Saturday, February 20, 2010

Just arrived...

11:02 PM / Blu-ray / Comments7 Comments

BD

Ponyo (BD, Buena Vista, Region ABC, USA)

 
7 Comments

1. Marcus said:

Ponyo is nice, just beware it's a film intended for little children. Not that adults can't enjoy it, just don't expect any of the darkness from Spirited Away.

The very first scene with no dialogue is the best thing about it.

(Posted on Sunday, February 21, 2010 at 5:59 AM)

2. Erik said:

In my humble, Miyazaki's "for children" films are just as good as the ones aimed at slightly more "adult" audiences (such as MONONOKE HIME).

The sublime NAUSICAÄ is up next, followed by the others... can't wait.

Curious to see how the caps look, the feature size looks a tad small compared to the Japanese disc. And based on the scan at AxelMusic, only a shabby lossy Dolby track for the original Japanese audio, a 5.1 DTS-HD MA track for the English dub version as opposed to the 6.1 DTS-HD MA Japanese track on Ghibli's own disc. Urk. Way to go, Disney.

(Posted on Sunday, February 21, 2010 at 12:09 PM)

3. David Mackenzie said:

Erik: Panasonic Hollywood Lab did this one. I was there last month and trust me - you have nothing to worry about at all. They are rare perfectionists.

(Posted on Sunday, February 21, 2010 at 12:26 PM)

4. Brian said:

My pet hate. The voice 'talent' being given top billing on all the posters, disc covers etc, like they actually had anything creative to contribute to the film, save turning up for a couple of hours and getting paid rather well for it.

(Posted on Sunday, February 21, 2010 at 2:44 PM)

5. Author Profile Page Michael said:

Marcus:

A somewhat artificial distinction, in my mind, but I take your point: PONYO has a decidedly less "mature" feel to it than something like PRINCESS MONONOKE. Of course, whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, or indeed neither one nor the other, is open to debate...


Erik:

I suspect the difference in file size is down to the lack of a lossless Japanese track on the US disc. I doubt very much that two separate encodes were done. However, I'll try to match some of your own captures when I come to do mine and we'll see if there are any differences.

As for the whole lossy/lossless debate, I agree, the lack of a lossless Japanese track on the US disc is a shame, and Disney should hang their heads, but I'm not losing a great deal of sleep over it. If I'd known there was no lossless audio before I ordered it, would I have gone for the Japanese version instead? Perhaps, although when I was actually watching the film I can't say I found myself thinking "Oh, if only it was lossless..." Then again, it's no secret that I consider lossless audio to be very often the most overrated thing since Christopher Nolan movies.


Brian:

Agreed. It's something that DreamWorks popularised (Look - Will Smith as a talking fish and Brad Pitt as a Persian adventurer! Who WOULDN'T want to see that?) and Disney seems to have largely avoided, with the exception of the Studio Ghibli movies, for which they always seem to place undue emphasis on the dubbing cast. Presumably they don't think Miyazaki's name on its own is sufficient for marketing these films.

But hey, I was pretty psyched to hear that skilled and experienced voice-over artist, Matt Damon, lending his unique and instantly recognisable voice to one of the characters!!! It was so unique and instantly recognisable that I didn't know who it was until I looked up IMDB!!! Get your money's worth there, Disney?

(Posted on Sunday, February 21, 2010 at 5:16 PM)

6. Erik said:

David - A person named Yoshiichiro Kashiwagi at Panasonic Hollywood is heading the project of, I assume restoring, all the Ghibli classics for the Japanese and it would seem US Blu-ray releases. As mentioned, NAUSICAÄ is the next one to go.

Michael - "The lossy defender." That sounds a bit wrong. :) I've seen you mention this a few times, and obviously people will dig up articles of their own or their own opinions/experts to argue against what you wrote above in the review. Not claiming to be an expert, I nonetheless trust my own sources/friends... "You can hear Dolby 5.1 artefacting. Very harsh, sudden, and high pitched. Sounds almost squashed in range. I forget what they call it exactly. But it's like a pre-echo. You hear the milliseconds before it happens, because it's been squashed, and the edges of the sound have pre and post echo."

But at least we agree on Nolan movies.

(Posted on Monday, February 22, 2010 at 5:22 AM)

7. David Mackenzie said:

Erik: thanks for the info. At the Panasonic Convention in Munich last week, they actually played a clip from Ponyo and mentioned Hayao Miyazaki in one of the slides. They noted that Miyazaki was not at all enthusiastic about BD, but after seeing what they had done with Ponyo, he apparently declared that he wanted PHL to do all his titles.

(Posted on Monday, February 22, 2010 at 6:58 PM)

 
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