All the DVD special features except isolated music track/sound effects, Storyboard first draft narrated by Dave Foley, shorts “Geri’s Game”, “The Ant and the Grasshopper”, roundtable, BD-Live enabled for games, simultaneously watching the movie and commenting with friends

“A Bug’s Life” proved that “Toy Story” wasn’t a fluke and that Pixar would be leading the way when it came to CGI animation. A classic film that can appeal to children and adults without pandering to either audience, “A Bug’s Life” became an instant classic in every way. The fact that Dreamworks released its own variation BEFORE “A Bug’s Life” was released (even though it was begun AFTER due to the fact that certain producers at Dreamworks USED to be at Disney and had inside info on the development of the project) speaks volumes about the quality of the work. ***

Flick (Dave Foley-“Kids in the Hall” and “Newsradio”)is a brilliant, misunderstood inventor in his world. The fact that most of his inventions have a glitch doesn’t endear him to the ant colony and just alienates them further. The ants are too busy gathering food for the bullying grasshoppers led by Hopper (Kevin Spacey) to appreciate how some of Flick’s inventions could make their lives easier. Only Dot (Hayden Panettiere-“Heroes”) the daughter of the Queen (Phyllis Diller) knows Flick’s true worth. When one of Flick’s inventions scatters the offering to the grasshoppers dumping it into the water, Hopper gives them until the last leaf has fallen to gather up more food for him. If they don’t, he’ll come back and squash the Queen. The Queen threatens to exile Flick but he has other ideas—go find tough bugs that will fight the grasshoppers. Unfortunately, he finds an unemployed group of circus bugs that APPEAR to be what he needs. They think he wants entertainment for the colony. This misunderstanding only heightens the tension as Flick must keep this information from Princess Ada (Julia Louis-Dreyfus)and the rest of the colony. Image & Sound:

“A Bug’s Life” receives a brilliant translation to Blu-ray. In fact, it’s a demo quality disc. The original DVD looked exceptional when it was released but this Blu-ray is so good you’d think it was from a different colony so-to-speak. There’s little to no DNR and I didn’t see ANY edge enchancement which is a rarity even in BLu-ray. The vivid colors, sharp detail and crisp presentation appears almost three dimensional at times with amazing depth. Disney continues to raise the bar (along with Warner Home Video) when it comes to Blu-ray doing an amazing job here. ***

The audio is no slouch either. A brilliant sounding DTS-HD Master Surround track that captures every nuance of the dialog but still presents the music and sound effects with a great kick, “A Bug’s Life” raises the bar for audio as well. ---

All the bonus features from the 2003 release are ported over except for the isolated music track. We also a number of new Blu-ray special features that are NOT available anywhere else and the extras are, for the most part, presented in HD as well. ***

We get the delightful and intelligent commentary track from writers Andrew Stanton and John Lasseter (who also directed). It’s one of those rare commentary tracks where it manages to be entertaining AND informative. ***

We get some unfinished deleted scenes and the Pixar short “Geri’s Game” that were included on the previous edition. We a classic Disney cartoon that ties into the theme of “A Bug’s Life”. ***

The roundtable featuring Lasseter, Stanton, producers Darla Anderson and Kevin Reher covers everything that is covered in the commentary track sometimes building on those stories and doesn’t over stay its welcome at under 30 minutes. ***

We also get the original storyboards from the first draft of the film narrated by Dave Foley (Flick)where some plot points that prove to be major departures. It’s not for the entire film per se but illustrates the differences between the two versions. It’s presented in HD. ***

We also get BD-Live materials where you can use the synch function to watch it at the same time as friends, a trivia game and Movie Cash for Pixar’s upcoming release “Up”. ***

Unfortunately we don’t get a DVD copy of the film like with other Disney recent releases but a Digital copy for downloading to your iPod or mp3 player. To be honest, these are pretty useless to me and I’d rather have a new improved DVD version for the car to entertain my kids for long trips.

Final Words:

A funny, brilliant film receives a state-of-the-art Blu-ray transfer with the bulk of the original special features AND new material exclusive to Blu-ray (and in HD), “A Bug’s Life” has aged remarkably well demonstrating that Pixar’s success with “Toy Story” was no fluke; these guys recreated animation in the digital age raising the bar to a higher level every time and being amazingly consistent over the course of a decade.

Highly recommended. ** Image: 9.5/10, Sound: 9.5/10, Special Features: 7/10