Review: Disney Encanto Home Video Release
Encanto, Walt Disney Animation Studios 60th film, arrives on home video disc formats February 8th. The film was originally released on Disney+ December 24, 2021 & various digital formats the same day. Encanto is the story of the Madrigal family. Each member of this multi-generational Colombian family receives a magical gift, except for Mirabel. Mirabel discovers her family is in danger of losing their magic and the film follows her adventure as she tries to help her family.
This initial home video release features over 100 minutes of bonus material exploring the music, Colombian heritage and other aspects of the film. The short, “Far From The Tree”, is part of the release along with an introduction to it. A sing along version and ability to jump to each song is available too. For a full listing of the technical specifications and bonus features here is the press release announcing the home video.
I was sent the Blu-Ray/DVD/Digital Combo pack to review. Here are my first impressions of some of the bonus features:
- Our Casita (~11 min) – This was the most interesting featurette to me. It takes a look at La Casa Madrigal exploring some of the rooms, its origins, and some of what it took to define and create this house. I always enjoy bonus features that talk about the “making of” and this piece touches on the tools that were created for the animators which I found interesting and would have liked to have seen explored further even.
- A Journey Through Music (24 min) – Music plays a key role in Encanto. This lengthy featurette explores the songs with Lin Manuel Miranda and other members of the film’s creative team. It also takes an look at the score by Germaine Franco.
- Let’s Talk About Bruno (8 min) – “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” is a song that many come away from Encanto talking about. This featurette discusses the song as well as the choreography collaboration to create the production.
- Familia Lo Es Todo (24 min) – This featurette discusses the “Familia” cultural trust that was created to share experiences and help guide the filmmakers as they created Encanto and the Madrigal family.
- Discover Colombia (17:30 min) – I was expecting this featurette to take a deep dive into the research trip to Columbia. That trip is discussed but the featurette focus is more on the culture of Columbia in general and has overlap with the Familia and the Columbia featurettes.
- Outtakes (3 min) – A traditional outtake featurette.
- Journey to Colombia (2 min) – This short featurette showcases some of the research trip some of the creative team took to Columbia.
- Deleted Scenes (> 20 min) – There are four deleted scenes included. Each has its own introduction then storyboard presentation of the scene. There is also an overall introduction to the scenes. I appreciated the introductions and found them interesting. Each scene with its introduction is about 5 minutes.
For an initial home video release of a film the breadth and depth of what is included is well above average now a days. I really appreciated the longer featurettes but some of the overlap between them was not ideal. The same interviews were drawn from and the clips were reused in varying lengths at times. I would have also liked to have seen some more with the animators and actual creation of the film.
If you enjoyed Encanto and want to learn more about the creation process and some of the thought and research that went into the film the bonus features offered in this release should be enough to consider adding it to your film library. As of writing this all these bonus features are only available in the Home Video Digital and Disc release. The Disney+ version does not include them.
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