Loss of Quality in the Platinum Editions?

[yukitora]

To be honest, I only watched the bonus features once anyway. I didn't quite like the making-ofs for The Lion King/The Little Mermaid/Beauty and the Beast. The one for Lady and the Tramp was amazing, I could have cried during the "return to Marcaline" section (or however you spell it). The one for Bambi was great as well. Those two really made me appreciate the films and animation in general, whereas TLM/TLK/BATB were too self-praising, focusing on their sucess, rather than the actual process.

Sleeping Beauty was a different story... I think I preferred the "Sequence 8" segment more than the making of, but the audio comentary on the SE DVD tops them all.

Based on bonus features, I honestly think Lady and the Tramp is the best PE. Not for quantity, but for quality.

[ajmrowland]

So where did BatB focus ONLY on its success? The publicity section? Because that's the only place I remember it mentioning success.

[yukitora]

I don't recall claiming that they only focused on the sucess. Then again, I don't recall most of my posts (and cringe whenever I read them)

[toonaspie]

To be honest, I only watched the bonus features once anyway. I didn't quite like the making-ofs for The Lion King/The Little Mermaid/Beauty and the Beast. The one for Lady and the Tramp was amazing, I could have cried during the "return to Marcaline" section (or however you spell it). The one for Bambi was great as well. Those two really made me appreciate the films and animation in general, whereas TLM/TLK/BATB were too self-praising, focusing on their sucess, rather than the actual process.

Sleeping Beauty was a different story... I think I preferred the "Sequence 8" segment more than the making of, but the audio comentary on the SE DVD tops them all.

Based on bonus features, I honestly think Lady and the Tramp is the best PE. Not for quantity, but for quality.

I'm definitly with you that Lady and the Tramp had one of the better "Making of" documentaries because they we got to see a whole bunch of stuff on the the original story that Lady and the Tramp developed from and the stuff on Marceline and equally devoted themselves to exploring the technical aspects of the film (music, cinemascope, etc). My favorite part in The Lion King special features was seeing the video footage of the producers visiting Kenya to get inspiration for the film. Sadly this segment was only two minutes long.

I watched the Pinocchio "making of" and while some parts were interesting...at this point I think I'm starting to really tire of the standard fluff interview formats that's been common with a lot of these Walt-era plantinums: get a bunch of current animators, film critics and producers (and it's usually the same ones on every DVD) praising what a classic film this was. Didnt occur to me until watching the Pinocchio documentary how much time they took talking about certain scenes in the film and how much they liked them. I felt the Pinocchio documentary was very weak in this aspect. The only good part was learning about the voice actors in the film and that didnt take very long.

[ajmrowland]

The Pinocchio documentary got a little boring after awhile, I admit. But it was interesting, nonetheless. I just wish they'd stick with dividing the BTS material into sections(menus or not) like they did on the old DVDs, or even some of the more recent ones(the insert title here that almost was, anyone?). That way, you get a lot, and get a break in between.

[yukitora]

I tend to dislike the "...that almost was" featurettes, because more often than not, I wish they did go in the abandonned direction

[Goliath]

Sleeping Beauty was a different story... I think I preferred the "Sequence 8" segment more than the making of, but the audio comentary on the SE DVD tops them all.

I almost fell asleep during Sleeping Beauty's audio commentary. It was so dull. Practically the only thing Deja and Maltin did was saying: "oh, isn't this great?", "and that, doesn't that look great?" and there were way too many silent moments.

[CampbellzSoup]

"look at this squirel" oh wow look "it's the reason I got into animation was because of him"

I was like....eh? When doing a commentary you don't have to slober over the film so much.

Although I'm going to watch Pinocchio with Cene-explore hopefully that's a cool new way to view the commentary!

[2099net]

Sleeping Beauty was a different story... I think I preferred the "Sequence 8" segment more than the making of, but the audio comentary on the SE DVD tops them all.

I almost fell asleep during Sleeping Beauty's audio commentary. It was so dull. Practically the only thing Deja and Maltin did was saying: "oh, isn't this great?", "and that, doesn't that look great?" and there were way too many silent moments.

I think Yukitora is talking about the pre-platinum 2 disc Sleeping Beauty's commentary.

[yukitora]

uhm yes lol. hence why i said SE DVD. Thanks netty.

but I agree, less praise please, john.

[ajmrowland]

Well, what else could they do? They grew up loving the movie, and the PIP makes the commentary a little more relevant(though leaves one with a feeling of being bombarded with pictures and given little room to breathe).

[SpringHeelJack]

What else could they do? I dunno. Talk about the history? The artists / animators / people involved in the film? What doesn't work in the film for them? It's great that this movie influenced you, but if you just sit around and pat some dead guys' backs for 90 minutes, you're not going to end up with a memorable commentary.

[ajmrowland]

Then it would've been criticized for having too much overlapping information from the other features. I understand that they only praise the movie, but I guess it was their first time watching it in a long time. I know I would've done the same if I recorded the commentary for Pinocchio, and had not watched the restored film beforehand.

[SpringHeelJack]

Maybe, but I'd be willing to bet there'd be less complaints if it covered more of the same information as opposed to just "that's a nice tree".