Disney / Buena Vista | 1940-1999 | 2 Movies | 195 min | G
Few would deny that Walt Disney was a creative genius. Looking at Walt’s history, there are countless milestones and achievements. Even so, Disney was always looking to try something new and push the boundaries of animation. Walt wanted to create an anthology film presenting various pieces of music aligned with evocative images, sometimes abstract and sometimes narrative. Accomplishing his goal with the release of 1940’s Fantasia, was quite an accomplishment, but it had to be disappointing when the film was greeted by indifference. While it took fifty-nine years for a sequel to be produced, Walt had originally envisioned Fantasia to be in continual release with new segments added and others dropped on a regular basis. When that didn’t happen, Walt’s nephew Roy Disney pushed for years for a new Fantasia to be produced, and Fantasia 2000 is the culmination of that dream.
For me, Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 are more than films. You might describe them as a set of performances by an orchestra, meticulously merged with animated sequences that match the music rather than each other. However, the films are more than that too. With 70 years of hindsight and understanding, both films are in a class of their own. Both featured cutting edge animation at the time of their release; to put it in context, several of the shorts for Fantasia 2000 were completed CGI pieces before Toy Story had hit theaters.
Fantasia is a real “event” film. Originally, Walt Disney had envisioned theatrical showings in which attendees dressed to the nines, as if they were going to a classical music concert. The film unfolds as follows: Deems Taylor, narrator, informs us that Fantasia presents three types of music: the kind that tells a definite story, the kind that creates definite pictures but no story, and music that exists simply for its own sake. As a result, the story isn’t particularly straightforward and requires a certain depth of imagination. Coupled together, Fantasia represents more than three hours of film that require attention not usually afforded animated movies. There is no dialogue, save for the narration between segments; when it comes to 2000, we get star-studded narration. Its However, if you can’t see yourself enjoying cartoons set to classical music, Walt’s vision will likely leave you chilly. In that context, it’s easy to see why such a big-budget, narrow-audience film never garnered enough enthusiasm to be continually revamped or revised; but that doesn’t mean the idea behind Fantasia isn’t brilliant.
Each segment in Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 speaks for itself. There are some segments that have become classics (“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and “Dance of the Hours,” spring to mind), and some that are surprisingly affecting (“Bald Mountain” and “Rite of Spring”). Fantasia 2000’s segments are mostly kid friendly, with its flying whales, flamingos playing with yoyos, and tin soldiers saving the day. But Fantasia 2000 has its moments of pure genuis, namely its Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” feature, prepared by Aladdin’s Genie animator Eric Goldberg and based on drawings by American caricaturist Al Hirschfield. The animation is the foundation of the Fantasia franchise; without it you’d have mixed classic pieces, lacking much life. Disney was trying to give its audience a musical experience, and in that it doesn’t disappoint. So give the films a try, find the segments you like most, and enjoy. The Fantasia movies are truly a unique part of film history.
Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 both look fabulous in their 1080p AVC encodes — as do the paired standard-definition transfers derived from the same print. Fantasia arrives in its original aspect ratio at 1.33:1, while the matte has been opened for Fantasia 2000 to 1.78:1, revealing more art on the top and bottom. The vividness of the colors will astound in both. Brushstrokes along edges and in minute details leap out from the artwork. aside from the compression/pixelation improvement and the aspect ratio, the only real difference between the Fantasia 2000 prints lies in some evening-out of contrast, which appears pumped up on a few instances in the 2000 DVD. In short, Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 both look astounding, in either the standard-definition or high-definition formats.
The audio treatments for Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 are impeccable within a pair of 7-channel DTS HD Master Audio presentations, while the standard-definition Dolby Digital tracks present wonderful clarity. The Fantasound stereophonic design concocted specifically for Fantasia‘s roadshow, an idea cooked up by Walt Disney’s dissatisfaction with current recording methods and Stokowski’s experiments in dimensional aural design, fills the sound space with crisp and well-balanced instrumental fluidity, expertly handled by Disney’s team. Very little age can be heard in the strings, woodwinds, and brass, while Deems Taylor’s voice can be heard clear. Fantasia 2000 sounds equally robust to its classic counterpart. Both are stunning representations of the material, exposing the listener to a well-balanced, beautiful high-definition audio delivery. 5.1 DEHT tracks are available in French and Spanish languages, along with English SDH, French, and Spanish subtitles.
The 4-disc Blu-ray edition of Fantasia includes two separate BD-50 discs — one devoted to the original 1940 classic and one to Fantasia 2000 — and two standard DVDs. Both films boast a bevy of special features, old and new, and Fantasia 2000 even offers access to the “Disney Virtual Vault,” a BD-Live portal that allows users to view any previously released content that isn’t available on the discs themselves (the 48-minute “Making of Fantasia,” the 48-minute “Making of Fantasia 2000,” several hours of segment-specific featurettes and other goodies are a click away). Below is the material on the discs:
Fantasia Audio Commentaries: Fantasia includes three audio commentaries. The first, helmed by Disney historian Brian Sibley, offers a lot of information on the development, design, production and legacy of the film. The second, introduced by Roy Disney and hosted by historian John Canemaker, features archive interviews, audio recordings, story note recreations and meeting transcript readings. Finally, a third commentary with Roy E. Disney, conductor James Levine, animation historian John Canemaker and film restoration manager Scott MacQueen do a fine job filling in whatever blanks remain.
Fantasia DisneyView Presentation (HD): Viewers can watch Fantasia in its original 4:3 presentation or with optional DisneyView, a feature that fills the black bars on either side of the image with custom paintings by visual-effects artists and designer Harrison Ellenshaw.
The Schultheis Notebook: A Disney Treasure (HD, 14 minutes): Diane Disney Miller and a variety of notable filmmakers discuss Herman Schultheis’ recently discovered production notebook: a coveted tome that reveals Disney’s secret animation and special effects techniques, knowledge which had been lost for decades.
Interactive Art Galleries (HD): Two sprawling galleries of concept art, storyboards, original paintings and other production materials are on hand for Fantasia and Fantasia 2000.
Disney Family Museum (HD, 4 minutes): A brief promo for the Disney Family Museum in San Francisco.
Fantasia 2000 Audio Commentaries: Two tracks are available. First up, the directors and art directors of each animated segment are given the opportunity to discuss their contributions to the sequel. And because each group of commentators only has a limited amount of time to speak, gaps of silence and rambling tangents are nowhere to be found, and the whole of the track is breezy, high-spirited and much easier to digest and enjoy. The second finds Roy Disney, James Levine and producer Donald W. Ernst tackling the entire film, digging into the genesis of the project, Walt Disney’s original intentions, the sequel’s individual shorts and the differences and similarities between Fantasia and Fantasia 2000.
Destino (HD, 7 minutes): In 1946, Walt Disney and Salvador Dali began work on a short film they never finished. The recently completed short is presented here in all its weird, wonderful, animated glory.
Dali & Disney: A Date with Destino (SD, 82 minutes): A lengthy documentary about a strange collaboration.
Musicana (HD, 9 minutes): A look at the long development of a potential Fantasia sequel that never came to fruition, Musicana.
Disney’s Virtual Vault (SD, 304 minutes): And what of all the missing supplemental content from the previously released DVD editions of Fantasia and Fantasia 2000? All of it can be found and viewed via this handy BD-Live portal, primed for fans and aimed at completists. In it, you’ll find five hours of documentaries, featurettes and other making-of materials that are well worth perusing. (For those keeping track, that amounts to 125 minutes of additional Fantasia features and 178 minutes of Fantasia 2000 goodies).
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