Product Description

Celebrate the 70th anniversary of Walt Disney's PINOCCHIO! The legendary masterpiece that inspired millions to believe in their dreams has reawakened with an all-new, state-of-the-art digital restoration that shines brilliantly on 2-disc DVD. Now, for the first time ever, the richly detailed animation, unforgettable award-winning music ("When You Wish Upon A Star") and heartwarming adventure-filled story comes to life like never before. Plus, all-new dazzling bonus features transport you into Pinocchio's fantastic world! Join Geppetto's beloved puppet -- with Jiminy Cricket as his guide -- on a thrilling quest that tests Pinocchio's bravery, loyalty and honesty, virtues he must learn to become a real boy. The one and only PINOCCHIO will live on forever in the heart of anyone who has wished upon a star.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5396 in DVD
• Brand: Disney
• Released on: 2009-03-10
• Rating: G (General Audience)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 3
• Format: Multiple Formats
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 88 minutes

Features

• Celebrate the 70th anniversary of Walt Disney's PINOCCHIO! The legendary masterpiece that inspired millions to believe in their dreams has reawakened with an all-new, state-of-the-art digital restoration that shines brilliantly on 2-disc DVD. Now, for the first time ever, the richly detailed animation, unforgettable award-winning music ("When You Wish Upon A Star") and heartwarming adv

Amazon.com

This Disney masterpiece from 1940 will hold up forever precisely because it doesn't restrain or temper the most elementalemotions and themes germane to its story. Based on the Collodi tale about a wooden puppet who wants to become a real boy, Pinocchio is among the most magical, mythical, and frightening films to come from the studio in its long history. A number of scenes make permanent impressions on young minds (just ask Steven Spielberg, who quoted the film more than once in Close Encounters of the Third Kind), and the songs ("When You Wish upon a Star") can't be beat. --Tom Keogh

Stills from Pinocchio (click for larger image)

On the Blu-ray disc
The Blu-ray 70th Anniversary Platinum Edition contains three DVDs: two Blu-ray DVDs featuring the digitally restored movie and a ton of bonus features and one standard definition DVD which contains the digitally restored film and a new music video. The clarity and color saturation of the digitally restored Blu-ray picture is absolutely marvelous and a comparison with the previously restored 1999 limited issue release (Walt Disney Animated Anthology: The Classic Collector's Set ) reveals just how grainy and washed-out the latter's picture is--especially in scenes like the sweeping entrance from the picturesque countryside into the heart of town. While the improved picture would be enough to justify replacing one's standard DVD of the film, the vast assortment of bonus features included on the Blu-ray make the purchase irresistible. A full-length commentary featuring self-professed animation buff and film critic Leonard Maltin, Disney animator and director Eric Goldberg, and film historian J.B. Kaufman delivers lots of historical insight into Disney's groundbreaking animation work on the film and is interspersed with tons of interview footage with key Disney animators, voice talent, and model makers like Ollie Johnston, Frank Thomas, Willie Reitherman, Cliff Edwards, and Ward Kindle. The new and highly effective "Cine-Explore" option features a picture-in-picture view of the commentators and animators as they comment on the film and allows them to illustrate their points by placing original sketches and drawings on screen right alongside the finished film. The new "Disney View" feature offers the option of filling the black borders around the film (a result of the film's original aspect ratio) with borders painted by artist Toby Bluth. It's a little like viewing the film through a fancy window frame, but it's an interesting concept.

A full-length pop-up fact option delivers on-screen information about everything from the film's setting in the Italian Alps to the late introduction of the character Jiminy Cricket to the film and the origin of the name Pinocchio. A 56-minute making-of segment describes how Disney aspired to "fix everything that they couldn't do in Snow White and explores the film's many technical experiments and advancements (rotoscoping and multi-plane cameras, to name a few). It continues with discussions of the original book by Carl Collodi that Pinocchio was based on; the shift in power from great Disney animators like Bill Tytla and Art Babbit to some of Disney's up-and-coming animators who would later become known as Disney's "Nine Old Men"; the use of models in animation; and the importance of sounds and music in the production. There's also a 6-1/2 minute look at Disney's innovation of the "Sweatbox" as a means of previewing scenes from the film during production and how the innovation spurred creativity and improved storytelling, animation, and filmmaking. A historical, 10-minute live-action reference footage film is interesting as is the extensive art gallery which features everything from the art of Gustaf Tenggren to visual development, models, storyboard art, and production pictures. Four deleted scenes include the story of Grandfather Tree (from which Pinocchio was carved), starving in the belly of the whale, and an alternate ending to the film. The deleted song "Honest John" is also included. Interactive games and activities include a trivia challenge, puzzle activity, and four carnival games, and there's also a new music video of "When You Wish Upon a Star" by Camp Rock's Meaghan Jette Martin and an 11-minute comparison of traditional and modern toymakers with extensive interview footage. Finally, Pinocchio features B-Disney Live capability complete with its new no-registration-necessary format and new "virtual living room" feature which lets you sit on the "virtual couch" with viewers online anywhere around the country and watch the movie together while interacting with one another through on-screen polls and pop-up facts. You can also schedule movie chat viewings with your friends, exchange movie mail, participate in a public or private interactive trivia game, program parental controls, redeem points on Disney Movie Rewards, check your calendar for future movie chat times up to three months out, and opt to receive Disney news and movie notifications. --Tami Horiuchi

Review
Many film historians describe the film as the most beautifully realized and technically perfect of all the Disney animated features. The film cost $2.6 million in 1940, but using the same techniques and processes, it would cost well over $100 million today. The film required the talents of 750 artists, including animators, assistants, layout artists, background painters, special effects animators, and inkers and painters, who produced more than 2 million drawings and used some 1,500 shades of paint for the Technicolor production. In the book the movie is based on, the character of Jiminy Cricket was unnamed, appeared in only a few chapters, and was squashed by Pinocchio! Some believe the Blue Fairy was modeled after Marilyn Monroe but Monroe was only 14 at the time! The real-life model was Marjorie Babbitt, a dancer who had earlier enacted the part of Snow White for the animators. Story concept for the movie was difficult. One day Walt Disney decided to scrap five months' work including animation and start over because it wasn't right. The movie is based on the serialized stories of journalist Carlo Lorenzini (aka, Collodi) written in 1881 for a children's illustrated weekly in Florence, Italy. Two years later, the stories were compiled into a book, The Adventures Of Pinocchio: Tale Of A Puppet. Jiminy Cricket became the film's most popular and enduring character appearing in subsequent Disney films and television shows, including Fun and Fancy Free and the Mickey Mouse Club. Gustaf Tenggren, an award-winning illustrator, was assigned to the production to give the film the kind of lavish European storybook flavor that Walt Disney envisioned. The movie won an Academy Award for best score and best song, When You Wish Upon A Star. --Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment