"Walt Disney Treasures 2010"? - Disney Documentaries

[GeorgeC]

Repost From the Digital Bits, Monday 5th July Edition --


"And Disney has confirmed a trio of documentary titles for DVD only release in November. Included will be The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story, Waking Sleeping Beauty and Walt & El Grupo, all due on 11/30 (SRP $29.99 each). The Boys examines the musical legacy of Richard and Robert Sherman, the song-writing duo behind such Disney classics as Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book and The Aristocats (and also Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Snoopy, Come Home, Charlotte's Web and many more). Waking Sleeping Beauty is an inside look at the period that many call Disney's second Golden Age of animation - the decade that resulted in The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. And Walt & El Grupo is a look at a goodwill tour undertaken by Walt Disney and his artists to South America, which resulted in the films Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros. They all sound pretty cool - I'm certainly looking forward to checking them out."



There you have it... all in bold.

The last day of November is going to be expensive!

[Ben]

Whoopeee!

Shame about no BD, but maybe there's a chance of a release as extras later down the line, as with The Pixar Story feature doc on WALL-E.

[Foxtale]

Sweet!!!! I'm so excited. $30 each is a little steep though I wish it was all 3 for 30. I know its a limited release but still... I'll have to get it anyway. Thanks for the news.

[Ben]

$30 each a little steep!?

Not only is that the regular pricing for a single disc debut of a collectible title, but it's cheap considering what these discs will hold and how long we had to wait for the previous collection of documentaries (The Hand Behind The Mouse, Frank And Ollie, and Walt: Man Behind The Myth).

Also, don't forget that you'll wind up only actually paying just over $20 each for these with online or other store discounts, so think of it as three-for-two, and maybe that helps you a bit? And that's still good considering what these are!

[Bill1978]

Hopefully Waking Sleeping Beauty will get a DVD release in Australia. That's the one I'm most interested in seeing.

[Foxtale]

$30 each a little steep!?

True. Its listed on Amazon now for $22, so it's not that bad. I'm just very cheap... my mind DVDs should be $10... and you can walk into the general store and pick up some penny candy.


On another note, Waking Sleeping Beauty is coming my local 'indie' theater. I'm so excited. Anyone want to go with me?

[Whippet Angel]

Enjoy the film! I'd love to go, but I'm all the way in Maryland.

I can't wait 'til it comes out on DVD so I can see it again.

[Foxtale]

Thanks I hope to be able to get tickets for it.

If not there is always the DVD ;P

[Ben]

Also confirmed is that "Walt And El Grupo" will also contain the original, uncut edition of "Saludos Amigos".

Nice.

[Ben]

No, we're not getting a WDT wave this year, but with the trio of feature-length documentaries coming out the same time as we normally get the Treasures, and with little keepsake trinkets inside to boot, it's arguable that we could see these titles as filling the Disney Treasures gap.

They've popped up in conversation before, but with this announcement of a pre-order deal direct from Disney, and the full details on each disc, I thought they were worthy of their own discussion:

http://animatedviews.com/2010/disney-do ... ive-offer/


I, for one, am excited. I love these, what I call "legacy documentaries" that Disney has done lately, from The Hand Behind The Mouse (itself a Treasures release), and Walt: The Man Behind The Myth, to Frank And Ollie, and these look to be very much in the same vein.

There are quite a few of these that have been made over the years: it would also be very nice to see some of the Disney Family Albums programs on each of the Nine Old Men, or the feature-length edition of Disney Animation: The Illusion Of Life (from 1981, with Hayley Mills). There was a terrific 1988 South Bank Show profile of the studio, The Art Of Walt Disney, which was good too, and how about the recent live-action doc The Age Of Believing: The Disney Live-Action Classics?

All good stuff that I'd love to own in official versions. Hopefully these will generate enough interest to suggest more of the same, especially with this deal's $22 cost, or $50 for the set with included lithos!

[ohmahaaha]

I haven't decided yet whether or not I'm going to get any of these ... they look appealing, but only as bonus features. For instance "El Grupo" seems like it should have been a bonus feature for a "Caballeros"/"Saludos" set, doesn't it?

Terribly disappointed with Disney this year.

[Ben]

I just wrote a fairly detailed response to this but the page didn't accept it and I lost it!

In short, I said that these films were more than bonus features, and it gave fans the chance to learn more about several aspects on the Disney Studio and their staff over the years.

I waffled about two-disc sets and the like, but the main thing is that I hope these do well and we see of this kind of material. Personally, I lap this kind of stuff up, big time.

[James]

Bonus features!?!?!? Feature length documentaries, two of which have full commentaries and one of which has an original unedited version of a Disney film as a special feature -- not worthy of their own discs?

And disappointed with Disney this year?!?!? Toy Story 3, Tangled, three documentaries about themselves, Beauty and the Beast on Blu-ray -- and you're disappointed with them this year?

Yikes! You're either cheap or hard to please!

[EricJ]

The documentaries are good, but they're not Disney Treasures--That line shouldn't be blurred:
The good Disney Treasures sets are excuses to dig some rare archival piece of film event out of the Vault and insert it between the Disneyland episodes because they didn't have anywhere else to put it: The Disneyland opening on the D-USA set, Walt's Epcot film on the Tomorrowland set, the Monorail/Matterhorn opening on the "Your Host" set, etc.

Seems like nowadays whenever there's rare Disney history, the D23 crowd gets first dibs on it...And we still haven't gotten the Jiminy Cricket shorts, the WDW promotional feature, or the Danny Kaye Epcot opening.

[ohmahaaha]

Bonus features!?!?!? Feature length documentaries, two of which have full commentaries and one of which has an original unedited version of a Disney film as a special feature -- not worthy of their own discs?

And disappointed with Disney this year?!?!? Toy Story 3, Tangled, three documentaries about themselves, Beauty and the Beast on Blu-ray -- and you're disappointed with them this year?

Yikes! You're either cheap or hard to please!

The size of my animation DVD collection belies the "cheap" call!!

Read my original post, I did say that I hadn't decided whether or not I was going to get these ... the context I intended was that compared to the Walt Disney Treasures, I consider getting these instead to be a step down. It may very well be that they are informative and enjoyable in their own right ... but not quite at the same level as any of the animated Treasures. So to me, these just seem more like bonus features.

My disappointment with them rather than with their theatrical output has been the gradual cheapening of their DVD releases, which actually has been happening for the last few years - case in point the late "Platinum" line which, if you noticed, seemed to get less and less "loaded" with each subsequent release. Which brings me finally to this year, which I truly believe to have fewer quality releases - even the forthcoming Fantasia set, while looks nice, seems to be underweight as far as what it might have contained.