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Film Title:  Fantasia & Fantasia 2000 Special Edition

 Best for ages: All Ages

Movie Website: Click Here

Year Released: 2010

Rated: PG (US)

The Review

   My introduction to the world of Walt Disney began with Fantasia. I remember being very young when I first saw it and one of my favorite things about the film was the walking brooms carrying the buckets of water. As a kid, its the story of The Sorcerers Apprentice really fascinated me.  The other shorts however I don’t remember much about, but I do remember finding them to be boring when I saw the film when I was in my early teens.  That was the last time I saw the film, until the Blu-ray landed on my door step.

    Fantasia was the third feature length film produced by Walt Disney.  The film hit theaters in 1940 but never found an audience and almost put Walt Disney productions out of business. However, in 1941 RKO Pictures came to the rescue and edited the film from its 2 hour and twenty minute running time down to eighty six minutes. Eventually as time has moved on Fantasia would become a big hit.  The film, has been released in theaters multiply times since it first hit screens in 1940 and is now considered a true classic in cinematic history.

    Fantasia features eight animated segments set to classical music selections. The animated segments feature no dialogue except for host Deem Taylor as he introduces each story. However over the year and many edits later Fantasia went though a lot of editing and restorations. The closet release to the original film was when it was restored in 2000 for it’s DVD release in which the majority of the original footage and some of it’s audio was restored. However not all could be restored in the 2000 version, so Disney did their best and hired some of the best in the business to recreate as much of the lost footage and dialogue as possible.

    Disney has done a really great job with bringing the classic film to Blu-ray. It’s the same film, but it looks a lot better and the sound quality is great for a film that has been though its fair shares of the cutting room floor. The set is also accompanied by the sequel Fantasia 2000 of which is more of a continuation of the original film. However, although there are all new stories and music in the film, The Sorcerers Apprentice was added into the mix as it is the most widely know short in Fantasia. The four disc Blu-ray/DVD combo pack comes with both Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 on both Blu-ray and DVD. 

     The Fantasia Blu-ray includes features such as Disney View, The Disney Family Museum, Audio Commentaries, Interactive Art Gallery and the newly discovered Schultheis Notebook which reveals the movies secrets. The DVD version of Fantasia features Audio Commentaries and The Disney Family Museum.

    The Fantasia 2000 Blu-ray has a lot of features. On both the Blu-ray and the only feature on the DVD is the featurette Musicana – Walt Disney’s inspiration for a sequel to Fantasia. Other features on the Fantasia 2000 Blu-ray are the 2003 Academy Award nominated short Destino.  Dall & Disney A Date with Destino documentary, The Disney Virtual Vault BD Live Feature and Audio Commentaries.

   Both films are beautiful on Blu-ray, Disney as always does a great job restoring the picture and sound quality of their classic films. These films however, are not really for certain age groups. Both films have great classical scores and it is always good to let young children listen to classic music as it is good for brain development. Despite some of the scary elements of some of the stories, I think that younger kids might benefit from the film. Children over the age of three up into their earily teens may not be interested in the film because of the fact that there is no dialogue and it is just music. My own daughter sat though The Sorcerers Apprentice without a word, but the others she complained to me that they were boring.  I  remember as a kid I found most of them boring as well. Yet some children do have different tastes in different things so  I can be wrong.. It’s a toss up, many adults and older teens will enjoy it for its musical and artistic value, where with children it really depends on the child’s interest. However, Fantasia is a classic film and is considered by many to be one of the top 100 films of all time. It is an important piece of the Disney legacy and should be a disc set that you add to your collection.

BUY THIS MOVIE.