Peter Pan – Walt Disney Signature Collection – 1st Impressions
Walt Disney’s Classic Animated Feature Peter Pan returns to home video as a Walt Disney Signature Collection Release to mark the 65th Anniversary of the release of the film. There are four new bonus features as well as a large assortment of classic bonus features included.
- Stories from Walt’s Office: Walt & Flight – This four minute featurette continues the series of Stories from Walt’s Office this time looking at Walt’s love of planes and a brief history of some of the Disney Corporate planes. I thought this was an interesting piece but overall it fell short because of its short length. The video felt rushed and did not go into depth. For example it would be great to see more of the planes themselves. Also this would have been a great opportunity to share the plans for the plane that used to be at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and is now sitting backstage at Walt Disney World.
- A “Darling” Conversation with Wendy & John: Kathryn Beaumont and Paul Collins – An eight minute piece featuring Kathryn and Paul discussing some of their memories from working on the film and with Walt Disney. I thought this was great, but again way too short. I find it really interesting to hear from those who worked with Walt and at the Studio over the years. Having these memories captured and shared is a great way to preserve the legacy. I wish Disney would utilize the Digital Release to allow for extended featurettes. I am assuming their conversation went on for quite a while and was edited down for the disc release.
- The last two new features are karaoke versions of the classic “You Can Fly” and a deleted version of “Never Smile at a Crocodile” that they call “OKE” features. I am not a big sing along person so for me these did not add anything to the release.
The rest of the bonus features were on previous released versions of the film. The most recent being a Blu-ray about 5 years ago. These include the Making of Peter Pan, several Backstage Disney featurettes, Growing Up with the Nine Old Men documentary, Deleted Scenes, Music Video and audio commentary. For full specifications on the release here is a trailer and original press release.
For a signature release I found the new material on the thin side. I would have liked to have seen more. Both in terms of length on the items they included and just more featurettes in general. If you purchased the Diamond Edition Blu-ray you really are not adding that much with this release. The big selling point this time around is if you want a digital version of the film. Having the classic bonus features digitally is a plus. If you skipped or missed the Diamond Edition Blu-ray you may want to consider this release for the classic bonus features.
