Product: Pinocchio
Rating: 5.0
Likely the most-beautiful animated film yet made.
"Pinocchio" is generally considered Disney's masterpiece. Visually there's no denying it. It's nothing if not lavish, in a way that no other animated film has duplicated (though "Fantasia" and "Bambi" approach it). The underwater scenes inspired the filming of "The Little Mermaid", though it doesn't come within light years of its inspiration.I've been waiting for an opportunity to criticize "Pinocchio", as it epitomizes what was so /wrong/ with Disney's approach to story telling. Disney wasn't afraid to show things that frightened - even terrorized -- children, * but he backed away from confronting serious dramatic issues.We see this thoughout "Pinocchio". It starts when Jiminy Cricket starts to explain the difference between good and bad, right and wrong. Instead of a terse, focused explanation, he fumbles and bumbles. ("Fumfers" might be the apt word.)Why? Because a "straight" explanation wouldn't be "entertaining". That was one of Disney's rules -- "Make it entertaining". And entertaining didn't include a serious discussion of moral or social issues.It wouldn't have been difficult to add weight and meaning to Jiminy's explanation, without turning him into a film-stopping talking head: "What's bad? What's wrong? It's when you think only about yourself, when you put what /you/ want ahead of what's right for other folks."This is hardly a deep discussion of the matter, but it covers a great deal of human history! And it more-clearly sets up the conflict between what Pinocchio wants to do and ought to do.This backing-off occurs again, near the end, when Gepetto asks Pinocchio about his ears and tail. Pinocchio coyly refuses to answer, instead of saying "I was punished for being selfish and bad". Isn't being truthful one of the requirements for becoming a real boy?"Pinocchio" has other problems. Of The Big Five, it's the most poorly paced. Though the opening sequence spends a lot of time introducing the characters (as it should), there are a few sections where I'd like to yell "Get on with it!". Ditto for Honest John's examination of Pinocchio's health, which does little to advance the story, existing mostly for its visual humor. It was a great day at Disney when a talented writer (Linda Woolverton) was hired to write coherent scripts.We now come to the issue of the quality of the Blu-ray transfer. Some people have condemned it, arguing that the new edition is a gross distortion of the original film. (There is a lengthy discussion attached to Jon Olivan's review; those interested in this issue should read it.)I have both the 1993 LaserDisk and the new Blu-ray edition. Both are billed as "restorations", but the latter looks completely different. While the LV version has a generally warm, "artistic", "Old Masters" look (almost certainly what Disney wanted), the Blu-ray (and DVD) have lost most of the warmth, and have been cleaned up to the point of occasionally looking "sterile". **Then there is the matter of saturation. Though the actual hues aren't any different, almost all colors are brighter and more vivid. Disney did not want a lot of bright colors in his animated features, so we can be reasonably sure this was not his intent. The 2009 edition's colors are more like those of an animated short subject. The stills at the beginning of the Amazon page for the Blu-ray disk give a pretty good idea of what it looks like.The cause of this change is not clear. Some of it is likely due to the direct transfer from the original three-strip Technicolor negatives (though I believe the same system was used with the 1993 edition). It might also be a conscious tampering, to make the film more appealing to the presumed tastes of the viewers.Regardless, it's highly likely that the Blu-ray disk /does not/ represent the artistic intent of the film's creators. If you have an earlier edition of "Pinocchio", I wouldn't toss it. And the new edition has its own pleasures, including the ability to see the magnficent background paintings in all their glory. And they are pretty glorious.* When his daugther asked why Bambi's mother had to die, he told her "That's the way nature is." Fifteen years later, he'd softened to the point where he let Peggy Lee talk him out of killing Trusty in "Lady in the Tramp".** Which is not to deny that the earlier edition sometimes looks downright grundgy.