Peter Pan DVD controversy
animation experts complain that Platinum Edition not up to par
Walt Disney's Peter Pan reissue has a restoration print that is not worth the Platinum Edition moniker, say experts. I'll take you inside the storm.
The Walt Disney Company's Platinum Editions are supposedly the most lavish DVD reissues the massive entertainment conglomerate can bestow on their movies. The Mouse House only honours their best flicks with this level of care: iconic films like Fantasia, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Mary Poppins and Peter Pan that made the company the powerhouse it is today.
However, several animation experts have complained that the analog-to-digital transfer on the Peter Pan Platinum Edition is not up to the box set's billing. The first to call the Mouse House on the restoration job was British animation director Oscar Grillo (Wide Prairie).
"Yesterday I saw a copy of the newly released Peter Pan Special Edition (sic) and I ALMOST HAD A HEART ATTACK!!!" Grillo told Cartoon Brew's Amid Amidi (Writer's note: all emphases are Grillo's). "The transfer, digital enhancing, sound and image ARE ALL HORRIBLE!! They’ve 'strengthened' all the lines and darkened the backgrounds and altered the colours to a degree that now Peter Pan looks like one of those classic Porky Pigs rotoscoped in Korea in the Seventies using Rapidographs.
"I must have seen Peter Pan more than three hundred times and most of them in the cinema . . . This version truly shocked me . . . I suggest people compare this version with any of the previously released video or DVD editions and you’ll see for yourself what I mean and complain to those responsible.
"When a madman damages the Night Watch by Rembrandt (it actually happened), he ends up in a psychiatric hospital; when a corporation ruins an animation classic, they sell it as a 'special edition.'"
The Simpsons animator Milton Gray quickly agreed.
"If the Disney Corp just made a simple video transfer from a Technicolor (not Eastmancolor) print, or from the original Technicolor negative, like the Warner company routinely does with their Looney Tunes shorts, the results would be absolutely beautiful," writes Gray. "A great example is the 1990 laserdisc release of Bambi, which someone forgot to alter (I believe these alterations are being done for the worse, deliberately) — and the result of the 1990 laserdisc is absolutely beautiful!"
"I don’t know that the remastering in the 2007 release is so horrid as to ruin the movie," says Toon Zone writer Edward Liu, "but I also don’t think it’s good enough to warrant a double-dip on the movie by itself."
Veteran animator Mark Evanier believes the problem is simply industry greed. In his blog, he recounts a conversation with a friend in the business (who wishes to remain anonymous) who talked about a similar situation:
"When we put [the movie] out," the industry pro told Evanier, "there was some talk of using the old transfer for the DVD. "'No, no,' the boss said. 'We need a new, deluxe transfer.' . . . The studio spent a lot of money and had a beautiful transfer done. They restored many faded or damaged frames and it really looked superb.
"But when it came time to put the DVD out, they used the old transfer even thought the new one was all done and paid for. At first, I thought it was an incredible, horrible mistake. What lunkhead had used the wrong transfer? I found out later it was intentional. At the last minute, someone decided to save the good transfer for the next release in a few years. It was your old 'let's make them buy it again' theory."
As for Evanier, he says, "I'm not casting my lot completely with those who say the new version of Peter Pan is a bad transfer. Not yet, anyway. I've only seen about two minutes of it on someone else's set . . . but it was enough to send up a warning flag."
To be fair, other reviewers have praised the new transfer.
"The style, the inking, the animation, the performances, the backgrounds all are remarkably strong and are reproduced on this release without even the slightest hint of problems," writes Guido Henkel at DVDreview.com. "There is not a single speckle, not a single registration error and not a hint of grain in the entire transfer . . . Peter Pan has probably never looked anything as good as it does on this DVD. Rich colors bathe the screen, sharp edges render the characters meticulously and solid blacks give the image great visual depth. No edge-enhancement is visible and the compressions perfect."
"The just released Platinum Edition DVD features a newly restored version of the 1953 film that sparkles like pixie dust," writes Daniel J. Stasiewski at blogcritics.org. "The colors are vibrant. The picture is perfect . . . The luster of restoration ensures that the fantasy of a boy who doesn't grow old is as heartfelt and imaginative as J. M. Barrie and Walt Disney would both have loved to see. The full Disney rollout does just as much justice to a story worth hearing again and again."
Not having seen the Peter Pan Platinum Edition for myself, I can't say whether the new transfer is good or bad. At this point, my thinking goes in two directions:
1) I'm reminded of the controversy that exploded when, in 1981, art restorers began cleaning Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel frescoes. Many art experts complained that the work was making reams of art criticism obsolete. Some even called the restoration "a cultural Chernobyl."
These experts said that Michelangelo had deliberately mixed soot, candle smoke and cheap varnish into the frescoes, to subdue what they called 'ice cream colours.' Since there was no record of Michelangelo ever doing this (and ample evidence that later, less talented, artists painted fig leaves over miscellaneous naughty bits), these comments were ultimately disregarded.
2) On the other hand, Evanier's comment about companies using sub-standard transfers to justify a 'double-dip' is a telling one. There are numerous examples of the entertainment industry using unethical practices to make a cheap buck. It would make sense for Disney (if they were going for the quick kill) to put out a sub-standard product now and advertise a new "freshly restored" edition in a few years' time. If that is actually the case, I would be shocked but not surprised.
My conclusion? I'm gonna have to go out and rent/buy a copy of Peter Pan Platinum Edition and review it for you. I'll let you know what I discover.
