If you don’t know the story of Bambi then you have mean parents. Of course, that’s not your fault, so let me recap. It’s basically a giant ‘coming of age’ film focused upon a young deer named Bambi. You get to see his fun, innocent upbringing with his friend Thumper (he’s a rabbit) and his skunk friend Flower. Bambi’s upbringing brings a lot of discovery, especially when he gets to his teenage years and discovers girls. All of this great setup is dashed by a tragic event and an even more tragic (yet, more resolved) ending.
One of the many wonders of Bambi is how honest Walt Disney keeps the story/life of a deer in 1942 America. Whenever you picture animated films from that part of American history you generally see a lot of goofy, off-the-wall cartoons. Rarely do you get a cartoon that tells the life of an animal like it is. The first part of the film is that ‘cuteness’ that everyone has come to love from cartoons. You get funny moments like Bambi trying to name everything or Bambi trying to walk, or even Bambi trying to walk on an iced over pond. Disney is setting everyone up emotionally for some cold reality and quite frankly it’s great. When you get to the point where tragedy occurs you are right there with Bambi. You understand that the fun of life is now over and it’s time to grow up. I’m not sure if that’s more depressing than the actual tragedy itself, but regardless it’s there and in your face. Again, for a 1942 animated film this isn’t what people are expecting, but it’s brilliant nonetheless.
The film is simple, but it’s captivating. It will draw you in and you’ll be forced to stay there, which again is great. It’s certainly one of Disney’s finest films from the Walt Disney era.
With all this said, the real beef of this review is for the Blu-ray portion of the film. You already know that Bambi is a classic, so what does the Blu-ray do for it? When Disney started labeling everything ‘Diamond Edition’ I first felt like they were running out of things to call their releases. Diamond Edition? Really? Okay, so they called it Diamond Edition because it truly is one of their best works. Everything they applied that name to seems to fit the bill in regards to the Blu-ray.
Starting with the animation, Walt Disney Studios has gone back and cleaned up the nearly 70-year old animation perfectly. Much like Pinocchio’s release on Blu-ray, the animation is so darn clean that you can see some of the original pencil marks when the animation moves too fast; It’s so fascinating. What’s even more remarkable is how intact the colors are in the Blu-ray. They are as bright and beautiful as they probably were when the film premiered in 1942, if not more so. The audio comes remastered in 7.1 DTS-HD, which is probably more than a movie like Bambi needs, but hey!
So what about special features? There’s a lot that can be said about Disney’s efforts in bringing you the quintessential Blu-ray experience. Here’s what you’re looking at in terms of features:
Disc One:
– Introduction by Diane Disney Miller
– 2 Never-Before-Seen Deleted Scenes
– Deleted Song
– Inside Walt’s Story Meetings
– Disney Big Book of Knowledge Game
– Interactive Blu-ray Galleries
– Classic DVD Bonus Features
Disc Two:
– DisneyPedia: Bambi’s Forest Friends
While I was happy with the amount of features (not overly impressed, but impressed), I found the delivery system for the features to be far more fascinating. Walt Disney Studios is becoming bold in their adventure to expand Blu-ray capabilities. This time around you can have things like a second screen on the iPad to view animation. Bringing something like the iPad into play without just making it a movie player is impressive. For those lucky idiots out there (myself included) that have an iPad to try this out on you’re going to be tickled. It’s neat. Another thing that my wife and I found particularly cool about this Blu-ray release is that the main menu has special feature ‘recommendations’ that change with each viewing. So you have a few features that are right there ready for you to view that constantly change. I like that stuff, not because it’s really useful right now (it’s a little gimmicky at the moment), but because it will serve potentially a better purpose in the future. That’s one of the things that got DVDs going is companies would explore different uses for untapped capabilities, but later would find a better purpose. Walt Disney Studios is doing this with Blu-ray and I hope they continue to expand that creative horizon with Blu-ray technology.