DVDizzy Forum

Has anyone pointed out that they have it backwards? Shouldn't return of Jafar be on the top, chronologically?

Does anyone remember Aladdin in Nasira's Revenge ? Now THAT was an epic video game ! Absolutely loved it. Nasira is Jafar's sister, fighting to destroy Aladdin and co. No Robin as Genie, but with a mention I thought

Kyle wrote:Is it really cropped, or just unmatted? I don't mind opening up the frame, I just don't want the top and bottom missing.

The tops and bottoms are missing. These "sequels" were produced by the TV Animation crew to serve as a pilot ("Return Of Jafar") and finale ("King Of Thieves") for the Aladdin series. They were animated in 4:3, same as the show. Over the years, Disney has been treating them more and more as standalone "movies," ignoring the rest of the TV series completely. "King Of Thieves" was cropped for its DVD release in 2005, but "Return Of Jafar" was lucky enough to remain in its original aspect ratio. The review on the main site has screencaps if you're interested.

For this release, they're both cropped. We have less picture.

lord-of-sith wrote:I'm surprised no one has commented on how...bad...this potential cover for the sequel combo pack looks.

I haven't commented on it because I'm really holding out hope that it's just something they threw together for the digital release and not the real cover. It's unbelievably horrible. There's no excuse for something like this to come from a company as loaded with money and talent as Disney.

I was wondering if anyone was gonna comment on that cover. But I figured we just all got use to bad covers from Disney by now.

Pasta67 wrote:

Kyle wrote:Is it really cropped, or just unmatted? I don't mind opening up the frame, I just don't want the top and bottom missing.

The tops and bottoms are missing. These "sequels" were produced by the TV Animation crew to serve as a pilot ("Return Of Jafar") and finale ("King Of Thieves") for the Aladdin series. They were animated in 4:3, same as the show. Over the years, Disney has been treating them more and more as standalone "movies," ignoring the rest of the TV series completely. "King Of Thieves" was cropped for its DVD release in 2005, but "Return Of Jafar" was lucky enough to remain in its original aspect ratio. The review on the main site has screencaps if you're interested.

For this release, they're both cropped. We have less picture.

lord-of-sith wrote:I'm surprised no one has commented on how...bad...this potential cover for the sequel combo pack looks.

I haven't commented on it because I'm really holding out hope that it's just something they threw together for the digital release and not the real cover. It's unbelievably horrible. There's no excuse for something like this to come from a company as loaded with money and talent as Disney.

Ahh, well there goes any excitement I had about these releases. All I wanted was to see HD transfers of these.

unprincess wrote:I was wondering if anyone was gonna comment on that cover. But I figured we just all got use to bad covers from Disney by now.

I think at this point it goes without saying that most Disney covers are awful, so it isn't so necessary to make a post about it.

Too bad about the sequels, any chance the Japanese box set (for example), would have a different transfer?

Well, bummer. I was looking forward to these. I never picked up the DVD set because of the cropping on the latter film.

Kyle wrote:Is it really cropped, or just unmatted? I don't mind opening up the frame, I just don't want the top and bottom missing.

Definitely cropped. There's a "Brady Bunch" shot in King of Thieves with nine faces in squares, and six of them are cut in half. It's ridiculous.

Ozzel wrote:Well, bummer. I was looking forward to these. I never picked up the DVD set because of the cropping on the latter film.

Kyle wrote:Is it really cropped, or just unmatted? I don't mind opening up the frame, I just don't want the top and bottom missing.

Definitely cropped. There's a "Brady Bunch" shot in King of Thieves with nine faces in squares, and six of them are cut in half. It's ridiculous.

A lot of the decisions Disney has been making are becoming like a Monty Python sketch to the point where you hope this would happen:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu7vySQbgXI[/youtube]

Atlantica wrote:Does anyone remember Aladdin in Nasira's Revenge ? Now THAT was an epic video game ! Absolutely loved it. Nasira is Jafar's sister, fighting to destroy Aladdin and co. No Robin as Genie, but with a mention I thought

Yeah I have that game for the first Playstation. I haven't beat it, but I haven't really took the time to play it either as much.

But yeah That would have made a great DTV movie perhaps. Then again who know's?

Blu-ray.com review is now posted:

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Aladdin-B ... 57/#Review

As I suspected, the image galleries and pop-up trivia track from the 2004 DVD are missing. There's 43 minutes worth of new bonus features, the most substantial of which is the 19-minute making-of piece for the Broadway show.

PQ and aspect ratio are the same as the UK disc.

Flanger-Hanger wrote:Blu-ray.com review is now posted:

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Aladdin-B ... 57/#Review

The reviewer lists the "Diamond in the Rough" documentary as running only 70 minutes, but the DVD ran 107 minutes. I'm sincerely hoping that it's a typo on their part, especially as that's 37 minutes unaccounted for!

Hopefully someone with an advance copy can confirm that all 30 chapters are included:

--An Evening with The Creators of Aladdin & The Producers (11:56)
--From Arabian Nights to the Silver Screen (2:44)
--Reflections on Black Friday (3:24)
--Keane's Team: Redesigning the Lead Character (4:30)
--Rough Stuff #1: Progression Reel (1:56)
--Rough Stuff #2: An Animator Checks His Work (1:12)
--Green Room/Take 1 (1:33)
--The Music (6:54)
--A Whole New World: The Recording Sessions (4:27)
--Rough Stuff #3: "Prince Ali" - Work in Progress (1:07)
--Green Room/Take 2 (1:08)
--The Animation (13:29)
--Pencil + Computer: Creating the Magic Carpet (3:11)
--Master of the Line: The Art of Al Hirschfeld (4:32)
--Designing Jasmine (2:41)
--Designing Jafar (2:10)
--Unsung Heroes of the Clean-Up Department (2:25)
--Jafar Goes to the Birds (3:12)
--Rough Stuff #4: When Live-Action Meets Animation (2:42)
--Green Room/Take 3 (2:09)
--The Voice Talent (6:28)
--You Talkin' To Me?: The Voices of Aladdin (10:10) - not on R2 Blu-Ray
--Gilbert Gottfried: Up Close and Aggravated (2:26)
--Behind The Microphone (1:49)
--Extended Interview: Scott Weinger (1:24)
--Extended Interview: Linda Larkin (1:43)
--Extended Interview: Douglas Seale (1:37)
--Extended Interview: Jonathan Freeman (1:59)
--Green Room/Take 4 (1:09)
--Made You Look! (3:45)

Albert

*Sighs*. Really dissapointing that the featurettes for this edition are short (though it shouldn't come as an surprise at all). It's also dissapointing how long the Broadway featurette is as opposed to those for the movie. It doesn't even have the new @DisneyAnimation-featurette which were introduced with the "Mermaid" release.

Escapay wrote:
The reviewer lists the "Diamond in the Rough" documentary as running only 70 minutes, but the DVD ran 107 minutes. I'm sincerely hoping that it's a typo on their part, especially as that's 37 minutes unaccounted for!

Apparently it's not an error. They cut some chapters:

The chapters of the Diamond in the Rough documentary:

11:58 The Producers – NOT ON US BLU-RAY
02:43 From Arabian Nights to the Silver Screen
03:23 Reflections on Black Friday
04:29 Keane's Team: Redesigning the Lead Character
01:54 Rough Stuff #1: Progression Reel
01:12 Rough Stuff #2: An Animator Checks His Work
01:33 Green Room - Take 1
06:53 The Music – NOT ON US BLU-RAY
04:25 "A Whole New World": The Recordinng Sessions
01:06 Rough Stuff #3: Work in Progress - "Prince Ali"
01:07 Green Room - Take 2
13:30 The Animators – NOT ON US BLU-RAY
03:10 Pencil + Computer: Creating the Magic Carpet
04:30 Master of the Line: The Art Of Al Hirschfeld
02:41 Designing Jasmine
02:08 Designing Jafar
02:24 Unsung Heroes of the Clean-Up Department
03:11 Jafar Goes to the Birds
02:41 Rough Stuff #4: When Live Action Meets Animation
02:08 Green Room - Take 3
06:28 The Voice Talents – NOT ON US BLU-RAY
10:09 You Talkin' to Me? The Voices of Aladdin - NOT ON INTERNATIONAL BLU-RAY
02:24 Gilbert Gottfried: Up Close and Aggravated
01:48 Behind The Microphone
01:23 Extended Cast Member Interviews / Scott Weinger
01:42 Extended Cast Member Interviews / Linda Larkin
01:36 Extended Cast Member Interviews / Douglas Seale
01:58 Extended Cast Member Interviews / Jonathan Freeman
01:08 The Voice Talent / Green Room - Take 4
03:46 Made You Look

That means about 40 minutes of footage was cut out of the documentary on the US Blu-ray and about 10 minutes on the international Blu-ray. The DVD is the only place where you can watch the full documentary.

Thanks to mgmoya and FrankV from the bluray forum.

In more distressing news, the aspect ration for the Blu-ray was changed from 1:66:1 (like it was on the DVD) to 1:85:1 resulting in some minor picture loss. Some prefer the change because 1:85:1 was the 1992 theatrical ratio but the movie was actually animated and rendered in 1:66:1 via CAPS. It was only reformatted for theaters into 1:85:1 because of the technical limitations of the 35mm presentation. Aladdin is the only CAPS film presented in 1:85:1 on Blu-ray. The rest of them were presented in 1:78:1.

Welp, I'm keeping my DVD copy.

This is inexcusable.

Sotiris wrote:In more distressing news, the aspect ration for the Blu-ray was changed from 1:66:1 (like it was on the DVD) to 1:85:1 resulting in some minor picture loss. Some prefer the change because 1:85:1 was the 1992 theatrical ratio but the movie was actually animated and rendered in 1:66:1 via CAPS. It was only reformatted for theaters into 1:85:1 because of the technical limitations of the 35mm presentation. Aladdin is the only CAPS film presented in 1:85:1 on Blu-ray. The rest of them were presented in 1:78:1.

But the movie was never planned to be shown in 1.66:1. That ratio was only chosen so that when the movie was shown in theatres (1.85:1) or home video (1.33:1), there would be a minimum of picture loss in either case. The animated ratio was merely a way of finding a simple middle ground between the two. The only way to watch the movie in 1.66:1 in 1992/1993 was with the laserdisc, a niche home video format. These movies were made for theatres, first and foremost and 16:9 televisions were a long way off from being adopted by the masses when this movie was being made.

I also fail to see any instance in the movie where the 1.85:1 ratio crops too much of the picture. This obsession with having every pixel shown, regardless of theatrical framing, is largely ridiculous.

Look, I'm quite pleased that Disney is paying tribute to the late Robin Williams, but newsflash, Disney:

GENIE IS NOT THE ONLY DAMN CHARACTER IN THE MOVIE!! STOP OVER-ADVERTISING HIM! IT'S CALLED "ALADDIN" FOR A REASON!!

I mean, really. Don't get me wrong, Robin Williams was a great and hilarious actor and no one could ever amount to being a better Genie than him. Especially Dan "Homer Simpson" Castellaneta. Not to mention Genie is a fantastic Disney character, but I think they're running him into the ground or something.

For example, Louis is one of my favorite Disney characters in recent history. However, I know that the movie he comes from, The Princess and the Frog, is really all about Tiana and Naveen, the titular princess and frog, excuse the pun. If they over-advertised Louis, I too would grow pretty tired of it. And that's coming from someone who loves the character and tends to favor sidekicks as much as the main characters.

bruno_wbt wrote:

Escapay wrote:
The reviewer lists the "Diamond in the Rough" documentary as running only 70 minutes, but the DVD ran 107 minutes. I'm sincerely hoping that it's a typo on their part, especially as that's 37 minutes unaccounted for!

Apparently it's not an error. They cut some chapters:

The chapters of the Diamond in the Rough documentary:

11:58 The Producers – NOT ON US BLU-RAY
06:53 The Music – NOT ON US BLU-RAY
13:30 The Animators – NOT ON US BLU-RAY
06:28 The Voice Talents – NOT ON US BLU-RAY

Thanks to mgmoya and FrankV from the bluray forum.

Oh good god. This is ridiculous. What are they smoking over at Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment?

The way the documentary is structured, those four segments (and "Made You Look") are meant to be played as one program giving us a live Q&A panel at the Hyperion Theatre, mixed with new interviews from additional crew not present at the event. The additional 70 minutes of featurettes are meant to act as ancillary "branching" segments that give added context to each aspect of production of the film (the producers, the music, the animators, the voice talent). They are strong enough on their own, yes, but are meant to complement a main program. Heck, each section ends with the "Green Room" featurettes, which give us a glimpse at what's going on behind the scenes of the Q&A reunion panel! This main program is now absent from the disc. What the hell were they thinking???

I fail to see how anyone at Disney has forgotten the purpose of this documentary after eleven years. Why in the world would they include everything but the main program, and yet still leave glimpses of that program that viewers cannot view on the Blu-Ray? Four "Green Room" featurettes and the concluding "Made You Look" all point towards a documentary that should have been included. This slipshod "Oh, we'll just include everything else" decision is fifty shades of stupidity. I'm tempted to create a thread called "The Many Sins of Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment" just to rank all the stupid decisions they've made in the past five years. It's just pathetic. They give us the now-defunct Virtual Vault, they don't give us the proper extended editions for Pocahontas and Bedknobs and Broomsticks, they don't bother porting over LaserDisc extras for The Hunchback of Notre Dame, or any DVD bonus features for Lilo & Stitch and The Emperor's New Groove, and they're dragging their feet to even release the remaining package features and The Black Cauldron. By removing a main documentary program that the existing bonus features allude to shows that whoever was in charge of this disc had no idea (or didn't care) what they were doing. The new features are all fine and dandy, but this carelessness cannot be ignored.

This is inexcusable.

Albert

I can't put it any better than Escapay just did, but it's true. There's no excuse for this sloppiness. Were the people at Disney really the ones boasting about how "all" of the bonus features from the DVD made it to the blu-ray, or was that just the uninformed claims of fans? Whenever it seems like I have nothing but praise for Disney, their home entertainment division makes another blunder.

I was never getting rid of it in the first place, but I'll be holding onto my Platinum Edition set even harder now.

I love this company, and yet this company drives me insane. I can't remember the last time I was content with a release from them.

Avaitor wrote:Welp, I'm keeping my DVD copy.

This is inexcusable.

Same here. I'd actually thought about buying a Blu-Ray version of Aladdin, but...nope.

I don't understand why they'd cut out parts of a documentary they've carried over. To make it less lengthy for the children watching? Please, most children aren't watching the bonus features in the first place. I'd guess it's another way to make sure you'll buy all the different releases of a film because that's the only way you'll have all the different content they've released sporadically. I mean, those songs for Genie/Jafar mentioned above? I'd never even heard of them before now. Craziness.