Bambi: 2 Disc Special Edition (1942)

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General		Extras
Category	Animation	Main Menu Introduction Menu Animation & Audio THX Optimizer THX Trailer Featurette-Bambi: Inside Walt's Story Meetings Trailer-Disc 2 Preview Deleted Scenes Game-The Forest Adventure Featurette-DisneyPedia: Bambi's Forest Friends Quiz-What's Your Season? - Personality Profile Storybook-Disney's Storytime: Thumper Goes Exploring Featurette-Virtual Forest Featurette-Making Of-A Prince Is Born (6 Featurettes) Featurette-Restoring Bambi Featurette-The Legacy Continues:Sneak Peek At The All-New Bambi Movie Featurette-Disney Time Capsule - 1942: The Year Of Bambi Gallery-The Art Of Bambi (2) Featurette-Tricks Of The Trade (Excerpt) Featurette-Inside The Disney Archive More…-The Old Mill (Animated Short), Original Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1942
Running Time	67:39
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered Dual Disc Set	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	David Hand
Studio Distributor	Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.	Starring	Hardie Albright Stan Alexander Bobette Audrey Peter Behn Thelma Boardman Janet Chapman Jeanne Christy Dolyn Bramston Cook Marion Darlington Tim Davis Donnie Dunagan Sam Edwards Ann Gillis
Case	?
RPI	$39.95	Music	Edward H. Plumb Frank Churchill

    Despite being a fan of animated films, I had not previously had the opportunity to see this granddaddy of animated film. What a revelation it is! This is truly a magnificent effort and for my money the greatest work produced by Walt Disney in his lifetime. It is a fantastic mixture of children's film, thrilling romantic drama, rousing adventure, musical and work of art. It avoids the mawkish sentimentality and rampant political correctness of some of the later works from the Disney studios, but is full of emotion, joy, sadness, loss and bravery. Unlike many other Disney films, this one has not previously been released on DVD, however, the wait was worth it as this is a truly magnificent production all round.

    Bambi is probably best known for the scene where his mother gets killed and it is one of those scenes which has the emotional power to reduce normally sane adults to tears. I was slightly surprised to see that her death is not actually shown but rather implied and it is Bambi's reaction and his meeting with his father which truly brings out the emotions. Generally, the plot follows the coming of age of a young deer, Bambi, the son of the Prince of the Forest. It follows his story from his birth, through his childhood making friends and learning how to live in the forest, to the unfortunate death of his mother at the hand of Man and on into adulthood and falling in love with his mate, Faline. This results in the cycle starting again with Faline giving birth to two new babies. Along the way he meets and makes friends with the three other main characters, Thumper, the rabbit, Flower, the skunk and Friend Owl.

    This film works on many levels. My two year old son is fascinated with it and repeatedly requests it to be played again for him. He has probably watched it 10 times in the last week. I have been astounded by the magnificent artwork in the backgrounds, the incredible standard of the animation considering the age of this film, the wonderful score by Frank Churchill and Edward Plumb and the spectacular restoration done on both vision and sound. In addition to the technical skill involved, the film's story is involving for adults and children, some of the scenes are quite exciting and there is a strong pro-nature, anti-hunting message. The film was also one of the first to use the multi-plane camera technique which allowed depth to be added to two dimensional animation. This film had a long development period for the time, taking over 6 years to get to the screen.

    To my mind the stand-out sequences are the April Showers rain sequence in which the music and action are tightly entwined and the 'getting twitterpated' sequence in which spring comes to the forest and with it romance. My young son loves Friend Owl and cackles every time he comes on the screen.

    The film was based on a popular novel of the day by a European, Felix Salton. Two of his other books were also turned into Disney films.

    A magnificent film and a classic of animation. Wholeheartedly recommended.

Video

    The video quality is stunning. If you did not know this film was made in 1942 you would certainly not guess it by the video quality. The film has been painstakingly restored and probably looks better now than it did when shown in cinemas on first release. There is a featurette in the extras which takes you through the process of the restoration.

    The feature is presented in a 1.37:1 aspect ratio non 16x9 enhanced which is the original aspect ratio.

    The picture was incredibly clear and sharp throughout, with no evidence of low level noise. By their very nature as impressionistic artworks the backgrounds are intentionally lacking in detail. This is certainly not a problem with the transfer. The shadow detail was excellent.

    The colour was wonderful, rich and solid throughout. An incredible amount of work has gone into restoring the colours to their originally intended glory, which considering the way colour plays a role in the film is wonderful.

    The only noticeable artefact I noticed was a jump at 2:21 which may indicate a missing frame or may just be a function of the original material. I certainly would not call it a major issue. Considering the age of the film an incredible effort has gone into cleaning up the original film to completely remove any traces of dirt or film artefacts. Bravo!

    There are subtitles in English & English for the hearing impaired. The English subtitles were clear, easy to read and very close to the spoken word.

    There is no layer change in the feature.
    

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio quality is fantastic including two options for you to choose depending upon you preference. There is a completely restored version of the original mono soundtrack or an extremely sympathetic remix of the original mono into 6 channels which gives it a wonderful breadth and fullness. Personally, I much preferred the new 5.1 remix but the presence of the restored mono track will also allow purists to be satisfied with this production.

    This DVD contains two audio options, an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack encoded at 448 Kb/s and an English Dolby Digital 1.0 soundtrack encoded at 96Kb/s. Either sounds fantastic. My comments below about surrounds and subwoofer refer to the 5.1 track.

    Dialogue was clear and easy to understand and there was no problem with audio sync.

    The score of this film by Frank Churchill and Edward Plumb is truly magnificent, perfectly matched to the on-screen action, and in many cases tells the story more than the dialogue. The score was Oscar nominated.

    The surround speakers added significantly to the film whilst keeping in sync with the age and style of the film. Music, forest sounds and rain drops were all present in the surrounds. This is a great example of how an older film can be remixed into 5.1 without being intrusive and annoying.

     The subwoofer was used regularly adding bass to some portions of the music and to the sounds of galloping deer. Again it was used only in sympathy with the film in general.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    There are copious extras spread over two discs.

Menu

    The menu included an intro, music, and the ability to select scenes, soundtracks and subtitles.

Disc 1

Bambi - Inside Walt's Story Meetings (70:29)

    This extended feature (actually longer than the film itself) plays like a commentary in that it includes a lot of footage from the film and the voiceovers are actually from detailed transcripts of the meetings held between Walt Disney and the staff working on the film during the late 1930s and early 1940s. Actors are used to portray each of the different crew members with the crew member's name appearing on-screen as they speak. The feature is introduced by Patrick Stewart, who plays the Great Prince of the Forest in a new Bambi film currently being developed by Disney. It covers story ideas and changes made, technical discussions including the use of the multi-plane camera, how they would change the story in the book and how they would use music. Fascinating and a real insight into the process of making the film.

Disc 2 Preview (0:58)

    Highlights of Disc 2 set to music.

Disc 2

Deleted Scenes

    This includes two scenes which were storyboarded but then not included in the final animation. They are shown in storyboard form and are not overly missed in the final production. The scenes are

• Winter Grass (1:09) - Bambi & Faline find some grass.
• Bambi's First Snow (2:32) - Bambi's first encounter with snow.

Games & Activities

    This section includes a number of items which are aimed at children. They include

• The Forest Adventure - A collection of eight games for children, two for each season. All of the games are fun and fairly easy to understand and would suit children in the 4 to 8 age group. They are
• Spring - Blooming Flowers : Colours and Counting / April Showers - Musical Memory Challenge
• Summer - Twigonometry : A simple number game / Nature Knowledge Quiz
• Autumn - Acorn Catch - Action Game / Nature Knowledge Quiz 
• Winter - Falling Flakes - Matching Game / Bambi Race & Slide - See if you can slide further on the ice than Thumper
• Disney Pedia - Bambi's Forest Friends (4:11) - A short featurette for kids about real-life deer, rabbits, skunks and owls.
• What's Your Season - Personality Profile - A personality quiz which helps you decide what season fits your personality
• Disney Storytime - Thumper Goes Exploring - A story which you can either read on your own or read along with a story teller.
• Virtual Forest (2:53) - A screen saver style presentation of a looping forest scene.

Backstage Disney

    This section includes a large making of and other featurettes as follows:

• The Making of Bambi - A Prince is Born (53:21) A comprehensive making of documentary which includes interviews with many of the original animators and voice cast, along with modern day Disney staff and a number of film historians. It is split into sections about the story, characters, actors, art design, music and history. Each can be played separately or there is a play all option. It covers many interesting facts about the film including the debt owed to it by The Lion King, dropped story ideas, the development of the backgrounds, techniques used for water and fire, the multi-plane camera, how the book was adapted, Walt's personality and creativity and the problems besetting the studio during the development including war, strikes and bankruptcy. An excellent documentary.
• Restoring Bambi (5:58) A short featurette hosted by Patrick Stewart on the process of restoring the film, its sound remix, and the digitalisation process of the original print. Very interesting. I was left wanting to know more about this process.
• The Legacy Continues - A Sneak Peak at the all new Bambi movie (4:48) Disney are currently making a sequel called Bambi & the Great Prince of the Forest. The story will fit in just after Bambi's mother's death to explain what happened to Bambi while he was with the Great Prince. This featurette shows a few scenes from the new movie and the approach taken to producing it.
• Disney Time Capsule - 1942: The Year of Bambi (4:45) A short featurette on the world in 1942 which mostly seems to have consisted of the USA. Not overly interesting for non-Americans.
• The Art of Bambi A large collection of stills from early art design through to backgrounds, posters and much more. Contains over 30 pages of stills with approximately 8 stills on each page. Also includes an ability to look at the stills with music and a voiceover explaining them.
• Tricks of the Trade (excerpt) (7:19) A portion of a 1957 production in which Walt Disney explains the multi-plane camera technique and how it differs to normal flat backgrounds. The footage included from Bambi really shows you how great the restoration is on the main feature.
• Inside the Disney Archives (8:41) A contemporary Disney animator takes us on a tour of the Disney archives to look at the original paintings used in Bambi and artwork from the production not used in the final movie.
• The Old Mill (8:43) - One of the highlights of the extras package is this 1937 short which was the first to use the multi-plane technique. Its a great short set only to music with no dialogue that shows how animals living in a old dilapidated mill survive in a storm.
• Original Theatrical Trailer (2:13) - An interesting trailer which pitches Bambi as a romance rather than a children's film. Again shows how wonderful the restoration of the main feature is.

Disc Index

    This just gives you another way to access the material on the disc.

    This 2 disc set has been released in virtually exactly the same format in all regions. The only difference seems to be that the Region 1 version includes dubbed soundtracks in French & Spanish. Unless you need those the local version should do just fine.

    The video quality is excellent.

    The audio quality is excellent.

    The set has a large collection of extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall