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Movie: Picture: Sound: Extras:
So the company went back to basics, producing Dumbo. Stylistically, this was more like the cartoon shorts Disney had been making for fifteen years (by then, it had produced over 250 of them!) It was, of course, in full colour, but otherwise went for flatter, more naive artwork and a simpler, shorter story.
Very short, in fact, at only 64 minutes. That means it worked well for the young ones. The story was simple, and the character animation very fluid and expressive. And of course it is exceptionally ... what's the cliche word? ... heartwarming. That is the only word that really fits.
It made Disney a stack of money, and won the 1942 Oscar for Best Musical Score.
Another ancient movie, it predates Hollywood's move to widescreen, so the basic picture presents at an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. You can play the movie in three different ways. The first is with the squareish image centred in the screen and black pillars on either side, which is what is contained by the raw movie file. Another way is just the same, except that the black pillars are overlaid by complementary artwork panels. I found these a little distracting, but if I was using a display susceptible to burn in, they'd be useful.
The third option is with the Disney Cine-Explore feature. In this disc it includes a BonusView PIP element. With three commentators, the discussion is very detailed and interesting, and accompanied by clips from other cartoons and works to which they refer, along with graphical overlays to show static images illustrating similar points. Of course, you will need a BonusView capable player to experience this.
The picture quality was exceptionally good. With the more basic animation style, the characters have black outlines, and on this Blu-ray version these are all sharply etched, while the colour blocks within them are smooth, unblemished, and glowing in their beauty.
The sound has been converted to 7.1 channels, but still sounds limited thanks to the constrained bandwidth of the recording technology of the time, along with the significant levels of distortion, especially during massed vocals. Nonetheless, if you keep the level down to where the dialogue remains clear, it is pleasant enough in a nondescript way.
(Australian rating); Locked to Regions B & C
The following video bitrate graph was generated by BDInfo 0.5.4:
The following graph is for the BonusView PIP element:
