The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Home Video First Impressions
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms
Disney The Nutcracker and the Four Realms arrives on Home Video tomorrow, Tuesday January 29th, in various formats. The film was in theaters during this past holiday season. This re-imagined tale of the Nutcracker follows Clara on an adventure into the Four Realms. She visits the The Land of Sweets, Land of Snowflakes, Land of Flowers and the mysterious 4th realm as she seeks a key to open a music box from her deceased mother. For more on the film here is Maggie’s Review from the theatrical release.
I was able to review the Blu-ray & Disney Movies Anywhere release and checked out the bonus features. For a complete listing of the bonus features and release specifications here is the initial press release with details.
- On Pointe: A Conversation with Misty Copeland (4:36)– This featurette is an interview with Ballet Dancer Misty Copeland. She shares a little of her experience working on a film including a conversation about performing for a camera vs an audience. Plus a little of her background with the Nutcracker.
- Unwrapping “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms” (7:08) – This featurette takes a look at ballet scene and several aspects of the film, no topic is explored in depth and the piece felt really short.
- Deleted Scenes: There are five deleted scenes of varying length, no commentary or context for them.
- Music Videos – “Fall on Me” performed by Andreas Bocelli featuring his son Matteo Bocelli. The video features the two of them as well as some clips from the film. The second is the “The Nutcracker Suite” performed by pianist Lang Lang featuring images from the film.
- Unwrapped: The Visual Effects of the Nutcracker (Digital Exclusive) – This two minute featurette showcases several scenes from the movie showing the various layers that go into them from pre-viz, regular filming, and layers of effects. I thought it was interesting to see, but I would have liked to have had a commentary and a bit slower look. The scenes are all presented back to back to back with a score track. No narrative or information is provided.
I thought the bonus feature selection and depth was on the thin side for this release. The two primary featurettes revolved around the ballet scene in the film and both relatively short and did not really explore any topics in depth due to this. The Deleted Scenes contained no commentary, they were just the scenes, which I always view as a missed opportunity. I think they work better as a bonus feature when the director shares a little of the thought process and why they were cut. The music videos were just music videos, again no commentary or background.
If you were like me and missed Disney Nutcracker and the Four Realms in theaters and are curious about the movie this release may appeal to you. I would be hard pressed to recommend adding it to your library if you are a big bonus feature person or wanted to learn more about the film making process or background of this production because they bonus content is not that exhaustive.
