Sleeping Beauty is the first of Walt Disney’s classic animated films to make their Blu-ray debut. It might come as no surprise since Merryweather seems to prefer the color Blu.
High def owners will be elated with this release as Disney sets the bar very high on the format and now I can’t wait for more of their classics to appear.
Princess Aurora is the first child of monarch King Stefan (Taylor Holmes) and the magical creatures of the land have gathered to pay tribute to the newborn. She is receiving blessings from the fairies Flora (Verna Felton), Merryweather (Barbara Luddy), and Fauna (Barbara Jo Allen).
Flora gives her the gift of beauty and Fauna gives her the gift of song, but before Merryweather can bestow her blessing the evil Maleficent (Eleanor Audley) interrupts the ceremony. Maleficent is offended that she wasn’t invited and gives Aurora the gift of death. She wickedly predicts that Aurora will die before the sun sets on her sixteenth birthday when she pricks her hand on a spinning wheel and then vanishes in a burst of green flames.
Merryweather uses her blessing to make sure that Aurora will only fall into a deep sleep until she is awakened by true love’s kiss. King Stefan orders all spinning wheels in the kingdom destroyed. Aurora goes into hiding to live with the fairies deep in the forests. Nearly sixteen years pass and Briar-Rose (Mary Costa), who used to be called Aurora, knows nothing of her royal heritage.
The isolated Briar-Rose wishes to find her true love and pines away for romance with her forest friends. She’s happened upon by Prince Phillip (Bill Shirley) and the two fall in love. What neither knows is that they’re betrothed to each other.
When Briar-Rose finds out about her heritage she’s taken to the castle, but Maleficent has more wicked plans for the celebration of her return and produces a spinning wheel to fulfill her evil prophecy. When the entire castle is put into a deep slumber along with Aurora, it’s up to the dashing Phillip to battle Maleficent with the help of the three fairies. The tale of Sleeping Beauty is an old one and has appeared in many mediums. Walt Disney adapted the ballet by Tchaikovsky. He also decided that this adaptation of the classic fairytale would be the first animated feature from his studio that used the widescreen format.
The studio would invest a great deal of money into this production, so much so that it was thought that the film might be a financial albatross around it’s neck, and it would take several years after the successful theatrical release that the studio would recoup the production costs.
The company knows that much anticipation is put on the first of their classic hand drawn features to make the high definition leap. To that end they’ve stepped up to the plate and hit a grand slam. The new transfer of Sleeping Beauty is fantastic. Every frame of animator Eyvind Earle’s fantastic backgrounds pop off the screen.
I’ve said that each frame contains a work of art in my review of the DVD and the Blu-ray only goes to prove it. It makes me just want to hit the pause button and frame the television.
The film has razor sharp, detailed images and each one a thing of beauty. Immerse yourself in Earle’s massively detailed backgrounds. This is the “must have” Blu-ray of this year.
Sleeping Beauty is presented in a 1080p high definition transfer (2.55:1). All special features are in high definition unless noted. Disc one features a commentary with Disney chief creative officer/Pixar founder John Lasseter, animator Andreas Deja, and film historian Leonard Maltin.
The Blu-ray adds a “Cine-explore” feature, in which the trio in a pop-up window with other aids like concept art, etc. also popping up. The film also has a pop-up princess trivia track. Next is the 4-minute “Dragon Encounter” that uses your sound system to simulate a CGI encounter with Maleficent in dragon form. Next is the 29-minute “Grand Canyon” which is a widescreen (2.35:1) visual interpretation of Ferde Grofe’s Grand Canyon suite that was screened with the film in theaters.
The Music and More section contains the 3 minute “Once Upon a Dream” by Emily Osment continues the tradition of having a current Disney Channel star record a classic song. The rocked up version of the tune is nothing close to the original and didn’t appeal to me at all, even if it was in high definition – Sorry Emily.
This section also has a “Disney Song Selection” menu that allows you to jump to all the songs in the film. There are also some previews of other Disney discs, including a sneak peek at the next Platinum release – Pinocchio. I can hardly wait if it’s as fantastic as this one!
Finally disc one contains the ability to access the Disney BDLive online network that offers a plethora of online content, which is if you have a Profile 2.0 player. Disc two is divided into “Games & Activities” and “Backstage Disney.” “Games & Activities” contains the games “Maleficent’s Challenge,” “Briar-Rose’s Enchanted Dance Game,” and “Sleeping Beauty Fun with Language Game.”
“Backstage Disney” starts with “Original Disneyland Sleeping Beauty Castle Walkthrough Attraction.” On the Blu-ray the 7-minute tour is given and you can select different options on the fly by selecting a different fairy icon on the bottom of the screen. Next is the 10-minute history of the attraction.
It’s followed by the fantastic 43 minute “Picture Perfect” that tells of the care and expense of making the film. The 7 minute “Eyvind Earle: the man and his art” is a short biography about the man behind the backgrounds and production design. The 5-minute “Sequence 8” is about the time consuming scene of Briar-Rose and Phillip dancing in the woods and that it nearly didn’t make it into the picture. Next is a 3-minute storyboard for an alternate opening for the film.
Deleted songs feature 12 minutes of songs that didn’t make the final cut. Next are two storyboard sequences, totaling 4 minutes, with an introduction by animator Andreas Deja (standard definition). There’s also 2 minutes of live action reference or real life actors performing some of the scenes (standard definition). The Sleeping Beauty Art Galleries contain a treasure trove of images used in the production. The 10-minute Blu-ray exclusive “The Sound of Beauty” details the new sound mix that was produced especially for the Blu-ray release.
“Publicity” contains 6 minutes of trailers (standard definition). The 49-minute “Peter Tchaikovsky Story” from Walt Disney Presents (1959) offers two versions, with different introductions. The 16-minute “Four Artists Paint a Tree” (1958) is from the Disneyland TV series and has four artists’ different interpretations of a tree and features Earle.
This set says that it’s only for a limited time, but the Blu-ray also comes with a copy of the film on DVD. It’s just disc one of the two-disc DVD in a paper sleeve, but this was a nice touch and I felt this was more useful than a digital copy.
Sleeping Beauty is the best Blu-ray that Disney has released. The picture looks fantastic and the special features are abundant. The BDLive connectivity offers some interesting content and allows you to connect to an entire online community. It’s the most technologically advanced disc that the studio has released so far and sets the bar high for their other Platinum releases.
I appreciated the set having the DVD in it as well and hope that this is something that they’ll continue with their future releases. I found this more useful than a digital copy, but it wouldn’t hurt is they also put that on as well.
Sleeping Beauty (50th Anniversary Two-Disc Platinum Edition) [Blu-ray] is now available at Amazon . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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