The Miscellaneous Thought Thread

[Rich T]

I haven’t been to Worlds of Fun, but after seeing this...I’m a fan:

 

[brb1006]

Just got my second vaccine shot (Moderna)! So glad! Feeling good so far.

I also got my first vaccine two days ago.

 

[PiratesMansion]

I haven’t been to Worlds of Fun, but after seeing this...I’m a fan:
View attachment 554974

Their social media team is definitely getting better. Lots of knowing nods about how they haven't gotten a coaster in the decade and such.

It's a beautiful, well-kept park with the best Haunt event in the midwest by miles. It's pretty well themed by Cedar Fair standards and has great atmosphere. There's an abundance of flat rides and a decently sized included water park too, which is a plus. That said, the park has a pretty mediocre coaster collection (though Prowler's a bright spot when it's running well) and Kansas City isn't exactly convenient for me or lots of others to get to, so it's too often ignored.

 

[Okee68]

I love when they draw Toad way too huge in The Wind in the Willows.

 

[BasiltheBatLord]

I love when they draw Toad way too huge in The Wind in the Willows.

View attachment 555104

Just watched this last night. It's so nice how kids today can have easy access to these old movies in the highest possible quality. Back in my day it was quite difficult to find movies like Ichabod and Toad.

Heck I remember spending literal days torrenting god awful quality POV vids of Disney rides. You'd wait for hours on end and then you'd be able to see maybe 10% of the ride in all the darkness. Now you can find low-light 4K 360 degree videos of every ride imaginable on YouTube at the click of a mouse.

 

[Rich T]

I love when they draw Toad way too huge in The Wind in the Willows.

View attachment 555104

I never noticed that before! Maybe those shoes are extreme high heels.

 

[CaptinEO]

Just watched this last night. It's so nice how kids today can have easy access to these old movies in the highest possible quality.

Unfortunately the Disney classic movies have been entirely reanimated, recomposed, recolored, and scrubbed of detail since the early 2000s. Disney reanimates movies instead of going to their source film negatives. In most cases you get better detail out of the VHS and Laserdisc (or first pressing DVDs from 99 and 2000).

Look bellow at Cinderella, not only did they remove detail but they dramatically recolored it so her dress is blue and not white like it was in the original film.

This forum thread is a good guide for what the best version of each movie is on:

Info: Recommended Editions of Disney Animated (and Partially Animated) Features - Original Trilogy

Posted by Doctor M on undefined

originaltrilogy.com

 

[mickEblu]

Unfortunately the Disney classic movies have been entirely reanimated, recomposed, recolored, and scrubbed of detail since the early 2000s. Disney reanimates movies instead of going to their source film negatives. In most cases you get better detail out of the VHS and Laserdisc (or first pressing DVDs from 99 and 2000).

Look bellow at Cinderella, not only did they remove detail but they dramatically recolored it so her dress is blue and not white like it was in the original film.

View attachment 555179

Kind of heartbreaking. No respect for their classic works.

 

[CaptinEO]

Kind of heartbreaking. No respect for their classic works.

It really is, if you watch this feature linked below they show how they digitally remake each film.

For any studio a movie will scan in the negative and do digital dirt and scratch repair and will be color corrected only to restore color lost during the natural aging of a film negative.

Disney is the only company I know that feels the need to digitally rotoscope characters out of backgrounds, redraw the backgrounds, recomposite the characters back in, and then recolor the whole movie to something different than it was ever supposed to look like.

 

[truecoat]

It really is, if you watch this feature linked below they show how they digitally remake each film.

For any studio a movie will scan in the negative and do digital dirt and scratch repair and will be color corrected only to restore color lost during the natural aging of a film negative.

Disney is the only company I know that feels the need to digitally rotoscope characters out of backgrounds, redraw the backgrounds, recomposite the characters back in, and then recolor the whole movie to something different than it was ever supposed to look like.

That video doesn't talk about redrawing the background, it says they took out the dust and scuff marks out of the background.

 

[CaptinEO]

That video doesn't talk about redrawing the background, it says they took out the dust and scuff marks out of the background.

Yes so that is software that does it as a batch job. They remove the characters, do digital processing on the isolated background, then drop the characters back in. They have effectively cut and pasted each character into each from of the movie.

 

[Rich T]

Unfortunately the Disney classic movies have been entirely reanimated, recomposed, recolored, and scrubbed of detail since the early 2000s.

“Reanimated” is a misleading exaggeration. This is not an abomination like what Warners once did to many of their B&W Looney Tunes. Disney did not bring in a team of evil animators to trace over or destroy the work of the Nine Old Men (who generally felt that some of some of their detail was lost in the original ink and paint process anyway ). Some remasters are better than others. The Cinderella dress example you give is the worst offender and deserves to be called out.

Today’s viewers have more and better access to the animated classics than ever before, and — generally — THEY’RE FINE!!!!!! 99 percent of the original overall impact is there.

I grew up pre-home video, when you got to see a Disney classic maybe twice a year in a theater. I grew up loving the books and dark ride of Alice in Wonderland, but had to wait until I was 14 before I actually got to see the film when it finally got a rerelease.

And when we DID see these classics, most theaters had poor sound, scratched prints and iffy focus.

Heck, I went to a screening of Cinderella where the staff forgot to dim the theater lights until 25 minutes in.

I can live with a bit of annoying, unnecessary tampering in today’s prints. In the grand scheme of things, they’re more viewed, beloved and appreciated than ever before. The original artists would be proud.

 

[truecoat]

Yes so that is software that does it as a batch job. They remove the characters, do digital processing on the isolated background, then drop the characters back in. They have effectively cut and pasted each character into each from of the movie.

It looked to me that they used a process to identify dust and scratches on the background as a whole and remove that. It appears at about 1:30 in the video they show the whole background going through a filter to identify dust and scuffs.

 

[CaptinEO]

“Reanimated” is a misleading exaggeration. This is not an abomination like what Warners once did to many of their B&W Looney Tunes. Disney did not bring in a team of evil animators to trace over or destroy the work of the Nine Old Men (who generally felt that some of some of their detail was lost in the original ink and paint process anyway ). Some remasters are better than others. The Cinderella dress example you give is the worst offender and deserves to be called out.

Today’s viewers have more and better access to the animated classics than ever before, and — generally — THEY’RE FINE!!!!!! 99 percent of the original overall impact is there.

I grew up pre-home video, when you got to see a Disney classic maybe twice a year in a theater. I grew up loving the books and dark ride of Alice in Wonderland, but had to wait until I was 14 before I actually got to see the film when it finally got a rerelease.

And when we DID see these classics, most theaters had poor sound, scratched prints and iffy focus.

Heck, I went to a screening of Cinderella where the staff forgot to dim the theater lights until 25 minutes in.

I can live with a bit of annoying, unnecessary tampering in today’s prints. In the grand scheme of things, they’re more viewed, beloved and appreciated than ever before. The original artists would be proud.

I mean it's not a bit of tampering, it is very dramatic and is in every frame of their movies. Their movies have a soft, unfocussed, and outright unnatural appearance in any of these HD modifications.

On laserdisc they are natural and fluid, the downside being they are at a lower resolution. I'm sure one day the company will correct this and go back to their film prints.

Disney has reanimated Fantasia, Saludos Amidos, and Make Mine Music to censor them to name a few.

 

[CaptinEO]

It looked to me that they used a process to identify dust and scratches on the background as a whole and remove that. It appears at about 1:30 in the video they show the whole background going through a filter to identify dust and scuffs.

View attachment 555188

All I will say is that if you know the right place to look you can find fan made film scans of 35mm theatrical prints of Disney films. These fans removed dirt properly without dramatically realtering the image, and did proper color correction.

These are so stunning and detailed and fluid and are the best versions of Disney's films.

Heres an example of a film scan of cinderella before and after color correction:


If you were to put the bluray next to it it is blurry and looks overly processed.

 

[Rich T]

I mean it's not a bit of tampering, it is very dramatic and is in every frame of their movies. Their movies have a soft, unfocussed, and outright unnatural appearance in any of these HD modifications.

On laserdisc they are natural and fluid, the downside being they are at a lower resolution. I'm sure one day the company will correct this and go back to their film prints.

Disney has reanimated Fantasia, Saludos Amidos, and Make Mine Music to censor them to name a few.

For me, “Reanimate” implies redoing motion and reinterpretating performances. I just think there’s gotta be more specific terms for the various forms of editing and remastering. In a nutshell, no I don’t like needless changes to a film’s original look, and I hope the original reference versions are never lost. But when a kid sees the latest remastered Cinderella, they’re still getting 99% of the overall intended experience and a better viewing than most folks got from a theater screening.

But, yeah, losing line details in something like Cinderella’s dress is a truly stupid fumbling of the whole restoration concept.

 

[brb1006]

Just watched this last night. It's so nice how kids today can have easy access to these old movies in the highest possible quality. Back in my day it was quite difficult to find movies like Ichabod and Toad.

Heck I remember spending literal days torrenting god awful quality POV vids of Disney rides. You'd wait for hours on end and then you'd be able to see maybe 10% of the ride in all the darkness. Now you can find low-light 4K 360 degree videos of every ride imaginable on YouTube at the click of a mouse.

Still waiting for "So Dear To My Heart" to get added to Disney+. I really the heck out of Danny the black sheep!

 

[brb1006]

I love when they draw Toad way too huge in The Wind in the Willows.

View attachment 555104

"The Adventures of Ichabod And Mr. Toad" was perfect to watch during the Halloween season. I remember watching the movie for the first time last Fall during the month of October (since Disney+ highlighthed the film for Halloween).

 

[CaptinEO]

For me, “Reanimate” implies redoing motion and reinterpretating performances. I just think there’s gotta be more specific terms for the various forms of editing and remastering. In a nutshell, no I don’t like needless changes to a film’s original look, and I hope the original reference versions are never lost. But when a kid sees the latest remastered Cinderella, they’re still getting 99% of the overall intended experience and a better viewing than most folks got from a theater screening.

But, yeah, losing line details in something like Cinderella’s dress is a truly stupid fumbling of the whole restoration concept.

Oh got it! I see your point completely.

I mean in my opinion by removing characters from the background and then reinserting them, it is reanimating the film, it's not just clean up.

But I see what you mean and we can only hope that one day Disney will go back to the source. Right now all their works are still based on scans and processing jobs done in the early 2000s.

That 2003 Sleeping Beauty is the source used for all future restorations, so it gets compounded. I wish they would at least just start with a source film negative each time.

 

[brb1006]

“Reanimated” is a misleading exaggeration. This is not an abomination like what Warners once did to many of their B&W Looney Tunes. Disney did not bring in a team of evil animators to trace over or destroy the work of the Nine Old Men (who generally felt that some of some of their detail was lost in the original ink and paint process anyway ). Some remasters are better than others. The Cinderella dress example you give is the worst offender and deserves to be called out.

Today’s viewers have more and better access to the animated classics than ever before, and — generally — THEY’RE FINE!!!!!! 99 percent of the original overall impact is there.

I grew up pre-home video, when you got to see a Disney classic maybe twice a year in a theater. I grew up loving the books and dark ride of Alice in Wonderland, but had to wait until I was 14 before I actually got to see the film when it finally got a rerelease.

And when we DID see these classics, most theaters had poor sound, scratched prints and iffy focus.

Heck, I went to a screening of Cinderella where the staff forgot to dim the theater lights until 25 minutes in.

I can live with a bit of annoying, unnecessary tampering in today’s prints. In the grand scheme of things, they’re more viewed, beloved and appreciated than ever before. The original artists would be proud.

Speaking of Disney Books, my first exposure to a majority of Disney Animated Films (both old and new) was the 1999 book "Disney's Storybook Collection"

That book was my first exposure to a large majority of Disney Animated Films between The Walt Era, the 1970s and 1980s era, and up till the then ongoing Disney Renaissance period. It's where I first discovered The Aristocats, Bambi, Lady and the Tramp, Pete's Dragon, and highlighted the 1990 short film "The Prince And The Pauper" (which was difficult to find before the "Magical Treasures" DVD collection to honor Walt's 100th Birthday.)

Before that, my earliest exposures to anything Disney was the 1988 VHS tape "Mickey's Magical World" to commemorate Mickey's 60th birthday. It was released as part of the "Mini Classics" series in a commemorative edition. I still own the tape but lost the VHS cover sometime as a young lad.


With my first introduction to the Disney Parks being "Disney's Sing Along Songs - Disneyland Fun" from 1990 (which is where I first discovered Pinocchio, Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, Roger Rabbit etc)


I also used to watch the 1998 Walt Disney World Vacation Planning Video religiously during my childhood and used to beg my parents to visit Walt Disney World until finally visiting in the Summer of 2004.


Same with the one from 2001 during the 100 Years of Magic Celebration.


This all occurred before my parents got their very first computer and gaining access to the Internet. So back then, "Disney's Storybook Collection" and numerous Disney Book that retold stories from Disney Animated Films was all we got (especially during the Disney Vault era).