DVDizzy Forum

Could anyone tell me which years Sleeping Beauty were theatrically released? I know 1959, its original release, but I'm a bit fuzzy on the others.

And does anyone remember the advertisement for its rerelease on the original Beauty and the Beast video? It was advertised for spring 1993, but I guess it got pulled for some odd reason. I know it got re-released a few years later, but not sure of the exact year.

http://disneyvideos.disney.go.com/movie ... 75503.html

It's near the bottom.

Back in the 70's and I think the 80's too Disney would re-release at least one or two movies a year in theaters, sometimes more. I believe this practice ended when Video's became big

I think they STILL should do that. There's nothing like seeing a movie on the big screen.

my chicken is infected wrote:I think they STILL should do that. There's nothing like seeing a movie on the big screen.

I want to second that, but I'm kinda worried that on some of the films made in the academy ratio yet aren't open-matte will get ruined. I have a nasty feeling that, if re-released, the earlier films starting with Snow White and ending with Peter Pan could result in a hard-matte version, which is almost as bad as a pan and <stroke>scam</stroke> scan job. According to Roger Ebert's Cinderella review from 1987, this is just what happened.

A few Years back (late 90's I think) Disney had said they were going to make 1 new movie a year and re-release 2 every year in the theater. I think they did it for a year and then DVD's started coming out

Wondy, thankfully, last time Snow White was released in theaters the 15.25 x 21mm Academy Aperture image was reduced to fit into the 11.33 x 21mm Widescreen Aperture (So it ended something like 11.33 x 15.60mm)


Also even if they didn't shrink it i don't think they'd ruin prints by printing a "hard matte" on them (the letterbox bars) cus then those prints wouldn't even be able to be projected correctly in Academy in theaters that indeed had the correct focal length lens to project them without blowing up the Academy frame into Widescreen (which is essentially what they do to project Standart Widescreen.) It just takes the switch of a lens to project Academy correctly in a modern widescreen theater...if only they knew...

Sleeping Beauty being a Large Format Negative film (Technirama, 24 x 36mm) would look awesone if they did an IMAX release of it.

I see that this thread has kind of steered into a totally different course than My Chiken is Infected intended. My apologies for continuing the detour, but regarding the showing of animated features made in the pre-widescreen era (before 1953), unfortunately many of them were not projected properly when they were re-issued in the 60's 70's and even 80's. Since Disney distributed regular film dupes in those days (no shrinking of the image), it was totally at the discretion of the film projectionist as to how the film was projected and many of them used widescreen aperature plates which completely destroyed the composition of the original ratio.

But wonderlicious brings up a new issue that I was unaware of. According to the Roger Ebert review of Cinderella, Disney was recomposing some of their animated features for the wide-screen! Shame!

While I missed that release of Cinderella, I did happen to see the re-issues of Fantasia and Pinocchio in the early 1990's, where I can personally vouch for the fact that Disney was taking a new approach and was shrinking the image to fit within the 1.85:1 ratio with black bars projected on the sides of the image. Bravo!

And even more surprizing, the 1991 re-release of One Hundred and One Dalmatians showed the movie in this 1.37:1 pillar-boxed method, even though the animators had composed the image so it could be comfortably matted to 1.75:1. So it's a matter of opinion as to whether or not this was the correct decision.

And that leads to my last point. When Disney starts releasing the animated classic from 1937-1953 on HD-DVD you know it's going to happen: "This movie has been modified from it's original version to fit your widescreen tv"

Poppins#1, interesting about 101 Dalmatians! The 90's rerelease i saw (I can't pinpoint the year but it was around before the Laserdisc release I believe) was in widescreen (on a regular 1.85 screen)

Aparently the three restorations they did around that time from the Technicolor negatives (Pinocchio, Snow White, and Fantasia) were all printed into the reduced aperture format for the theatrical release (And they received the Laserdisc Deluxe CAV treatement in, respectively, red white and blue boxes )
So they did a reduced 101 Dalmatians too then!

As for your last point, I don't know about Disney, but they're already doing reformatting for HDTV broadcasts of several Scope ratio films from 2.40 to 1.78 or 1.85, like the Matrix, T2, T3, Underworld, Charlie's Angels etc, by using the open matte area of the Super-35 negative

16:9. The "new" Foolscreen!

Wasnt the laserdisc in the 80's

deathie mouse wrote:Poppins#1, interesting about 101 Dalmatians! The 90's rerelease i saw (I can't pinpoint the year but it was around before the Laserdisc release I believe) was in widescreen (on a regular 1.85 screen)

The theatrical release of 101 Dalmatians that I saw was in July 1991 and it was definitely reduced aperature format with black bands on the sides of the picture. That was the last theatrical release Dalmatians got, so it's funny that the version you saw was 1.85:1 widescreen.

memnv wrote:Wasnt the laserdisc in the 80's

I believe laserdiscs came out in 1980 and were finally discontinued in 1998.

Well you know how things are in the twoiilight zone.. a little.. different ..
I saw it probably more towards the mid 90's? I remember looking for the Academy/Pan Scan/Open Matte vs Widescreen "questions" (i had started buying LDs) as i watched and not noticing anything horribly out of whack on the widescreen projection. Then the video editions never came out in widescreen. So i never bought it.

memnv, the 101 Japanese LD was issued around '95 while the the US LD seems to been issued in '99 from what i can find on the net (since i never bought it I really didn't keep track since i was only interested on a widescreen version). All discs were issued 4:3 Full frame as was the VHS

101 was certainly a long long time coming. At one point it seemed it would never be issued . Kinda like what the Platinum feels today


Poppins#1 do you have an article or reference where i can read about the reduced aperture 101 prints? Would love to know more about that

Are you sure you didn't just see it in a theater where they took the normal print and used a lens to project in Academy ratio (a lens of about 1.35x the focal length of the Widescreen one would do it) The image on screen would look exactly like a reduced aperture one, pillarboxed and all.

And now i go to discuss stuff even with Roger Ebert!

Roger Ebert wrote:Footnote: I hate to sound like a scold, but this is the second Disney animated classic that has been stretched into "wide-screen" format, with a resulting loss of some 25 percent of the original image. The studio's argument: Few theaters are equipped these days to show films in the classic 4-to-3 ratio, and Disney would rather carefully supervise its own wide-format pan-and-scan version than allow a projectionist to despoil the image. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Mmm Mr Ebert, what a shame that Disney would go to the expense to print and create a new optical element with newly designed camera moves when it woulda been much easier and less costly to just do a one pass straight optical reduction from Academy 15 x 21mm to Reduced within Widescreen Academy 11 x 16mm, and show the whole correct image! But hey, truth is stranger than fiction!

And horror of horrors this evil element could be used to make Poppins#1 predictions come horribly true: a Cinderella 16:9 widescreen HDTV broadcast version!

I've totally highjacked my chicken is infected's thread!

so coming back to the topic, it would be nice if the re-release dates for Sleeping Beauty distinguished if they were in 35mm Cinemascope/Panavision prints or in 70mm prints. Does anybody know?

deathie mouse wrote:Poppins#1 do you have an article or reference where i can read about the reduced aperture 101 prints? Would love to know more about that

Are you sure you didn't just see it in a theater where they took the normal print and used a lens to project in Academy ratio (a lens of about 1.35x the focal length of the Widescreen one would do it) The image on screen would look exactly like a reduced aperture one, pillarboxed and all.

Sorry deathi, I have no references to back me up. But I can assure you what I saw was definitely a reduced aperature print. I was very aware of aspect ratios at the time, and the projected image had "projected" black pillar bars on the sides of the frame. Of this I am certain. The trailers that were hooked onto the lead of the film showed the full width of the 1.85:1 frame and when the movie started, the black bands were there. There was no switching of projectors or changing of lenses between the trailers and film.

Oh and by the way, this 1991 release print was also remixed in "dolby surround stereo"

Sleeping Beauty was re-issued in 1995 also.