Disney Duster wrote:"In Walt's Words: Envisioning Cinderella". How did you find out that was made in 2005 though? For sure you know this to be fact?
When
Bambi first hit DVD in Spring 2005, it advertised the "Inside Walt's Story Meetings" as the first in a series and future entries in the Platinum line would utilize the feature. The next two Platinum releases were
Cinderella in Fall 2005 and
Lady and the Tramp in Spring 2006. However, neither DVD included an "Inside Walt's Story Meetings" viewing option.
We then jump ahead to
Bambi hitting Blu-Ray in Spring 2011. Its "Inside Walt's Story Meetings" has been extended with additional interviews, but the main narrative track is the same as in 2005. Its whole presentation has also been given an HD upgrade. There's no mention of it being used on other Diamond Edition titles, but the following year - Spring 2012 -
Lady and the Tramp debuts on Blu-Ray with an "Inside Walt's Story Meetings" that largely just plays out as audio commentary, but utilizes syncing to a second screen (be it an iPad or a laptop) for the visual aspect. When
Lady and the Tramp returns to Blu-Ray in the Spring 2018, the second-screen feature is no longer applicable, and instead the story meetings is presented as its own feature, complete with occasional HD photos and stills of the speakers.
Finally, we reach Summer 2019, and
Cinderella joins the Signature Collection. Rather than bill the feature as "Inside Walt's Story Meetings" as had been done on
Bambi and
Lady and the Tramp, the feature-length story meetings is called "In Walt's Words," to better tie in to the recurring series from the Signature Collection and featured on entries for
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,
Pinocchio,
Bambi, and
Lady and the Tramp. The latter two are structured as "In Walt's Words," but are billed instead as "Studio Stories" and "Walt & His Dogs."
Peter Pan notably did not include a new "In Walt's Words" based on his 1956 Pete Martin interviews, perhaps because there was already an "In Walt's Words" from 2007 that dramatized his article written for "Brief" magazine and probably covered the same ground as the interviews.
Now, Walt actually
does talk about
Cinderella in his Pete Martin interviews, you can read some of it in the 1957 book
The Story of Walt Disney. So before the disc was released, many of us assumed it would be another 5-minute featurette drawn from those interviews. Thus it seemed rather odd when the disc was actually released an reviews came in that we were getting a full-length "Story Meetings" treatment. But once we began to piece everything together, it became apparent that "In Walt's Words: The Envisioning of
Cinderella" is not a newly created piece, but a Platinum extra that has simply not been released until now.
The "In Walt's Words" version of
Cinderella opens up with the familiar blue castle logo that was also used on the 2005 Platinum Edition. Likewise, it uses that same restoration. This restoration was also used in 2012 and 2019, but the blue castle logo was replaced with the modern logo in use since 2006. The fact that this supplement retains the pre-2006 logo already dates its origins, why else would they use an outdated logo when most Blu-Ray releases of the films have retroactively changed the blue castle logo to the modern one?
Then, when we compare the voice actors for "Inside Walt's Story Meetings" across the
Bambi Platinum, the
Lady and the Tramp Diamond, and the
Cinderella Signature, we learn they are all the same. They have the same pitch and tone, the same consistent sound, the same cadence. These recording sessions were likely done within relatively close time together. Had
Cinderella's "In Walt's Words" actually been newly-made for the Signature Collection, there would be a noticeable change in the voices across 14 years (2005 to 2019), even if they were impersonating Walt and the Nine Old Men. The consistency in the voices draws the conclusion that 2012's
Lady and the Tramp story meetings and 2019's
Cinderella's In Walt's Words were recorded much earlier than their actual release.
And so, it goes back to
Bambi's original Platinum DVD, and the promise that other Platinums would have an "Inside Walt's Story Meetings" feature. It becomes apparent that the next two Platinums in the line -
Cinderella in Fall 2005 and
Lady and the Tramp in Spring 2006 - were supposed to have "Inside Walt's Story Meetings." For reasons unknown, Disney instead decided not to include them. Then, when it came time to reissue these films on the next format, finally decided to put them out. With
Lady and the Tramp, they used the story meetings feature as a way to also promote the Second Screen feature. However, by the time
Cinderella hit the Diamond line, Second Screen was now being relegated to stupid story books, so once again, they withheld the bonus feature. It wasn't until 2019 that Disney decided for whatever reason to finally release the supplement, but now retroactively titled "In Walt's Words," and going back to its roots as a visual commentary/story meeting.
I find it hard to believe that for ONE title in the Signature Collection, Disney would go to the expense of making a brand-new feature-length story meeting when they couldn't even be bothered to do that for
Pinocchio (instead just giving us one scene in that mode), and all they did for
Lady and the Tramp was insert photos of who was speaking and no artwork for its story-meeting feature. The amount of work and care that went into
Cinderella's "In Walt's Words" is simply not consistent with virtually everything else that the Signature Collection has offered. So it's a safe bet that this feature was NOT made for the Signature Collection, but merely released after two absences from previous home media sets. And when we trace the history of like-minded bonus features, we can conclude it was originally made in 2005.
Thus, this is why I said that of all the Signature Collection's supplements, "Aladdin on Aladdin" is the best one. "In Walt's Words: The Envisioning of
Cinderella" is a great feature. But it's from the Platinum line and was merely unavailable until now. For all the
newly-produced material that the Signature Collection has given us, a great deal of it has been fluffy retrospectives and useless Disney Channel trivia. "Aladdin on Aladdin" is entirely different from that, and deserves to be seen as the best feature that the Signature Collection has to offer: a full, half-hour documentary that not only looks back on the film, but on how it's impacted virtually everyone involved in its production.
Albert