I was going to post my review of this earlier, but I had to watch it twice before I felt I could really describe how nice of a set this is. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: Diamond Edition is of course the first time this film has been released in HD, and they did a surprisingly great job with the transfer. Considering that this film came out in 1937, I assumed the Blu-ray would look good but still show a lot of imperfections, just due to how old the masters are. I was wrong.
My wife and I fired this up one night and were blown away by how clear the movie is. By itself, the film is presented in the Fullscreen aspect ration that it was animated in, because Disney didn’t start animating in Widescreen until the 50s. However, they’ve added a cool feature called DisneyView where they fill the remaining sections of the frame with paintings by Toby Bluth. They fit in nicely with the style of the movie and aren’t distracting, so you won’t have to worry about burning in black bars on your expensive Plasma HDTV. This was first used on the Pinnochio Blu-ray that came out last spring.
Disney is really trying to promote Blu-ray, and at first glance it looks like there is a standard DVD and Blu-ray version of this available right now, but it’s actually just the same thing in different packages. The Blu-ray comes with a DVD, and vice versa. A standalone DVD version doesn’t come out until November. If you still just have a DVD player, I would definitely recommend getting Snow White (especially for $9.99 with the code SNOWHITE on Amazon), because you’ll be covered if you later upgrade to Blu-ray.
In addition to the film, they’ve recruited the wonderful animator/animation historian John Canemaker to record the audio commentary. There is also a very cool interactive walkthrough of Disney’s historic Hyperion Studios. They’ve taken tons of archival photos and enhanced them with clickable hotspots and video introductions by animation gurus such as Andrew Stanton, Ron Clements, and John Musker. The really surprising thing about this tour is that it includes several Silly Symphonies in High Definition! Some of my favorites are there, including The Skeleton Dance, Flowers and Trees, Music Land, The Goddess of Spring, and even Steamboat Willie!
There is a great documentary called The One that Started it All that explains just why Snow White is such a big deal. I’ve read a lot of books on the history of animation and Disney in particular, but this made me realize that Snow White was as groundbreaking for fantasy films as it was for animation. Other bonus features include:
- “The Princess and the Frog” Sneak Peak
- Snow White Returns – Newly discovered storyboards suggest a brand new Snow White featurette that was never made.
- “Someday My Prince Will Come” – Music video by Tiffany Thornton
- Tons of games for the kids and familiy
If you’re a fan of Disney or just animation in general, you owe it to yourself to get the best version of Snow White that’s ever been available.
DEAL: $9.99 on Amazon with coupon code SNOWHITE
What are some classic Disney films you can’t wait to see on Blu-ray?
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Ben
