As Chief, Pat Buttram had his duties down pat; it was the fourth straight Disney cartoon for which he was asked to portray a talking animal. In adulthood, the titular protagonists are voiced by Mickey Rooney and Kurt Russell.
Separated by 30 years in age, the actors might seem odd choices to be portraying similarly-aged best of friends. Neither one sounds especially like himself. As is true for most of the characters, while the pair's vocals do not stay linked to the characters, they do seem like sufficient matches. Sadly, its 25th Anniversary Edition seems more like an effort to remind viewers of the film in expectation of December's unnecessary, from the looks of it direct-to-video release of The Fox and the Hound 2 than to improve upon the movie's Gold Collection DVD, released in May of , or celebrate the movie's appeal and significance.
It could have cleared up a mystery that has been boggling the minds of Disney animation fans for over six years now. That mystery can be summed up in two contradictory questions: 1 Why would The Fox and the Hound be animated for the 1. The standstill that ensues is something like this: the "Hmm, I don't know. That's odd. The Gold Collection disc's packaging originally had the common-to-VHS disclaimer about the film being modified to fit the screen.
This was subsequently changed to state that the movie was presented in its original theatrical aspect ratio, approximately 1. Anyone who found themselves in a projection booth in would tell you that would have been quite unusual. But without seeing a clear note to exhibitors advising of an aspect ratio and without first-hand witnessing of the cels and the filmed frames, we are left to speculate and simply wonder if the 1.
If, say, a 1. Again, mere fodder for pondering. While we may not know if the 1. Sadly, though, the results do not report universal improvement. The Gold Collection transfer was lightly plagued by a number of issues; it had some flickering, graininess, an appearance of video more than film, plus the occasional scratch or assorted print intrusion.
This Anniversary Edition does not seem to eliminate any of these things, exhibiting most of the same shortcomings. But this is definitely not a dramatic restoration, even if the average bit rate here 6. On the whole, the two releases look very similar; some shots even appeared a tiny bit more worn in the new edition, a few looked better presumably due to enhanced compression techniques, but most were alike enough to make discerning the pair a chore.
The one thing that seems pretty certain is that there is not enough picture improvement to merit an upgrade solely on that, unless you are insistent upon having the best transfer available and are willing to place value on even small gains. In the sound department, the movie jumps from Dolby Surround to full Dolby Digital 5.
It sounds like the Gold Collection disc's mild distortion is lessened here and that the 25th Anniversary presentation adds a little more depth and clarity, while slightly rendering the track less dated. Nevertheless, the dialogue all remains entirely intelligible, and the appealing score holds up nicely.
It's essentially identical to the song's appearance in the movie, only the picture is fuzzier and accompanied by a Mickey silhouette bouncing over colored lyrics. Though the object of the game is to find Tod, slightly more fun is had in not finding him, as the supporting characters you incorrectly uncover are briefly profiled in narrated second clips. In the alternate Find and Match mode, you must identify the supporting character's friend from 3-choice lineups, which sometimes yields slightly different but no longer buddy snippets.
Either way, the three screens to search are always exactly the same, giving this game very little replay value, even for the assumed target audience of 3-toyear-olds.
The name and design are different, but the Disney Storytime DVD storybook feature is essentially just like the old Gold Collection read-alongs. It's aimed at very young readers, so simplicity is key. You choose from "Read-Along" and "Read-To-Yourself"; the more passive choice offers a bit more fun in the way of animation both clips and some new barely-animation , Big Mama banter, and a couple of instances where you can select Dinky and Boomer to hear what they have to say. Note that this is considerably different from the read-along found on the Gold Collection disc, which merely retold the story and offered a lot more words per page.
By now, you're done with the first page of extras and have yet to encounter anything special. Page 2 offers improvement, but only slightly. Backstage Disney holds two listings. The featurette "Passing the Baton" , counting 20 seconds of credits is the best relevant bonus on the disc and itself is lacking. It recalls the changing of hands that Fox represents, as it was either the first or last project for many prominent Disney animators. If you've gotten a chance to watch the main Disc 2 documentary on this week's Little Mermaid Platinum Edition DVD, then looking at Keane, Clements, and Musker here makes it obvious that this is not a newly-produced piece.
As does knowledge that Thomas died over two years ago. In fact, this short bit first appeared on the United Kingdom's DVD release of the film, so it's at least five years old and probably even more than that. The animator recollections are interesting, as is the recording studio footage of Pearl Bailey singing "Best of Friends" and the discussion of Fox 's messages on bigotry and racism.
But it's way too brief to cover any ground satisfactorily and thus leaves us wanting much more. The last Backstage morsel thrown our way is an Art Gallery, which is also carried over from the UK release. This is far lighter than the massive art libraries that regularly show up on Platinum Edition DVDs, but I actually much prefer the layout here.
There are 14 pages of stills arranged in a scrapbook. Each page has a descriptive caption, as do some of the stills when viewed full-size. Altogether, there are 51 images and you can browse through the full-sized versions all in one go without having to return to the scrapbook view, which itself is more easily navigable thanks to the lack of music and clarity of thumbnails which aren't overly cropped.
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Already have an account? Log in and add this item to your wish list. This little guy never speaks a word but there's more charm in his attempts to flee his pursuers than in the rest of the movie combined. Actually, the film's rare action scenes work pretty well. Fox generally is a fairly timid movie; it starts so gently that I almost felt like I was watching a script stolen from Barney or Teletubbies.
However, a couple of pursuit scenes fire up some surprising intensity and even almost-graphic violence. I was quite astonished to see the pounding one character takes; he's hit by a train and then slams into some rocks after he falls off a bridge!
Granted, I knew that this meant the character would impossibly survive, since a Disney film would never depict such violence if the victim bought it, but I still thought it was almost shocking. Probably the film's best moment occurs during its climax, when a large bear attacks. Many have pointed to this scene as the moment when it became clear that the new generation of animators could eventually be something special. It's regarded as Glen Keane's "coming out" and does stand as a surprisingly visceral and effective piece of work.
Unfortunately, it doesn't quite redeem the film as a whole. I wanted to like The Fox and the Hound but simply found it to be too bland and unmemorable. The movie does pick up during its second half - once the characters have grown, we see less of the dull kiddie stuff that marred the early scenes - but I just couldn't get into the story.
In regard to the dimensions, it seems completely unclear whether or not 1. The DVD's case just states that it offers a "fullscreen 1. Some Disney DVDs discuss whether how their ratios relate to the original theatrical dimensions, but we get no such help here. IMDB indicates that the film's aspect ratio was 1.
That may well be correct, but at this point, I don't think I'm going to find a definitive answer. As for the image itself, I didn't note any significant indications that the sides were ever cropped, but I must acknowledge that I thought the picture seemed a little more cramped than I'd like at times. It wasn't so claustrophobic that I can say for certain information was lost, but it seemed much more debatable than with many other Disney titles. For example, The Aristocats looks to offer a fullframe transfer that suffered from no cropping of the sides.
Honestly, I wish Disney would just issue all their animated films in the theatrical dimensions and not create these stupid discussions. In any case, Fox provides a fairly average picture. Sharpness usually looked crisp and detailed, but it could be rather soft and hazy on many occasions.
A number of closer images also appear ill-defined. The print used was pretty clean. Grain could be a little heavy, but only a few minor examples of specks or marks appeared. Colors tended to be muted but appear reasonably accurate and well-saturated. Black levels actually looked quite good - especially in the rich and deep fur of the bear at the end - and shadow detail seemed nicely opaque but not overly so.
The same can be said for Dolby Digital 5. Admittedly, I didn't expect too much of a mix that's now 25 years old, but this one still seemed pretty bland. Music showed general stereo imaging in the front, while effects were a minor factor most of the time.
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