Your thoughts on: LADY AND THE TRAMP Platinum Edition!

[TheSequelOfDisney]

AHHHHHH!!!!! I'm so happy! I just finished watching the movie! I also got it from Target!!!! Anyway, the picture and sound was FANTASTIC!!!! Actually, sometimes in the darker places in the movie, I couldn't really see what was happening. I knew what was going to happen, but it wasn't that great.

[Paka]

Thought I'd start a thread strictly for the discussion of the film and its content, now that it has officially been released!

I must reiterate: Thoughts on film and extra feature content only, please!! Keep discussion about slipcovers, bonus pushies, and other silly frivolous extras to other threads... true lovers of film, chat it up here!

Anyhoo, I'm going to have to wait on my copy, so I won't know exactly what I'll think for another week or two. Or four.

[yanya]

Lady and the Tramp has been, and in all probability... will always be... my favorite Disney movie. It's got a great story, and possibly the most memorable scene of all. Of course, I speak of the Spaghetti Scene. (If you need a refresher on that one, look at my Avatar.) Disney did a great job on the restoration. Though, I did see some minor color changes here and there. (Such as Old Trusty being dark brown one minute, then a lighter brown... and back to dark brown. But we'll chalk that up to maybe a passing cloud or something.) And of course, the Songs are as good as ever. My favorite is probably either Bella Notte or He's A Tramp.

I don't usually worry to much about Bonus Features with my DVDs, but this one I'm making an exception for. So far I've watched the "Deleted" Scenes and a couple of the TV Spots. (Although, I wouldn't really call them Deleted. If they had been animated and then cut, then I would say they were Deleted.) The "Turning The Tables" Scene was interesting. I also got to see Peggy Lee working on some of the songs. She was pretty talented.

[Poppins#1]

I picked mine up today. The film looks lovely, a big improvement over the limited edition. It's nice to see it for the first time in its full 2.55:1 aspect ratio and the original 3 channel soundtrack it a nice option for the purists. I like the fuller sound of the DEHT mix myself. I'm glad they didn't do any tinkering around with it like they did the Mary Poppins enhanced soundtrack.

[Evil Genie Jafar]

Well, I don't know if it is because I'm tired but being this the first time I watch the movie understanding it (as a kid I just watched it a couple of times) I find it boring..... I'll just have to give it a try when I'm 100% myself.

The picture does look great as it should have been. The sound was very good. And I loved the disc art. The best disc art EVER. The new DVD case was very cool.... however the lame slipcover is just absurd.


PS

WHAT A BIT#@ OF A WOMAN THAT F$%N* AUNT!!! OMG!!! I HATE HER!!!

I mean, please:

1. If you're invited to take care of a house for some days.... HOW DARE YOU BRING YOUR PETS?!

2. Plus... it is just COMMON SENSE that if the persons living there had no problems with the dog.... why would you?!!!


.... 3. it was nice to see the trailers for the new LATT2 and DUMBO, SPECIAL EDITIONS (well, TLM too). Disney should be charged for every time they use that term.... they've overused thos words from the English language.

[Disneykid]

Even though I'd say this is the weakest Platinum DVD released in terms of bonus material, it's still a very solid release. The main documentary is nicely detailed, the storyboard featurette fascinating (though I agree with Luke that there was too much Kevin Costner), and the vintage specials a highlight of the DVD. The parts of the specials that were taken from the pristine print that was tucked away in the vault looked absolutely beautiful. Did anyone else find the Siamese Cat feature rather eerie? Something about it just creeped me out with the changes between tempos and those odd accents. The Bella Notte music video didn't do much for me, but I appreciated how classy it was compared to what we've come to expect on these releases. The Disney Dog Trivia Board Game was surprisingly really fun (though only in multi-player mode). I think it's probably the best set-top game Disney's ever done, and am hoping for something of similar or higher quality for The Little Mermaid. In terms of bonus material, this is how I'd rank the Platinums:

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Aladdin
Beauty and the Beast
Cinderella
Bambi
The Lion King
Lady and the Tramp

The restoration on the film was gorgeous, though I have to admit that I like Cinderella's a tad more. Lady and the Tramp always looked sharp, but for some reason it never looked as sharp as Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, or Sleeping Beauty (even though it was free of Alice's compression artifacts and Sleeping Beauty's flickering). This is how I'd rank Lowry's Disney animated restorations (note that I can't comment on the Pinocchio since that's an international exclusive for the time being):

Cinderella
Lady and the Tramp
Bambi
Alice in Wonderland
Sleeping Beauty
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

[elangb]

hmm... am I the only one with a non-anamorphic widescreen ? Is it just my copy (Region 1) ?

[Luke]

hmm... am I the only one with a non-anamorphic widescreen ? Is it just my copy (Region 1) ?

Yep, you must have gotten the one disc that got messed up in the replication process and wound up being mastered in a way different from all the other DVDs. Either that, or there's a more obvious solution. Are you sure you know what "anamorphic widescreen" means? I'm not at all trying to be condescending - the phrase is anything but common knowledge and "anamorphic" in particular can refer to a film process which is entirely different. I'm more likely to think that you might be misusing the term than that you got a improperly-encoded disc, of which I've never heard of isolated incidents. But going on just these two questions, you seem well-versed in DVD terminology. You are talking about the brand new Platinum Edition and not the old Limited Issue or a bootleg of it?

[elangb]

Hi,

I bought today the new PE, in a big mega-store in north america.
By anamorphic widscreen I mean the "Enhanced for 16X9 televisions", which is not the case with the copy I own. Technically it's a 4X3 picture, with a widescreen picture in it, just like the old LI.

Check the cover art, it doesn't say - "Enhanced for 16X9 televisions" like on most of their DVDs, only "Widscreen (2.55:1)"

Elan

[Luke]

You're right that it doesn't say it is enhanced, but it is. Perhaps the fact that the movie is so wide is throwing you off?

Here's a screencap from the 16x9-enhanced version of the film:



There are still some sizable black bars on it, but only because the film's original aspect ratio is the very wide 2.55:1. How are you able to tell it is not 16x9-enhanced on your player? Are you using a DVD-ROM drive or a 16x9 television?

[elangb]

that's weird... here's what I found out...

If I don't touch anything, just let the disc play (like I did the first time I played it today) the "Fast Play" feature played the 4X3 version. I Switched to the Widescreen version when I saw that, but for some reason the movie played still in 4X3 mode. However, when I stopped the disc, played it again and chose the widescreen movie without playing the 4X3 version first - it was indeed a true 16X9 picture. I tried it on two of my players, and it did the same. So you're right, it's indeed a true 16X9 picture (which makes me happy). I have no idea if it's just my disc, but I'll try to replace it tomorrow and let you know (not that I care much, I would go for the widescreen version anyway).

Thanks for helping with this issue

[Luke]

Weird, indeed, but I'm glad it turned out alright. It's very lame that with FastPlay, the disc defaults to the 1.33:1 version.

[Wonderlicious]

I've had this DVD for two and a half weeks now, and I rather enjoyed it. On the topic of the film, I was once again drawn into it. If you ever need proof that classic animated films are generally better than modern ones and/or animated films can appeal to adults, watch Lady and the Tramp. As you can tell by now, the film is one of my favourites, so it was nice to revisit it, especially with the gorgeous image quality. I actually must admit that I haven't watched all the bonus features, but I did watch all the Backstage Disney footage and really liked it, especially the "Making of" and the Disneyland excerpts (which I must admit I quite like if they have something to do with film production and aren't dramas). The "Making of" was also good as it actually contained something mildly anti-Disney to do with Joe Grant and Walt's relationship. I was actually quite surprised to hear this, but I'm quite content at the same time. I also thought that the trailers were quite nice, though I found that for a post 1980 trailer, the 1986 trailer was really bland, especially after watching one of the trailers for the 1987 reissue of Cinderella.

I think that saying it's the weakest platinum is too harsh, personally. It had more worthy and well organised material than The Lion King and (if you'd taken away the Story Meetings), Bambi. I'd say it ties with Cinderella in terms of quality.

It is a shame, however, that a pan and scan version, however, was included instead of the Academy ratio version, though. In the UK, we only got the widescreen version, so I don't have to see it. Yet the Academy version had been restored to the quality of the old widescreen edition (ie the 1999 DVD), which from screencaps looked nice enough, and I read that chunks of the Academy Version were indeed cropped widescreen pics, so they could have done some form of reconstruction. Plus, it's shown or mentioned in the "Making Of", the Disneyland TV shows and the 1986 trailer (if you look at the trailer, you can see the thumb of the hand holding the mirror; that's a recomposed image from the Academy version!). Oh well, nevermind. At least I'm not complaining about the slipcover, which the UK version didn't even get. Though as I said, I'm not complaining...

Whilst we're kind of on the topic of it (well, Disneykid and LucyLover mentioned it ), I'm really hoping a lot for The Little Mermaid. Apparently, it's been restored by the same people at Lowry Digital according to another thread, so that's positive (it's also a sign that it isn't the unused IMAX version, which is a relief). Obviously more material for that film are available, so the bonus features should be better, and I

[Evil Genie Jafar]

So....mmmmmm what happened to all the people here?

Everytime a PE gets released (aside from all the expectations months before) the forum becomes very "wild" with opinions and comments; and this time everything is dead.

First time EVER this has happened here.

[PatrickvD]

So....mmmmmm what happened to all the people here?

Everytime a PE gets released (aside from all the expectations months before) the forum becomes very "wild" with opinions and comments; and this time everything is dead.

First time EVER this has happened here.

Judging from your posts, the answer you want is "Lady and the Tramp is not as popular as other Platinums" and that's probaply right. Expect this forum to blow up with excitement when Little Mermaid comes out.

[mikemgmve]

So....mmmmmm what happened to all the people here?

Everytime a PE gets released (aside from all the expectations months before) the forum becomes very "wild" with opinions and comments; and this time everything is dead.

First time EVER this has happened here.

Judging from your posts, the answer you want is "Lady and the Tramp is not as popular as other Platinums" and that's probaply right. Expect this forum to blow up with excitement when Little Mermaid comes out.

Or perhaps everyone is busy watching the movie, and features, and enjoying it? Hence, they don't have time to post online?

[Evil Genie Jafar]

So....mmmmmm what happened to all the people here?

Everytime a PE gets released (aside from all the expectations months before) the forum becomes very "wild" with opinions and comments; and this time everything is dead.

First time EVER this has happened here.

Judging from your posts, the answer you want is "Lady and the Tramp is not as popular as other Platinums" ...

Well, no.... that is not the answer I was expecting. I'm actually VERY surprised that this has happened.

... and judging by the Lady and the Tamp Press Release post, there were quite a lot of people waiting for this release.

[Jordan]

I've got a question guys... Don't know if it really fits in this thread but anyway...

I got the R2 release of Lady and the Tramp (but this isn't the point lol) and I realized that the DVD menus were NOT in widescreen on my TV but in a cropped 4/3 ratio ! Whereas when I put the DVD in my computer I get the whole widescreen menu, how do you explain that ??
The olny way I can get it on my TV is to set my DVD player on "Wide format" for the picture but that option crop the image in other ways (so I set it on the 4x3 LetterBox format").

I realized that because on the review, Luke said that the menus were in 16x9, otherwise, I wouldn't even have thought about it in the 1st place because I've never seen 16x9 widescreen DVD menus. But, realizing that, I try with other DVDs (for Disneys, the Region 1 of Aladdin among others), and I realize it was the same: a 16x9 menu is available but cropped on my TV !

I guess this is for the people who do not own a 16x9 TV to have menu that does appear "fullsreen" and not with black bars above and beneath the picture, no? I find it silly though, because it's as dumb as always having pan&scan pictures on films (Disney or not) and not facing the fact that original cinema ratio are wider than TV sets. I mean, even on a small 4x3 screen, I find it better to have a wide picture with black and white bars, than having a pan&scan but in fullscreen!

[Luke]

I got the R2 release of Lady and the Tramp (but this isn't the point lol) and I realized that the DVD menus were NOT in widescreen on my TV but in a cropped 4/3 ratio ! Whereas when I put the DVD in my computer I get the whole widescreen menu, how do you explain that ?!

That's how the majority of menu screens are encoded today. They're designed for 16x9 with all the options fitting in the 4x3 center of the 16x9 frame, leaving the excess space cropped out on 4x3 playback. What I don't understand is why the same thing can't be done on 16x9 films (as an option) so that a cheap makeshift "Fullscreen" version can be made available to those who want it without the need for making a second master. Sure, it won't be as perfect as a well-thought-out pan-and-scan, but on a 1.78:1/1.85:1 movie, you'll rarely wind up with something drastically misframed by just taking the center. This way, people could just watch and be happy with the widescreen version, while those who actively seek fullscreen could choose a setting to establish for this compromised version, which a fullscreen is most likely to be anyway.

While this wouldn't work as well for 2.35:1 films (unless a roughly 1.78:1 cropping was sufficient for them), it would seem to save the studios money and effort, and in turn, prevent stupid retailers from shoving fullscreen down customers' throats.

[Alan]

Judging from your posts, the answer you want is "Lady and the Tramp is not as popular as other Platinums" ...

Well, no.... that is not the answer I was expecting. I'm actually VERY surprised that this has happened.

... and judging by the Lady and the Tamp Press Release post, there were quite a lot of people waiting for this release.

well there a lot of people in school right now who don't have the time to go pick it up at like walmart. A lot of people here will probably pick it up on the weekend.