I’ve just started watching the remastered Blu-ray version of Sleeping Beauty, and I had to stop and write this post because I am in disbelief that a 50-year-old movie can look this good. Sleeping Beauty has always been the most stylish of the Disney oeuvre, but now it’s also the best-looking. It has the crispness and precision and purity of digitally-created animation, but also the soul and warmth of hand-drawn art. Seriously, wow. Even if you don’t have Blu-ray, I imagine the remastered DVD transfer is every bit as good, just lower in resolution.
I have a feeling that this disc will become to Blu-Ray decks what Dark Side of the Moon is to CD players.
Holy hell, is that banner from said blu-ray? Because that’s gorgeous and possibly the first time I’ve really NOTICED the upgrade between DVD and HD.
Nah, that’s a photo of stained glass I found on Google. But seriously, the detail in the BR version is mind-blowing. I had no idea the backgrounds were so elaborate.
Just goes to show that Disney needs to hurry the hell up and make another hand-drawn classically animated film. I’m not talking about Lion King either. I’m talking about Pinocchio. Shame they junked that animation studio huh. :P
Eh, Disney no longer knows how to make an animated film that isn’t a string of manic pop-culture references and fourth-wall-breaking winks. They stopped making hand-drawn movies because they sucked at it.
Disney doesn’t know what they’re doing anymore, but here’s an odd one for you. The sucky end of Disney is abandoning 2D movies entirely to focus on garbage like Meet the Robinsons there. Any 2D stuff they release from here out is, ironically, going to be coming from John Lasseter (who, Cars aside, I think we can agree has some clue what he’s doing). If this here lives up to the concept art, I know I’m going to be checking it out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapunzel_%282009_film%29
It’s still not god damned 2D animated.
The restoration work was done by Lowry Digital.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowry_Digital_Images
Those shiny new James Bond bluray releases are also done by LD. Keep your eyes peeled for more cool things to come.
I don’t remember Sleeping Beauty very well these days. Does it have any shocking things you forget about like the extreme and inhuman vibrato that came out of Snow White’s mouth?
I am not sure I could watch this film again. The transformation of Malificent was as scary for me as a kid as the Tetsuo transformation from Akira was many years later. What the heck is wrong with me and transformation scenes? Are they not changes I can believe in?
I hope I can afford this film before it “goes back into the Disney Vault.”
Also, from that Wiki article about Rapunzel: “The movie’s visual style will be based on the painting ‘The Swing’, by the French Rococo artist Jean-Honore Fragonard.”
Sweet.
The extremely detailed backgrounds are one of Pinocchio’s hidden treats, and though I haven’t seen Sleeping Beauty in ages, I’m interested to see how the two stack up (being from relatively the same time frame, I think).
Man, Disney, you need to get your act together. You used to be something special.
I have faith that 2D animation will return fully to Disney after “The Princess and the Frog” is released. Disney momentarily abandoned 2D because, at the time, its creative content was being controlled exclusively by non-artist producers. That’s changed, and hopefully it’s for the better. As a 2D animator, I may be biased…but I have to believe it’ll come back in full swing.
I need to pick up Sleeping Beauty. It’s definitely one of the prettiest Disney films. The layouts and the color scheme are magnificent.
Darn it, I finally get set up and familiar with DVDs, and now here’s BluRay taunting the hell out of me. Watching one of the best villains in all of Disneydom in super high quality appeals to the animation nut in me.
It’s odd that you put both Sleeping Beauty and Dark Side of the Moon in the same analogy but, then again, Ward Kimball’s direction for Sleeping Beauty was out there (but still beautifully done) compared to other Disney films.
I haven’t seen that movie in forever though, so I’m both surprised and jealous at this news. Surprised because I completely forgot that it had a Blu-ray release and jealous because I don’t have enough money to afford a player for said release. *sad face*