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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 |
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DTS |
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Trailer(s) |
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Featurette(s) |
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Documentary |
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Audio commentary
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Deleted scenes
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Concept art
/ storyboards |
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Multi-angle
feature |
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[from
the trailer:] It's a breathtaking celebration of sight! Sound! And Magic!...
A
continuation of Disney's original idea for a 'concert feature' with
continuous additions of new animated segments.
 Disney
had meant for Fantasia to be a yearly release, with new segments
added each year and thus present a continuous platform for new animation
forms and techniques. None of this occurred in his lifetime though,
as Fantasia flopped at the box office and was never revisited
until Walt's nephew Roy E. Disney took it upon himself to produce a
continuation of the original concept sixty years onward. Work was started
on Fantasia 2000 in 1992, and it was released early this year
in an enormously successful exclusive Imax theater run, followed by
a theatrical release. But although a huge amount of effort has clearly
gone into this collection of recent high-end animation, it fails to
leave all that much of an impression.
None of the animation comes across as particularly innovative: the heavy
CGI effects in Pines of Rome and The Steadfast Tin Soldier may have
been impressive five years ago - which is the time when they were actually
produced! - but they fail to draw the viewer in or provoke much of an
emotional response. The old Fantasia truly had its faults, but
each of the segments is clearly designed to get a reaction on the part
of the viewer. The new film plays it much safer: at its 71 minute running
time, it is never dull, and the rich animation is always a pleasure
to watch. None of the segments are as awful as worst parts of the original,
and likewise none come close to the original's best work. The interstitials
may not be as dull as the extended Deems Taylor moments from the original,
but the parade of smug celebrity appearances is much more painful to
have to sit through.
 Surprisingly
for a project designed to present innovations and experiments in animation,
the most old-fashioned parts of Fantasia 2000 are the best: Gershwin's
'Rhapsody in Blue' is a manic foray into the designs of Al Hirschfeld.
It looks and feels as though it were made in the 1950s, and it's great
fun. The short comic intermezzo with a yo-yoing flamingo to Saint-Saëns'
'Carnival des Animaux' is like a frenetic Silly Symphony from way back
when, and it also provides welcome light-hearted relief from the bombast
of some of the longer sequences. Watching Donald Duck assist Noah getting
all the animals in the ark to the 'graduation song' 'Pomp and Circumstance'
has its moments, but it's a mistake to put him on right after the infinitely
better repeat of 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice'. As Woody Allen remarked
in Annie Hall: 'You don't put a comedian on after another comedian!'
The final Firebird sequence stands out as the only part with real power
and originality, marking an impressive finale for an otherwise somewhat
lacklustre collection. |
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Fantasia
2000 is available for Region 1 as a single disc, or as part of the
3-disc set called the Fantasia Anthology. The Region
2 release has various language versions of the interstitials but
is missing the audio commentaries and the documentary, as well as the
DTS sound mix. The Oscar-winning short Toot, Whistle, Plonk and Boom
and Roy E. Disney's introduction are the only extra features.
The
anamorphic widescreen image is framed at 1.78:1. Drawn directly from
the digital master, the transfer is flawless and breathtaking at all
times. There are no compression artifacts and there isn't a trace of
visual noise. The 'Sorcerer's Apprentice' segment is windowboxed to
1.33:1, so widescreen TV sets will have black bars to the left and right
of the image, while ordinary 4:3 sets will have black bars on all sides
of the image.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 sound mix sounds full and delivers a rich sound
for the movie. The DTS mix is much stronger though, and does much more
justice to the orchestral arrangements.
This
DVD features a 50-minute documentary on the making of the movie quite
similar to that on the Fantasia release. It is also similarly
self-congratulatory in tone, though in this case the subject is somewhat
less deserving of such boundless praise.
There are also two commentary tracks available: one from Roy E. Disney,
Walt's nephew who was the driving force behind this production, and
one that features the directors for each segment providing scene-specific
commentary on their work. Both offer plenty of insight into the extraordinary
amount of work that has gone into creating these segments and are both
entertaining and informative.
The disc also includes two animated shorts, both of which were efforts
to carry on the Fantasia tradition of welding music and animation
together in an informative and artful way. One of them was the first
cartoon produced in 3-D (of course it's not 3-D on the DVD, but you
get the idea while watching), and the other was the first cartoon produced
in the 2.35:1 'scope format. Both are lots of fun to watch.
Much more additional material on all the segments in Fantasia 2000
is available on the third disc in the Fantasia Anthology box
set.  The
animated menus feature music from the film and incorporate the animated
'sails' from the interstitials. They are nicely designed though somewhat
over-the-top. Like Fantasia, this DVD has one chapter stop per
segment and one per interstitial. The disc doesn't allow switching between
the audio channels by using the 'language' button.
Dan Hassler-Forest
Reviewed: 2001
Click
here for IMDB info on Fantasia
2000 .
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to return to the front page.
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