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Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Disney Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (31st October 2010). |
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The Film
 After my last excursion into the world of the direct-to-disc Tinker Bell movies, I was more prepared for what was in store under the new look of John Lasseter’s animation studios. With the expectation of a mediocre animated movie with an actual semblance of plot beyond just shoving a movie onto a disc for people to buy for their kids, the second Tinker Bell film “Tinker Bell and the Great Fair Rescue” (2010) follows along the same lines of being a decent, though still incredibly mediocre film. There are corny jokes and a very distinctly "Disney" conclusion, but there are a couple of interesting ideas in the film and a few points where I actually laughed, though it may have just been from having a soft spot for overweight cats. After her last excursion to save the scepter that would change seasons, Tinker Bell (Mae Whitman) is now going to Fairy Camp somewhere in the English countryside. One day while out exploring with Vidia (Pamela Adlon), they stumble on a small cottage where a father and daughter live. While amazed over the complexity of the car in front of the house, Tinker Bell gets Vidia wet and they have to walk home, discovering a fairy sized house. Vidia accidently traps Tinker Bell inside only to discover that Lizzy (Lauren Mote), the daughter from the nearby house has built it to try and befriend any fairies that live nearby. Lizzy ends up taking Tinker Bell home with her where they become friends and Tinker Bell explains to her the lives and roles of fairies, while Lizzy’s father prepares his field notes for a coming presentation at the museum. Meanwhile, Vidia gathers the rest of the fairies to mount a rescue. The plot is fairly simple, but gets at ideas of childhood imagination and acceptance of the nonscientific, contrasted against Lizzy’s father who works at a museum and seems more intent to catalogue and store everything that he can find instead. Of course he doesn’t believe her stories about fairies, representing some basic form of science that doesn’t quite get the natural world of fairies that Tinker Bell represents, a nice dig at the formalization of the natural world. Is this really what they meant to say or where they meant to go with the story? Maybe not, but it's a good conversation starter. Of course, the story ends with everything being okay and the father giving up on his attempts to put fairies in a museum and accepts their existence, but it’s a nice idea in the middle that gets at how formal sciences may try too hard to categorize at the expense of others. This could also be a sign that I’ve spent too much time doing school work and analysis, but otherwise the movie keeps up the mediocrity of the previous versions. The voice acting by Whitman, Adlon and the rest of the cast do a good job of being expressive and actually going with the emotive animation. While it doesn’t have the points for the voice actors of before, it brings in a nice cast that gets the job done throughout the movie. Similarly the animation style keeps up with the standards of the previous film, with character designs imitating “A Bug’s Life” (1998). Bradley Raymond does a nice enough job of directing and getting all the visuals there, but that’s also part of a nice job done by the animation team that beats some of the more substandard animation projects that have even come out on the big screen. While it was a bit of a step down from “Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure,” “The Great Fairy Tell Rescue” is a surprisingly reasonable direct-to-disc animated feature. It suffers from a lot of the same problems, like corny musical numbers that don’t make a ton of sense in different contexts and a very Disney ending that lets me have less fun with the intellectual prospects of some earlier parts of the film that could even touch into systems of patriarchy and science, but it’s still not terrible. Again it comes down to the fact that this is a non-mind numbing children’s movie that could actually be watched with kids, with a couple ideas that parents could tease out later, rather than just some digital babysitter.
Video
The film is presented in 1080p 24/fps at a 1.78:1 aspect ratio with AVC MPEG-4 encoding at about 32Mbps, which helps bring out some of the animation. Rather than other direct-to-disc movies that seem fatally flawed in Blu-ray, Disney managed to make a product that actually looks clean, colorful and brings out different textures that exist in the movie. Some textures, like skin look a little rubbery, but the nature environments actually look pretty good for a direct-to-disc movie. It’s a nice effort by Disney to actually put something that could be considered technically reasonable on screen rather than some terrible animation.
Audio
Similarly the English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround at 48kHz/24-bit keeps the standards high, with even sound production and movement that takes care to integrate sound effects with audio production. Everything sounds fairly crisp and clean along the way, showing some base design that shows up in the transfer. The only real problems come in with the musical sequences that seem a bit out of place in the film and the sound design is just slightly off from the rest of the background music in the film. There are also French and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 surround tracks with English, French and Spanish subtitles.
Extras
Disney has included a small collection of extras, a music video, an interactive feature, a featurette, deleted scenes and a collection of bonus trailers. Below is a closer look at these supplements. DISC ONE: BLU-RAY There are a bunch of special features on the disc, though only a handful have something to do with the actual film. “How To Believe” is a music video performed by Bridgit Mendler that runs for 3 minutes and 2 seconds. Next is a “Fairy Field Guide Builder” which is an interactive feature that lets the viewer put together their fairy field guide that will test the viewer’s knowledge on a variety of chapters on fairy knowledge and if you pass you get secrets about a special type of fairy. The “Design a Fairy House” featurette runs 1 minute and 52 seconds, speaking with director Bradley Raymond, he talks to kids at the Epcot Flowering Garden festival about what they would use to decorate their fairy houses, but really it’s an advertisement for the Fairy Hollow website. Finally are the deleted scenes, 5 in all, playable together with intros by director Bradley Raymond and producer Helen Kalafatic, which runs for 14 minutes and 44 seconds or separately, described below: - “A Real Live Fairy” runs for 5 minutes and 38 seconds, the Raymond and Kalafatic introduce the deleted scenes and explain that they will be less finished. This scene was originally the opening and depicts Lizzy’s father seeing a fairy as a young child, apparently cut for removing special qualities later. - “Lizzy’s Bedtime Story (Storyboards)” runs for 1 minute and 38 seconds, the director and producer talk bout cutting the scene since it takes place before Tinker Bell met her, Lizzy rleads a bedtime story about fairies by herself because her dad is too tired and busy. - “Lizzy’s Bedtime Story (Production)” runs for 1 minute and 43 seconds, with a little more introduction and is presented with the basic character animation frames placed on top rather than just the animatic storyboards presented above. - “Tea Party” runs for 2 minutes and 18 seconds, it’s a rough production of a tea party between Tinker Bell and Lizzy, making polite conversation. - “Cat Attack” runs for 3 minutes and 25 seconds, this scene was deleted later on and is more complete, but it was replaced by Tinker Bell saying goodbye as explained by the producer and director. Here the cat attacks Tinker Bell and gets hit with some Fairy Dust. The “‘Tangled’ Exclusive Sneak Peek” runs for 3 minutes and 39 seconds, it feels more like a bonus feature for another movie, but with more plot description and behind the scenes looks at the film with conceptual art and footage of the voice actors in the recording studios. “DisneyFile Digital Copy” promo is also on the disc and runs for 1 minute and 4 seconds. The bonus trailers on this disc include: - “Disney Blu-ray” spot runs for 1 minute and 4 seconds. - “Beauty and the Beast: Diamond Edition” runs for 1 minute and 8 seconds. - “Tangled” runs for 1 minute and 45 seconds. - “Disney Movie Rewards” spot runs for 20 seconds. - “Genuine Disney“ spot runs for 52 seconds. - “Disney Parks” spot runs for 32 seconds. - “Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2” runs for 2 minutes and 5 seconds. - “The Search for Santa Paws” runs for 1 minute and 26 seconds. - “Disney Nature: Oceans and The Crimson Wing” runs for 1 minute and 26 seconds. - “Toy Story 3” runs for 1 minute and 51 seconds. - “The Lion King: Diamond Edition” runs for 1 minute and 26 seconds. - “Tinker Bell and the Mysterious Winter Woods” runs for 1 minute and 3 seconds. There’s also Disney BD-Live, accessible only with an internet connection on profile 2.0 players, that allows you to get some more trailers and content with the disc, downloadable from the Disney Network. Some content includes: - Theatrical trailers available are for: “Tron Legacy,” “Tangled.” “Secretariat,” “The Sorceror’s Apprentice,” “Disneynature African Cats,” “Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2,” “The Search for Santa Paws.” “Mater’s Tall Tales,” “The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “A Christmas Carol,” “Walt & El Grupo,” “Alice in Wonderland,” and “Fantasia and Fantasia 2000.” - There’s a Blu-ray finder that allows you to browse all available Disney Blu-Rays alphabetically. - There are also Disney sxtras which are really just bonus trailers and promos for other Disney Projects like “Disney Parks,” “Disney Friends for Change Project Green,” “Pixie Hollow,” “Disney Blu-ray: Magic in High Definition,” and “Disney Movie Rewards.” DISC TWO: DVD The exact special features above carry over to this disc, but with one additional clip, “Dylan and Cole Sprouse: Blu-ray is suite” promo runs for 4 minutes and 45 seconds. The bonus trailers on this disc are: - “Disney Blu-ray” spot runs for 1 minute and 4 seconds. - “Beauty and the Beast: Diamond Edition” runs for 1 minute and 8 seconds. - “Tangled” runs for 1 minute and 45 seconds. - “Disney Movie Rewards” spot runs for 20 seconds. - “Good Luck Charlie” runs for 32 seconds. - “Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2” runs for 2 minutes and 3 seconds. - “The Search for Santa Paws” runs for 1 minute and 26 seconds. - “Disney Nature: Oceans and The Crimson Wing” runs for 1 minute and 26 seconds. - “Toy Story 3” runs for 1 minute and 51 seconds. - “The Lion King: Diamond Edition” runs for 1 minute and 26 seconds. - “Tinker Bell and the Mysterious Winter Woods” runs for 1 minute and 3 seconds.
Packaging
The 2-disc set comes in a Blu-ray keep case with a cardboard slip-case.
Overall
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