The Fantasia Anthology

Rating:
Summary: Almost Perfect
Review: The original "Fantasia" is a masterpiece that was truly ahead of its time. I bought the VHS boxed set back in '91 and I'm glad I did. Although this collection is comprehensive, it's not complete. First off, the inclusion of ALL of the original narration was a good idea but NOT without the voice of Deems Taylor. The "Fantasia" DVD states that the original narration was unsalvageable, which is too bad. I miss Taylor's more masculine sounding voice and the dubbing is obvious in a few places. Also, some of the audio for "Toot, Whistle..." is missing. Has anyone else had this problem? Also, the "Making of" from the VHS boxed set in NOT included in this DVD package. Some of the interviews were incorporated, though.

Now for the pluses. I LOVE the restored "Claire de lune" despite the fact that there's no introduction by Deems Taylor and some footage of Stokowski conducting the end of the toccata section from Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" is used to begin the piece. It's like finding a new segment from the original "Fantasia". I also admire the storyboards for "The Ride of the Valkyries" and "The Swan of Tuonela". One can only hope that they will someday be animated in the style of Kai Nielsen.

It's almost perfect. I doubt we'll ever see the politically incorrect version of the "Pastorale" but surely they could do something to restore the original narration using Deems Taylor's voice. After all, it's Taylor who introduces Beethoven's Fifth in "Fantasia 2000".

Rating:
Summary: For Young and Not-so-young
Review: This is the gift that I wrote on a sticky note and told my husband that "Santa had better leave this in my stocking...get it?"

Well, he got it. And so did I. My 3yo and I have enjoyed it thoroughly.

My 8 month old is fascinated with the changing colors in some of the more abstract pieces.

I thought the picture and sound quality was excellent. However, I was a little disappointed in the Legacy DVD. I found it difficult to maneuver, with less material than I had presumed from advertising. I requested the Anthology version specifically because I wanted this part of the set. I think I would have been just as happy with the 2-DVD set and would recommend this to other buyers.

Rating:
Summary: A personal story
Review: I will not tell you about the DVD's special features, or any of the impressions I had from the digital capture of the film, or the quality of the sound; I'll tell you a story.

This is probably the first memory I have: I was 3 years old. My mother took me to a distant cinema to see my first film show. She told me that it is like a cartoon, but bigger. We entered the theater, sat down, and I was amazed of its size and capacity - though in retrospective it was a rather small theater... But when the lights went off and the film started, it overwhelmed me. The choice of this ultimate masterpiece as my first film ever left me with little choice for my future - I was to become a slave to cinema, animation and music for the rest of my life. These became my most treasured passions ever since. Whenever I picture music, it is forever colored with the magnificence of Disney's genius gift. It changed my life.

Yes - and it is a gift to all of us. Thank you, Walt, for showing me beauty, perfection and humility.

Rating:
Summary: THREE REVIEWS HERE
Review: FANTASIA

There are about 8 segments in this movie. Only 3 of them are barely entertaining. My fave was the dinosaur story, the old fashioned animation was way more eye pleasing than Disney's other movie (the imaginatively titled DINOSAUR). But the rest of this film stinks to high heaven. How anyone can be entertained by this crud is beyond all my understanding.

At the beginning of this movie we are made to suffer thru about 10 minutes of darkly lit shots of musicians tuning up. WHY?! Who on earth wants to see or hear that?! It is quite possibly the WORST opening to any movie that I have ever seen. A movie that begins with 100 kittens being tortured to death would be more entertaining. It would even sound better. I'm not kidding.

As this was the first movie made in stereo the sound is deliberately split over the two speakers. But the director gets too indulgent with it when he uses it to scare us when someone in the orchestra knocks over a xylophone.

Not even the 3 good segments (the other 2 being The Sorcerers apprentice and the dancing Alligator) can redeem this junk or create an excuse to sit thru 125 minutes of absolute garbage. Although it was 125 it seemed 10 times the length. It really was so boring. The sequel is much better.

FANTASIA 2000

Top quality animation and a sense of humor make this sequel much more bare-able than the wanton original. The running time of 74 minutes is a lot more easier on those who were bored to death the first time round. But be warned, The Sorcerer's Apprentice remains. As this was the original's ONLY selling point they decided to stick it back in there.

But my fave segment is the one with Donald Duck, in fact they were all cool apart from the obnoxiously ambitious attempt to resell us the Sorcerer's Apprentice. The TV show style introductions were more watchable than the boring Leopold Stokowski from the first.

This was the first animated movie to be made for IMAX screens and the digital picture is amazing. See this preferably on an IMAX screen or on DVD. Watching it on VHS would only insult the brilliant animation.

Once again, this is much better than the first and dire, dire, dire Fantasia.

FANTASIA LEGACY

An absolute massive truckload of extras in on this DVD. So much so that Disney have included a map to navigate the menus. I'm not kidding. A map! I'm STILL discovering new stuff on it and I've had it since Xmas. This box set is WELL worth the money.

Rating:
Summary: Unique masterpiece
Review: The original Fantasia is an undeniable masterpiece, and in bringing it to the digital medium, Disney has done the best job possible under the circumstances. The visuals are stunning (making the VHS practically unwatchable), and I am still amazed at the fidelity of the orginal soundtrack (probably one of the first to be recorded on to magnetic tape, hence the crispness). The long forgotten intermission has also been included, which really gives the film the feeling of a concert. However, for the DVD, Disney made a bold move. For the sake of completeness, the narration in between pieces has been fully restored, and in some cases is over twice the length of the original. To accomodate this Deems Taylor's VOICE has been dubbed over by a similar voice reading his words verbatim. Apparently, the audio portion of the restored segments was unsalvagable, and the re-dubbing was done for consistentcies sake. Too bad. The only other discrepency, was that the classic art-decoesque "Fantasia" title that flashes on the screen before the curtain opens is GONE. Perhaps that was not part of the original cut.

Rating:
Summary: Finally on DVD but not quite
Review: It's wonderful to finally have the original Fantasia on DVD, and I'm glad Roy Disney went to the trouble to restore it to the roadshow version. The only real complaint I have is that the voice you hear is NOT that of Deams Tailor but of a voice actor used to restore sound quality to the footage. Kind of unsettling and jarring, when I am so familiar with Mr. Tailor's voice and the remastered version that came out on video and LaserDisc.

Rating:
Summary: PHANTASMAGORIA ...MULTIMEDIA
Review: Since 1940, Fantasia had only occasionally revisited us for one of its brief and infrequent appearances at movie theatres. Those of us who chose to see the first Fantasia had been graced by one of filmdom's more risky but enduring experiments. Disney's 1940 motion picture is the original inspiration for all subsequent conceptual MTV type Music Videos, especially of the 1980s and later. Stokowski's fervent presentation of the classical sounds are unforgettable. We do not often benefit on such a grand scale from sublime genius and inspiration presented in slick multimedia convenience. "Motion picture history was made last night...Fantasia...is simply terrific" said Bosley Crowther in The New York Times, November 14, 1940. With the premiere in 1940, Fantasia had been released for brief theatrical runs only ten times in the next 50 years. It was seen again in 1942, '46, '56, '63, '69, '77, '82, '84, and in 1990. Those infrequent releases barred a great share of the market from convenient access. Fortunately, the 50th Anniversary release returned to theatres in 1990 with its original Stokowski recorded soundtrack, extensively restored and digitally remastered to bring back and clean up his acoustic masterpiece. The genius of Fantasia is as much Stokowski as Disney. Stokowski was awarded a special Academy Award Oscar in 1941 for his "unique achievement in creating a new form of visualized music". Let's take an imaginary trip back in time to visit the cultural roots of Disney's vision. Begin at an ancient Indonesian SHADOW PUPPETRY THEATRE a thousand years ago, and mentally travel through the smoke and mirrors and shadows of the Renaissance MAGIC LANTERN shows in Europe, then to the British theatrical LIMELIGHT of the 19th century. We would eventually arrive at the projected shadows and flickers on the SILVERSCREEN of modern motion pictures at the turn of this 20th century. Fantasia builds on the Phantasmagoria media as presented more than 300 years ago. PHANTASMAGORIA literally meant an apparition or spiritual image with a powerful and realistic impact, sometimes invoked by poets of the Middle Ages in the midst of compelling commentary. Phantasmagoria later came to be applied as a description of the mediated effects from Magic Lantern devices rigged to project changing images on a staged setting or screen. Picture size, apparent distance, shape, and sense of movement could be manipulated by a system of tracks for moving the lantern projectors closer or further from the resulting image while using mechanical lens controls to keep a constant focus. The occasional addition of a mechanical slide changer for colored filters and a variety of subtly painted, yet transparent, mood images enhanced the result. Elaborate set-ups combining these with smoke and mirror devices and sound instruments could provide illusions of significant complexity and moving realism (and hence the term of "trickery with smoke and mirrors"). These "new" techniques were used at the time to good effect by magicians and spiritualists. Such theatrical techniques were rediscovered and reapplied around the world beginning in the 1960s for dance, theatre, and film and termed MULTIMEDIA. Today we might say that desired illusions resulting from special optical effects, as well as from camera angles and lens choices, occasionally work a similar Phantasmagoria or "cinema magic". The first Fantasia was the epitome of this electric circus in media-made America. Its infrequent releases and thinly distributed critiques have not yet established its central importance. Like Fantasia sixty years ago - an electric circus of its time - our new, changing electronic media are stunning, dazzling,  uplifting, educational, thrilling - and boring - and more than occasionally, tragic and dispiriting.

Rating:
Summary: Just buy it!
Review: When I went to Disney World for the Disney Institute's Animation Event, I was able to meet Eric and Susan Goldberg and many of the other directors and animators of Fantasia 2000. They showed us all the hard work that went into it and then we got to make our own film to the music. It was great meeting them and then seeing their work made me appreciate it more. If your an animation fan, then your love it!

Rating:
Summary: The original movie was great. This DVD is horrible.
Review: The 1940 movie "Fantasia" is awesome - one of the bestanimated films of all time. A definite five starfilm.

Unfortunately, the DVD contains an altered version of themovie. To make matters even worse, the advertising for the DVD isdeliberately false.

First of all, the DVD is being advertised asbeing "uncut." This is not true. In reality, certain scencesthat some people consider to be "offensive" have beenremoved.

Secondly, the DVD is being advertised as having "theoriginal narration." This is also untrue. In reality, this DVDcontains a newly recorded narration.

Rating:
Summary: Great Films, but that Extra DVD is questionable....
Review: First, the movies are masterpieces, and beautifully presented on these DVDs. If you haven't seen Fantasia, it is Walt Disney's magnum opus - a collection of fantasy images set to classical music. The music dictates the action, not the animators. If you have ever caught yourself daydreaming a story while listening to classical music, you can understand the Fantasia concept. The music in both movies is an outstanding selection from the classical world. Disney choose some really amazing pieces, and the pictures they put to the music are some of the most adult things the studio has ever done. If you haven't seen these films and you like classical music, I can hardly find a reason for you not to love these movies.

If you didn't catch Fantasia 2000 at the Imax theater, I do feel sorry for you. A TV can hardly do justice to seeing that movie on such a large screen. You MUST see F2K at hte Imax if you ever get the chance. (I will see it once a year if they let me!) Still, F2K does manage to live up to the Fantasia legacy without imitating or insulting. The themes and stories are just as amazing, although I do feel like Disney reduced much of the cutting edge of the first film to reach a wider audience with the second. The animation styles of the original movie were a collection of avante garde art styles of the time, while F2K is simply the normal style we're used to seeing in a Disney film, only more detailed and lavish. Even the "stream of consciousness" opening piece has been reduced to a character story.

The individual DVDs contain wonderful documentaries with each film, and almost make the 3rd "extras" DVD moot. The 3rd disc contains artwork stills from each segment, plus a very short documentary on each segment. These documentaries hardly expand on thedocumentaries included on the movie DVDs themselves. Even the reconstructed "lost segments" aren't that great, as they are mostly pieced together from concept sketches and poor-quality animation tests. You'd be better off studying the sketches then listening to the music and let your imagination piece together the images.

Don't get me wrong, these are 2 of the best movies of all time, presented in beautiful DVDs. I only nitpick because Fantasia is to be a continuing series, and I only want things to get better. If you are a serious Disney fan, this boxset is worth it. If you are a Fantasia fan, well, duh....