Sleeping Beauty Deluxe DVD

Yesterday Disney released Sleeping Beauty on a two-disc Blu-Ray DVD for the suggested retail price of $35 (available at amazon for $24). When the film was first released in 1959 it had been Disney's longest-in-the-making and most expensive film (at $6 million) to that point. It was stylistically daring--basing its design on the unicorn tapestries at the Cloisters (which, since it's just a fifteen minute walk from my apartment, is one of my favorite places to take Loretta), but that certainly didn't help it with an audience coming off of Lady and the Tramp. It was a critical and commercial failure, but thankfully since then it has regained its position in the canon as one of Disney's finest films. The plot certainly needed some padding, but the fairies' domestic troubles are just as engaging--if not more so--as the main story line. 

At any rate, the film has been reissued and restored over the years, so this release doesn't represent a breakthrough in that sense--except, quite significantly, that it is being presented in its original wide-screen aspect ratio for the first time since its initial release--but it does represent a huge step in how Disney is marketing its films in the age of high definition. This press release has a great deal of the technical information, couched, as press releases are wont to do, in a great deal of hyperbolic praise. And then this video also talks about some of the DVDs' interactive/online components:

In addition, there are some good videos on the production of the original film at a blog entry by Floyd Bishop from Frederator Studios, and of course there's some information on Disney's website as well. (As a bonus, I also just received an email from Kids Off the Couch with some ideas for making the film more interactive, and feminist-minded.) While I'd prefer to see this on 35mm, the restored aspect ratio alone is enough to make me want to check this one out. 

If you haven't seen it in a long time, be aware that there are quite a few scary parts that will need to skipped for the youngest viewers. For a princess movie that's friendly even with three- and two-year-olds, Cinderella is the only way to go.