The Disney Classic Looks Better Than Ever
On October 7, 2008, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released the classic animated movie Sleeping Beauty (1959) for the first time on Blu-ray and also in a new standard-definition DVD edition. In the 2003 DVD versions, a portion of the picture was cropped on both sides, but in the 2008 versions, the full picture is present.
The central character in Sleeping Beauty is Princess Aurora, who is raised by three good fairies named Flora, Fauna and Merryweather. But Aurora is cursed by the evil fairy Maleficent, and when she is 16, she pricks her finger on a spinning wheel. She falls into a deep sleep, but after some complications is awakened by the kiss of her true love, Prince Phillip.
The music is adapted from Tchaikovsky's ballet, and Aurora is voiced by opera singer Mary Costa. The colors are eye-popping, and the movement and detail of the animation are impressive. On the DVD, the picture quality is pristine, and the sound quality is excellent.
New Bonus Materials on the DVDs
On DVD, the 2008 50th Anniversary Platinum Edition is a two-disc set containing a number of bonus materials not present on the 2003 DVDs. For kids, there's "Briar Rose's Enchanted Dance Game" and the "Sleeping Beauty Fun With Language Game." There's also a music video of Hannah Montana's Emily Osment performing the song "Once Upon a Dream." Another extra is the original Disneyland Sleeping Beauty castle walkthrough.
In addition, the 2008 DVDs provide a new making-of documentary that runs 43 minutes. Also, this time around there's a different audio commentary track, this one featuring noted animator/director/producer John Lasseter, film critic Leonard Maltin and Disney animator Andreas Déja. Furthermore, the DVDs contain three songs that were deleted from the movie, a featurette on Disney artist Eyvind Earle, and an alternate opening for the movie.
Bonus Materials Carried Over From the 2003 DVDs
The 2008 DVDs carry over a few of the supplementary materials that were available on the 2003 edition. One of these is "Grand Canyon," an Oscar-winning short that is a pictorial interpretation of Ferde Grofé's orchestral piece "Grand Canyon Suite." Another is "The Peter Tchaikovsky Story," a Disney TV series episode that dramatizes the life of the great composer and how he came to write the score for his famous ballet. A third is "Four Artists Paint One Tree," a featurette where four Disney artists take different approaches to painting a picture of the same tree.
The 2008 Edition on Blu-ray
For the first time, Sleeping Beauty is being made available on Blu-ray, which provides even better picture and sound quality than standard-definition DVD. The Blu-ray version includes all of the extras described above, plus several more, one of which is the Disney BD-Live Network, which supports interactive communications, such as chat, video messages and community gaming.
If you don't yet have the equipment to play Blu-ray, but you are contemplating acquiring it in the near future, you should consider buying the Blu-ray edition of Sleeping Beauty because it comes packaged with a bonus disc containing the feature film in standard-definition DVD.
