Cinderella - 6-Disc Jewelry Box (2-Disc Blu-ray+3-Disc DVD+Digital Copy)

VIDEO:

Cinderella (Diamond Edition) arrives at blu ray with MPEG-4 AVC 1080p 1.33:1 encode. Pristine, colorful, and absolutely gorgeous, this video presentation is nothing short of a dream. The picture is clean, sharp, and crisp offering a splendid high-def image. Clarity is superb. Contrast is well balanced and black levels remain deep and inky throughout. The overall animation style is rather simple and does not exactly lend itself to loads of fine detail. The colour palette provides a pleasing mixture of pastel hues and bright, bold tones, washing the image in vivid radiance. The Evil Stepmother's green eyes glare from the screen with chilling intensity, and Cinderella's moonlit dance with Prince Charming is cast in ethereal blue tints. Beautifully restored and essentially spotless, the movie looks like it was made yesterday. (5/5)

AUDIO:

Cinderella is presented with a new English DTS-HD MA 7.1 track, and a DTS-HD MA 1.0 rendition of the original theatrical mix. Offering a solid but very subtle expansion, the 7.1 track is pleasing but perhaps a bit too respectful to the original mono mix. Dialogue and vocals are mostly clean. The 7.1 mix doesn't really offer the upgrade most might be expecting, but the music's expanded dimension is welcome, giving the movie's timeless songs an extra dash of grandeur. There are many timeless songs in this movie, including Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo, which was nominated for Best Original Song. Cinderella was also nominated for 3 other Oscars, including Best Score, Best Sound, Recording (Walt Disney Sound Dept. and C.O. Slyfield). (4/5)

TRIVIA:

Walt Disney had not had a huge hit since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The production of this film was regarded as a major gamble on his part. At a cost of nearly $3,000,000, Disney insiders claimed that if this movie had failed at the box office, it would have been the end of the Disney studio. The film was a big hit. The profits from its release, with the additional profits from record sales, music publishing, publications and other merchandise gave Disney the cash flow to finance a slate of productions (animated and live action), establish his own distribution company, enter television production and begin building Disneyland during the decade.

Not only is the name of the Prince never revealed, he is nowhere in the film mentioned as "Prince Charming".

If you really pay close attention, you will notice that the carriage that Cinderella and the Prince take after the wedding has an emblem of a sword and two hidden Mickey Mouse heads around it, and when Cinderella is singing "Sing, Sweet Nightengale", three bubbles form the head and ears of Mickey Mouse!

PACKAGING:

This box set comes in the form of a white jewelry box measuring 7.5” x 5”. There is a flip up top drawer, together with three vertical rows of drawers on the left side. I was expecting at least some fake jewelry inside, as shown in the advertisement picture. To my disappointment, all the drawers are empty (except for a small bag of desiccant silica gel). On the right side is the vertical compartment housing the book containing the 6 discs, with each disc inside each page. Each page contains beautiful pictures of the characters in Cinderella. I was expecting a book, like in Jaws, with proper written stories about the restoration, etc. No such luck. The icing on the cake was that when I looked carefully at the bottom, to no one’s surprise, it was “Made in China”. For $59.99, I feel kind of screwed!

Fortunately, the 6 discs comprised of Cinderella Diamond Edition (blu ray) + 1 DVD + 1 Digital Copy, 1 blu ray disc containing Cinderella II and Cinderella III, 1 DVD for Cinderella II and 1 DVD for Cinderella III. Cinderella II and III are not available together with the any other Diamond Edition of Cinderella combos, but they are available separately for $34.99. Now I feel much better.

This Collector’s box set will be prominently displayed outside my home theatre, alongside my other box sets of The Ten Commandments, Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, The Lord of the Rings, Ben Hur and the Indiana Jones, etc…quite a pretty sight!

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Cinderella is a simple but charming fairy tale classic. It is one of those rare films that works for all ages, sparking the imagination of the very young, while allowing the old to once again believe. It doesn't quite reach the same heights as the studio's very best efforts, but it gets remarkably close. Exceedingly simple but full of sincerity, heart, and love, the movie has and will continue to remain a timeless treasure. No matter what packaging you pick, Cinderella is pure magic and is highly recommended, either in combo form or in this collector’s box set. Finally, I found out that you can order a Cinderella charm bracelet for free. Just pay shipping of $2.85 shipping, available in Canada too. I think I shall pass on that.

I hope the above review is helpful to you.

The review is based on the packaging more then the movies seeing as most people already know about the movies.

The box was very impressive, it was heavier then I thought and very solid. I was pleased especially after feeling the ripoff with the Lion King collection box. This one felt like it could last forever.

The only bad thing or concern I would have is minor, they included both Cinderella 2 & 3 on the same blu ray disc + the discs are put into a sleeve of the book which I fear could end up scratching the dvd's, however if you are careful it should be ok.

This set isn't too big and is very nice too look at , and for 60$ you can't go wrong considering buying them individually would be closer to 30$ each.