Beauty and the Beast on Blu-ray!
George: Beauty and the Beast has been released (again) on blu-ray. This time, the release is to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the film and to help the hype for the upcoming live-action release. So, we all know the film is beautiful and has absolutely amazing music. The real question for this review is whether it’s worth it to buy this blu-ray version if you own the previous blu-ray release.
Jeff: We have seriously reviewed this thing about 3 times now, so let’s just get right into the special features to determine whether or not this release is worth it. First up is “Always Belle,” in which Paige O’Hara talks about playing the title beauty role, what lead up to it, and what she has been up to since then. It’s an interesting look at Paige’s life overall, and is basically a mini-bio on her. It was cool to hear from her about her upbringing in music, and how she moved to NYC to pursue a dream. Not a bad addition to the features.
Jeff: It was truly a great feature, and to hear them all sing songs together was great. I would easily watch a longer version of this, or even a touring show. #1074: Walt, Fairy Tales & Beauty and the Beast, another interesting feature focusing on Walt’s travels to Europe. It also shows the beginnings of European fairy tales making their way to Disney films. The featurette explores the original version of the film, developed way back when, its journey to being a TV movie, and then back to a feature film. It is an interesting history of the film itself and does bring a lot of new stuff to the table.
George: Besides the expected sing-along shorts, the only other special feature is some sort of 25 things you didn’t know about Beauty & the Beast by two Disney Channel stars. I think. It didn’t really hold my attention and they were more annoying than anything else (the hosts). We’ve seen these specials before and they always seem to be a little too “young” for me.
Jeff: All of the classic special features are here as well…just not on the disc itself. In fact, in a baffling decision, they are only available digitally. I get that Disney wants to push their “Disney Movies Anywhere” thing, but forcing people into it is not the best course of action, and really discourages me from even checking them out again.
George: Once I saw the classic features were only Disney Movies Anywhere…I promptly forgot about them. So, it sounds like we’re saying that it’s a wonderful movie that you need to buy if you don’t have the previous blu-ray release. Unless you want to stalk Paige O’Hara digitally.
Jeff: Which, of course, is much easier to trace, so we don’t recommend that.
George: I guess we learned our lesson after the Kristen Bell debacle?
Jeff: Do we ever learn, really? But really, the disc is good, the new features are great, but if you already own a blu-ray, there really is no need to double dip again.
Are you going to pick up this edition of Beauty and the Beast?
FTC Disclosure: A copy was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This post contains affiliate links, which means that ImagiNERDing receives a percentage of sales purchased through links on this site. Thank you for your support!