Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm pretty good. Today we're leaving behind the 2000s and entering the 2010s, a decade that changed how Disney released movies on physical media formats and an era that I'm not overly familiar with but have some experience with. So let's get right into it and talk about the Blu-ray and DVD releases of the Walt Disney Diamond Editions.
After the Walt Disney Platinum Editions were discontinued in early 2009, Disney chose to re-release all of the movies that had been released in the Platinum Editions, in a new line known as the Walt Disney Diamond Editions. This time there would be DVDs and Blu-rays for all but two of the films in this lineup. This is the first lineup that doesn't have any VHS releases since Disney had stopped releasing VHS tapes in 2007. When the line started in late 2009, both the DVD and the Blu-ray were loaded with bonus features. However as the 2010s continued on the DVDs were scaled back to single disc releases with little to no bonus features on them, while the Blu-rays got the multi-disc treatment with tons of bonus features. Unlike with the Platinum Editions where I've owned several of the DVDs and one of the VHS releases, I don't have very much experience with the releases in the Diamond Editions. I have one of the DVDs and have seen two or three others, but I've never owned any of the Blu-ray releases. So this will be like the Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection where I just talk about what the releases were and what some of the bonus features are.
Like with the Walt Disney Platinum Editions (and the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection before it) the first release in the Walt Disney Diamond Editions was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. This was the first Blu-ray release of the movie and it packed quite a punch in terms of the bonus features. Aside from four bonus features that were carried over from the Platinum Edition DVD, all of the bonus features on this release are brand new. There are brand new classic cartoon shorts on this release, including the very first Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, a new Making Of feature, "The One That Started It All", and a new music video. The music video is for "Someday My Prince Will Come" by Tiffany Thornton (Sonny with a Chance). This era of Disney Channel shows is one I'm not super familiar with so I don't know very many of the actors from this era. Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez are as far as my knowledge goes. There are too many bonus features to talk about but the one of them is one that was carried over from the Platinum Edition and that is "Disney Through the Decades" which I talked about in my Platinum Editions overview, except it's been updated to include everything that happened at Disney after the Platinum Edition DVD for Snow White was released, up to the Diamond Editions release.
While the DVD is still a two-disc release, the bonus features have been significantly cut back from the Blu-ray release. On disc one is the music video by Tiffany Thornton, the audio commentary from Disney historian John Canemaker that was ported over from the Platinum Editions DVD, and a sneak peek of The Princess and the Frog which was due to come out only two weeks after this release. On disc two all of the bonus features from the Platinum Editions DVD are included as well as the Making Of feature, "The One That Started It All". This feature is more in line with the ones we saw appearing on the later releases in the Walt Disney Platinum Editions like The Jungle Book and Pinocchio. The Blu-ray was released on October 6th, 2009 and the DVD was released on November 24th, 2009.
Next is the Blu-ray debut of Beauty and the Beast. Like the Platinum Editions DVD, the Blu-ray contained the 1991 theatrical cut, the 2002 special edition cut, and the early work in progress cut. There's also a new Making Of feature called, "Beyond Beauty: The Untold Stories Behind the Making of Beauty and the Beast", which I will talk more about when I get to the DVD release. Most of the other bonus features were ported over from the Platinum Edition DVD. There's also a new music video for "Beauty and the Beast" by Jordin Sparks (American Idol season six winner) along with the original Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson video.
Both the DVD and the Blu-ray were the first Diamond Edition releases of 2010. In fact they were the only Diamond Edition releases of 2010. And I think that's probably because the DVDs for the first several releases in this line were released a month or two after the Blu-rays and they wouldn't become day and date until The Jungle Book in 2014. My sister has this release of Beauty and the Beast and I actually held onto it for her while she was in China (this was before I had the Platinum Edition DVD). Which means I actually watched the Making Of documentary that I mentioned before. It not only went into the making of the movie, but it also went into some of the history of the studio that led to the movie being made. Including how the animators felt about getting moved out of the original studio in Burbank, California and into the smaller studio built in Glendale, California. Which was interesting. The other thing that's interesting is that the Diamond Edition logo is nowhere to be found on the DVD, while it definitely is on the Blu-ray. The Blu-ray was released on October 5th, 2010 and the DVD was released on November 23rd, 2010.
Next is Bambi. While there are a few more bonus features on this release, including the few that were on the Platinum Edition DVD, there aren't nearly as many as there were for Snow White and Beauty and the Beast. This is the first release to have an introduction by Walt's daughter, Diane Disney Miller.
The DVD has even less bonus features than the Blu-ray does even though it's also a two-disc DVD release. The Blu-ray was released on March 1st, 2011 and the DVD was released on April 19th, 2011.
The Lion King came next. Oddly enough there aren't as many bonus features on this release as there were on the 2003 Platinum Edition DVD. There aren't any music videos on here at all. Basically the only new bonus feature on this release is the new Making Of feature, "The Lion King: A Memoir". There are also some deleted and alternate scenes that weren't on the Platinum Edition DVD.
The DVD release only has the Making Of feature as a bonus feature. My sister also has this DVD release of the movie and I also held onto it while she was in China. Again, the Making Of covers alot of Disney's history from the late 80s and early 90s as well as the making of the movie itself. I think it was a good Making Of documentary. The Blu-ray was released on October 4th, 2011 and the DVD was released on November 15th, 2011.
Next up is Lady and the Tramp. Now we're getting into the releases where the majority of the bonus features are ones that were ported over from the Platinum Edition DVDs with very few new ones being included. The only new bonus feature that's worth noting is a featurette called "Diane Disney Miller: Remembering Dad". I haven't seen it, but I'm assuming it's simply Diane Disney Miller talking about her father, Walt. That's basically it.
The DVD has the intro by Diane Disney Miller, her "Remembering Dad" featurette, and the PuppyPedia feature with facts about dogs. The Blu-ray was released on February 7th, 2012 with the DVD coming out on March 27th, 2012.
Next is Cinderella. Again, not as many bonus features on these Blu-rays as I thought there would be given that by 2012 Blu-ray was the primary physical media format that studios were releasing movies on. But, like with Lady and the Tramp, the bonus features here are mainly ported over from the old Platinum Edition DVD with little effort put into the release otherwise. The short, Tangled Ever After is included, but aside from an introduction from Diane Disney Miller, the majority of the bonus material included here are from the Platinum Edition DVD. Though the 1922 short cartoon, called Cinderella, that Walt produced when the Disney Studio was known as Laugh-O-Gram Studio was included as a bonus feature on the Blu-ray.
I completely forgot to ask my sister whether she has the Platinum Edition DVD or the Diamond Edition DVD of Cinderella when I was talking to her last night. Oh well. As I've been thinking about it I'm pretty sure it was the Platinum Edition DVD that she has. The only bonus features are Tangled Ever After and a documentary on the expansion of Fantasyland hosted by Ginnifer Goodwin, who played Snow White on Once Upon a Time which was just starting it's second season at the time this DVD came out. The Blu-ray was released on October 2nd, 2012, and the DVD was released on November 20th, 2012.
Next is Peter Pan. Again, "You Can Fly: The Making of Peter Pan" is included on this release. The only new bonus feature of note on this release is a documentary called "Growing Up with Nine Old Men" which is something that Frank Thomas's son, Ted, put together, interviewing the children of the group of animators that ran the Walt Disney studio in the 50s and 60s and had worked on films as early as the cartoon shorts of the 1930s. Everything else is ported over from the Platinum Edition DVD.
The DVD only has Diane Miller's introduction, the interview with the live action model used for Tinker Bell, and a sneak peek at the then most recent Tinker Bell movie for bonus features. The Diamond Edition of Peter Pan was released in 2013 and I think in the four short years since the Walt Disney Diamond Editions started being released, Disney had moved to focus more on the Blu-ray releases than the DVDs. This was even sort of a thing in 2009 outside of the DVD release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as releases outside of the Diamond Editions were starting to have more robust Blu-ray releases and very barebones DVD releases. When The Princess and the Frog was released on DVD and Blu-ray in early 2010, the DVD had some deleted scenes, but the majority of the bonus material was put on the Blu-ray rather than on the DVD. Which is bizarre given how long it took for Disney to move away from VHS releases in the 2000s after the low sales of the DVDs in the late 1990s. In fact Disney started releasing Blu-rays and putting alot of effort into those releases only two years after they stopped releasing VHS tapes, which is quick compared to how long it took for Disney to embrace DVD and let go of VHS completely. The Blu-ray was released on February 5th, 2013 but the DVD didn't come out until August 20th, 2013.
There are a few more bonus features on the Diamond Edition Blu-ray for The Little Mermaid. There's a documentary on live action model referencing that has been a staple of Disney Animation since Snow White was being made in the 1930s. There's also a new music video for "Part of Your World" by Carly Rae Jepsen as well as the original music video for "Kiss the Girl" by Ashley Tisdale from the Platinum Edition DVD. In fact, once again, the majority of the bonus features on this Blu-ray were originally on the Platinum Edition DVD. There's still quite alot of bonus features on this release, it's just that there isn't a whole lot of new material on here.
The DVD has a Jodi Benson featurette about the new expansion of Fantasyland at the Magic Kingdom in Florida and then two deleted scenes and that's it. The Blu-ray was released on October 1st, 2013 and the DVD was released on December 3rd, 2013, the day before my birthday that year. One of the big reasons I don't know as much experience with the Diamond Editions is that I was in my 20s with no children of my own and no siblings who were kids at the time at the time the line started. So naturally, unless I went out and bought them myself, I wasn't getting these releases. I also didn't have a Blu-ray player at the time, so I wouldn't've been able to enjoy the bonus features.
Next is The Jungle Book. Just like the previous few releases, this release has a few new bonus features, but the majority of them are from the original Platinum Edition DVD. I've heard a few people complain on YouTube about this release because there aren't alot of new bonus features on it and the picture quality apparently isn't great, but, obviously I don't have it so I can't find out for myself.
I do have the DVD though and there really is not much to say about it. There's a lost character featurette a DisneyPedia thing and the standard Diane Disney Miller introduction that the films that were made by Walt have for this line. The picture quality is fine. At least to me. I like this release though I still wish I'd gotten the Blu-ray or the Platinum Edition DVD for the bonus features. Both the DVD and Blu-ray were released on February 11th, 2014. I bought this for myself with gift cards I got for my 28th birthday in 2014. If I remember correctly, I believe I thought I was getting the Platinum Edition DVD as I didn't know the Diamond Edition DVD was available (I don't remember seeing commercials for it on TV at the time). When I got it I didn't care what line it was, I was just happy that I finally had the movie on DVD because we'd gotten rid of our Disney VHS tapes by then.
After The Jungle Book came Sleeping Beauty. Yeah there aren't very many bonus features on this disc. And from what I can tell from the list on the Disney Wiki, the bonus features it does have, are all ones that were on the Platinum Edition DVD and Blu-ray releases from 2008. There aren't any new music videos or anything on here. Just material cherry picked from the Platinum Edition releases.
The DVD is actually the last DVD to be released in the Walt Disney Diamond Editions. For whatever reason 101 Dalmatians and Aladdin didn't get DVD releases. Just Blu-ray releases. We knew that Disney wasn't abandoning DVDs altogether since they were still releasing movies on DVD outside of this line. Though by this point most people preferred Blu-ray over DVD and streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu were just starting to pick up steam. The DVD and Blu-ray were released on October 7th, 2014.
Next was 101 Dalmatians. It came out on February 10th, 2015. I think people were really beginning to wonder about the future of physical media in 2015 because Netflix was so popular and DVDs had been reduced to single disc barebone releases at this point too. The bonus features are pretty much the same as on the Platinum Edition DVD with only a few additions.
The final release in the Walt Disney Diamond Editions was Aladdin. Again, the vast majority of the bonus features on this release are ones that were on the 2004 Platinum Edition DVD. There's a featurette focusing on the film's directors Ron Clements and John Musker that's new and there's supposedly a music video for "Friend Like Me" by Ne-Yo, but it's not listed on the home video page for Aladdin, but is listed on the Diamond Editions page in the Music Videos section. Aladdin was released on Blu-ray on October 13th, 2015.
According to the Diamond Editions page on the Disney Wiki, Alice in Wonderland, Dumbo, and Fantasia were all supposed to be released in the Diamond Editions, with Fantasia being a two movie release with Fantasia 2000 but that was removed from the line and released as it's own two movie collection Blu-ray and DVD. Aladdin replaced it in the lineup. Of course Pinocchio was held back until the Walt Disney Signature Collection, having already had a Blu-ray release in 2009 as part of the Walt Disney Platinum Editions.
The Walt Disney Diamond Editions is the one I have the least amount of experience with of the ones I have the most experience with if that makes sense. While I've only had one release from the 1999 Walt Disney Limited Issues line, I haven't had any from the Gold Classic Collection and three from the Diamond Editions, with the Platinum Editions being the most I've owned of the DVD release lines. I feel like the Platinum Edition DVDs are the ones made specifically for collectors because they had so many bonus features on them, while the Blu-ray and DVD releases in the Walt Disney Diamond Editions are basically repeats of the old material. I did a full post about Disney starting to pull back on physical media for their older movies, and the early to mid 2010s with the Walt Disney Diamond Editions seems to be the start of this.
That's the Walt Disney Diamond Editions. I'll be back on Friday for my review of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all again soon. Take care.
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