Pete's Dragon

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General		Extras
Category	Family	Theatrical Trailer(s)	None
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1977	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	123:26 minutes (not 102 minutes as stated on packaging)	Other Extras	None
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Movie
Region	2,4	Director	Don Chaffey
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Helen Reddy Jim Dale Mickey Rooney Red Buttons Shelley Winters Jane Kean
Case	Amaray
RRP	$34.95	Music	Al Kasha Joel Hirschhorn

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Pan and Scan	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	No	Dolby Digital	2.0
16x9 Enhancement	No	Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 192 Kb/s)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	1.75:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	?	Smoking	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired	Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Pete's Dragon is the story of young Pete (Sean Marshall), an orphan sold into virtual slavery with the Gogan family. However, as a young tyke in trouble he is befriended by a rather large, and usually troublesome (although usually invisible), dragon by the name of Elliott. Trying to escape the Gogan family, Pete finds his way to a small New England fishing town where he is befriended by the lighthouse keeper Lampie (Mickey Rooney) and his daughter Nora (Helen Reddy). Only things never seem to go well when you have a huge, invisible dragon in tow and Pete gets into various troubles as a result of Elliott, especially as Nora is less than believing. Still, when the Gogan family come to reclaim Pete, Elliott proves his worth and his existence to all, even more so when he tracks down Nora's long lost love, as we progress to the usual Di$ney happy ending.

    It really is difficult to know what the worst feature of this effort is. The animation is hardly state of the art now and even for 1977 was not especially good. Helen Reddy proves that she has no acting ability whatsoever and the only real high point here is the appearance and performances of such old troopers as Mickey Rooney and Red Buttons. The songs, so often the high point of a Di$ney film, are anything but great with some of the most excruciating lyrics that you are ever likely to hear. Staggeringly, this copped two Oscar nominations in 1978, for Best Music, Original Song Score and Best Music, Song. It must have been a really bad year for films that year. Overall, this is quite possibly the worst film to emanate from the Di$ney studios since they started churning out animated film classics way back in 1937 with Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs, and its only redeeming feature is that it is probably the kick in the rear that the studio needed to get back to doing what it does better than anyone else, and has done since the very beginning - animation, pure and simple.

Video

    Presented in a Pan and Scan format, this is not 16x9 enhanced. The original format of the film was 1.75:1, so why have we not got a widescreen version of the film I ask?

    The main problem here is the almost insufferable variability in the transfer. Whilst it is generally quite reasonably sharp, although there are a few lapses, this is not an especially well defined transfer. Even worse is the fact that the (presumably) blue matte work is shockingly obvious with distinct edges and unnatural tonal balances to the inserted images. This in particular affects all scenes showing the entrance to the cave as well as the appalling attempt at crashing waves over the ship during the storm. The earlier day scenes in the film are far too overbright in comparison and are very washed out, although this is also a problem with some scenes around the lighthouse later on in the film. Much of this was passable on the inferior VHS tape format, but the DVD really makes it far too noticeable. At times the picture so lacks depth that it almost seems like a photographed background to the characters. The picture itself is quite grainy in appearance at times, and there are hints of some serious mastering problems in the transfer throughout. The picture itself also looks quite dirty at times and seems as if it is being watched through an unwashed pane of glass.

    The colours are especially problematic, with almost no two consecutive sequences involving Elliott in particular being of the same colour. Elliott varies from being a very anaemic pale green to an over saturated bright vivid green, with the pink hair suffering similar extremes, often on consecutive frames. This gives the entire film a very amateurish look to it, and I could perhaps have accepted this if it was the first film to utilize these live animation techniques, but as this is not so, these inconsistencies cannot be accepted. The colour tones really are all over the place in this effort with some scenes being very dark toned and quite oversaturated, whilst others are very washed out and lacking any saturation at all. In general, the colours are too dark for my taste and some of the skin tones are terribly unrealistic, especially for the area and era being depicted.

   There would appear to be some serious MPEG artefacts in the transfer during the last minute of the film before the credits, where the picture seems to be moving around a lot and with what appears to some blockiness to the transfer. Nearly every pan shot during the film seems to display a loss of resolution. Film-to-video artefacts comprised some relatively minor aliasing, but this was not too distracting at all given the other transfer problems. However, film artefacts were shockingly present and very distracting - far more than I was expecting in a film from this source. There is hardly a scene which is not affected by dust or scratches, or more often both.

   Note that the packaging suggests that the film is 102 minutes long - the film is actually 123 minutes long and is fitted on a single layer disc. This may well be the cause of the transfer problems (compression artefacts), and the film would have better served by utilizing a dual layer format in all probability.

Audio

    The dialogue was not always clear and easy to understand.

    There did not appear to be any significant audio sync problems with the transfer, although sloppy ADR work is inherent in this transfer (my VHS tape suffers from it too).

    The musical score by Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn is in my view terribly overrated and it staggers me that it copped an Oscar nomination. Mind you, with the songs being so bad, my view has probably been clouded somewhat.

    Whilst this is is apparently a surround encoded soundtrack, there seems to be no action at all in the surround channels and the whole thing sounds very front and centre; in my view this is definitely a mono soundtrack. This is not an especially well balanced effort at all, especially with the inconsistent sound levels caused by the sloppy ADR work. Helen Reddy's vocals in particular seem extremely unnatural, clearly having been dubbed in later but with no two songs done at the same audio level. There is absolutely no natural feel to this effort at all, and it does get rather painful to listen to, lacking as it does any sort of dynamic. You can throw the subwoofer away for this one - it is superfluous. Just remember to throw it away from the television (although I am sorely tempted to throw it at the television in this instance).

Menu

    A poor video transfer.

    A poor audio transfer.

    And no extras (although that may be a blessing in disguise).

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ian Morris
8th January 2000