One of my RottenTomatoes and made nearly $200 million at the domestic box-office this is a rather weak release.
Yeah, the film is still phenomenal and the picture and audio are excellent, but the special features would make you think this was a second class Disney feature.
No audio commentary, no Blu-ray exclusive feature length bonus feature and a shoddy 12 minute making-of feature instead of the traditional Backstage Disney bonus docs. Beyond that you get three deleted scenes, two alternate storybook openings and some teaser trailers.
The making-of feature is led by Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi and basically plays like a Disney Channel aside, but I will say the introductions to the deleted scenes and alternate openings by co-directors Nathan Greno and Byron Howard do add a bit of insight into a few different directions the story could have gone. The decision to change and/or drop all of the deleted and alternate examples on this disc were all great choices. I didn’t like the direction any of them took the characters, although I did git a slight chuckle out of watching the final deleted scene with a fortune telling monkey.
Oh, and you also get the following “50th Animated Feature Countdown”.
I added three clips from the special features to the bottom of this review.
I think this is a Blu-ray must buy, but only because I quite like this movie. However, if you’re second guessing the purchase and hoping this release will add a little something in terms of special features to make it worth your while I’m sorry to say there isn’t much here. It’s a surprisingly bland release given the fact everyone seemed to really like it. I guess that just means you can expect a Platinum Blu-ray release in about two or three years, urging you to buy it again, or buy it for the first time.
