50's MouseLover wrote:And ......... what about Westeard Ho The Wagons with Fess Parker. When will that ever come out on DVD? I'll be gone into the hearafter if they don't hurry and release that movie from 1956
Probably because a) Disney doesn't care about their older live action titles and b) Disney would ave to care because people would expect this to be in it's CinemaScope ratio and not some crappy video master like most of their live action catalogue titles. They released the soundtrack to itunes earlier this year so I'm expecting it to make it's DMC debut soon.
And yes Bedknobs and Broomsticks fans unite! Do you hear us Disney!
I think it's probably more accurate to say that the general buying public doesn't care about Disney's live-action films in general. They simply don't have the shelf life, the appeal, the hold on the public consciousness that the animated canon does. There are plenty of reasons why that is, not the least being that so many older titles get zero exposure these days. I think much of the blame lies with the death of the anthology series: I was a child in the 70s, and the Wonderful World of Disney provided my first exposure to loads of films like Old Yeller and The Shaggy Dog. Nowadays the company runs multiple networks with virtually all their airtime dedicated to oodles of new content, so we've had a couple generations come up with little appreciation for lots of quality older material and little opportunity to develop that appreciation. Personally, I think the company ought to launch a Vault Disney network dedicated to airing everything they feel they can't find a market for---re-grow the audience for the stuff and eventually it will make commercial sense to offer the content on home media.
Treasure Island, Disney's first full-length fully live-action feature, deserves a 2-disc collector's edition at least as much as any other live-action title mentioned so far, but I'm not holding my breath. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea got an excellent 2-disc release, worth picking up for the original "Sunset Squid" sequence alone (in my opinion)---it's still available after more than 5 years on the market. Given Disney's practice of vaulting and periodically re-releasing desirable properties, I think the inescapable conclusion is that the release hasn't sold well enough to merit going back into the vault. And I think the same goes for Hunchback (available for more than 6 years now) and Hercules (still on the market after 8 years).
Same for Bedknobs and Broomsticks, I imagine. It's a quality single-disc release, including a solid handful of production-specific extras, with which I've been quite satisfied (although I'd very likely double-dip on a more comprehensive release). But it's not Mary Poppins, neither in terms of aesthetic achievement nor long-standing audience appeal. Does anyone here really believe the company wanted to have the 30th Anniversary Edition out in the streets in the year of its 37th anniversary?
Sales-figures for lesser-selling titles are difficult to come by, so I tend to refer to the numbered Treasures series for comparison. In the last wave, the 3d collection of classic Donald Duck shorts had a production run of 50,000 and has yet to sell out; there are more than 80 million US households equipped with DVD players. If those cartoons appeal to less than a tenth of a percent of the American DVD-buying public, what's a realistic assessment of the market appeal for the rest of these titles? Especially considering the widespread indignation at the practice of double-dipping?
Disney's in business, after all. Everyone's entitled to want what they want---I'd love to see Condorman on disc, but it's not going to happen (and I'm not paying collector's prices for a copy on VHS). The fact of the matter is that there are a number of films we're lucky to have been given the opportunity to buy at all, and plenty more we're never going to see until we reach an all-digital-distribution sales model that eliminates the bulk of production & distribution costs.
Fflewduur, technically Condorman is on DVD (but it's OOP from Anchor Bay and expensive to get now)...but you probably knew that, so never mind!
I'm on the fence about double-dipping for Sleeping Beauty, and I'll be on the fence about double-dipping for Mary Poppins. I think that the 40th Anniversary set is very comprehensive.
I'd love 2-disc DVDs of Pete's Dragon and Bedknobs and Broomsticks- I'm a big fan of those, as well!
blackcauldron85 wrote:Fflewduur, technically Condorman is on DVD (but it's OOP from Anchor Bay and expensive to get now)...but you probably knew that, so never mind!
Actually, I didn't know that. I remember hearing something about Anchor Bay licensing a few Disney titles, but I obviously didn't pay enough attention to catch which films they were; by the time I picked up The Black Hole, distribution had reverted back to Disney.
Ever since the 40th Anniversary Edition Set containing some of the raw elements as extras, I've been in both awe and digust with that DVD release. The restoration is not what it should be. The entire film is overcast with a grey hue.. colors are not true. The faces look like they have dirty mud on them in some sequences and no, it's not soot. When looking at the raw footage in the bonus features, they look pristine, bright, and color is balanced and true. I have been wishing that Disney would just re-assemble the entire film from the original elements. It would quite a job considering all the animation and special effects shots. Could that conversation at lunch that someone overheard, mean that they may actually be doing this? Wow.. That would make my entire decade!
Here's to Mary Poppins! Disney's greatest.
"She sailed out of the Disney-blue heavens, umbrella in hand, and promptly elicited every gorgeous adjective in the book from reviewers coast to coast."
I hope so, Chris. The color scheme was my only issue with the current DVD transfer. It was completely clean and detailed, but the colors were drab. At first I figured that was just the intended look of the film, but then (like you) I was shocked to see how vibrant and eye-popping the live-action elements from "Jolly Holiday" were in the supplements. The difference becomes especially glaring when the image transforms from the live-action element to the final film composite. You actually see the colors turn flat and grayish before your very eyes, very strange considering how bold Lowry's restorations tend to be color-wise. I really hope that lunch conversation about restoring the individual elements and recompositing them turns out to be true. This will also be an opportunity for them to fix the aspect ratio to 1.75:1.
Disneykid wrote: The difference becomes especially glaring when the image transforms from the live-action element to the final film composite. You actually see the colors turn flat and grayish before your very eyes, very strange considering how bold Lowry's restorations tend to be color-wise.
Yes, Kelvin, that is an excellent example of where the difference is so obvious in the comparisons on the Jolly Holiday Extra. I think what Lowry was given was not the best in the first place. So yeah, I've got my fingers crossed that they are really going back to those original elements to re-assemble everything. It would be gorgeous. Perhaps with the Bluray coming up, they realize that the recent restoration just will not cut it. The parts that are lacking would be more obvious than ever. If they do this the Jolly Holiday sequence will look warm and bright like it's supposed to. In the bonus featurettes of the current dvd set, the raw footage of Julie in her red and white dress is stunning. It's too bad that when they got processed for the current main print it looks like she got 3 shades of gray / blue hue over it.
You mentioned the aspect ratio. That is something else that I've wanted corrected. It's cropped too much. There should be a lot more information on the top and bottom in particular. In the scene where she flies in for the first time, part of her umbrella is cut off on top. On my laser disc releases there is much more space on top of her umbrella.
Hopefully we'll get an awesome Bluray release toward the end of next year.
"She sailed out of the Disney-blue heavens, umbrella in hand, and promptly elicited every gorgeous adjective in the book from reviewers coast to coast."
Chris wrote:The restoration is not what it should be. The entire film is overcast with a grey hue.. colors are not true. The faces look like they have dirty mud on them in some sequences and no, it's not soot. When looking at the raw footage in the bonus features, they look pristine, bright, and color is balanced and true. I have been wishing that Disney would just re-assemble the entire film from the original elements.
That is so true of other Disney dvd's as well, and it's very frustrating. I recently watched Walt Disney's film "Follow Me Boys." The picture quality is terrible, but in the bonus features the picture quality of the same movie is beautifully clean and clear in the exerpts they show along with the interviews.
