Documentary, BD-Live, commentary track, deleted scenes, alternate ending, storyboards

I’m not going to lie. “Pinocchio” has never been my favorite Disney film but it has a charm that’s hard to deny. “Pinocchio” finally arrives on a special edition Blu-ray and DVD with a brand spanking new transfer a decade after the original release on DVD. Although lacking the more modern character design of later Disney films, the animation in “Pinocchio” remains fluid, attractive and smooth as silk. “Sleeping Beauty” which preceded “Pinocchio” on home Blu-ray has more dynamic design but lacks the strong story and memorable vocal performances that are a highlight of “Pinocchio”.

Image & Sound:

A sharp, rich looking transfer “Pinocchio” doesn’t suffer from the digital over processing that is often seen with older films. I doubt that this film looked anywhere as good when it was originally released. Colors are bold and detail extremely good. *** Audio is a bit tricky because the original soundtrack for the film wasn’t designed for a 7.1 presentation. That said, the sound track sounds about as good as can be expected given the limitations of the time. The restored mono soundtrack sounds quite good as well with dialog up front and clear. ---

As usual Disney has packed an annoying amount of promos up front on the disc. After you breeze past those, we get an unusual and interesting assortment of extras. We get a solid commentary by animation historian/critic Leonard Maltin as well as animation experts Eric Goldberg (who has appeared on some of the Looney Tunes boxed sets) and J.B. Kaufman. We learn quite a bit about the voice artists, trivia about the production of the movie, the people that appeared in the live action for rotoscoping. ***

The one annoying extra is clever nevertheless; if you choose to watch the movie in its original full screen aspect ratio you can. If you want it widescreen without black bars at the sides, Disney fills these areas for those annoyed by the black bars with graphics tied into the movie. ***

There are also a number of games and I wasn’t able to keep the disc long enough to see the games. ***

We also get “No Strings Attached” a solid making of documentary. Deleted scenes, an alternate ending (a surprising one I might add). We also get storyboards. BD-Live allows fans to chat about the movie, get mail and do trivia challenges online. ***

For those with kids and a DVD player in the car, Disney has nicely provided a third disc—the regular DVD sans the extras of the DVD deluxe set.

Final Words: