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DVD Features
- DVD Release Date: March 10, 2009
- Original Theatrical Release: February 2, 1940
- 1.33:1 (Original 4:3 format)
- Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound, Blu-Ray: 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
- French and Spanish Language Tracks
- Subtitles: Closed Captioned
- Suggested Retail Price: $29.99 / $35.99 Blu-Ray
The Movie
It has been nearly 70 years since Pinocchio was first released by Walt Disney to the world. Today, the strains of When You Wish Upon A Star are instantly recognizable to all of us. Pinocchio’s nose growing as he told a lie has been used by countless parents to teach their children the importance of telling the truth. Its influence on our culture cannot be overstated.
Disney last released Pinocchio as a standalone DVD in 1999. That edition was a basic recut of the VHS release, with a few enhancements. I popped my copy of the 1999 release into the player first, to get an idea of what the movie looked like to recent generations. With this baseline in mind, I then loaded up the Blu-Ray movie disk to start my comparison.
Once you watch (or skip past) the obligatory promotional clips and anti-smoking PSA, the disk begins to play what looks almost like an old theater print zooming in on the window of Geppetto’s workshop, with countles scratches and an audio track that is marred by constant hisses and popping. Suddenly, the Blue Fairy’s wand appears, and the image slowly transforms to show the differences made by the restoration work. There is a bit more to this introduction, but I won’t spoil it for you here. What a difference there is in this restoration. To be fair, the transformation is amplified by the use of that bad theater print they use at the beginning. The last DVD release was nowhere near that bad. But it is still amazing to see the changes to the film. Where images on the old DVD seemed to shimmy, they are rock solid here. The colors are clean, and there are no scratches or dust anywhere.
A clip from No Strings Attached. Copyright Walt Disney Studios
This hour-long documentary looks at the making of the movie. Historians and animators (including several people who worked on the film) talk about the challenges faced in making the movie. Photos, concept art and sketches, and screen test intermingle with the comments and memories. Given that this was planned as the third movie to be released by Disney Studios, and ended up bumping Bambi to become the second release, there is a lot of discussion about the challenges encountered with the story and the character development.
Deleted Materials
The book Pinocchio was published as a serial, with ‘episodes’ published over time in a magazine. There were a number of different episodes available to the Disney animation team. This goodie looks at three of those episodes. The first is the Story of the Grandfather Tree where Geppetto tells Pinocchio of the great pine tree from which Pinocchio is decended. The second looks at a different proposal for Geppetto’s experience inside the whale, and the third presents a different ending, showing how Pinocchio became a real boy. Unlike modern films where deleted scenes are often completely finished for the DVD, these three are made up only of the original storyboards, and are presented using the original story notes that were retained with the boards. There is also a recording of ‘Honest John,’ a song written for the movie and released as a promotional recording prior to the movie’s release.
The Sweatbox
A clip from the Sweatbox featurette. Copyright Walt Disney Studios
When working on a film, Walt Disney would hold review meetings to go over rough animation, dailies, and more. These meetings were held in the ‘Sweatbox,’ a small projection room at the Hyperion Studio. This short seven-minute goodie looks at how Walt used this room to effectively control the production
Live Action Reference Gallery
This ten-minute clip shows archival footage of live-action reference footage that was used in the making of Pinocchio.
Games
A series of games are available, ranging from a very simple puzzle hosted by Jiminy Cricket available on both DVD and Blu-ray, to some very detailed carnival games from Pleasure Island available on Blu-ray only.
Disk 3 (Blu-ray only)
For the first time ever, Disney has included a DVD disk as part of their Blu-ray release. While Blu-ray players can play DVDs, DVD Players cannot play Blu-ray disks. Since so many people have DVD players in their car, laptop, or portable DVD players for the kids having the movie on DVD was a nice addition.
