Toy Story: Special Edition (Blu-ray) (1995) |
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Toy Story: Special Edition (Blu-ray) (1995) |
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| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Animation |
Featurette-Toy Story 3 Sneak Peek: The Story Audio Commentary-Commentary featuring the production team of Toy Story Featurette-Buzz Lightyear Mission Logs: Blast Off Featurette-Path to Pixar - Artists Featurette-Studio Stories: John's Car Featurette-Studio Stories: Baby AJ Featurette-Studio Stories: Scooter Races Featurette-Buzz Takes Manhattan Featurette-Black Friday: The Toy Story You Never Saw Featurette-Filmmakers Reflect Featurette-Making Toy Story Featurette-The Legacy of Toy Story Featurette-Designing Toy Story Featurette-Deleted Scenes Featurette-Design Featurette-Story Featurette-Production Featurette-Music & Sound Featurette-Publicity Web Links-Disney BD-Live |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 1995 | ||
| Running Time | 81:04 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | Dual Layered | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Language Select Then Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 4 | Directed By | John Lasseter |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Walt Disney Studios Home Ent. |
Starring |
Tom Hanks Tim Allen Don Rickles Wallace Shawn John Ratzenberger Annie Potts |
| Case | Amaray Variant | ||
| RPI | $39.95 | Music | Randy Newman |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English DTS HD Master Audio 6.1 ES Discrete (4608Kb/s) Czech Dolby Digital 5.1 EX (640Kb/s) Slovak Dolby Digital 5.1 EX (640Kb/s) Greek Dolby Digital 5.1 EX (640Kb/s) Bulgarian Dolby Digital 5.1 EX (640Kb/s) Arabic Dolby Digital 5.1 EX (640Kb/s) Ukranian Dolby Digital 5.1 EX (640Kb/s) English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 2.0 (320Kb/s) |
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.78:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 1080p | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
English Czech Slovak Greek Bulgarian Arabic Serbian Slovenian Ukranian Latvian Lithuanian Estonian English for the Hearing Impaired |
Smoking | No |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
For the this review of Toy Story on Blu-ray I have utilised my review of the Toy Story 2010 Special Edition release on DVD. The purpose of this review is to inform our readers of the quality of the video and audio transfer of Toy Story on Blu-ray and discuss its special features.
Do you remember the first time you saw Toy Story? Do you remember thinking how impressed you were with the animation? The film was developed from 1993 and finally released in November, 1995, the first feature-length film that used computer graphics-based animation. Of course before that Pixar made short animated features which were nominated for Oscars (Tin Toy won for Best Animated Short Film winner in 1989) and they have since won the award seven times.
Toy Story was the first of a 3 film deal with Disney by Pixar to produce computer-generated animated films. The documentary The Pixar Story by Leslie Iwerks on the Wall-E Blu-ray/DVD release chronicles the difficulty that John Lasseter and his production team had in getting the film developed and finished in time. The film cost $US30 million and required 110 staff. 300 computers were used to render the film with each of the 114240 frames in the film requiring 2 to 15 hours of processing time to render shading, lighting and visual effects. That's why perhaps children (and even adults) have watched this film incessantly over the years. You can't possibly appreciate all the video work that has been done to the film even after multiple viewings. Toy Story was a huge box-office success with over $US360 million taken in gross revenue to date. Pixar have not looked back since with many successful computer-animated films since such as Toy Story 2, Monster's Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Wall-E and Up! Of course, did we forget that Toy Story 3 will be theatrically released in July 2010? This DVD Special Edition release of Toy Story will certainly remind you, beginning with a sneak peak trailer once you put the DVD into your player.
The characters of Toy Story have since become part of popular culture with merchandising from the film by Disney/Pixar responsible for making Sheriff Woody and Buzz Lightyear popular children's toys. Actors Wallace Shawn and Don Rickles will probably be remembered more for their voicing of Rex and Mr. Potato Head respectively, rather then for their distinguished acting and comedy careers. Believe it or not, the original screenplay had Barbie and G.I Joe but Mattel and Hasbro refused to allow the use of the characters in the film, although after the film's success Barbies were featured in Toy Story 2. Also, the original idea for Toy Story was to develop it as a musical as Disney was known for these type of animated films in the early 1990s (Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King, for example). John Lasseter did not believe that Toy Story could be developed into a musical, but he did agree to Randy Newman scoring the film. This was Randy Newman's first animated film score, he has since become synonymous with Disney/Pixar film scores, composing the music to another five animated features in the ensuing years (A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monster's Inc., Cars and Toy Story 3) and he is currently working on Cars 2. Toy Story's signature tune, You've Got a Friend in Me ironically may be more known culturally than I Love L.A.
Toy Story has been released on Blu-ray for the first time in 2010, in time for the theatrical release of Toy Story 3 in June, 2010. This release includes the film on DVD as a bonus disc.
Toy Story has always looked good on each previous DVD release but this release on Blu-ray is incredible. The average bitrate of this 2010 Special Edition Blu-ray release is 23.68 m/b per sec.
The aspect ratio of Toy Story is 1:78:1 transferred in high-definition 1080p 24/fps using AVC MPEG-4 compression, 16x9 enhanced for widescreen televisions.
Toy Story looks sharp on DVD. On Blu-ray the transfer excels in its shading and lighting effects. There is no film grain.
The colour on Toy Story is rich, bright and vibrant. Shadow detail is distinctive, with rendering in every frame making the transfer come alive.
There are no film artefacts present whatsoever.
Subtitles are available in English, Czech, Slovakian, Greek, Bulgarian, Arabic, Serbian, Slovenian, Ukrainian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian and English for the Hearing Impaired.
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The audio transfer is immersive, with sound filtered through all channels. Randy Newman's film score is at times subtle and dynamic, supporting the plot sequences of the film well.
There are nine audio tracks on the Blu-ray. The main soundtrack is an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 ES track encoded at 4443 kbps. The Czech, Slovak, Greek, Bulgarian, Arabic and Ukrainian tracks are all encoded in Dolby Digital 5.1 EX at 640 kbps. The English Audio Descriptive and audio commentary tracks are encoded in Dolby Digital 2.0 at 320 kbps.
Dialogue is clear and audio is synchronised.
Randy Newman's score captures the mood of the film perfectly. It is mellow, witty and dynamic as required to support the plot.
Surround Channel Usage combines sound effects, background sounds, the film score and dialogue to create an ambient sound experience whereby all channels are used wonderfully throughout the film.
The subwoofer supports the bass channel to emphasise crashes, environmental sounds, the growl of Sid's dog, the action sequence at the end of the film with the moving truck etc. perfectly.
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The Blu-ray disc has a language selection option prior to loading the main menu when inserted into your Blu-ray player. The main menu gives you six main options - Play Movie, Scene Selection (select from 30 chapters), Bonus Features (which are identical to the 2010 DVD Special Edition release bonus features except that all the featurettes are in high-definition), Classic DVD Bonus Features (with extras, in standard definition, ported from the 2005 2-disc Anniversary Edition of Toy Story), Set-up (including an option to maximise your home theatre set-up) and Disney BD-Live.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
Toy Story has been released in the United States, United Kingdom and France with the bonus DVD feature, like the Australian release. The Blu-ray releases in Germany, Sweden, Holland and Canada do not include a bonus DVD as a second disc. These releases only vary in their language and subtitling options. Extras are identical and all Blu-ray releases worldwide are encoded Region-ALL.
Toy Story on Blu-ray simply excels in its video and audio transfer. The extras included on this Region-ALL release are comprehensive, which has now become a pleasingly common occurrence for Disney Blu-ray releases in general. I simply cannot recommend highly enough the addition of Toy Story Special Edition to your Blu-ray/DVD collection. Do yourself a favour and buy it now! What are you waiting for?
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Sony BDP-S550 (Firmware updated Version 020), using HDMI output |
| Display | Samsung LA46A650 46 Inch LCD TV Series 6 FullHD 1080P 100Hz. Calibrated with THX Optimizer. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Sony STR-K1000P. Calibrated with THX Optimizer. |
| Amplification | Sony HTDDW1000 |
| Speakers | Sony 6.2 Surround (Left, Front, Right, Surround Left, Surround Back, Surround Right, 2 subwoofers) |