Product: Pinocchio
Rating: 5.0
Why you should not be discouraged by a few negative reviews.
Pinocchio is considered by many to be the finest film from the Disney Studios, with not only the best artwork but also one of the most carefully crafted stories and the best musical score. Having spent the last two nights viewing everything on both discs in the Pinocchio Platinum Edition, I settled in to write a review. But first I read some comments, including the interesting and highly informed negative review that called into question the alleged tampering with the color palette. I have the 1999 Gold Edition as well as the new 2009 re-master. Having personally no way to know what the original colors were, I can only comment on a comparison of the two versions. Compared side-by-side, the 2009 re-master is breathtakingly better than the 1999 version: brighter, sharper, more detail particularly in the shadows, significantly fewer artifacts such as dust blemishes, and almost total lack of small jerking motions in still shots. I thought the 1999 version was wonderful, my favorite of the 84 Disney movies I own, but this new version is fabulous. I assumed, perhaps naively, that it must be closer to the viewer experience of a new print in 1940. Regardless, it is wonderful, and will be enjoyed by virtually everyone fortunate enough to see it. Don't be discouraged by the negative comments, even if they happen to be factually based. This new edition also offers interviews, original artwork archives and other special features of interest to film history buffs, and in fact when I ordered the Platinum Edition I was really ordering it for the "extras", thinking another copy of the film would just be a bonus. But it turned out the other way around: the re-mastered film is beauty to behold, and an experience to treasure.