn't have the coupon booklet that was mentioned in the review, it only has the 16 page insert... did you guys get the coupon booklet?

There was not a coupon book in mine either... I did ask if someone could post a couple of pics of the Cinderella and Bambi ads in the coupon book (in a separate thread), but unfortunately no-one has been willing to do.. (perhaps if I change my name to "Luke", they might do ??

[hermionegranger]

Loved it! loved it!

Took it into class today, (I'm a Multimedia Student majoring in Animation and graphic design) I was watching it and the reactions I got were great! I had a crowd of people huddled around a tiny apple mac hehe it was brilliant!

The documentary made my day, if only they had done one for Beauty and the Beast.

[goofy108]

I really enjoyed watching this remastered film. I believe that this is one of Disney's best dvds. Hopefully they will continue to do this well on the following platinums! I definetly think there could have been more bonus features but Im just glad it was released.
And I also noticed the characters looked lighter when I first watched the dvd. Could this have been a result of the restoration?

[my chicken is infected]

I think Aladdin is the second best Platinum Edition release so far, second only to Snow White. (I STILL consider it the best release they ever made. It was also my first ever DVD, so it's spoiled me for all other DVD releases. )

[Joe Carioca]

I’ve had this DVD in my hands for more than a week but I always forget to post my comments here. Well, first of all, the thing I was most impressed with this DVD is how gorgeous the film looked. After reading a few reviews I was afraid the picture could be plagued by artifacts or softness, but nothing of this showed up. The picture looked absolutely amazing from beginning to end, the backgrounds being wonderfully detailed and the lines of the characters razor sharp, though never overly enhanced. And the colors… oh, the colors that popped out of the screen! I only wish “Beauty and the Beast” had been given this treatment. “Snow White” and “The Lion King” were great looking DVDs, but I put my money on “Aladdin” as the best Platinum release as far as picture quality goes.

As for the Disney Enhanced Home Theater mix, although not as inventive as “The Lion King” one, overly impressed me. Unsurprisingly, the best part of the mix was the destruction of the Cave of Wonders, with the voice of the Tiger roaring on all channels and rumbling in the subwoofer while everything else racks havoc all around you. I must admit I held to my chair during this scene, even though I’ve already seen “Aladdin” a thousand times.
Only one thing that bothered me in this new mix and that has already been noted by other reviews is the mixing of the vocals during the songs. The vocals don’t stick in the center channel but echo in all the other channels creating an unnatural experience. Of course, this wasn’t enough to botch and otherwise great sound mix and it isn’t that noticeable (with the exception of the “Arabian Nights” number), but I prefer the mixing of the vocals in the original mix.
By the way, is the original mix of the film really the one included on the DVD? I didn’t notice a lot of difference between the two audio mixes, at least not to the level of “The Lion King”. Of course, the DEHT is much more active and dynamic, but besides the obvious improvements and raise in volume level, the new mix doesn’t have a whole lot of new directional effects like “The Lion King” had. So, was the original mix of “Aladdin” very good already or the supposedly original mix is just a toned down version of the Enhanced track?

As for the extras, this is undoubtedly the best organized of all the Platinum editions. Thanks to the new Easy Find menus, there is no repetition of extras in various parts of the DVD neither do we have to track down the extras we are looking for, like on the “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Lion King” DVDs.
I don’t think there is much about the bonuses I can say that hasn’t already been said, but I really want to applaud Disney for creating such an entertaining and enlightening DVD release. It was great to see that the behind-the-scenes material take the center stage here and is not toned-down for the kiddie audience or in favor of fun and games. “A Diamond In The Rough” is certainly one of the best making of documentaries ever created by Disney, even when compared to other great documentaries such as the ones for “Atlantis” and “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea”. It was great to see all these guys getting together after so many years to reminisce about the making of the film, and even better is how sincere everything was, not treating the production like “everything was great and everyone was happy”! It was also nice to see a little more of Katzemberg, since he was so absent on past DVDs (not that I like him by any means, but Disney pretending he had almost nothing to do with the production of their films isn’t good either). On the other hand, have you noticed how Roy Disney is “mysteriously” missing from the DVD bonus features?

Even the kid’s games where better than most of DVDs. I though that four games (and activities…) would be kind of and overkill, specially considering that, with the exception of the main “virtual rides”, the games on the other Platinums were kinda lame. Well, not here. All the games show that some real effort has gone in their making and they are fun even if you are not the target audience. Besides, there is some really nice character animation of Iago on the Tour In Genie’s Lamp (unlike Cyber Zazu…).

Is this the best Platinum edition? Well, “Aladdin” has a wonderful documentary and not one, but two audio commentary tracks in its favor but, unfortunately, it doesn’t have all the archival material and vast galleries that “Snow White” had. It’s hard to complain when there is so much material, but it makes the DVD loose a few points when compared to the first Platinum. So, I would call this a draw. “Aladdin” is probably the most satisfying DVD release for a Disney animated feature since “Atlantis” and it is going to be hard to surpass it (though “Lilo & Stitch: SE” seems to be the one that is going to do it).

As for the gift set, yes, the book is a bit weak (I though Disney would have learned from "The Lion King") but the whole thing looks so good that is hard to complain. Besides, the film frame is really neat.

Picture: A
Sound: A-
Extras: A+

[deathie mouse]

So... did you like it?

heh this is one of the longest post/reviews i've seen Joe make in a looong time I guess you DID like it a leeetle

A question: when you say that in the new mix the voices don't stick in the center channel but echo in all the other channels, you mean they show up on the left and right, or you mean they are all over the place on the surrounds and back too like crazy?

Cus in theaters the left and right speaker are outside the 1.66-1.85 width on the extreme left and right of the screen, usually at the borders of the 2.39 wide screen, and my point is that the old stereophonic style mix of the true glorious stereo era (the 50's and 60's) was to mix the voices on the position the actors were on the WIDESCREEN on the theater, which is maybe what the new mix is doing? (But of course it seems odd cus you don't have a 20 feet wide screen like I do (yeah right, in my dreams )
But speaking seriously, if you have your speakers separated a fair distance and a normal TV size screen (even one 32") a true stereo mix done with a movie screen will sound kinda disembodied even tho it's a more accurate or stereophonic movie-like-experience one! When optical Dolby Surround was made common in the 70's, this practice of having the voices naturally spread as wide as the screen image got lost, because of Dolby Surround really being two channels with the center one derived from them and for other technical reasons they anchored the dialogues in the center (making the dialogue track essentially mono) I remember there was some bit of controversy when several multichanel 50's and 60's movies were remastered in 2nd edition Laserdiscs and they essentially mixed the separated dialogue into the modern mono style, the producers/mixers of the new discs arguing that the TV set image was much smaller than a theater screen so that's why they were anchoring the dialogue in the center and collectors then started seeking the older editions to get the true multichannel gloriously streophonic mix!

The Aladdin original theatrical mix might have been done still in the old mono dolby surround dialogue style cus I think Aladdin was before the full DolbyAC-3/DTS 5.1 era and from the "most releases are 35mm optical dolby matrixed stereo" era. Maybe the Enhanced mix went wild like the Genie cus now they can since we again have true discrete multichannels at our dispossal

If you still find the voices too separated, you can always move the speakers closer to the left and right of the TV (in effect, "monoizing" or "centering" them) Then in the future when you and I and everybody here get the 20 feet wide OLED screens, putting the speaker spread wide again it'll fit better!

(btw theoretically the left and right speakers should be at 90 degree arc. just perfect for those Cinemascope wide movies in Blu-Ray DVD And that's the way i have them, now and 4ever)

So any thoughts on this, Joe?

[lolopimp]

Can anyone tell me where are the theatrical trailers of Aladdin in the DVD?

[Luke]

Can anyone tell me where are the theatrical trailers of Aladdin in the DVD?

Disc 2: Publicity section. Took me five seconds to find by using IE's "Find on this page" feature and UD's detailed <a href="http://www.ultimatedisney.com/aladdin.html">Aladdin DVD review</a>.

[Joe Carioca]

So... did you like it?

heh this is one of the longest post/reviews i've seen Joe make in a looong time I guess you DID like it a leeetle

I sure did, hehe.
Actually, I can write real and pretty long reviews, but I've never done it here since it has never been necessary.

Well, as for the audio mix, I'm going to paste here an excerpt from Home Theater Forum's review, which explains it better than I ever could.

The difference I’m talking about here is subtle, and while it seemed very obvious to my ears, my friend (the musician) require me doing quite a bit of A/B comparison before he perceived the difference I was describing to him…so I suspect that most folks won’t find anything objectionable with the dialog on the new mix…and/or possibly perceive no difference between the two in this regard. And even to my ears, the difference was subtle enough that I might have been willing to accept the new mix as my preferred choice for all its other advantages were it not for one very bothersome fault: The lead vocal tracks for every song have been remixed into the surround channels in addition to the center. While in general I'm all for having some activity in the rear channel, too much of a good thing sort-of negates the goodness. My viewing comrade mentioned an apt metaphor that came to his mind from fellow students at his university. He said "Some students high-light every line in their book, if they're going to highlight everything, they might as well highlight nothing". I think you can see the connection.

I think I know what Porter was trying to do with the musical tracks…it seems to me that he was trying pull the lead vocal tracks out “into the room” by mixing them in C/LR/RR fashion. In any case, my presumption is that his intent was deliberate and to achieve a desired effect to enhance the sound. However, I have to say that I personally find this mixing style of the lead vocals to be distracting. Firstly (assuming that pulling the lead vocalist out into the center of the listening area was the intent), for the effect to work properly, one would need to have rear channel speakers that are properly timbre matched to the front mains. But even if we consider that a given in an high-end HT set-up since, after all, it’s better to raise the bar of mixing quality for better systems rather than dumb-down quality for compromised systems (and "compromise" is definitely something that a DEHT mix should not be doing), for the effect to create a clear and localized point-source for the vocalist, not only would one need to have timbre-matched rears, but the surround speakers would need to be direct-radiating (not dipole) and one would also need to be seated dead-center in the “sweet spot” between them and have the sound time-aligned properly front-to-back.

Many HT systems (like mine) have dipole surround channels which create a more diffuse rear image. And let’s face it, most of us watch movies in group settings where only one person would be privy to the “sweet spot”. Even seated properly between my rear speakers, the effect of the lead vocalist information coming out the rear channels was distracting and bothersome…and it muddied the sound. By contrast, switching to the theatrical mix revealed a much more pleasing musical presentation with a great Left-Right soundstage that imaged deep beyond the front mains…and those beautiful lead vocals were clear, distinct, and sounding like real singers do…emanating from a single point-source with all the lushness, vibrancy, and clarity that I remembered from my laserdisc. Even my listening comrade, who preferred the sound of the DEHT mix in general, agreed that the musical vocal mixing was something of a travesty, and we both wished we could watch the film with the sound of the theatrical mix for the music-track sequences and the DEHT mix for the rest. Our only real difference was in preferring which track to select given the choice of just one: for me it was the theatrical, for him it was the DETH.

[deathie mouse]

for me it was the theatrical, for him it was the DETH.

Hey! leave the dethi outta da mix!



Sooooo the DEHT dialogue mix is neither stereophonic nor front center mono, it's center in da head mono!

So the voice shows up on all the channels simultaneously. That would give you the effect (well, as the quote mentions probably best heard on a proper calibrated timbre matching (all speakers equal) system) of the voices seeming to come from inside your head (or fairly close and personal ), kind like the effect of (center) vocals when listening to headphones if you know what I mean.

Maybe that's what Jar Jar was trying to do too when he plugged the reversed surround cables on the Bluetinted Trilogy

Well at least the Disney on the Aladdin DVD gives you the choice of hearing BOTH mixes, original and "creative" Which i think is great!

Obrigado, Joe!

[DreamerQ18]

I finally got through watching Aladdin in all it splendind extended extra features and I am very pleased with how everything was put togethere I am sure there might have been a bit more but what was there was great. I loved the way it was put togethere in category and all. Ths picture of the actual movie was fantastic beautiful I love the Power of DVD.

I liked how I was able to see the evolutin of the story and how it changed through the years and the characters like Aladdin that was really cool. Happy with the video an A- for Disney on this relase .