A Tale of Triumph
The story takes place in medieval England. There is a legend about a sword that is stuck vertically in a stone in part of the town in the courtyard. The sword contains an inscription that reads, whoever removes the sword from the stone shall become the King of England. Try as they might, no man no matter how strong could remove the sword.
Once that idea is introduced, it doesn’t come back into the story until late in the movie. For the vast majority of the tale, we follow the young boy named Wart, who’s real name is Arthur. Wandering in the woods, he discovers Archimedes, the intelligent talking owl, as well as the classic old wizard, Merlin. Merlin has a great interest in the boy, and wants to educate him, so that he might become a powerful leader someday. Wart’s obligations in town in the kitchen keep him from having a great deal of time, but Merlin, Archimedes, and he have a variety of adventures whereby Merlin constantly reinforces the idea that intelligence is superior, and therefore more important that brute strength.
It’s no surprise then that as the story comes to an end, and it looks like the throne is going to belong to Wart’s disagreeable employer (I believe that’s what he was), young Wart manages to pull the sword from the stone not once, but twice. With that, he thereby humbly became the King of England.
What I liked about The Sword In the Stone growing up and still today was the story of triumph. Wart was a bullied kid you might say, and certainly someone that few gave any second thought of. I liked the values that Merlin taught him, and ultimately, the awe-inspiring triumph Wart achieves.
The Release
This 45th Anniversary DVD is more of a ‘double-dip’ by Disney than anything in terms of what consumers get. Having done some research, the video and audio quality here differ exceedingly little, if any from the previous 2001 Gold Classic release. That’s not to say the quality is poor; both on a technical level and on an aesthetics level, it’s very good, it’s just not any better than what was available years ago and that might be disappointing to potential buyers. There is no doubt of course though that this is textbook Disney animation for the time, and it’s wonderful; everything from the fluid movements to the minor details to the colors are very likeable. The sound presentation is no different, and on a personal note I liked that there weren’t too many songs throughout the story, like so many other Disney movies where it seems like each character is just bursting at the seams to sing.
As far as extra features, there are a few, but again after digging up some information on the 2001 Gold Classics release, there is only one difference here, which again detracts from the overall value of this release. The extras are:
Music & More: This feature contains an eight minute interview with the Sherman Brothers, the folks largely responsible for the music of the film. This is an interesting albeit short feature that also shows a lot of nice storyboard/early production footage and art. The second part of this feature contains four sing-a-long songs from the movie.
Merlin’s Magical Academy: This is the sole new feature of this release compared to the 2001 release. There are a handful of simplistic remote control games, like one where you replay the scene where Wart gets turned into a fish. The idea here is that as the scene moves from left to right, there are bubbles with directional arrows in theme. You simply press the arrow indicated in the bubble on your remote as you swim by, kind of like a DDR game. Frankly, I didn’t spend more than just a few minutes browsing through these little games, but kids might get some enjoyment from them.
Backstage Disney: This feature contains three selectable items including “All About Magic,” “The Sword In the Stone Scrapbook,” and Film Facts. The first is an old black and white, seven minute piece with Walt Disney himself walking around part of the Disney studios. He enters the Magic Property Room in the basement and goes over miscellaneous magic tricks and so forth. The Scrapbook feature is largely text based, and features sixteen still screen images with some background information and pre-production artwork and photography. Lastly, the Film Facts feature is just eight screens of text about the film and the book it’s based from.
Bonus Shorts: Two shorts are included, one features Goofy in “A Knight For A Day” and the other stars Mickey in “Brave Little Tailor.” Both of these are entertaining, especially the Goofy one.