Posted by Martin:
The Tale of Despereaux
The Video: A
The Audio: A-
The Extras: B
The Tale of Despereaux
The Video: A
This is the strength of both the movie and the Blu-Ray disc. This animated movie looks very different from other animated movies, it is a very painterly look and beautiful to behold. It is encoded in 1080P using the VC-1 codec on a 50 GB disc. You could use this disc as a visual reference for your BD system, it is very attractive.
The Audio: A-
Encoded in DTS-HD 5.1, the audio is very lively. With so many action scenes the LFE and surround channels get a work out. This is an enjoyable sound track. I don’t give it a full A because it is not encoded in full 7.1.
The Extras: B
The extra here are good, but not extraordinary.
The Tale of The Tale of Despereaux: This is a short making of segment. Here you learn that the voice actors were recorded together, unlike other animated movies. Consequently the director has the potential to get better performances out of the actors. There is footage of the actors performing scenes and it looks like a lot of fun to have been in the room with the actors. The segment moves on to how lighting was used differently to create the look for the movie. By the end of the piece it turns into a normal “making of” and a promotion for the movie. Scene Progressions: This is an interesting piece, you see the progression of scenes from the script, to lay-out, to animation, to final lighting with filmmaker commentaries. This runs 35 minutes.
The rest of the extras:
- Top Ten uses for Oversized Ears
- Sneak Peak for Curious George 2
- Two Deleted Songs
- Picture in Picture-Allows you to watch the movie and see behind the scenes. Requieres a “Profile 1.1″ player.
- Picture Animatic-Allows you to watch an animatic at same time with the movie.
Overall, the movie maybe weak for some, it is great to look at. For those that are a fan of the book, they will enjoy this disc.
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Posted by mctiller 
