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Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland, the Masterpiece Edition, on DVD

Not Disney’s best, perhaps, but definitely another in Walt and his studio’s long line of animated classics.

When all is said and done, Alice in Wonderland is a delightfully strange rendition of the Lewis Carroll children’s book.

And this Masterpiece Edition brings back the film’s original luster, making it a worthy and timeless version for your vault.

Okay, it isn’t a Snow White or Little Mermaid, but overall Disney did a good job of taking the surreal, supposedly drug-induced episodes from the book and turning it into a family film anyone can enjoy. It takes large liberties with the book, including bringing in parts of the “Through the Looking Glass” sequel, and they’ve added song that obviously weren’t in the book – and put some of the book’s poetry to music – and the end result is a pretty good time in the home theater.

And of course, in typically Disney fashion, they’ve turned it into a state-of-the-art, two disc DVD that features plenty of value-added extras.

There’s undoubtedly no need to get into the story excessively except to say that a mad tea party may be the most sane thing about it. There are plenty of larger (and smaller) than life characters and situations, including some pretty neat characters that weren’t in the book, and lots of opportunity for Disney’s famed animators to indulge their art.

Some of the best scenes include the ones where the deck of cards is rising up and flying at Alice, the Mad Tea Party, the song in the flower garden and, of course, the Cheshire cat.

And this THX-Certified DVD has been restored and remastered and looks great. It’s a full frame release, alas, so owners of 16x9 TV’s will want to stretch and/or zoom the disc to fit the more radically rectangular screen, but you won’t really mind. In fact, we ended up watching it on the “full” setting of our reference HDTV; it should have introduced the most distortion, but (perhaps because it’s animated and not real people) found that we barely noticed it.

The picture is first rate. It’s clean and sharp and colorful; just what we’ve come to expect from Disney DVD’s.

Audio is Dolby Digital 5.1 surround, though it sounds mostly mono. Still, the audio quality of this 1951-vintage film is very good.

Then there are the extras – and there’s a bunch, indeed.

Here’s a listing of what’s in the box and on the discs:

• Virtual Wonderland Party (includes riddles, silly song & dance, Teapot orchestra, Mad Hatter Says)
• "Thru the Mirror" – an animated short featuring Mickey Mouse
• "I'm Odd" never before heard song by the Cheshire cat, backed with existing animation
• 2 Sing along songs
• Set-top game
• "One Hour in Wonderland" documentary
• "An Alice Comedy: Alice's Wonderland," "Operation Wonderland" featurettes
• Excerpt from "The Fred Warring Show"
• Deleted Material including "From Wonderland to Never Land," "Song Demos," Alice Daydreams in the Park"
• Original Walt Disney TV introductions and trailers
• Art galleries
• match card game set (inside the box) 

 

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