|
|
Sleeping Beauty
Click
picture to order this DVD
As Always, a review of The
Film and The DVD (extras)!
The Film:
To Disney fans and collectors, Sleeping Beauty is often
referred to as "the forgotten princess." Until fall of 2003, you
probably would see party sets of every Disney Princess, but her. If
there were six princesses to show on a party dish, she'd be the princess
#7 left behind. Even modern princesses
like The Little Mermaid and Jasmine are given higher billing. To
many, this is a crying shame. To the Uncle of a young niece who loves Sleeping
Beauty, this makes things even more difficult.
Why the snub? Few can say. Sleeping Beauty
was in fact the last "fairy tale" ever made by Disney, until The
Little Mermaid was released in 1989. Until then, they were too obsessed with
"Ladies" and "Tramps," with the occasional Dalmatian
and "aristocat." It took a while for them to get their fairy
tale legs back, with a little mermaid named Ariel. Even then, it's took
them nearly a decade and a half to give us Sleeping Beauty on DVD!
Why do fans love it so? Probably because
the heroine is the penultimate (to us, anyway) princess, saved by the
penultimate prince who even slays the penultimate dragon to free her. This
dragon is the work of Malificent, who quite frankly is still, to date,
Disney's penultimate villain. Don't argue. When Disney helped make
the video game Kingdom Hearts
last year, who'd they choose as the leader of all Disney villains? Guess.
Here's the story for the non-fairy-tale
folk: Princess Aurora and Prince Philip are betrothed, having only seen
each other as kids. Then Malificent curses the young Aurora, to die on her
16th birthday. The Good Fairies --Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather-- realize
that the only way to protect the child is to hide her, and raise her as a
foundling child named Briar Rose, deep in the forest. This works like a
charm, until Prince Philip goes riding in the woods one day, and sees
Briar Rose...and it's love at first sight.
Maybe non-fans just don't like the
"love at first sight" angle. There is no "dinner and a
movie" for Aurora and Philip; they just know they are meant to
be together. However, there is a whole medieval dragons and princes and
castles and good-against-evil fairy tale here, and that's what makes it
such a winner. Never before, or since, has any Disney hero had to face a
real dragon...and kicked it's butt just the same. This is the most
striking good-against-evil fight in Disney lore, and it's still a keeper,
even 30 years after its conception.
There's also all the added humor to enjoy.
Flora and Merryweather have this running gag where one insists on
everything pink and the other insists on everything blue. Then there's the
time Fauna must try and bake a cake for Briar Rose without the use of her
magic; you can imagine the mayhem that causes! Meanwhile, the two Kings
prepare for the return of the princess on her 16th (plus one day)
birthday, once the curse is no longer a worry, so their children can
marry. Just wait to see the Prince's father's reaction, when he tells him
he's fallen in love with "Briar Rose"...neither one of them
knowing she is in fact Princess Aurora.
This is one of the best of the classic
films in Disney history, and again, it's a travesty that they had yet to
give it any decent respect until now. That has fortunately changed, at
least for now, with nothing sold about "Disney Princesses" in
2003, without Aurora on it. That's exactly as it should be. Let's just
hope it lasts.
The
DVD: All praise to Disney DVD!
Sure, they didn't make this a "Platinum Edition" like Snow
White, though here's what they did do; they gave us an authentic
widescreen! Huzzah! What follows is a
sample of what I mean by "authentic widescreen." Most widescreen
versions on DVD are simply cropped versions of the full screen image. In
other words; they are not "the film as it appeared in theaters,"
though rather, they are actually cropped versions of what even VHS owners
can see more of. A good sample of this faux widescreen method can be seen
over at my review of Spider-Man.
Read that, and be dismayed. 
This
widescreen is different. Note the difference in the widescreen and full
screen images. As it should be, the widescreen is more of a representation
of the wide screen image, as it appeared in theaters. Notice how in the
left image, much more is visable on the left and right. In this image that
means little, though imagine how much difference it is in a more tense
scene, where every part of the frame counts. This
is a small taste of the top quality workmanship of this DVD. In addition
is an audio commentary option, though only in the widescreen version
)further proving that these are two completely different prints, not just
a "cropped" version of the same video). Mary Costa, the original
voice of Sleeping Beauty, is present, as is classic renowned (and sadly,
recently passed away) Disney animator Marc Davis, plusSupervising Animator
Ollie Johnston. This audio commentary also includes: : Art Director Eyvind
Earle, Background painter Frank Armitage, disney artist Mark Gabriel and
Michael Giaimo, and as host of the commentary track, Disney historian Jeff
Kurtti. What a treat for Sleeping Beauty fans this is. Disc
two is divided into two sections, much like all recent Disney DVDs.
"Games, Music, and Fun" are basically for the kids, while "History
and Behind the Scenes" is for us grownups. Kids get far less extras,
though they'll love them anyway, especially an "Rescue Aurora"
DVD game they can play. The good fairies are trying to guide Philip
through the forest and they need you to answer the riddles of which
direction to go. Should Philip go in the direction marked with a Squirrel,
a rabbit, or a frog? Kids will love this game. In
addition to the Aurora game for kids, is a music video made by a modern
Disney pop band (Once Upon "Another" Dream), a Once Upon
a Dream sing-a-long, a "Princess Personality" game (where little
girls answer questions and are told which Disney Princess they compare
to), and three art projects (an ink and paint game, "design a
princess," and "design a dragon"!). Now
on to the grown-up extras. These are divided into five sections: Story,
Production, Virtual Galleries, Publicity, and a Sleeping Beauty Scrapbook.
Story includes mostly conceptual work, including The history of the
Sleeping Beauty Story prior to the film, the 1951 outline they made for
the Disney version, and two storyboard sequences (specifically: when the
fairies put the castle to sleep, and when the prince is captured).
Production is similarly elaborate for behind-the-scenes information, with
featurettes on music, design, background art, original Live-action
references (for both Briar Rose and Prince Philip), and the restoration
process used for this DVD, among others. Virtual
Galleries may seem like merely still slide shows, though it's still a lot
of data to include on this DVD. Every single character in the film is
given his or her own gallery, plus concept art, storyboards, layouts,
backgrounds, the storybook based on the film, poster art, and a
"Disneyland walkthrough" made to look like (though it isn't
quite as cool as) the little storybook hallway within Disneyland castle.
Capping off these sort of extras is a menu of all the trailers (including
the original teaser), and a scrapbook of behind the scenes photos,
publicity, merchandise, and the theme parks. Yes,
there's more! Clicking on (quite appropriately) "more" on the
main menu on disc two, offers you three additional featurettes. One of the
best of these for Disney buffs is the original "Grand Canyon"
short film, which was shown with Sleeping Beauty in larger theaters, back
in 1959. "The Peter Tchaikovsky Story" details the history of
the music behind "Once Upon a Dream," while "Four Artists
Paint One Tree" is an original featurette of the artists who made
this film, as shown on 1958 TV! Capping
off the extras is a modern featurette about The Making of Sleeping Beauty,
where everyone from actual cast and crew, to film critics like Leonard
Maltin, reminisce about the staying power of this Disney classic. Of
course, fans already knew that, though this DVD cinches it: Sleeping
Beauty is indeed one of the best Disney classics, made by Walt Disney
himself. Looking at this DVD, I'm sure all future generations will agree.
Click
picture to order this DVD
| All text, Title
graphics, and pix not of reviewed products, are created by Techtite,
copyright 1999-2001; all rights reserved. Picture of DVD cover is used only for the purpose of review (and to make shopping for
product easier); it by no means represents any affiliation with Techtite
and the distributors of this product. For further "legalese"
& disclaimers, click here... |
|
Burnout
Near
Miss
Small
Crater
Large
Crater
Deep
Impact
