- Aspect Ratio: 1.37:1
- Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
- Resolution: 1080p/24
- Audio Codec: English DTS-HD High Resolution 7.1, Restored Original Soundtrack English Dolby Digital 2.0, French Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1
- Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
- Rating: G
- Region: ABC (Region-Free)
- Discs: 2 (1 x Blu-ray + 1 x DVD)
- Studio: Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment
- Blu-ray Release Date: March 1, 2011
- List Price: $39.99
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BestBuy.com:
Purchase Bambi: Diamond Edition on Blu-ray+DVD Combo Pack at CD Universe
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com
Overall
[Rating:4.5/5]
The Film
[Rating:5/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:5/5]
Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures
(Screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG thus are meant as a general representation of the content and do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)
The Film
[Rating:5/5]
Bambi is Walt Disney’s fifth full-length animated feature. The film introduced yet another of Disney’s innovations, the mutliplane camera, which gave the animated backgrounds a more realistic depth of field and added to the beauty of Bambi’s look and feel.
The endearing, heartfelt story of a young “prince of the forest” and his friends, Bambi is a coming of age story, a love story, a story of friendship, and of life lessons. The young foal Bambi grows to maturity, learning important things along the way, in the beautiful forest amongst his friends, the cotton-tailed rabbit Thumper and the skunk Flower, and eventually meets the girl of his dreams.
Bambi, beautifully animated and wonderfully voiced by, at the time, unknown child actors, will have you laughing and crying at the adventures of this cute young foal and his friends as they brave the woods, run from the dangers of man, and get “twitterpated” in the Spring.
Video Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
As usual, Disney has done a wonderful job restoring this animated classic. Bambi looks clean, sparkling, crisp, and detailed. The colors, though not quite as saturated as one would like, are still vibrant and lack any noise to distract from enjoyment. Line art is visible and sharp and depth of field is nearly three-dimensional.
Audio Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Bambi has been given a newly remixed 7.1 soundtrack, provided in the lossy DTS-HD High Resolution format. This is the second animated release I recall seeing Disney use the High Resolution format on, with the previous one being Fantasia 2000. I’m not certain why they have opted to go with a lossy codec for this rather than the lossless DTS-HD Master Audio, but it could be for space saving reasons. In any case, the new 7.1 mix is not spectacular, but it does open up the sound nicely and give the mix some dynamics and ambience that is missing in the original theatrical soundtrack, which is also provided here in Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo. Oddly, however, the original stereo mix sounds a bit deeper and more solid, whereas the 7.1 mix seems to have a bit of a hollow center image.
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:5/5]
Bambi arrives with a hefty amount of supplemental materials worthy of the label “Diamond Edition.” It will will take hours, if not days, to get through them all, and they are all worth going through.
The supplements provided with this release are:
- Backstage Disney: Diamond Edition:
- Bambi: Inside Walt’s Story Meetings – Enhanced Edition (1.78:1; 1080p/24) – Reading from the transcripts of Walt’s story meetings for Bambi while the Bambi animation meanders by also includes some interactive side-featurettes by experts discussing Disney and Bambi.
- Play Movie with Disney Second Screen – Disney Second Screen is an iPad and computer app that allows you to sync with the film and watch along with interactive features. At the time of this review, the iPad app and the website for the computer download were not yet available.
- Play Movie with Inside Walt’s Story Meetings – Enhanced Edition
- Deleted Scenes (1080p/24):
- Two Leaves
- Bambi Stuck on a Reed
- Deleted Song:
- “Twitterpated”
- Bambi Interactive Galleries (1080p/24):
- Character Design
- Backgrounds
- Production Pictures
- Storyboards
- Visual Development
- Family Play: Games & Activities:
- Disney’s Big Book of Knowledge: Bambi Edition – Choose a character from Bambi, learn about forest animals, and collect “stickers” and play games along the way.
- Classic DVD Bonus Features:
- Classic Deleted Scenes (480i/60):
- Winter Grass
- Bambi’s First Snow
- Classic Backstage Disney:
- The Making of Bambi: A Prince is Born (480i/60)
- Tricks of the Trade (480i/60; 0:07.18) – Walt explains the innovative multiplane camera.
- Inside the Disney Archives (480i/60; 0:08.39) – A tour of the Disney archives uncovers classic sketches from the production of Bambi not used un the film.
- “The Old Mill”: Animated Short (1937) (1.37:1; 480i/60; 0:08.58) – The lives of animals in an old abandoned mill.
- Original Theatrical Trailer (1942) (1.37:1; 480i/60)
- Classic Deleted Scenes (480i/60):
- Disc Introduction by Diane Disney Miller
- DisneyView – Rather than viewing the film with black bars at each side, DisneyView allows you to watch the film with themed artwork at each side.
- DVD
The Definitive Word
Overall:
[Rating:4.5/5]
Disney continues to astonish and amaze with glittering restorations of their classic animated films on Blu-ray loaded with marvelous supplements. Bambi is a family classic that everyone should run out and get immediately. Highly recommended.
Additional Screen Captures:
[amazon-product align=”right”]B004AKCMES[/amazon-product]
BestBuy.com:
Purchase Bambi: Diamond Edition on Blu-ray+DVD Combo Pack at CD Universe
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com
Overall
[Rating:4.5/5]
The Film
[Rating:5/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:5/5]
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