Saturday, June 13, 2009

Monsters, Inc. BD notes

7:56 PM / Blu-ray / Comments2 Comments

Blu-ray
Blu-ray

A few miscellaneous observations about the recently released Japanese Monsters, Inc. Blu-ray Disc:

  • Bear in mind that I haven't watched the entire disc yet, but from what I sampled, the image quality looked impeccable - possibly the best-looking digitally-sourced material I've seen on BD. It's hard to say whether or not it's actually technically superior to Ratatouille, which until recently was definitely the best-looking digital title in my collection. It's certainly subjectively sharper, but that's because, in recent years, the Pixar team have discovered the benefits of using artificial focus to add to the perceived depth of the image and make things look more natural. A full, in-depth viewing will hopefully take place at some point in the near future.
     
  • As with the non-North American DVD releases of this film, a number of shots have been modified to replace English-language signs and on-screen text with internationally-friendly equivalents. (Some examples are provided at the AV Science Forum.) This isn't a major deal-dreaker for me, but it is annoying, because it constitutes revisionism. Presumably, the US release, whenever it deigns to put in an appearance, will retain the original signs and captions.
     
  • While the film itself includes optional English (and Japanese) subtitles, not all of the extras are English-friendly. There's a new featurette about a Monsters, Inc. attraction at the Tokyo Disney Resort that includes a couple of snippets with a fellow speaking Japanese, which isn't subtitled. Likewise, short film Mike's New Car is missing its original English audio.
     
  • Disc 1 appears to be specifically designed to cater to the Japanese market, with its menus in Japanese only. Disc 2, however, is clearly intended for distribution in multiple territories, and includes English-language menus (and copyright warning screens, etc.).
 
2 Comments

1. LGans316 said:

Pixar did similar thing to the Japanese release of Cars on Blu-ray / DVD. The writings were in Katakana instead of English. Not a big deal but could be a deal breaker for importers who don't know Japanese and who are being forced to shell out a fortune.

(Posted on Saturday, June 13, 2009 at 9:24 PM)

2. Author Profile Page Michael said:

In the case of the Japanese Monsters, Inc. BD, seamless branching used for a handful of key instances of text (e.g. the opening credits, various close-ups of newspapers) to alternate between English and Japanese, depending on which audio track you have selected (it will even switch to the appropriate video stream if you change the audio on the fly). Most of the text in the film, however, has been "internationalised".

(Posted on Sunday, June 14, 2009 at 11:52 AM)

 
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