The Sword in the Stone (Remastered) (1963)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Animation	Menu Animation & Audio Featurette-Knight For A Day Featurette-Brave Little Tailor Featurette-Music Magic Karaoke-Higitus Figitus Karaoke-That's What Makes The World Go Around Gallery-Sword In The Stone Scrapbook
Rating
Year Of Production	1963
Running Time	76:18
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Wolfgang Reitherman
Studio Distributor	Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.	Starring	Sebastian Cabot Rickie Sorensen Junius Matthews Karl Swenson
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$34.95	Music	Richard Sherman Robert Sherman George Bruns

    Wart (Arthur, voiced by Rickie Sorenson) is a young boy leading a very boring life, consisting of drudgery and mountains of chores that boys do not ever like to do. He is growing up in a castle with Sir Ector (Sebastian Cabot) and Kay (Norman Alden), who enjoy taking advantage of Wart as he tries to make his way through squire training. Wart generally ends up doing all the menial tasks while having his youthful exuberance suppressed.

    It comes to pass that Wart drops in on Merlin (Karl Swenson), a supremely powerful (and good-natured) wizard, and his pet talking owl, Archimedes. Merlin has envisioned that Wart has a very bright future and takes it upon himself to teach Wart some of the true meanings of life.

    As time goes by, Wart and Merlin experience many wonderful adventures around the Castle where Wart lives. Merlin awakens in Wart self-confidence, joy in life, and a sense of purpose. So where does the Sword in the Stone come into all of this? Well...you will have to find that out for yourself.

    The Sword in the Stone is a wonderful children's movie, and great for reliving childhood memories for older viewers. It is a true classic and should be on the shelf of every DVD collector that has children, or doesn't mind feeling a little younger for a couple of hours. Recommended.

Video

    The feature is presented in the non-enhanced aspect ratio of 1.33:1. I would just like to point out that the cover incorrectly states that the feature is 16x9 enhanced - it most assuredly is not. It is also interesting to note that the original aspect ratio for this film is listed as 1.75:1. I cannot determine if this transfer is full frame (open matte), or panned and scanned. Either way, I did not notice any missing picture information.

    Sharpness is very good throughout, although this is not very surprising given the animated content. Shadow detail is not really applicable to the content but there is certainly no low level noise to mar the presentation. There is some unusual 'fluttering' in brightness around the edges of the picture at around 4:40, but it only occurred once. I also noticed some very minor edge enhancement at a few instances but it was not distracting.

    Colours are wonderfully bright and vivid, really bringing the story to life. There are certainly no problems in the rendering of colour for this DVD.

    There were no obvious MPEG artefacts to mar the presentation. There were, however, a few instances of film artefacts. These are most obvious at around 9:15, and 17:30. The artefacts seem to be a result of the animation process as they cover the entire screen and move downwards. I have not seen anything quite like it before. There is no aliasing present.

    I only sampled the English subtitles and they seemed quite accurate.

    This is a Dual Layered disc. It appears that the movie occupies one layer while the extras are spread over the second layer.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are two Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks available on this DVD. I listened to the English track, encoded at 384kbps.

    Dialogue quality is exceptional throughout - without a hint of distortion. Singing is also delivered very well. Audio sync is as good as can be expected from animation.

    The score by George Bruns is typical heart-warming Disney fare, while the songs by the Sherman brothers are also very engaging.

    The surround channels receive very little use in this remaster. However, the soundscape is noticeably more open in the 5.1 track when compared to the music clips, taken directly from the movie, that are in Dolby Digital 2.0. It is safe to say that the 5.1 mix is an improvement but it certainly will not blow your socks off.

    The subwoofer lay practically dormant throughout.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

Knight For A Day (7:08)

Brave Little Tailor (9:03)

Music Magic (7:50)

Higitus Figitus (2:45)

That's What Makes The World Go Round (2:45)

Sword In The Stone Scrapbook

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

• Deleted Song - "The Magic Key"
• All About Magic, 1957 TV Show Hosted By Walt Disney
• Film Facts--A Behind-The-Scenes Exclusive
• French Dolby Digital 2.0 audio
• Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 audio

• Norwegian 5.1 Dolby Digital audio

    The video quality is very good given the age of the material.

    The audio quality is also very good .

    The extras are enjoyable, particularly for children.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall